THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE UNIVC«6ITY 'Zyi/y t^y.'^Ay THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE BY S. BARING-GOULD y \ NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS t^l \ PREFACE ^^N being asked by my publishers to undertake a Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, on the lines of my Lives of the Julian and Claudian Caesars in my Tragedy of the Ccesars, I shrank from the task. In the first place, I considered that the life of the Great Napoleon had been done many times, and done well, and that there was nothing really new to be said upon the matter. And secondly, I knew what an enormous mass__of material would have to be digested in order to do the work at all adequ^ely. On further consideration, I agree d to undertake the task, if I might so far reduce the limits of the wor k as to make it actually a study of the character and opinions of Napoleon, and might lay on one side what concerned his military achievements and the political importance of his life, so far as did not bear on the development of hisjjund and the movements of his heart. In the next place, material has recently been accessible for such a study that was inaccessible before. After Waterloo, when Napoleon saw that his career of glory was at an end, he committed a bundle of papers, in a brown cover, to Cardinal Fesch, sealed with the Imperial signet. This was taken to Rome, but Fesch never took the trouble to open it. On his death in 1839, the parcel went to his grand vicar, the Abbe Lyonnet, who sold them to M. Guillaume Libri, a rather unscrupulous man, and he made some slight use of the papers contained in the bundle, and sold nearly all of them to Lord Ashburnham. When in the possession of the Earl, they were inaccessible to every one till the collection was sold. Lord Ashburnham asked for the budget ^300,000. In 1884, they were sold for 675,000 francs to Italy, and are now deposited in the Medicaean-Laurentine Library at Florence. The parcel contained the MSS. of Napoleon at an early age, between 1786 and 1793, and are of material value for the study of the formation of his mind when in its plastic condition. These papers have been published by 21il9i^ viii THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE M. Frederic Masson, under the title of Napoleon Inconnu, Paris, 1895. These were, therefore, available to assist me in my study. According to the limitations I have imposed on myself, I have considered Napoleon from one point of view only. I do not pretend to have said anything about him that has not been said before ; all I have attempted to perform has been to collect those notices which are important for the examination of the great man's inner life; and, as the period of youth is that in which the character is formed, I have tarried longest thereon. The materials for this period are comparatively few, and the Bonapartists have striven hard to depreciate the value of the memoirs of Madame Junot and of Bourrienne, who give us the most ample information we have, and can have, on this period. Mme. Junot may have fallen into small inaccuracies, and Bourrienne may have been actuated by personal resentment ; but, on the whole, their narratives bear upon them the stamp of truth, and we may trust both writers, especially the former, for the impression made on them by Napoleon during his early career. The recently published memoirs of Barras contribute nothing of real value ; all they actually do is to confirm the estimate already made of the man. Everyone brought in contact with Bonaparte felt the fascination of his personality, and he exercises this power still on all who write or read of him. But, at the same time that with half one's heart one loves and admires him, with the other half one dislikes and shrinks from him. There was in him little of the gentleman, as we understand the word, not so much as is to be found in a second-class English shopkeeper ; and yet we must allow that this was not his fault — it was the fatal result of his antecedents and his education. An atheist father had not scrupled to have his son educated to be a priest ; and fraud and falsehood seem to have been the atmosphere in which the young mind of Napoleon was reared. Mean and ignoble associates in his youth taught him to despise man, and to disbelieve in high ideals ; but then, when the character of man takes its direction, for good or for evil, he wilfully turned from the great and honourable hero of his boyhood, and sought association, and linked his fortunes with those whom in his heart he despised. That moral defection affected him throughout life. The collection of contemporary, or nearly contemporary, illustrations in this work comes from three collections made by M. Armand Dayot, and published by him in his Napoleon racont(^ par r linage^ Paris, 1895, ^^^ forms the really important element in this book. To me, a student of human nature, the work has been one of intense interest, PREFACE IX not second to that of following the histories of the first Roman princes, in connection with their authentic portraits in marble. And I must request the reader to bear in mind that, in writing it, I pretend not to give a history of Europe in the Napoleonic age, nor to describe military achievements, but to bring before him, as far as I can read it, the study and development of his mind and character. In conclusion, it would be indeed ungrateful if I were not to express my deep obligation to my cousin, Mr. George Young, for his help and advice, that have been to me of the greatest advantage ; and to the Rev. Robert Gwynne, vicar of S. Mary's, Charing Cross Road, for revision of the proofs. I shall indeed be surprised if many mistakes have escaped his keen eye. « Lew Trenchard mm HAT AND CUSHION CONTENTS I. EARLY YEARS The several elements that go to make up character — Difficulty of arriving at these in the case of Napoleon — The origin of the Buonaparte family — History of Corsica — The Vendetta — Paoli — Annexation to France— Charles Buonaparte — The baptism of Nabulione — Doubt as to the date of Napoleon's birth — The Count of Marbeuf — Laetitia and her children — Saveria — Reasons which may have produced the mystification relative to the date of Napoleon's birth — His neglected education — At Autun ....... page i II. BRIENNE (may 19, 1779—30 OCTOBER, 1784.) Napoleon at Brienne — His lonely condition — Bourrienne's account — Letter of Napoleon to his father — Napoleon in his hermitage — His explosions of anger — Napoleon in confinement — Napoleon's History of Corsica — Formation of his character at Brienne — Appearance — First feelings that he was a man, . . . . . .... 14 III. THE MILITARY SCHOOL, PARIS (OCTOBER 30, 1784— OCTOBER 30, 1 785.) Arrival of Napoleon in Paris— The character of the school — The death of his father — Sole authority for this period — Napoleon and the Permons — His irritability — Puss in boots — Phihppeaux — Character of Napoleon at this period . '. . . . . . 19 IV. THE ARTILLERY LIEUTENANT (OCTOBER 30, 1785 — SEPTEMBER 15, 1786.) Napoleon sent to Valence — A dull town — Revolutionary ideas — The books read by Napoleon — Three manuscripts of this period — Death of the Comte de Marbeuf — Obtains leave of absence — The condition of mind of Napoleon at this time ... . . . 24 V. A HOLIDAY (SEPTEMBER I5, I786— JUNE I, I788.) Return of Napoleon to Ajaccio — His appearance — His manner — Condition of the family — Politics in Corsica — Signora Laetitia's chastisement of Napoleon and Pauline — Obtains an extension of leave — And again another — At mess with French officers — Obliged to return to his regiment . . 29 xii THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE VI. AUXONNE (JUNE, 1788 — SEPTEMBER I5, I789.) Method for obtaining prolongation of leave — Ease of getting any sort of certificate in Corsica — At Auxonne — " Royal Authority " — Deficiency of moral sense — The meeting of the National Assembly — The taking of the Bastille — Mode of life at Auxonne — Applies again for leave of absence — Mob rises — Insubordination in the regiment — Hard literary work of Napoleon — His enthusiasm for Corsica unquenched — His feeling against France — The three groups of his MSS. — His purpose at heart ......... page 32 VII. AJACCIO AND BASTIA (SEPTEMBER 30, 1789— JANUARY 3I, I79I.) Condition of parties in Corsica — Letter of Bonaparte to Paoli — Napoleon begins agitation at Ajaccio — Then goes to Bastia, vi^here he stirs up a riot — Returns to Ajaccio — Corsica incorporated into the French Empire — Provokes a riot at Ajaccio — Election at Orezza — Paoli chosen President — Extension of leave of absence . . . . . • • • 35 VIII. AUXONNE AND VALENCE (FEBRUARY I, I79I — AUGUST 3O, I79I.) Return to Auxonne with Louis — Badly-spelled letter — Poor lodgings — Louis — Paoli shows coldness towards him — Goes to Valence — Lodges with Mile. Bou again — His kindness to her — The Limonadiere — An active member of the Republican Club — Flight of the Royal Family — The Commemoration of the 14th July — Feeling in the Army — Napoleon desires to go to Paris — Kings of oxen and horses — The Army of Observation — Napoleon obtains a new furlough . . 39 IX. CORSICA AGAIN (SEPTEMBER 6, 179I — MAY 2, I792.) Return of Napoleon to Ajaccio — Coldness of the Paolists — Death of the Archdeacon — His money — Condition of affairs in the island — The riots — Election of officers for the Municipal Guard — Napoleon eligible for place of Adjutant-major — All officers ordered to be with their colours for review on ist January, 1792 — Napoleon neglects to obey — His letters to the Commissioner — The day of election approaches — Napoleon's plans — Coup de main — Its success — Is elected — Encourages a riot — Second attempt on the Citadel — Reprimanded — Leaves for Paris . . . 44 X. THE SUMMER OF '92 (may 28— SEPTEMBER 7, I792.) Bonaparte in Paris — Bourrienne again with him — The 20th June — The loth August — The impression produced on him — Lack of officers — Reinstated in the Army and advanced to be Captain — Reprimanded for the events of April — Lucien — His self-conceit — Dissolution of the Royal Schools — Bonaparte applies for permission to conduct his sister home — Letters of Elise — Napoleon embarks — The effect produced on his mind by the events of the summer . . . . 50 XI. THE ATTEMPT ON SARDINIA (SEPTEMBER I7, 1792 — FEBRUARY ?8, I793.) Napoleon again in Corsica — Paoli all-powerful — He mistrusts Napoleon — Bonaparte had lost faith in the Jacobins — Summoned to Corte — Stormy scene — Difficulty in deciding what were Napoleon's inten- CONTENTS xiil tions at this period — Advisability of annexing Sardinia — The Marseillais — Quarrel with the Corsicans — Failure of the attempt on Cagliari — The landing at Magdalena also a failure — Moral degradation of association with such a man . . . . . page 56 XII. THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST PAOLI (FEBRUARY 28— JUNE II, 1793-) The failure of the Sardinian expedition — Loss of Napoleon's letters to Salicetti — News arrives of the execution of the King — Indignation in Corsica — Growing opposition to the French rule — Coalition of parties — Difficulties of Bonaparte's position — Dissimulation — Has Paoli denounced by the revolutionary clubs — Lucien's narrative — Salicetti afraid of a rebellion- in .Corsica — Attempt to deprive Paoli of his power — Paoli summbned to France — Refuses to go — ^Address from the Marseillais to the Convention — Decree of April 2nd — Rebellion breaks out in Corsica — Double game played by Bonaparte — Joseph made Salicetti's secretary — Another attempt on the citadel of Ajaccio — Fails — Obliged to fly to Bastia— Meditates a fifth attempt — Expedition against Ajaccio — Fails — Flight of Signora Bonaparte— He sends a memorial to the Minister of War — He and his family leave Corsica — Great moral change in him . . . . . 6i XIII. LE SOUPER DE BEAUCAIRE (JUNE 26— JULY 29, 1793.) The Bonaparte family at Toulon — The Jacobins at Paris— Uprising in the south — Its failure— The Revolutionary Committee paid by the Government — Reduction of Avignon — Beaucaire — The supper at Beaucaire — A new basis for Right, i.e. Might — Napoleon then unaware of his powers . . 6& XIV. TOULON (SEPTEMBER, 1 793 — MARCH, 1 794.) Bonaparte rejoins his regiment — At the siege of Avignon — The Souper de Beaucaire printed at public cost — The Bonaparte family provided with places— False statements — ^Joseph and the Clary family — Siege of Toulon — Carteaux— Bonaparte appointed to command the artillery — Appointment of Dugommier — Fort Mulgrave taken— Faron captured — Toulon falls — Butchery therein — Bonaparte's dislike to massacre — Callousness of Napoleon — A story of the &iege — Barras and Napoleon — Bonaparte and Marat — Banquet — Makes the acquaintance of Junot — False statements — Appointed General — Lucien Bonaparte — Napoleon denounced — Escapes — How he curried favour with the Deputies — And won the liking of a number of young officers — Napoleon the servant of a faction he disbelieves in . . . . . . • • • 73 XV. UNDER ARREST (APRIL I— SEPTEMBER I4, I794.) Affairs in Corsica — Lacombe mistrusts Bonaparte— Corsica under the domination of England — Genoa — The Army of Italy and of the Alps — The campaign of the month of April — Growing mistrust of the Corsicans — Bonaparte makes a friend of the younger Robespierre — What to be done about Genoa — Bonaparte despatched thither — The object of his mission— He returns to Nice — Robespierre's fall — Consternation among his adherents in the south— Salicetti turns against Bonaparte— Bonaparte's letter to Tilly — His arrest — Proposal of Junot and Marmont— Napoleon declines it— His letter to the Commissioners — Reasons of his arrest — He is released — The effect of his arrest upon his opinions . . . . . . . ... 85 xiv THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE xvi. UNDER A CLOUD (FEBRUARY — SEPTEMBER 1 7, 1795.) Bonaparte regarded with suspicion— An attempt on Corsica — Napoleon engaged in it— Failure— Louis as Lieutenant— False statements— Suspicion with which the Corsicans were regarded— Disgrace of the Bonapartes— Leaves Marseilles— Badly reported of—Calls on Aubry— Imprisonment of Lucien— Napoleon evades going to the Army of the West— Troubles in Paris— The ist Prairial— Salicetti's proscription— Concealed by Mme. Permon— Bonaparte's suspicions— Escape of Salicetti— Mme. Junot's account of Napoleon— Junot in love with Pauline— Doulcet succeeds Aubry— Napoleon in better hopes— His schemes — Memorial of Bonaparte — Warned that he will be struck off— Struck off the Active List — Looks forward to a revolution — Stendhal's account of Napoleon . page 93 XVII. >/^ THE 13TH VENDEMIAIRE (OCTOBER 4 — 25, 1795.) Reaction — Feeling in France — The Conventionals draw up a new Constitution — The riders to the Constitution rejected by the Paris Electorate — The Jacobins also dislike the Convention — Attempt to conciliate them — A crisis at hand — Bonaparte given the command of the forces in Paris — The 13th Vendemiaire — Critical position of Bonaparte — Barras and Napoleon shift the opprobrium on to each other — Bonaparte reinstated — Made Commander of the Army of the Interior— Consequences of the coup d'etat — Napoleon helps on his brother — His seal on France . . . . 105 XVIII. , JOSEPHINE (OCTOBER 26, 1795 — MARCH 9, 1 796.) Jealousy of Napoleon — He is uncomfortable in Paris — Thinks no more of Desiree Clary — Nor for a time of the East — The Court of Barras — The house of the Permons — He sets up a carriage — Neglect of Bourrienne when in danger — Josephine de Beauharnais — Her history — Her character — The Memoirs of Barras — What brought Napoleon and Josephine together — Barras speaks with Bonaparte — The Marriage on the 9th March — Napoleon really in love with Josephine — Ever loved her . .112 XIX. y THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN (march 10 — NOVEMBER, I796.) Napoleon starts for Nice — The Army of Italy — Resignation of Scherer — Directions given to Napoleon — Condition of the Army — Reconstruction — Condition of the Austrian and Piedmontese armies — Advantages possessed by Napoleon — The Army to maintain itself — The Proclamation of the 27th March — Political situation — Napoleon disregards the directions given him — The Armistice of Cherasco — Another Proclamation — Excitement in France — The Directory divides the command — Remonstrances of Napoleon — The Directory gives way — Is afraid of him — Republicans in Italy deceived — Insurrection — Treaty with Naples — French rapacity — Liberal cant — Treaty with the Pope — Renewed campaign against the Aus^rians — Victories — Areola — Portrait by Gros — Results . 122 XX. THE CISPADANE REPUBLIC (OCTOBER, 1796 — FEBRUARY, 1797.) Want of sense of honour and truth in Napoleon — What his object now was — To break the Austrian power — To wrest the power from the Directory — Treatment of Clarke — Dealings with the Pope — Peace of Tolentino — Fails to send money to the Directors — Difficulty of realising — Keeps the money for his Army — Appoints his own man to the management of the Finances — Numbers of soldiers under him— Devotion to Napoleon — Hypocritical treatment of the Italians . ■ . . 140 CONTENTS XV XXI. . LEOBEN AND CAMPO-FORMIO (JANUARY— OCTOBER l8, 1797.) Fourth attempt of Austria — Defeat of Rivoli — The Grand Duke Charles in command — Hoche — Threats addressed to the Venetians — Leoben — Invades Venice — Gives Venice to Austria — Summer at Monte- bello— Court there — Treaty of Campo-Formio — Napoleon surrounded by spies — Aim of Napoleon at this time ........ page 147 XXII. THE i8th FRUCTIDOR (SEPTEMBER 4, I797.) Differences between the Directory and the Councils — Coalition against the Directors — Opinion formed of Napoleon and of Pichegru by Chenier — Dumolard's motion — Bonaparte's furious letter — The crisis approaches — The Army sounded — Napoleon's appeal to the soldiers — Hoche comes to Paris — Withdraws — Lavallette's reports to Bonaparte— Bonaparte unwilling to be present at the cottp d'etat — The 1 8th Fructidor — Festival of the New Year — Talleyrand enters into correspondence with Napoleon — The Directors desire war — Napoleon's conduct — Ulterior aims . . . 155 XXIII. IN PARIS (OCTOBER 17, 1797— MAY 4, I798.) P eace of Campo-Formio — Dissatisfaction at Paris — A necessity to Napoleon — Schemes for an Oriental ' expSHItion— N apoleon without a rival — Pretends to desire to retire — Proclamation to the Cisalpine Republic— Advice to Joseph — Attempt against England planned — Bontemps— Carnot — In Paris — Reception — Grand ceremony — Address of Bonaparte — He suspects the Directors of seeking his life — Fails to get appointed a Director — Albert de Permon and Bonaparte — He starts for a visit of inspec- tion — Dissuades from a direct attack on England — Preparations for the Egyptian campaign — He is willing to be away from France — Napoleon's opinion on Cromwell — Offers his resignation — Final hesitation . . . . . . . ... 163 XXIV. THE FAMILY BONAPARTE IN 1797 First impressions of Napoleon on Doris— Opinion of d'Harved — Joseph Bonaparte— Lucien — Louis — False statements again — Madame Bonaparte — Marriage of Elise — Pauline and Freron — ' Josephine . . . . . . . ... 170 XXV. EGYPT (1798.) Policy of securing Egypt long entertained — Secrecy as to the destination of the expedition — Recklessness of the undertaking — Napoleon's real object in leaving France — How money was procured — The composition of the Army of Egypt — Proclamation to the soldiers — English fleet at fault — The voyage — Capture of Malta — Disembarkation — Hardships — Discontent of the soldiers — Proclama- tion to the Arabs — Instructions left with Brueys — Destruction of the French fleet in Aboukir Bay — Napoleon enters Cairo — Letter to Joseph — News of the loss of the fleet reaches him — He throws the blame on Brueys — Discouragement of Bonaparte — Pretends to be a Mussulman — Revolt at Cairo — Cruelly suppressed — Proclamation — Scheme of an Oriental Empire .' . . .174 XXVI. SYRIA (FEBRUARY II— OCTOBER 8, 1799- ) Project of an advance into Syria — Plan of invasion of India — Advance through the desert — At Jaffa — Slaughter of the garrison which had surrendered — Excuses made by Bonaparte — March to S. Jean /^ A xvi THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE d'Acre-Sir Sidney Smith — The plague breaks out— Disappointment of Napoleon at being unable to reduce Acre — Detestation of the English — Retreat from Acre — His bulletins — Devastation of the country — Miserable condition of the soldiers — The story of the poisoning of the sick — The visit to the hospital at Jaffa — Continued retreat — Arrival at Cairo— Duplicity of Napoleon relative to religion — Victory of Aboukir— The Second Coalition— Disasters in Europe to the French — Napoleon deter- mines to return to P'rance— Lands at Frejus — His feeling towards human misery — Abhorrence of purposeless cruelty ........ fo-g^ i86 XXVII. THE i8th BRUMAIRE (OCTOBER 16 — NOVEMBER ID, 1 799-) Reception of the news of the landing of Bortaparte — Plots in Paris— Changes in the Directory — The Jacobins — Barras — Napoleon's journey through France — Real feeling in France at the time — Schemes of Bonaparte — All France summons him to save the Republic — He enters into relations with all parties — With Moreau — With Sieyes — Makes preparations with the troops — Scene in the Council of the Ancients on the i8th Brumaire — In that of the P'ive Hundred — Appeal to the soldiers — Loses his presence of mind — Lucien comes to his aid — Threat of outlawry — Proclamation to the people — The fable of the poignard — Prorogation of the Councils— The apppointment of three consuls — Effrontery of Lucien — Madame de Remusat on the state of feeling in France . ... 199 XXVIII. THE FAMILY BONAPARTE IN 1799 The character of Barras — His notice of Josephine — Her character — Noble conduct of Napoleon — Disillusioned — The effect of this on his character — Bonaparte and Pauline Foures— Quarrel between him and Josephine — Reconciliation — Bonaparte false to the memory of the dead — And to the living — Contempt for mankind — Disbelief in friendship — Sieyes — Lsetitia Bonaparte — ^Joseph — Misstate- ments — Lucien — Christine Bonaparte — Elise Bacciochi — Pauline — Le Clerc — Pauline's dresses — Pauline and Madame Contadeo — Caroline — Her pride — Napoleon had in him points of resemblance to his brothers and sisters . . . . . ... 214 XXIX. THE CONSULATE (1800.) Disappointment of the Republicans — Sieyes set aside — Also Roger- Ducos — The new Constitution — Its control over popular representation— Bureaucracy — Power of First Consul — Money, how raised — Genoa — Holland — Hamburg — Portugal — The system of plunder pursued — Reorganisation of the Finances — Pretence of a desire for peace— England's mistrust — Massena in Italy — The Army of Reserve — The passage of the Alps — Marengo — Inexplicable delay of Napoleon — Marengo gained by chance— Jealousy of Moreau — Of Macdonald — Of Kleber — Bernadotte — Inspires love in Junot — In the soldiers — Review — The comrade — Cajolery of Moreau — Gift of pistols . . . 224 XXX. THE FIRST STEP TO THE THRONE (1800.) Bonaparte moves into the Tuileries — Ovation to Washington — Preparations made in the Tuileries — Presentation of Ambassadors — Costume arranged — Suppression of journals — Repeal of law against emigrants — Severity in La Vendee — Institution of a secret police — Its origin — Method adopted to revive a sense of honour — Attempt to conciliate the Church — Translation of the body of Pius VI. — Te Deum at Milan — Schemes for a Concordat — How he represented the matter to freethinkers —Mot of La Fayette . . . . . . ... 239 y CONTENTS xvii XXXI. IN THE TUILERIES The epochs in Napoleon's life — Personal appearance — Changes as he becomes successful — Dread of assassination — Dislike of the Jacobins — Also of the Royalists — Hatred of England — Belief that England encouraged attempts on his life — Plots made against him — That of CaracoUi and Arena — That on the 3rd Nivose— Severe measures against leading Jacobins — He had no desire for a long peace — His personal appearance and habits — Rudeness to ladies — The kingdom of Etruria founded — Visit of the King and Queen to Paris — "Parallel between Caesar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte"; ill received — Moves to S. Cloud — Disdains his membership of the Institute . . page 246 XXXII. ^^HE SECOND STEP TO THE THRONE (1 80 1-2.) Napoleon's views with regard to religion — -The Concordat — Injustice done to the Constitutional Church — Pius VI. desires to destroy this Church — Napoleon and Protestantism — Cardinal Consalvi — Concordat concluded — Te Deum at Notre-Dame — All bishops ordered to resign — The institution of the Legion of Honour — Opposition — Peace of Amiens signed — Consulship for life — Great opportunities for good before Napoleon — Neglected by him — Actuated by ambition . . 253 XXXIII. PREPARATIONS FOR WAR (1803.) Napoleon's hatred of England — The Press stifled — Attacks in the Moniteiir on England — Complaints made against England — Demands made by Napoleon — Rupture with England — The arrest of English residents — The murder of the Due d'Enghien — The guilt rests on Napoleon — His object — The case of Pichegru — Conspiracy of Cadoudal — Trial of Moreau — Death of Captain Wright — Disappearance of Bathurst — Death of Villeneuve — Preparations for war — Loss of Egypt — France desires peace — Attempts made to provoke a war fever — The Church seconds Napoleon — Plunder of other states— Insolent letters — Entry into Amiens — The road to England . . .261 . XXXIV. «/the throne (DECEMBER 2, 1804.) Determination of Napoleon to become Emperor — The title of Emperor offered him — Accepted — Unanimous approbation of the French — Creation of a court — And court etiquette revived — Napoleon requires the Pope to crown him — Expediency of this — The scruples entertained by the Pope — Napoleon vague in his promises — The Pope consents — Met at Fontainebleau by Napoleon — Preparations for the ceremony — The dolls designed by Isabey — Letter from Napoleon to Josephine— Quarrels in the Imperial family — The train of the Empress — The pageant starts from the Tuileries — Arrival at Notre Dame — The train again — The cetemony — Napoleon crowns himself and Josephine — Napoleon finds fault with Mme. Junot — Quarrels again — French vanity — David's picture — The Coronation a right thing — Fouche's opinion . . , ... 273 XXXV. AUSTERLITZ (1805.) Preparations for the invasion of England— The difficulties multiply — The distribution of eagles and stars — At Boulogne — Accident to flotilla — Napoleon realises the difficulty of his undertaking — Naval failures — The Principality of Lucca — Deficiency of money in France — Change of purpose — Campaign against Austria — Mack on the Danube — Capitulation of Ulm — Austerlitz — Lying bulletins — Proclamation— Financial position of France — Meeting of the Emperors Francis and Napoleon — Treaty of Presburg . . . . ... 294 b xviii THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE XXXVI. NEW FEUDALISM Return to Paris — Scapegoats made for the financial depression — Report on the state of the Empire — Trafalgar — The column of the Place Vend6me — Invasion of Naples — ^Joseph created King — Other creations — The idea of Napoleon as to a new nobility — Lucien — Madame Mere — Jerome — Separated from his wife — The Pope refuses to decree a divorce — ^Jerome given a wife and a kingdom — Napoleon and the Pope — Louis created King of Holland — Joseph at Naples — Napoleon's treatment of his kinsmen — The resemblance and dissimilarity in the Bonaparte family — Pride in Napoleon in founding a dynasty — Other reasons — Insatiable ambition , . page 308 XXXVII. JENA (1806.) Neutrality of Prussia— Forced into hostility to England — Fox at the head of the Government in England — The Hanseatic towns — Conferences — The South German Confederacy — The Grand Duchy of Berg and Cleves — Francis resigns the Imperial crown — Gentz and Arndt — Execution of Palm — Agitation in Germany — Duplicity of Napoleon in his dealings about Hanover — In other matters — The Northern Confederacy — Inertness of the King of Prussia — Napoleon determines to crush Prussia — War declared — Prussia unprepared — The battles of Auerstadt and Jena— Rout of the Prussians — Invasion of Prussia — Napoleon in Berlin — Prince Hatzfeld — Coarse attacks on the character of the Queen — Napoleon's brutality towards women — As shown by his treatment of Mme. Junot — The Continental System — Encourages smuggling — Baron Stein . . . 320 XXXVIII. THE CAMPAIGN IN POLAND (winter of 1806-7.) Deputation from Paris — The French people desire peace — Kosciuszko — A proclamation from him forged — Agitation among the Poles — Napoleon offers them no guarantees — Resolves on entering Poland — Arrives in Warsaw — Condition of the country in winter — Napoleon's proclamations — Crosses the Vistula— Peace signed with the Elector of Saxony, who is created King— Russia at war with Turkey— Communications with the Sultan— March of the Russians— Battle at Pultusk— Defeat of the French — Battle of Eylau — A second defeat— Critical position of Napoleon — Liaison with the Countess Walewska — Letters to Josephine — Fresh levies ordered by Napoleon — Battle of Friedland, and defeat of the Russians — The Czar resolves on peace — The Sultan thrown over — Interview at Tilsit — Napoleon cajoles the Czar — The Peace of Tilsit— Humiliation of the Prussian King and Queen — The creation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw — Napoleon not to be blamed for disappointing the Poles . , . , . • ... 336 XXXIX. SPAIN (1807-8.) The project of seizing on the Danish fleet frustrated — Napoleon resolves on securing that of the Portuguese — Expedition of Junot — Also fails — Escape of the Royal Family of Portugal — Harsh treatment of the Portuguese— The Pope forced into the Convention — Invasion of Rome— Spain occupied by French troops — The Royal Family— Arrest of the Prince of the Asturias — Reconciliation — Murat sent into Spain — Revolution — Proclamation of Ferdinand — Intervention of Napoleon — Savary sent to Madrid — Treachery towards the Prince — He is induced to come to Bayonne — The Prince of the Peace and the King and Queen also drawn there — Napoleon's opinion of the Royal Family — Riot at Madrid — Repressed by Murat — The King and the Prince forced to resign their claims and rights — Talleyrand constituted gaoler of Ferdinand — To what extent his conduct may be excused, but not justified . . . . . ... 352 CONTENTS xix XL. A TURNING-POINT (1808-9.) The national spirit roused by Napoleon — This he was incapable of appreciating — The uprising in Spain — He could not think it was considerable — Change in the conditions of warfare — His Army a conglomerate — His enemies now animated by love of liberty — Inferiority of the generals who had been opposed to him — They were hampered whilst he was free — A free hand given to Wellington — The feeble character of the monarchs in Europe — Change in Napoleon's mode of making war — He was warned against his Spanish enterprise — Withdrawal of Talleyrand — Champagny — Manufactory of false news — Disappointment of Murat — Joseph made King of Spain — Napoleon leaves Spain — His belief in his Divine mission — The Imperial Catechism — Severity because he held resistance to his will the same as resistance to God — Portraits of the Emperor not to be trusted — A few sketches more worthy of consideration . . . . /«^ .01 the look of a sloven. His little hands, too, underwent a great metamorphosis : when I first saw him they were thin, long, and dark ; but he was subsequently vain of them, and with reason." Although discouraged for the time, Napoleon did not lose confidence in himself. Already we see indications of his belief that Destiny had in store something for him. One evening Junot confided to him that he loved Pauline, Napoleon's sister, and, as an inducement to Bonaparte to give consent, told him that on his father's death he would come in for 20,000 francs. "That is all very well," said Napoleon, "but your father wears well, and meantime you have but your lieutenant's pay. You cannot marry at present. You must wait. We shall perhaps see better days, my friend. Yes ! we shall have them, even should I have to go to seek them in another quarter of the world." Speaking of Salicetti one day to Madame Permon, he said, "That man sought to ruin me, but my star prevented him. However, I must not boast of my star, for who knows what may be my fate ? " Madame Junot says, " I shall never forget the expression of his face as he uttered these words." What he said to Junot shows that already he was turning his expectation to the East. We shall see his schemes taking that direction very decidedly a few months later. It was not to be wondered at that he could not laugh at the jests of an actor in a comedy, and that the platitudes of conversation in a box at the opera wearied him. His eager, restless mind was elsewhere, with the Army of the Alps, now commanded by Kellermann, or that of Italy, which co- operated with it, under Scherer. At the end of July, Doulcet Pontecoulant was appointed Minister of War, in the place of Aubry, and at once Napoleon's hopes rose. The Army of Italy was not only unsuccessful in gaining ground, it had actually been obliged to recede. Doulcet sought for someone who understood the topography of the frontier, who could advise as to what should be done. Boissy-d'Anglas, his colleague, at once mentioned Napoleon, and described his qualifications. Doulcet sent for him. Napoleon came to the office, and not only answered readily every question put to him, but detailed a plan of campaign which embraced not only the invasion of Lombardy, but a march through Tyrol into Austria. "General," the astonished Minister said, "your ideas are as dazzling as they are bold, but they must be leisurely considered. Take time and draw up an account of what you propose, to have it submitted to the Committee." "Time!" repeated Bonaparte; "my plan is ready, and in half an hour I will draw it out. Give me a couple of sheets of paper and a pen." No sooner said than done. But his handwriting was an illegible scrawl. Next day he brought a copy in the writing of Junot. The success of his scheme depended on boldness and rapidity. The peace with Spain and Prussia, he argued, allowed of a concentration of troops against Austria. The I02 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Army of the Rhine would act in concert with that of Italy. It would pass through South Germany, whilst that of Italy stormed the passes of Tyrol, and they would join hands under the walls of Vienna. Every difficulty with the King of Sardinia would be set aside by offering him an indemnity in Italy for the loss of Nice and Savoy. By this means, the rear of the advancing army would be secured.* This brilliant scheme was debated and sent to Kellermann and Scherer for approval. The former replied that it was the dream of a madman ; the second advised that the man who had proposed such a scheme should be sent to execute it. A year later, and this madman did carry out his plan, to the astonishment of the world at large, and in particular of the two generals who had rejected it. Doulcet now placed Napoleon in the topographical department. The latter seized on his opportunities to enter into relation with the various armies and. troops serving the Republic, and he was likewise brought into association with many of the members of the Government. It was not possible to displace Kellermann and Scherer, and put this young officer in their room. Napoleon himself could not expect it. His ambition again took the direction of the East. On the 5th of August, Bonaparte addressed a memorial to the Committee of Public Safety, in which he set forth his services ; but, with his wonted in- exactness, he stated that he had been appointed officer of artillery in 1782, whereas he received that appointment only at the end of 1784. He pretended that he had served under the colours for seventeen years ; in reality the years had been twelve. He attributed to himself the successes of the campaign in 1794. This, by the way, is done likewise by serious historians. But it is hardly possible to allow this claim, as he did not reach Nice till the moment when operations had begun, on a plan already drawn up.f The Committee referred the appeal to the War Office, which at once pointed out the inaccuracies. On the 1 6th August, Napoleon received a peremptory order to join his corps. "If," so terminated the order, "your condition of health prevents you from undergoing the fatigue of active service, inform me of the fact, and I will ask the Committee to replace you." On the reception of this document, Bonaparte rushed off to Barras, Freron, and other friends, and for the moment the blow was averted. His mind turned to the East as the only opening for his ambition. He * Souvenirs du Comte de Poni^coulant, Paris, i86i, i. 325, t What Barras says is possibly the truth. There was friction between Dumerbion, the General in command, and the Commissioners who went with the army. The General, at a council of war, pro- duced a fictitious scheme of campaign ; and Bonaparte at once went off to the Commissioners with it, and reported it, with his objections to it. The next day Dumerbion produced his real plan, and so un- masked Bonaparte. It must, however, be admitted that the plan was very much like one of those executed afterwards, with such brilliant success, by Napoleon, and very far superior to anything we can suppose to have come from a general who was incapable of following up a success that had been gained. UNDER A CLOUD 103 said to Barras, " I must find employment at all costs ; if I cannot obtain service here, I will tender myself as artilleryman at Constantinople." But long before this he had thought of the East. Lucien, in his Memoirs^ relates how that when he was in Corsica he had thought of going to India, and of serving under the English there ; he had even persuaded Lucien to agree to go with him. Advancement in the English service, he said, was quicker than in the French. Moreover, in the East all things were possible. On the 15th September, the Committee of Public Safety ordered that '' General Bonaparte, formerly requisitioned to serve under the orders of the Committee, be struck off the active list, in consequence of his refusal to repair to the post assigned to him." This was the second time that insubordination had brought the same humiliation on him. He does not seem to have concerned himself greatly about the matter. In his letter to his brother Joseph he does not mention it, and merely says that there is no more talk of his going to Constantinople. The reason why he bore the stroke so easily was that he saw that a storm was brewing, which must inevitably break within a few weeks ; and for this he prepared, by courting the favour of the principal representatives of all parties. We may conclude this chapter with a portrait of Napoleon at this period, resembling that already given by Mme. Junot, but drawn in greater detail. It comes from Stendhal (M. H. Beyle), in 18 10 inspector of the imperial palaces. He had it from a lady who knew Napoleon intimately at this period of his life. " He was the leanest and oddest object I ever cast my eyes on. According to the fashion of the time, he wore immense 'dog's ears,' which fell to his shoulders. The singular and often sombre look of an Italian does not harmonise well with this prodigality of hair. Instead of giving one the idea of being a man of genius, he struck me as one whom it would not be pleasant to meet in the evening near a wood. The dress of General Bonaparte was not reassuring. The redingote he wore was so frayed that it gave him a poverty- stricken look, and I could hardly believe at first that this man was a general. But I soon perceived that he was a man of ability or an oddity. I used to think him something like J. J. Rousseau, as in the portrait by Latour. When I had seen this general with the odd name three or four times, I learned to excuse his exaggerated ' dog's ears.' I thought of a countryman who despises the fashions, and who yet may have some good points. Young Bonaparte had a striking appearance, and his face lighted up when he spoke. If he had not been so thin as to look sickly, one might have noticed that his features were full of delicacy. His mouth especially had a contour full of grace. A painter, a pupil of David, whom I met at the house of N., told me that his features were Greek in outline, and this made me observe him more closely. Some months later, after the Revolution of Vendemiaire, we learned that the General had been presented to Mme. Tallien, then the queen of fashion, and that she had been struck by his appearance. We were not surprised. The fact is, that in order that he should be favourably judged, he needed to be dressed less wretchedly. I remember that the General spoke very well of the siege of Toulon, anyhow, in a manner to interest and carry one away with him. He I04 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE talked much, and became animated in so doing ; but, on certain days, he did not break out of a gloomy silence. It was said that he was very poor, and was as proud as a Scotchman ; he refused to go as General to La Vendee, and to quit the artillery. ' That is my arm,' he said, and this made us girls laugh, not understanding how that artillery and cannons could be spoken of as a weapon like a sword. . . . He had none of the appearance of a soldier — no bluster, brag, nor roughness. I think, now, that one might have read in the lines of his delicate mouth, so finely moulded, that he despised danger, and that danger did not put him in a passion." XVII THE 13TH VENDEMIAIRE (October 4—25, 1795) 'T"^HE reaction against the Jacobins, in favour of constitutional measures and -*- security of property, had grown in strength. The leaders of the Con- vention no longer inspired confidence. The terrible centralisation of power about the Green Table alarmed all France. The men in authority were Barras, Tallien, Freron, precisely those who had previously set the guillotine in active play. Freron had been one of the contributors to the ferocious journal conducted by Marat, and had written some of its most violent articles. Tallien had been one of the extreme of the Mountain ; he had been President of the Assembly on the day of the execution of Louis XVI. He had been sent into the west of France to hunt out and butcher the suspects, and had executed his commission without compunction. At Bordeaux, in 1793, he had found the most beautiful woman of the time, Madame Cabarrus, in prison, had fallen in love with her, released her, and made her his wife. Barras had been associated with the butcheries at Toulon and Marseilles, was devoid of principle ; he defrauded the Treasury, and at a period when morals were corrupt as in the worst days of Rome, took a lead in shameless licentiousness. All France was weary of the confusion in the finances, the shiftings in the Government, the uncertainty as to the future. It did not want to have back the Bourbons, but it wanted respectable men at the head of government, and security for life and property. The Convention had drawn up a new Constitution, the. third in four years. The Radical Constitution of 1793 had pushed Republican principles to their last consequences. Of its 377 articles, twenty-two had been devoted to the rights of man, and nine only to his duties. " Hitherto," said Boissy d'Anglas, " the efforts of France have been directed solely to destroy. At present, when we are neither silenced by the cries of demagogues, nor by the oppression of tyrants, we must turn to our advantage the crimes of the Monarchy, the errors of the Assembly, the horrors of the Decemviral tyranny, and the calamities caused by Anarchy. Absolute equality is a chimera. Property alone attaches the citizen to his country ; all who are 105 io6 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE to have a share in the legislation should be possessed of some independent income. All Frenchmen are citizens, but domestic service, pauperism, the non-payment of taxes must debar the majority from exercising their rights." Accordingly a property qualification for the right of exercise of franchise was one of the provisions of the new Constitution. " It is time," said Tallien, " that there should cease to be a division among Frenchmen into the classes of oppressors and oppressed." Precisely, but, as all perceived, the men who offered to effect this annealing process were not to be trusted with the task. The privilege of electing members for the Legislature was taken by the new Constitution from the great body of electors, and was given to the Electoral Colleges. The legislative power was divided between two councils, that of Five Hundred and that of the Ancients, the latter being the superior house, passing or rejecting the laws that were sent up to them from below. The age qualification for admission to the Lower House was thirty ; to the Upper, forty. The executive power devolved on a Directory, composed of five members. The Directors had the disposal of the armies and of the finances, named the functionaries, and conducted the negotiations with the Foreign Powers. They were in relation with the Councils through six responsible Ministers, destined to replace the twelve executive committees of the Com- mittee of Public Safety. The Directory was to renew itself by the annual replacement of one of its members. Finally, as the members of the Convention were uneasy for themselves, knowing that those who fell out of the seat of office were sacrificed by those who ascended that seat, they provided that two-thirds of the existing Convention should retain their place in the new Councils, and that the electors should fill up only the third. The bourgeois of Paris had discovered that they were as certainly menaced by the Have-nots as had been the aristocracy. They were entirely averse from ultra-democratic principles, but had no desire whatever to see the Monarchy restored along with its abuses. There was, however, a large drifting mass of the old noblesse in the country and the capital, which threw its weight into whatever movement was initiated against the Government. This mass was made up of the needy and desperate scions of old families that had filled all offices in the State under the ancient r^^m^, and had alone the right to officer the army. These men were impatient to recover their privileges, and were too blind or infatuated to see that what had been blown to bits was impossible of reconstruction. They were, for the most part, young, energetic, and daring, whereas the bourgeoisie was timid and inert. The new Constitution pleased neither the Moderates nor the Reactionaries, and the provision relative to the retention of their seats by two-thirds of the representatives was peculiarly distasteful to both, as it postponed the day of change. But not only were the concealed Royalists and the Moderate Republicans dissatisfied with the Convention and its new Constitution, but so also was the rabble of Have-nots, which resented its exclusion from the poll. THE 13TH VENDEMIAIRE 107 The Constitution, when submitted to the electors of France, was accepted, together with the riders of the 5th and 13th Fructidor relative to the renewal of the Councils, and that by large majorities. But not so in Paris — there the Constitution of the year III. was voted, but the riders were rejected. Paris, it was evident, was about to become a scene of renewed riot. The electoral sections of Paris were united in resolve to disperse the Convention. They could rely on the Municipal Guard. The Convention was likened to the Long Parliament that had brought Charles I. to the block ; and it was hoped by the reactionaries that some Monk would arise to clear the way for a restoration. The Moderates did not relish the prospect of retaining regicides in the Directory, invested with despotic power for at least five years. On the other hand, the Conventional were in alarm for themselves. They lost no time in submitting the new Constitution to the soldiery, and when it was unanimously accepted by them, they knew that they could reckon upon their support. As to the Royalists, the Conventional did not greatly fear them ; but the force and fury of the extreme Jacobins was, to them, alarming. When it came to the appointment of a general to the regular troops, a difficulty arose. They were uncertain in whom to repose confidence. The ex-painter Carteaux was, indeed, too much compromised not to be counted on by the Conventional, but he was incapable as a general. Menon, for lack of a better, was allowed to remain in command. He was sent to disperse the electoral bodies assembled in the Theatre Fran^ais under the protection of the Municipal Guard, but, instead of using force, he entered into negotiations. This took place on the evening of the 12th Vendemiaire (4th October). At eleven at night the Convention displaced Menon, and transferred the command of the troops to Barras, and Barras looked to Bonaparte as one in whom he could place reliance. Compromised by his relations with Robespierre, the young man must necessarily desire to revenge himself on the Moderates, who had, for six months, pursued him with so much animosity. Interest and revenge combined to attach him to the Convention. Moreover, this afforded him the only chance of escaping from the consequences of his dismissal. On the nth, Bonaparte had received a note from Barras, bidding him present himself at his house on the morrow, before noon. Napoleon had no hesitation in going, and measures had already been concocted between them before the stormy and agitated night of the 12th. By that date all had been arranged between Barras and the young General whom he introduced to the Convention. According to Bonaparte's own account, he found the Deputies in a panic. They expected to be attacked on the morrow. His advice was asked. His answer was compressed into one word — " Guns." The proposal so alarmed them that the rest of the night was spent without their coming to any decision. Then, towards morning, the whole conduct of affairs was put by these incapables into Bonaparte's hands, with entreaties that he would not use force. " Are you going to wait," he asked contemptuously, " until the people give io8 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE you permission to fire upon them ? I am committed in this matter. You have appointed me to defend you ; it is right that you should allow me to do so in my own way." "After that," as Napoleon said later, "I left those lawyers to stultify themselves with words, I put my troops in motion."* The National Guard, with the sections, amounted to 30,000 men, but was without artillery, whereas the regulars had at their disposal fifty pieces. Of the importance of the step taken by the Conventional in invoking military aid, they had no conception. Now, for the first time in the course of the Revolutionary drama, the standing army had been called upon to decide in a political crisis ; and a young and ambitious officer had been allowed to see what he could achieve in a Republic, if he had behind him a body of regulars on whom he could rely. As soon as Napoleon was placed in command, Barras fell into the back- ground ; and the early morning was spent by Bonaparte in making his dis- positions. When day broke, the Tuileries, in which sat the Convention, had been transformed into a fortress. The cannon had been brought into Paris by Murat during the night. As soon as day broke on the 13th Vendemiaire (5th October, 1795), the National Guard and the members of the sections marched from all quarters upon the Tuileries, with the purpose of dissolving and dispersing the Con- vention, and were not a little surprised and disconcerted to see the cannon pointed, and soldiers drawn up, ready to receive them with a round of grape. Nevertheless, the Conventionals, from the windows of the Tuileries, con- templated with even greater dismay the dense masses of their opponents rolling up every street — a rising flood, threatening to engulf them. Like the weaklings they were, they desired a compromise, and pleaded with Bonaparte not to proceed to extremities. If Napoleon could have had his own way he would have opened fire at once. But the insurgents, cowed by the exhibition of force in front, drew back to consider what should be done ; and the Dele- gates in his rear were quaking, and seeking gaps in the ranks of their defenders through which they might slink home. The day passed in inaction. The National Guard and the regulars showed indications of fraternisation. If this took place the Convention was lost, and Napoleon's chance was gone. Accounts differ as to which side began the conflict. The decision was in Bonaparte's hand. Unless the Convention succeeded in a signal manner, and utterly quelled the insurrection, his fate was sealed. A compromise would be effected by the sacrifice of himself. He was well aware of this. The situation to him was fast becoming not merely critical, but ridiculous. At half-past four he mounted his horse. A shot was fired. He issued orders that the streets should be cleared ; and the roar of cannon and the screams of the wounded were the response. " It is wrongly stated," said Bonaparte at S. Helena, " that the action was * Madame de Remusat, Memoirs (English ed.), i. 146. THE 13TH VENDEMIAIRE 109 begun with blank cartridge. That would have served only to encourage the sections, and would have endangered the troops. It is, however, true that, after victory was assured, powder alone was employed." Next day, a few salvos of artillery sufficed to disperse the knot of insur- gents who ventured to rally. "All is over," wrote Napoleon to Joseph; "luck was with us. . . . We killed a great number, and lost on our side thirty men killed, and sixty wounded. We have disarmed the sections, and all is quiet. As usual, I was not hurt. Happiness is mine. My salutations to Desiree and to Julie." THE I3TH VENDEMIAIRE. From a lithograph by Raffet. After this coup d'etat, it was inevitable that the elections should be in favour •of the Opposition. The Convention was creating for itself privilege, and maintaining itself by violence. As the electors manifested their ill-will, the Conventional spirit was driven further, at each renewal of the Councils, out of the Legislative into the Executive body. The two-thirds who remained on their benches, in their exasperation at the opposition manifested by the •country, and desirous, above all, of conciliating the Jacobins, appointed five regicides to form the Directory — Barras, Carnot, Rewbell, Letourneur, and Lareveillere-Lepaux. The Legislative body renewed itself by one-third every year, whereas the Directory was renewed every fifth year. The result was a foregone conclusion — inevitable, if the electors remained in the same temper ; the time was not far distant when the Directory would be at war with the no THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Councils, and as these bodies had no means of exercising control, the one over the other, legally, it was also inevitable that the arm of the soldier, now called in for the first time to maintain the Convention, would be summoned to decide the conflict that was in prospect between them. It would be doing the ambitious young General an injustice to suppose that he had not the shrewdness to see this ; but he saw more than this — that the road to a military despotism was surely prepared. The man who could gain the confidence of the soldiery, the general who could inspire them with enthusiasm for himself, would be able at any time to enact the part of a Cromwell. Both Barras and Napoleon were desirous of shifting on to each other the odium of having shed the blood of their fellow Frenchmen, on the 13th Vendemiaire. Accordingly, Barras threw the whole responsibility upon his young proteg^. In a speech before the Convention on the i8th, he demanded that Bonaparte should be reinstated in his grade, and should be given the command of the Army of the Interior; and he said with emphasis: "The well-considered, the prompt military arrangements, whereby the Convention was saved on the 13th, were due entirely to Bonaparte." The latter, on his side, drew up a report of the events which he intended for publication. In it his own part in the affair is slurred over, and the direction s attributed to Barras, and the execution to Generals Verdier, Brune, and Duvergier. On the 20th Vendemiaire, he was re-established in the artillery, and named Second Commandant of the Army of the Interior. On the 24th he demanded the provisional brevet of General of Division, and ten days after, on the 4th Brumaire, that is to say, on the day on which the National Convention held its last session, in which Barras resigned his Command-in-Chief of the Army of the Interior, Bonaparte replaced him, and received the confirmation of his title as General of Division. Napoleon at once, with that characteristic zeal for the advancement of his family which forms so delightful a feature in his character, hastened to make his brothers share in his good fortune. Having removed from his mean lodgings to the house of the General in Command, in the Rue Neuve des Capucines, he wrote to Joseph, " I have here house, table, and carriage, all at your disposal,"* and he applied for a Consulship to be given to this brother. He removed Louis from school at Chalons, and again had him appointed lieutenant, and made him his aide-de-camp ; for Lucien he obtained the lucrative place of Commissary of War to the Army of the North. Uncle Fesch was summoned to Paris to act as his secretary. All at once, the indigent Corsican General, who had been under a cloud, had emerged into sunshine. He who had not known where to look for a friend, was now intimate with every member of the Government. He who could obtain no place for himself was able to instal his relatives and friends in comfortable berths. * He wrote to him on Dec. 4, "I have received 400,000 livres for you." Whence did he get this? Joseph was not as yet appointed to any Consulship. THE 13TH VENDEMIAIRE iii Some days after the 13th Vendemiaire, Vandamme said to him, "I believe the day will arrive when you will have cause to repent having fired on French- men." " Bah ! " answered Bonaparte, " I have only set my seal upon France."* It was true, and the seal was set in blood. * Secret Memoirs ^ Lond. 1815 (by Charles Doris). XVIII ; JOSEPHINE (October 26, 1795— March 9? 1796) '' I ""HE sudden rise of Napoleon to the Command of the Army of the -*- Interior, at once exposed a man, whom no one had considered before the 13th Vendemiaire, to become an object of envy and observation. His nationality, his inability to speak French without accent, and that accent peculiarly disagreeable and smacking of vulgarity, his bad spelling, his un- couthness in society, his past also, his intimacy with the Robespierres, his advanced opinions, his irregularities of service, his compromised character in Corsica, about which Lacombe had a good deal of curious information to com- municate, his knavery in the matter of false certificates and applications for indemnification for horses he had already disposed of — these were now matters much discussed, and discussed with that gall which overflows whenever one, who was yesterday nobody, is suddenly advanced to wealth and position. Bonaparte was aware of this, and to conceal his bad spelling, began to make his writing illegible, and, to disguise his dialect, spoke as little as possible. He was now a good deal in society — such society as was gathered about Barras, one of beautiful women, with the loosest of morals, but with the charm and ease of the old regime. He was uncomfortable in it, ambitious to attract attention to himself, to push his way, but ignorant how to make his per- sonality other than ridiculous. Instinctively he felt that the ground under his feet was on fire. With his pride wounded by the smiles and whispers which his gaucheries provoked, he •desired to get away from uncongenial surroundings, which fascinated at the same time that they frightened him, or to find the means of adoption into the charmed circle. On October the 6th, he had sent his love to Desiree Clary for the last time. He no longer required her dower. He soon saw that he must look elsewhere for a wife — he must find one who would gain for him respect in that brilliant society that dazzled him. After the 13th Vendemiaire he abandoned, at all events for a time, the scheme of seeking his fortunes in the East, and turned his eyes on Italy. He had not studied the life of Caesar in vain. If that had taught him anything, it had taught him that the road to a dictatorship was to be gained through PORTRAIT OF BONAPARTE AT THIS PERIOD. By Gu^rin. OF -HE UNIVERSITY OF j£d?.JFORNiJ^ JOSEPHINE 115 victories in a country outside the Republic, and an absolute control obtained over an army through those victories. The events of the 13th Vendemiaire had relieved him from his pecuniary embarrassments, and this change in his circumstances was beginning already to make a corresponding change in his appearance. Barras, a Count from Provence, fond of pomp and luxury, kept horses, equipages, mistresses, maintained some state, formed a little court, presided over by the beautiful Madame Tallien, sultana-in-chief of his seraglio, affecting the airs, refinement, and exclusiveness of that which had been swept away by the Revolution. Into this circle Bonaparte was hardly admitted ; the beautiful women that formed it disliked his gloomy brow and ungracious manners. The only family of position that cared to allow him to sit at its table was that of De Permon, but the widow Permon was in reduced circumstances. The Parisians, weary of the shadow of death which had so long hung over the capital, and the scent of blood that was wafted on every breeze, shut their eyes to the misery that still prevailed, the poor dying of starvation in the garrets, and in their volatile mood broke out into a flutter of fashion and glitter of display. Napoleon endeavoured to make display as well. " The modest cabriolet was converted into a superb equipage, and the man himself was no longer the same. But the friends of his youth were still received when they made their morning calls. They were invited to grand dejeuners, which were sometimes attended by ladies ; and, among others, by the beautiful Madame Tallien and her friend, the amiable Madame de Beauharnais, to whom Bonaparte had begun to pay attention. ' In the month of February, 1796, my husband,' writes Madame Bourrienne, 'was arrested at seven in the morning by a party of men, armed with muskets, on the charge of being a returned emigrant. He was torn from. his wife and child, only six months old, and was barely allowed time to dress himself . . . I and his friends ran about everywhere, trying to find somebody to rescue him, and, among the rest, Bonaparte was appealed to. It was with great difficulty he could be seen. I told him what had happened to my husband, whose life was at stake. He appeared to feel very little for the situation of his friend, but determined to write to Merlin, the Minister of Justice.' " It is painful to learn that Napoleon made no further effort to save the friend who had maintained him in his days of poverty, and that the escape of Bourrienne from the guillotine was in no way due to his interference, but to the humanity of the judge, Lemaire, before whom he was brought* As Madame Bourrienne mentions, Bonaparte at this time began to lay siege to the heart of Josephine de Beauharnais, widow of the Marquis de Beauharnais, whose head had fallen on the scaffold. Marie-Josephe-Rose de Tascher de la Pagerie was born on the 23rd June, 1763, in Martinique, where her father was harbour-master, and owned a little property. She came to France at the age of fifteen, and married the Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais in 1779. After their marriage the young couple went to Paris, where their son Eugene, afterwards Viceroy of Italy, was born * Memoirs of Bourrienne, i. 32-3, ii6 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE in 1780. In April, 1783, she became the mother of that very charming but sad woman, who was to be known in history as Queen Hortense. The young couple did not agree. There were domestic storms, and they separated. Josephine went back to Martinique, but on the death of her father in 1790 returned to France. Her husband, who had been a zealous Republican, and commanded the Army of the Rhine, was denounced and arrested in 1794. He Was executed on the 23rd July. Josephine had also been imprisoned on the 20th April in the same year. She owed her release to the citoyenne Cabarrus, who had won the affections of Tallien ; and she became her fast friend, and shared with her the equivocal, or more than equivocal, favours of Barras. She could not equal Mme. Tallien in beauty ; her features were irregular, she had teeth " like cloves," but carefully concealed them as much as possible. Her not very abundant hair was chestnut, her skin olive, she had a delicately-formed mouth, very soft, beautiful eyes, with a somewhat dreamy expression in them, and long lashes. But her great charm lay in her perfect gracefulness of form and ease of motion. Her voice, moreover, was so musical, that long after, when Empress, the servants in the Tuileries would halt in the corridors to listen to its melody. She had a winning manner and a kindly heart. She was very averse to strong emotion ; sorrows with her were transient. Her feelings were shallow. Tears lay very near the surface, and were easily dried, as they were easily produced. Later on, after she had interceded for the life of the Due d'Enghien and had failed, she put her concern quickly aside, and began to trifle in her garden. " Owing to her natural levity and fickleness," says Mme. de Remusat, "she excessively disliked painful or lasting impressions. Her feelings were quick, but extraordinarily evanescent." Meneval, successor of Bourrienne as secretary to Napoleon, says : — " She was irresistibly attractive. Her beauty was not regular, but she had grace more beautiful than beauty, according to La Fontaine. She had the soft abandon, the supple and elegant movements, and the graceful carelessness of the Creoles. Her temper was always the same. She was kind, affable, and indulgent with everyone, without difference of persons. She had neither superiority of mind nor much learning, but her exquisite politeness, her full acquaintance with society, with the Court, and with their innocent artifices, made her always know precisely the best thing to do or say."* When Talleyrand was asked about her, " Avait elle de I'esprit ? " he answered, " Elle s'en passait superieurement bien."f Poor Josephine! Her name disarms comment on her frailties, so deep and tender is the feeling with which she inspires all who consider her as the wife of Napoleon, and pity her for her divorce. Recently the memoirs of the vilest of men, Paul Barras, have been given to the world, in which he pours forth what may certainly be put down as malignant calumny against a weak and wronged woman. We know that this coquettish and frivolous soul did not pass unscathed through such a period as that of the Terror and the * Meneval, Napoleon et Marie Louise, Brux. 1843, i. 227, t Diary of Hhnry Greville, Lond. 1883. JOSEPHINE AT MALMAISON. By Prud'hon. JOSEPHINE 119 Directorate, when] morality was at its lowest ebb ; but out of that troubled and muddy past she emerged to be the true and blameless wife of the First Consul and of the Emperor, and to win the heart of all France. Several versions exist relative to the causes that drew Bonaparte and Madame de Beauharnais together. The fable is very generally told that after the disarmament of the Sections, young Eugene Beauharnais came to Napoleon to entreat for the sword of his father that had been confiscated. Bonaparte favoured the story, and it is possible there may have been some shadow of truth in it ; but it is very improbable, as the friend of Barras would most assuredly have been free from the domiciliary visits of the police after the 13th Vendemiaire. At S. Helena, Bonaparte told another story that has more of likelihood in it. " I saw my wife for the first time at Barras' house, that woman who exercised so great an influence on my life, and whose memory will always be dear to me. " I was not insensible to the charms of women, but up to this time they had not spoiled me; and my character rendered me extremely shy in their company. Madame de Beauharnais was the first who reassured me. She ad- dressed many flattering re- marks to me, relative to my military talents, one day when I was seated near her. This bit of praise intoxicated me ; I addressed myself continually to her ; I followed her about everywhere. I became passionately fond of her, and it was known in our society long before I dared to tell her of it. " My feelings were talked about. Barras spoke to me on the matter. I had no reason to deny it. 'Very well,' said he, 'you must marry Madame Beauharnais. You have a rank and talents to carry you on ; but you are isolated, without personal fortune, and without relations. You must marry, that will give you aplomb. Madame Beauharnais is agreeable and lively, but she is a widow. That is nothing nowadays when women play no part. They must marry to have any value. You are a man of character, you will make THE FIRST INTERVIEW BETWEEN BONAPARTE AND JOSEPHINE. From a painting by Gervex. I20 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE your career. You visit her ; do you wish me to negotiate the matter for you ? ' 1 awaited the reply with anxiety. It was favourable ; Madame de Beau- harnais gave me her hand." It was precisely because Josephine was at all points the contrast to Napoleon, that she exercised so great a power over his heart. He had never associated with ladies of culture and refinement of manner, except only with Madame Permon, and she did not invite him to her table to meet her aris- tocratic lady friends. His own mother was uneducated, and though a good woman, eminently unpolished. His brother Lucien's wife was not able even to sign her name in the marriage register. The soap-boiler's daughters were amiable nonentities. For the first time he was brought within the halo of culture, and it bewildered and bewitched him. PORTRAIT OF JOSEPHINE. From a coloured engraving by Bonneville. PORTRAIT OF BONAPARTE. From a coloured engraving by Bonneville. The marriage was civilly contracted on the 9th March, 1796.* Tallien and Barras were the witnesses. On the ring which Bonaparte placed on his bride's finger was the fatalistic inscription, *' Au Destin." It has been said by many that Napoleon's marriage was provoked by his ambition, or it is allowed that though he really was attracted to Josephine, yet that the main incentive was ambition — the desire to have the command of the Army of Italy, which Barras had promised to give him as a marriage portion. That Bonaparte was really madly in love with Josephine, is clear enough from his passionate letters to her when on his Italian campaign, that have been published. " In this volume," says Georges Dury, "are to be found the authentic letters of Bonaparte to the woman he has just married. I will content myself with asking any candid man who has read them, if it was not the truest, the deepest love which dictated, between battles, these beautiful and burning pages to the man who wrote them? True, Bonaparte may have later entertained doubts, * It really seemed impossible morally for the Bonapartes to tell the truth about their ages. Napoleon, Joseph, and Lucien all gave themselves out at their respective marriages to have been born at the same place, Ajaccio, and in the same year, 1768. Josephine also gave herself out as younger by ten years than she really was. JOSEPHINE 121 suspicions, as to Josephine's virtue. And, indeed, it must be confessed that the indiscretions of this most charming, but also most frivolous, of women, furnished matter enough for grievous discoveries. Look at her portrait by Isabey, which dates precisely from this period. The bird-like head, all dishevelled, expresses coquetry, thoughtlessness, an undefinable frailty and inconstancy, characteristic perhaps even then, as it had been in the past, of her virtue. It is none the less a certainty that Bonaparte believed in her, and loved her ardently and blindly ; that passion alone made him wish for and resolve upon this marriage ; and that, if anyone calculated in this affair, if it be absolutely necessary to suppose that calculation existed, it would be Josephine; at all events -it was not the man of genius desperately smitten, smitten 'like a fool; who was dying with love at the feet of this pretty doll.'* And the charms and grace of Josephine — that languid grace of the rose whose bloom is beginning to fade — so entirely took possession of Napoleon, that it never wholly left his soul. Through all the crises of his tragic existence, in spite of weariness, acts of infidelity, divorce, his second marriage, in spite of all, Napoleon would love this woman unto death."t * Memoirs of Barras^ 1895, ii. xvi. t Ibid. ii. xiv. /'>Vi-t#»«/v« 9 y-^^.^^^^^^^ Or*^^ j-^^-^:!^^ o-*^^ W< LETTER FROM BONAPARTE TO JOSEPHINE. XIX THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN (March io— November, 1796) "j^TAPOLEON'S honeymoon lasted just forty-eight hours, and during the -^ ^ greater portion of it he was engaged with maps and letters ; then he hastened to Nice to assume the command of the Army of Italy. This army, under Scherer — a general capable of winning a battle, but not of reaping the fruits of victory — had fought and defeated the allied troops of Sardinia and Austria at Loano, on November 24th, 1795, and had then retired to hibernate in the Alps. There it sat, shivering, starving, inactive. The administration of the army was in confusion. The soldiers were not paid, were ill-fed, and barely clothed. The Commissioners en- gaged on the Commissariat sought to fill their own pockets at the cost of the soldiers. And those at the head of the State — Barras and his fellows — were too unscrupulous themselves not to wink at their dishonesties. Scherer was discouraged, and entreated to be allowed to send in his resignation. The Directors in Paris were at their wits' end, and in their difficulty, turned to Bonaparte, who knew both what had to be done, and how to do it. " Les cinq Sires" were anxious to be rid of the man who had assisted them on the 13th Vendemiaire, who alarmed them by his indefatigable activity, and by his assumption of the airs of a protector. Not one of them had the wit to discern that by committing the Army of Italy into his hands, they were furnishing him with the weapon wherewith he might terrorise and finally disperse them. Scherer was allowed to resign, and Bonaparte was put in his place. 122 MEDALLION OF BONAPARTE. By Boizot. THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN 123 The Directory was aware that they had entrusted great power to a man who was headstrong and resolute ; they accordingly adopted measures to place checks on him, and to reserve to themselves supreme control over the army ; and they let him understand that with them lay all authority to make peace, and even an armistice. A few days before he left Paris, they furnished him with detailed instructions relative to the plan of the campaign in which he was about to engage ; they had indeed used his suggestions which had been previously submitted to the War Office, but had not followed them implicitly. He was enjoined^to cross the Maritime Alps, and to separate the forces of Sardinia from those of Austria, as he had proposed ; but then, instead of forcing Piedmont to sue for peace, he was to provoke war with Genoa, by wresting from that Republic certain portions of its territory, and then to push on through Lombardy, strike at Milan, and throw the Austrians behind the Adige. The plan was as injudicious as it was impracticable. He was, in fact, required to needlessly exasperate and drive into war a State in his rear, with a second State in the same position, humbled but unreduced, to join hands and cut his communications. Napoleon was well aware of the absurdity of the instructions given him, and resolved not to carry them out where inconvenient. The entire military system in France had gone through a radical renovation, mainly under the direction of Dubois de Crance ; and this renovation had been imposed on it by circumstances — by the coalition of the European powers against the Republic, its menacing attitude, and by the defection of the officers who had emigrated. Under the old system there was no unity of direction or of action. The Convention suppressed all the ancient denominations of Lieutenant-Colonel, Colonel Marechal-de-camp, Lieutenant-General, and Marshal of France, and replaced them by those 9f Head of Battalion or Squadron, Chief of Brigade, General of Division, or General-in-Chief It organised its armies into Demi-Brigades, Brigades, and Divisions. Every corps d'armee was composed of two divisions, and every division of two brigades. " The Greeks," said Saint-Just, " conquered by the phalanx, the Romans by the legion, and the French will be victorious through the demi-brigade." On the i6th August, 1793, the famous decree had been passed that called all Frenchmen into the ranks : — "The French people declare, by the organ of their representatives, that they will rise in a body in defence of their liberty, their constitution, and to deliver their territory from invasion. . . . The young will go into battle ; the married men will forge arms, and transport the material of war ; the women will make tents, clothing, and will serve in the hospitals ; the children will make lint ; the old men will be carried out into public places to excite the courage of the warriors, and to preach hatred of Kings and the unity of the Republic." But this was not all. On the 26th, the Committee of Public Safety had been created, to give unity of direction to the vast force that had been brought into existence. This consisted eventually of nine members, under them twelve commissions, amongst which was that of war. At the bottom was the entire 124 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE nation, from whence to draw supplies of men and material ; at the top the Committee of Nine ; between them the simplest and most effective of mechanism ; and, as agents to watch the operation of the machine, Com- missioners, delegated from the Convention, with every army, two to observe the army in the field, and two to have surveillance over the fortified places and garrisons, with power to see to everything, assure supplies, attend to essentials, and see to the execution of details.* Formerly every staff had its own collection of maps and memoirs, relative to the topography of the country with which it was engaged ; hence, vast confusion as the various staffs shifted their fields of operation. Now was formed one central depot of maps and plans for army and navy. Formerly hereditary rank, title, court favour, had determined promotion. Now any man, so long as he had the requisite ability, was capable of rising to the highest rank in the army. And what men there were that rose out of the cauldron of war ! Bernadotte, the saddler's son ; Murat issued from a little public-house ; Augereau, the child of a domestic servant ; Massena, the Jewish waif and stray. The armies of France in 1795 numbered 531,253 men. The infantry of the line comprised a hundred demi-brigades of three battalions each, each of the latter consisting of nine companies. All this host was divided into nine armies. At the moment when Bonaparte took the command of that of Italy, this army consisted of a nominal force of 60,282 men ; but, what with the sick and the garrison troops, the effective force was reduced to 37,775 men. As head of his staff Napoleon had Berthier, son of a surveyor, eminently qualified to understand the value of topographical features, and a ready and expert hand at making maps. As aides-de-camp, his trusty friends Junot and Marmont, his brother Louis, also Joachim and Leonard. The army which Scherer had been incapable of appreciating, because it was hungry, shoeless, and in rags, was precisely fitted, by the ordeal of priva- tion it had undergone, to serve the purpose designed for it. It had been toughened by hard experience ; it had been tried against the enemy, and had been successful. The structure given it by the new organisation endowed it with a mobility not possessed by the armies under the old system, such as those of Savoy and Austria. The generals of the latter were governed by ancient doctrines as to how to move, how to conduct hostilities, as to what was legitimate warfare and what was not. They were, moreover, bound hand and foot by their own governments, allowed to take no step till it had been debated and sanctioned at Vienna and Turin ; consequently unable to seize on an opportunity when one presented itself, that is, supposing they had the ability to see when such opportunities arose. Later, Bonaparte wrote of them : — " My military successes are great ; but, then, how has the Emperor been served ? His soldiers are good and brave, though heavy, and not active, com- * Jung (Th. ), Bonaparte et son Tenips^ Paris, 1880, vol. iii., and more fully in his VArnice et la Rivolution ; Dubois-Crance, 1884. THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN ' 125 pared with ours. But what officers ! They are simply detestable ! The generals who have been opposed to me were inept. Beaulieu knew nothing of the localities in Italy; Wurmser was deaf, and so slow, that he never could 'do anything ; Alvinzi was impotent. They have been accused of having been gained by me. That is untrue ; I never attempted anything of the kind. But what was true, as I can prove, was that not one of these generals had got a staff in which several of the principals were not sold to me. Consequently, I not only saw all their plans, but knew all their projects, and I upset them while still under discussion." Moreover, there were mutual jealousies between the Sardinian and the Austrian commanders, as well as between their troops ; and, more than that, the officers in each army were full of resentment the one against the other, because they saw men of rank, with empty skulls, thrust over their heads, not for their merit, but because titled. In the French army officers and soldiers were profoundly attached to Republican institutions, not because they had thought them out, but because they felt that they had passed out of an oppressive atmosphere into the breezy freshness of liberty, in which they could fill their lungs. They had suffered for the Republic ; they had seen all Europe leagued against it, and they were resolved, heart and soul, from the first general to the least drummer- boy, not to allow the foreigners to dictate to them how they were to be governed. This is the description given of the army by a Royalist agent : — " The discipline is severe and precise ; punishments are rigorous. Sub- ordination carried to an extreme, so great is the distance between the officer and the soldier when in service. All that is said about the familiarity of the latter with his officer is untrue. Out of the ranks he speaks freely of his •officers. The French soldier is prompt to grumble. He taxes Bonaparte with being a thief and a coquin. But the same soldier will obey him blindly to-morrow, because in the first place he esteems his personal bravery; and secondly, he believes him to be a very clever general, and he knows, moreover, that he must perish or obey, for the general will have no scruple in dealing promptly with a man neglectful of his duty or guilty of treason. Thus, although he may abuse him, he will not allow anyone else to do so ; he will curse him, but not suffer another to do that. Then, again, Bonaparte has succeeded in inspiring them with a sovereign contempt for their enemies, and this serves to duplicate their courage."* A second great advantage possessed by Bonaparte, was that he knew the ground on which he was to fight. This knowledge he had acquired when he was on his way back to Nice from Genoa ; he had then given it special atten- tion with a view to future military operations. This knowledge he shared with the Sardinian General, and the Austrian opposed to him. But some men see a thing every day, and learn nothing from it, whereas another at a glance, on a hasty visit, grasps all the situations and learns everything of the topo- _graphy that he desires to know. There was a third advantage Bonaparte * Letter of the Comte d'Aatraigues in Jung, iii. 151. 126 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE enjoyed over those opposed to him. The French army had been sifted and resifted, till every officer who was not a thorough Republican had been sifted out. It was about to enter Italy, that had long groaned under feudal and ecclesiastical bondage. The ferment in France had cast its spores into the north of Italy, and the number of those who desired revolution therein was great. At Bazaluno, in Cortona, on the feast of Corpus Christi, the citizens and peasants adopted the tricolor cockade, and marched about shouting, " Long live liberty ! " An eye-witness describes the condition of Piedmont at this moment. " The King of Sardinia has no money for the war. The people at Turin are afraid of the Austrian troops. The latter patrol the streets, and break up every knot of three or four persons. Spies are everywhere, in the cafes and gardens, the promenades and eating-houses. Every day some of the citizens are being seized and imprisoned, and no more is heard of them. The peasants in the country, in spite of the sermons of the priests against the French, show impatience at their slavery and misery. The desertion among both Austrian and Piedmontese troops is continual. Even the officers are not paid."* Consequently, Napoleon found no difficulty in bribing officers among the enemy, to furnish him with information, and he was sure everywhere of being welcomed by the peasantry as a deliverer. Such, accordingly, were the condi- tions under which the campaign in Italy was begun by Napoleon. The same conditions had existed before, but Scherer had been incapable of understanding and availing himself of them. The day after Bonaparte had been appointed to the command, he called the Directors together, and said to them : " I require 800,000 livres in specie for the start, and to cover the first success. I will conquer or perish. If for a moment I can get a footing on the enemy's territory, from that moment I will not demand of you another crown for my army." And to this th6 Directory had consented. The army was to feed, clothe^ and pay itself at the cost of the Italians. This had been Wallenstein's system in the Thirty Years' War, to which the Emperor Francis had given a reluctant consent in a moment of desperation. It was that upon which the representatives of Liberty, the advocates of Equality and Fraternity, agreed, and which Napoleon was to pursue throughout Europe for eighteen years. In a word, this invasion, under the idea of emancipating the people of Italy from tyranny, was to be a marauding expedition like that of the Black Prince, when he ravaged Guyenne from Bordeaux to Toulouse. On the 26th March, 1796, Bonaparte arrived at Nice. He was occupied for two and a half months in the reorganisation of the army. On the day after his arrival, he issued a significant proclamation which appealed to the worst appetites of the soldiers, but which was in accordance with the agreement he had made with the Directory. " Soldiers ! you are naked, ill-fed. The Government owes you much, but cannot pay you. Your patience, and the courage you have exhibited, do you credit, but gain you no advantage, get you no glory. I will conduct * Despatch, i8th June, 1793, in Jung, iii. 315. THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN 127 you into the most fertile plains in the world, where you will find large cities and rich provinces. There you will acquire honour, glory, riches. Soldiers of the Army of Italy, will you lack the requisite courage?" If ever there was an incentive to plunder, this was one. It was frank. The hypocritical assurance that the invasion was one for the sake of giving liberty to the slaves of despotism, was reserved to be addressed to the Italians. The character given to this war in Italy was different altogether from that of those in which the Republic had been hitherto engaged. The motive force was changed. The one dominating idea which had given to the Revolution its moral consistency, and had endowed it with titanic, irre- sistible power, had been a moral one — it had been that of Nationality. Throughout the Middle Ages, France had been an aggregation of provinces, loosely compacted, ravaged by internecine war, each under its feudal sover- eign, each with its parlia- ment, and its several rights and usages. For three hun- dred years the English had been masters of Aquitaine, which had lived apart from the current of French culture, and without participation in the national life. Other pro- vinces had been in fitful union with the heart of the realm. Although, under Louis XIV., the Crown had become supreme, it had obtained its supremacy by crushing the provincial activities to death, instead of uniting them into one organism. The condition of the provinces under the Crown had become one of suspended vitality. But the Revolution had brought all France into one body, and sent streams of electrical vigour through every portion. The wars conducted by the Republic had been in pursuit of this end. Because in Belgium the French tongue was spoken, and because to Nice and Savoy there were no natural barriers, therefore the Republic had insisted on their incor- poration into France. If it had invaded Holland, this had been with no purpose of permanent occupation and annexation. But now it was to be otherwise. Italy was to be entered, as a rich land to be despoiled, and peace was to be pur- chased with Austria and Sardinia by partitioning up its soil, and giving them portions as indemnifications for the annexed provinces of Belgium and Savoy. BONAPARTE. A drawing by Hennequin, engraved by Tassaert. 128 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE The arrival of the young, comparatively inexperienced, Corsican General in the army, to take command, somewhat disconcerted the older and approved Generals of Division, Massena, Augereau, Laharpe, and Serrurier ; but any in- clination to dispute his ability and authority was taken from them at once, when they saw the energy and the skill with which he set to work to put that army on a war footing ; and, after the first battle, they became his enthusiastic followers. The political situation was singularly favourable. Peace had been concluded with Spain ; consequently the Army of the Pyrenees was at liberty, and from it that on the frontier of Ital}^ could be reinforced. Peace had also been made with Prussia, which enabled the Army of the Rhine to fall with all its weight on South Germany, and force its way over the tableland where springs the Danube, into Austria itself There were, in fact, two armies stationed on the German frontier, that of Jourdan at Diisseldorf, and that at Strassburg under Moreau ; and both were at liberty to co-operate with Napoleon, by distracting the attention of Austria, and diverting her troops from the plains of Lombardy to the head waters of the Danube. In Italy, the Austrians and the Sardinians were not acting in concert. The Piedmontese Government was jealous of the Austrians, because Savoy and Austria were rivals for supremacy in Lombardy. The x^ustrian forces were under Beaulieu ; those of the Sardinians under Colli. The two generals were aware of each other's incapacity, but not of their own. Their troops were extended from the sea to the northern frontier of Piedmont, guarding the passes. On the 27th March, Napoleon was with his army. On the loth April he had begun operations. On the 12th he met Beaulieu, and won the battle of Montenotte ; then, in a series of engagements, he beat the Piedmontese and Austrians — the former, on the 13th, at Millesimo ; the latter, on the 15th, at Diego. In five days he had rammed his army, as a wedge, between them, had ■driven the Sardinians back for the protection of Turin, and the Austrians to guard the approaches to Milan. The instructions Bonaparte had received required him to neglect the Piedmontese, and follow the retreating Austrians, so as not to allow the latter to recover from the first staggering blows dealt them ; but for personal reasons he deemed it advisable to disregard these instructions, to turn at once on the Piedmontese, and drive them back under the walls of Turin. On the 21st April he defeated Colli at Mondovi, took from him 2,000 prisoners, eight cannon, and eleven standards. The feeble king, in a paroxysm of alarm, shut his ears to all considerations of honour and expediency, and hastened to arrange terms for an armistice with the conqueror, who was expressly forbidden by his Government to conclude one. Napoleon had neither heavy cannon nor siege train for the reduction of Turin, or any of the fortresses of Piedmont ; the allied armies were superior in number to the French. " The King of Sardinia," said Napoleon, " had still a great number of fortresses left ; and, in spite of the victories which had been THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN 129 gained, the slightest check, one caprice of fortune, would have undone every- thing." Bonaparte then assumed that air of bluster and menace, which afterwards so often served him in good stead. He threatened to deliver over the capital to pillage, unless an armistice were at once concluded. Three fortresses were surrendered to him, and an open passage was afforded him for further proceed- ings against Austria. On the 27th April, this base surrender was effected at Cherasco. Two days before this Napoleon had issued one of those stirring proclama- tions to the army, wherewith he was so often to rouse them to prodigies of valour. " Soldiers ! — In fifteen days you have gained six victories, captured twenty- one standards, fifty-five guns, several strong places, conquered the richest portion of Piedmont. You have made 15,000 prisoners, and have killed or wounded 10,000 men.* " Hitherto you have fought among barren rocks, which bear witness to your courage, but which are useless to our country. To-day you equal by your services the armies of Holland and of the Rhine. Devoid of everything, you have supplied yourselves with all requisites. You have gained battles without cannon, passed rivers without bridges, accomplished forced marches without shoes, bivouacked without brandy, and often without bread. . . . To-day you are amply furnished with all necessaries. The magazines captured from the enemy are numerous, the siege and field-pieces have arrived. ... I promise you the conquest of Italy, but on one condition. You must swear to protect the people you deliver, and repress the horrible pillage in which scoundrels have indulged. Without that you will not be liberators, but a pestilence ; and your victories, your courage, your success, and the blood of your brothers who have perished, will be lost, as well as honour and glory." That he had exceeded his powers, directly contravened the express orders of the Directory, Bonaparte was well aware ; he could justify his action to himself and his army by the obvious advantages he had gained. He despatched Junot with twenty-one standards captured from the enemy, to present them to the Directory. He wrote to his brother Joseph to hurry to Paris, and allay any alarm that might have arisen there at his high-handed conduct. But the news of his victories, and the rapidity with which they had been gained, had fired the combustible French imagination, and pleaded for him better than could his brother Joseph. The fever of enthusiasm which had caught the army, communicated itself to the people. Every morning the Moniteur published tidings of some victory, or Bonaparte's estimate of the enor- mous spoil that was to be gathered out of the rich plains and overflowing trea- suries of Italy. Even the Directors, men of no note, some of them vulgar adventurers, the only man among them with a smack of respectability being Carnot, were dazzled with the successes of Bonaparte, if a little afraid as to whither they might lead. No reliance can be placed on the numbers given by Bonaparte in his proclamations, bulletins, or private letters. I30 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Junot was followed by Murat, drawing along the roads the cannon that had been captured. The Directory, with an empty treasury, with their assignats treated almost as waste paper, were eager to dip their trembling fingers into the precious metal that promised to flow in from Italy : the silver Madonnas that could be melted up, the Municipal plate, the gorgeous work of Benvenuto Cellini, that could be turned into coin, the bursting money-bags of the Lombard bankers, the Ecclesiastical and Monastic hoards ! Napoleon had repressed brigandage, after allowing his soldiers to slake their first thirst for pillage. For indiscriminate plunder, he had substituted enforced contributions. Mondovi was required to pay a million, Piacenza, Modena, Parma, their many millions. Rich Genoa was to be put into the oil-press. And the soldiery were to be shod and clothed, as well as paid, out of the land they oppressed. All this was offered to France, that was almost without a metal currency. But the Directory was unwilling to allow Napoleon the free hand he had begun to use. It concluded, indeed, the peace with Sardinia, the advantage of which was obvious to the dullest intellect, but it reiterated its orders to the General, for the future to conclude no armistices, but to leave all such negotia- tions to the Commissioners. It gave orders that Kellermann, who was in command of the Army of the Alps, should cross into the plains of Lombardy, and make Milan his head- quarters. Bonaparte was to turn aside, secure Leghorn, and subjugate Modena, Parma, Rome, and Naples. In other words, the command in Italy was to be divided between himself and Kellermann, who was designed by the sus- picious Directory to serve as a clog on his ambition ; and the Civil Commis- sioners were enjoined to watch the proceedings of both, and to conduct all political negotiations. Bonaparte received this communication at Lodi, just as he had carried the bridge, and had driven the Austrians in headlong flight out of the Milanais to take refuge behind the walls of Mantua. This was on the loth of May. He had already forced the Grand Duke of Parma to capitulate, and pay two millions in silver, and furnish 1600 artillery horses, besides vast supplies of corn and provisions. He had moved with as great celerity against the Austrians, as against the Austrians and Sardinians combined. This second act in the drama had lasted fifteen days. He had marched on the ist May. The Po was passed at Piacenza on the 7th ; the Adda at Lodi on the loth, on the 15th he entered Milan. The express orders of the Directory, revealing its mistrust, and hampering his freedom of action, filled Napoleon with anger, which, however, he did not dare to exhibit. He wrote from Lodi to Carnot on the day before his entry into Milan : — " On the reception of the letter from the Directory your intentions were executed, and the Milanais is ours. I shall shortly march so as to carry out your views relative to Leghorn and Rome. That will not take long. " I have written to the Directory on the subject of dividing the army. THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN 131 I swear that I have had only the interest of my country in view. Besides, you will always find me straightforward. If people seek to injure me in your opinion, my answer is to be read in my heart and conscience. " Kellermann may be able to command an army as well as myself, but I think that to link together Kellermann and myself in Italy would be to sacrifice everything. I cannot willingly serve with a man who considers him- self the first general in Europe. " I hold that one bad general is worth more than two good ones. War is like government, a thing of tact. I do not choose to be trammelled. I have begun with some glory, I desire to continue worthy of you." The Directors gave way. Meanwhile the Armies of the Sambre and the Meuse as well as that of the Rhine were doing nothing. The in- action of Jourdan and of Moreau was commented on in Paris, and contrasted with the energy of Bonaparte. The public was all with the latter. To the urgency of his representations. Napoleon added the argument of a bribe. He forwarded a list of pictures, vases, and manuscripts, which he had selected to be sent to Paris from the towns he had entered or laid under contribution. He sent this notice to the Directory : " 1 have forwarded to Tortona at least 2,000,000 francs in jewellery and silver ingots. Then we shall levy 20,000,000 francs upon the country, which is one of the richest in the world." The Government found itself greatly embarrassed. It was forced to give way in the matter of the division of the army, or risk Napoleon throwing up his command, or appealing to public opinion against it. And the Directors knew that their tenure was insecure. Moreover, events moved with such rapidity as to take away their breath. % Madame Junot, in a few words, describes the situation : — " The Army of Italy surprised us every day by the prodigies communicated in its bulletins. The Directory, which disliked General Bonaparte, would fain have thrown a veil over the glories of the young hero, but the country which he had saved from an Austrian invasion, the soldiers whom he led to victory, had thousands of voices to proclaim it, and the only resource left to the ridiculous government, wherewith we had been silly enough to saddle ourselves, was to abuse him whom it would gladly have thrown down after it had exalted him." BONAPARTE. From an engraving by MarcelU del Giobiliti. 132 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE The Republican Government was feeling what was felt at Carthage, and by the Roman Senate, when they had at the head of their armies men not utterly commonplace, and when they dreaded every victory gained over the national enemy as a blow levelled against themselves. The Republican party in Northern Italy had been excited to enthusiasm by the prospect of liberty, equality, and fraternity, promised them by the French : but when the invasion resulted in grinding exaction ; when the country saw itself pillaged of its art-treasures, its churches robbed of their shrines, every family made to surrender its little savings, the peasantry forced to give up their horses, oxen, wagons, corn, then they were roused to exasperation, and out- breaks of violence took place. This was the case at Pavia, where the oppression had been most tyrannous, and it had resulted in the murder of some Frenchmen. Napoleon resolved on inflicting so signal a chastisement as would paralyse disaffection. He ordered that the magistrates should be shot, the city given over to pillage, and the unhappy peasants be hunted down over the plain and killed like vermin. Having quelled this rising. Napoleon next violated the Venetian territory, and occupied Verona and Brescia. The remnant of the Austrian army was in Mantua, and Beaulieu had cut the sluices and flooded the low land about it. The line of the Adige was in the hands of the French. A siege of Mantua was not to be thought of at that season, when the plain bred malaria. He left the enclosed Austrians to the ravages of low fever, and turned his attention to the partial execution of the task imposed on him by the Directory. Austria was rapidly collecting reinforcements for the relief of Mantua, and Napoleon prepared to meet these levies. He could not venture on an invasion of Tyrol till this fastness had fallen. During the pause that ensued he entered into negotiation with the States in Italy to the south. Already, on the 5th June, he had concluded a treaty with Naples, whereby the Neapolitan cavalry, which had fought under the command of Beaulieu, was handed over to him. The fleet was detached from that of England, and Naples undertook to maintain neutrality. The States that intervened were now left at his mercy. He at once despatched his adjutant (Murat) to Genoa, to order the dismissal of the Austrian ambassador. To the Directory he wrote :^- " If your intention is to wring 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 francs from Venice, I have arranged for a rupture in a way which will facilitate matters. "From the conversation I have had with the envoy of the Pope, it appears to me that he has had orders to offer us contributions. Would you like me, then, to accept from the Pope, in exchange for an armistice, 25,000,000 francs in money, 5,000,000 francs in merchandise, 300 pictures and statues, and manu- scripts in proportion ? " Whilst thus writing, he spoke freely to Prince Belmonte Pignatelli, and asked him if he thought " he was fighting for those scamps of lawyers," as he designated the Directory. THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN ^33 He made a hasty descent on Leghorn, secured it, then met the Grand Duke of Tuscany at Florence, and brought him to submission. On the 2 1st June, Napoleon wrote to the Directory :— " Italy is to-day entirely French. With an army of moderate dimensions, we have to face all emergencies — to hold the German armies in check, to besiege forts, to protect our rear, to overcome Genoa, Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples ; we must be in force everywhere. Military, political, and financial unity is therefore necessary. Here, one must burn and shoot in order to establish terror, and there one must pretend not to see because the time has not arrived for action." HO.NAPAKiE IN ITALY, From a lithograph by Raffet. An agent was appointed to sweep together whatever was worth collecting. ^ He was to follow the French army, gathering and transmitting to France objects of art. Catalogues of the collections in towns about to be occupied were demanded. The eyes of the conquerors looked covetously even on the woods of the Romagna and of Naples. And all this pillage went on under the pretence of emancipation of the people from tyranny. " A strange period," says Lanfrey, " in which such was the confusion of ideas, that rapacity spoke the language of patriotism, and patriotism that of rapacity, and the two got so .confused, that it would be hard to say which sentiment prevailed." Liberty had become a cant term, and liberal expressions were used in speech with no fixed and appropriate signification applied to them. The 134 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE original ideas associated with them had become upset in the progress of the Revolution. They were employed by men of all opinions, as cover to the most sordid and selfish motives, and to gloss the basest actions. No sooner was the treaty with the Pope concluded, than Napoleon hastened back to the Mincio. It was his great hope to obtain the surrender of Mantua before the arrival of the new Austrian armies. But the place was too strong, and his attempts to storm it failed. On the 29th July, General Wiirmser, at the head of 50,000 men, descended from the mountains. There were three passes into Italy, that from Trent to Bassano, through the valley of the Sugana ; that down the Adige to Verona ; and that from Arco and Riva along the north-westerly shore of the Lago di Garda to Salo, and thence to Brescia. The Austrian general divided his forces into three columns. He ordered Quasdanovich, with twenty thousand men, to skirt the lake to Salo, whilst he himself descended the Adige in two columns, one on each bank of that river- Considering that the relief of Mantua was urgent, Wiirmser resolved on press- ing on thither, whilst his left column occupied Verona. In the first conflicts the Imperialists were successful. They drove in the troops opposed to them,, broke the lines of communication of the French, and the Republican forces were menaced with being surrounded and cut to pieces. The danger was extreme, and none realised it so completely as did Napoleon. For the first time he summoned a council of war. All the officers, save Augereau, were for immediate retreat behind the line of the Po. Brescia was already in the hands of Quasdanovich. Massena had been driven from the plateau of Rivoli, where he had stood across Wiirmser's road, and that general was already on his way to Mantua. Now occurred one of those rare instances of indecision and paralysis of the brain and will in Napoleon that were, perhaps, the consequence of over- tension. The night drew on, and he had come to no resolution. At two o'clock in the morning he summoned a second council of war, and declared that he had decided to retreat. But now his generals again disagreed with him. The precious moments for a backward movement were gone. Retreat was almost cut off; and they ventured to rebuke him for his lack of resolution. Then Augereau, in his bold, boastful fashion, stepped up to Bonaparte, took him by the button-hole, and said, " I seek only your advantage. Here we must fight, and I guarantee a victory. Moreover," and he set his cap firmly on his head, " if it goes against us, that can only be when Augereau is dead." When Bonaparte saw that all were against him, he exclaimed, " I will have nothing to do with the matter. I go ! " and flung out of the room. " But who will command us ? " called Augereau after him. " You," answered Napoleon, and disappeared. Among the Generals of Division Kilmaine was the eldest, and as he professed his readiness to act under THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN 135 Augereau, and the others agreed to do the same, Augereau took the supreme command.* But the die was cast, and Napoleon recovered his self-possession ; and as to fight was necessary, his resolution was speedily formed. He sent orders to Serrurier, in command before Mantua, to spike the guns, throw the stores into the lagoon, and, with the utmost precipitation, rejoin the main army. This was performed with the rapidity enjoined ; and when Wlirmser reached Mantua, to his surprise, he found no forces before the fortifications to dispute the ground with him. Bonaparte's army was by no means able to match itself with the entire Imperialist host, but was sufficient to engage each column separately, and this Napoleon now did. He flung himself against Quasdanovich (ist August, 1796), arrested his advance, retook Brescia, and threw him back into the mountains. On hearing of this, Wiirmser left Milan, to come to the assistance of Quasdanovich, and in order to effect a junction with him, unduly extended his line. The French Commander-in-Chief saw the error at once, and fell on him with all his weight, and broke the centre. The battles of Lonato, Castiglione, and Medola decided the fate of this great Austrian army. Wiirmser retreated to Roveredo, having lost nearly 20,000 men and sixty pieces of cannon, and, what was more serious, with an army dispirited and demoralised. For three weeks Wiirmser was engaged in reorganising and recruiting his forces ; and when he was again at the head of 50,000 men, he resolved on once more taking the initiative. Wiirmser was but a second-class general ; but he was further hampered by being required to carry out a scheme of campaign devised for him at a distance by the Aulic Council. Napoleon had broken with such restraints, and this alone gave him an advantage. The result of the September campaign was as disastrous as the first. Wiirmser was defeated at Bassano by Massena, and was obliged to throw himself into Mantua. In November another Imperialist General, Alvinzi, a man of third-rate abilities, and equally hampered by a cut-and-dried scheme prepared in Vienna, was despatched to the relief of Wiirmser, at the head of a third army. After some successes on the plateau of Rivoli and at Caldiero (Nov. nth), he pushed forward, forcing the French to retreat, and as, in retiring, they faced the army of Alvinzi, they exposed themselves in rear to sorties from Mantua. The weather was rainy, the soldiers were discouraged. Even Bonaparte lost heart. But though in danger, his resources were not at an end. On the night of November 14th, he hastily and in secret left his position in face of the enemy, descended I the Adige to Rusco, crossed the river, and, on a narrow causeway, traversed the marshes, and turned the flank of the enemy, whose * Appendix to the Mhnoires de Massma, 1850, We strongly suspect that this scene has been overcoloured. 136 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE numbers availed nothing. At the bridge of Areola, over the little stream of the Alpone, the most desperate engagement took place ; it was the focus of the battle. Bonaparte knew that if he lost, his army would be annihilated, as Davidovich was hastening up with reinforcements. His future and the fate of Italy depended on success. The bridge was swept by a storm of balls. Snatching the tricolor flag, he rushed forward, preceded only by his young aide-de-camp, Muiron, who covered his body, and fell at his feet. Electrified by his example, the grenadiers, who had fallen back, returned to the charge, and the enemy was repulsed. During this bloody battle of seventy-two hours, Napoleon exposed himself to death like a common soldier. This feat of arms, which arrested the imagination of the world, created the utmost admiration in France, and pictures repre- senting the Victor at Areola, flag in hand, leading the grenadiers over the bridge^ were multiplied. On the 19th November, Bonaparte wrote to the Di- rectory : — " The battle of Areola has decided the fate of Italy. Mantua cannot hold out a fortnight. Send me the pro- mised reinforcements, and I promise in six weeks to have constrained the Emperor to Profile sketch by Gros. SUe for peaCC." His expectations were not fulfilled as speedily as he calculated. Mantua did not surrender till the 19th January, 1787, and peace was not concluded with the Emperor till four months later. Meanwhile, the efforts of France elsewhere had not been successful. The attempt on Ireland had broken down. Jourdan and Moreau in Germany had been badly beaten by the Archduke Charles. Only in Italy were the arms of the Republic wreathed with laurels, and Napoleon had gained his great successes by his political craft as much as by his military abilities. He had detached Naples from England ; without striking a blow, Corsica had been recovered. The English fleet, deprived of the assistance of the Neapolitan fleet, as of that of Spain, and of all base of operations, had been unable to maintain the mastery of the Mediterranean. Piedmont had been detached from the Austrian alliance, and from Italy a stream of silver *. ■ m ^1 iK ^^B - ' • '1b^^^^' ' -^^lAi-iw^fid^l ^^B tai„ ' -y^H ^^pv% ^•-- m k. m ^V^^'-^T /;^-' -^ . ^ ■ ^ ^1 =^r 1 Ai ^ M 1 t'A, M , , 1 BONAPARTE ON THE BRIDGE OF ARCOLA. After the picture by Gros. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ^LlFO^!!gSs< THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN 139 had been diverted into the French Treasury, languishing for the precious metal. But the efforts of the armies of the East had not been without advantage. They had detained in Germany the flower of the Austrian army, so that the troops sent into Italy had consisted mainly of raw recruits, and of Tyrolese, who, like the Highlanders that followed Prince Charles Edward, lost their energy and courage when they were out of their native mountains. Moreover, the abortive attempt at an invasion of England had recalled the Mediterranean fleet for the defence of our own shores. Thus, in spite of failures in these several undertakings, great advantages were gained through them, but these were overlooked by the French people, who were rendered blind with exultation over the triumphs of Napoleon in the plains of Northern Italy, and to him alone all the credit of success was attributed. Great and conspicuous as were the abilities of Bonaparte, yet his achieve- ments were in a measure only due to his abilities ; they were occasioned in large part by the wretchedness of the material he set himself to overthrow. Kleber well said in his notes : " Turenne acquired glory because he was brought face to face with Montecuculli, the greatest general of his century. Bonaparte gained his celebrity by fighting all the most imbecile generals the House of Austria could scrape together and launch against him."* * Les Garnets du General Kleber, unpublished, in the Archives of the Ministry of War. This pas- sage is quoted from them in the Memoires d'une Contemporaine^ new ed., 1895, p. 162. ?y^-'. !<«PI .'! W'M! ' "".'P'P' CROQUIS BY DAVID. XX THE CISPADANE REPUBLIC (October, 1796— February, 1797) T N the preceding chapter the rapid sequence of events in Northern Italy has -*- been traced. In this chapter we will look at some of the methods adopted by Napoleon towards the States of Italy, the Directory, and his army. In his dealings with the Directory, and with the Italian people, he employed a duplicity which is only excusable on the plea that he had a native love for crooked ways, and a Southern insensibility to the merits of truth. To cajole, to delude by false assurances, and to cast promises to the winds when the observance was inconvenient, to sow mistrust among allies, such were methods which, to an Italian mind, constitute statecraft. The principles of chivalry, honour, the sacredness of a promise, were beyond the range of Bonaparte's moral conception. They were regarded by him as extravagances of sentiment, tolerable in novels but impossible in real life. Napoleon's character is difficult of comprehension to the English, because so antipathetic. The latter has not been trained or distorted, in the schools of Macchiavelli and Liguori, from the broad course of truth and honour. But Bonaparte's character was true to itself always, though possibly to that alone ; and though the scene changes, and the stage widens, he plays the same part in the same way, with the same instruments, whether in Corsica, France, or Europe ; whether with Paoli, Salicetti, Talleyrand, or Kosciusko. It may be asked whether he had any definite object before his eye during the Italian campaign. He had abandoned the thought of playing a leading 140 THE CISPADANE REPUBLIC 141 part in Corsica, for that field was too contracted to serve his ambition. Had he any other in view ? His self-exaltation to the army at the expense of the Directory, his resolute rejection of the interference of the latter, his creation of a republic in North Italy, which should look to him and not to Paris, all seem to point to an intention of conquering France through Italy. He had not read Caesar in vain. Meantime, he laboured at forming the Army of Italy into a serviceable and devoted tool, to be to him what his legions had been to Caesar. And to this end he devoted his attention. It was characteristic of Napoleon, through- out his career, that he was a man of two or more plans, and he employed the tempered weapon in his hand to carry out whatever plan seemed to him at the moment to be feasible. Consequently, the East still gleamed before him, he :saw also that Italy was possible of consolidation into one Empire, and that in Erance at any moment he could play the part of Cromwell. In Italy, the predominant power to be broken was Austria, that occupied Milan and Mantua, that had an Austrian prince in Tuscany, and was closely allied with Naples. In the division of the Spanish monarchy, Naples had fallen to the lot of the Austrian House, but had been handed over in 1735 to a .Spanish master, the first of the line of Neapolitan Bourbons. But the Queen, a woman of energy and resolute character, was a daughter of Maria Theresa, and, exercising a predominant control over the weak mind of her husband, threw all the force of the Two Sicilies on the side opposed to France. Consequently, it was essential to Napoleon, whatever his ulterior objects -might be, to break the Imperial power. Not less important was it for him to emancipate himself from the control of the Directory. After his first success he had concluded an armistice with the King of Sardinia, without having been empowered so to do, and, indeed, in direct contravention of his instructions. In the sequel he went further. He was aware that every success gained attached his army more closely to him, increased his popularity and power in France, and , weakened the Directors correspondingly. The Government in France was not desirous of protracting the war. All it sought was, in the first place, to obtain a slice of North Italy, which it might give to Austria as compensation for Belgium, and in the second, to put an end to the Papal rule, as Rome was the centre of every plot formed by the emigrants, and had its agents everywhere in the priests. To limit Napoleon's independence of action, and assert its paramount authority, the Directory sent a Commissioner, Clarke, to Bonaparte, with alternative conditions in his pocket, that were to be presented to the Emperor, with whom he alone was authorised to treat for peace. The arrival of Clarke caused Napoleon great annoyance, and he took no pains to disguise it. Clarke was hampered and set aside, and found himself powerless to exercise his functions, reduced to a cipher ; and Bonaparte insisted on acting independently. The French Government was impatient for peace, and Clarke proposed 142 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE to conclude an armistice of three months, in order to facilitate negotiations through Paris ; but this did not meet the views of the General, and he opposed it. Then Clarke produced his instructions from the Government, which were precise on the point. Napoleon rudely rejected them. " If you come here to obey me," said he, " then I am willing to receive you, but if not, pack home to those who sent you, and the sooner the better." The Commissioner had no force at his back to enable him to compel obedience, and remained silent. Indeed, so completely was he overawed by the commanding genius and resolute manner of Napoleon, that he himself wrote to the Directory : " It is indispensable that the General-in-Chief should conduct all the diplomatic operations in Italy." The Directors were forced to give way so far as to order that Clarke was to enter into no negotiations, without first submitting the conditions to the General, but even this concession was unpalatable, and was disregarded by the imperious head of the army. Without authority from the Directory, he deposed the Duke of Modena, and having annexed Bologna, Ferrara, and Reggio to the duchy, he gave them a constitution, and organised them into a Cispadane Republic. His dealings with the Pope were independent of the Directory, and signi- ficant. The five rulers in Paris were fanatics, and determined on making short work with the head of the Roman Catholic Church, and breaking up the nest of anti-republican propagandism under the shadow of S. Peter's. But Bonaparte was aware that a reaction in favour of Christianity and Catholicism was setting in, in France, and he saw that the Spiritual Power was a fact not to be ignored, and which might be useful if conciliated. It was in vain that, in France, Sundays and Holidays had been abolished, and the week altered. The new-fashioned religion of Humanity was derided. The persecutions to which the Catholic Church had been subjected had in- tensified faith, which previously had been vague, and had united its members in a common enthusiasm. Even the most convinced adherents of the Republic were constrained to admit that the religious revolution had largely failed, and that the wisest course to be adopted would be to make some arrangement with the Papacy for the re-establishment of religion. This was urged on political grounds, because it was pointed out that France, in its struggle with England, could reckon on no sympathy, no help, from Ireland, so long as she persecuted and despoiled Rome. Napoleon had no personal religious convictions, but he respected power wherever lodged, and he was alive to the advantage to himself if he were able to pose as a friend of religion and a protector of the Pope. This would not only conciliate to him all the priesthood in Italy, but attach to him as well a large and growing party in France. Accordingly he assumed a peculiar attitude towards the Holy See. He professed the most profound respect for the head of Christendom, and his personal desire for the preservation of the Catholic Church, which he declared was likely to reconquer the world when purified of some of its corruptions. 1 THE CISPADANE REPUBLIC 143 But he was an instrument of an unbelieving, antagonistic Republic. He was commissioned to plunder and bleed. If he did this, it was because he was powerless to evade the obligations laid on him by his superiors. But he solemnly assured the Pope and the clergy that they might rely on him to execute his commission in the most conciliatory manner possible. To the Directory he wrote : " The influence of Rome is incalculable ; it was a great mistake to quarrel with that power." He lost no occasion to speak flattering words of the piety and spotless lives of the prelates of Italy, and to contrast them with the conduct of the abbes of France before the Revolution. He distinguished sharply between the spiritual position of the Pope and his position as a temporal prince. For the Pope, as head of the Church, he exhibited deference, but to his temporal claims he paid no regard. On the 1st February, 1797, Bonaparte issued a proclamation as justification of his march into the States of the Church. He met with no serious opposition. He forbore from entering Rome. He somewhat ostentatiously spared the Pope that humiliation, and thereby earned his gratitude. He signed a Conven- tion with the Holy See at Tolentino, on the 19th of February, without regard to the Commissioners or the Directory. The Pope was to pay in all 30,000,000 liras, and the so-called Legations of the Church, Bologna, Ferrara, and Reggio, were made over to France, and the citadel of Ancona was to be occupied by Republican troops.* This peace, signed by Napoleon, was by no means relished by the Directors, who had desired the complete annihilation of the Papacy. But they were be- coming daily more aware of the mistake they had made in giving Bonaparte the facilities for making himself a Caesar. They complained of his absorbing their powers, but complained in vain. But he did more than absorb power ; he took to himself, also, the spoils of the lands overrun. At first, he sent money to Paris, but the glittering, coveted coin soon ceased to flow, and was replaced by cases of statuary, pictures, and by promises. The Directors complained about this also. Napoleon was ready with his explanation and excuse. The Commissioners they appointed had absorbed the specie. In February, 1797, Napoleon seized on Loretto, but the greater part of the treasure had been already removed ; nevertheless, he obtained seven million francs, which he did not remit to the Directory, but sent them instead the black doll there worshipped. The dearth of money in Paris was not relieved. The Directory was distracted. All attempts to give the assignats the value of metal were unavailing. In the treasury, the ebb was so low that neither officials nor * In his letter of loth February, 1797, this is what he asserts was obtained. Five days after he wrote to state it was but i,ocx),ocx). From the Pope was extracted 15,000,000 fr., to be paid within one month ; 30,000,000 more were to be paid within three months ; horses and cattle were to be furnished to an immense amount ; and the Vatican was to be again plundered of statues, paintings, and rare manuscripts. As Napoleon wrote to the Directory, "We have now all that is beautiful in Italy, except a few objects that remain at Turin and Naples" — 19th February, 1797. 144 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE troops could be paid. This financial famine had been the means of placing Bonaparte in position as Commander-in-Chief He had undertaken to make Italy supply and pay his troops. He was ordered to send to Paris forthwith everything that could be turned to money, to sell Church estates, and all the domains confiscated, and forward the sums thus obtained. He was to impose -contributions on Lombardy, Piedmont, Parma, Modena, Genoa, Leghorn, Venice, and the States of the Church, and pour these vast sums into the empty treasury. But, instead of doing so, he emptied all into the army chest, and only the overflow reached Paris. On the 17th October, 1796, he did indeed send 20,000,000 francs to the Directory, and furnished Kellermann, in command of the Army of the Alps, with 700,000 fr. ; and 2,000,000 he despatched to the Army of the' Rhine. He had sent a million to be expended on the fleet at Toulon, and was highly incensed when the Directors diverted the sum into another channel. He had no intention of enriching " ces gredins " — those scrubs, as he contemptuously called the heads of the Government in France, ^nd he devoted the money extorted from the countries overrun, for the enrich- ment of his own soldiers, and for the equipment of a fleet at Toulon, and ,a flotilla at Ancona. To the repeated complaints of the Directory, not satisfied with marbles and canvases, he had but one answer to give — that their Agents and Commissioners .absorbed the spoils. On the 1 2th October, 1796, Bonaparte wrote of his Army Contractors and Administrators : — " Since I arrived at Milan I have waged war with the swindlers. I have had several tried and punished ; others I denounce. In making this declaration of war, a thousand voices will be raised against me. If two months ago I wished to be Duke of Milan, to-day I desire to be King of Italy. As long as my strength lasts, and I enjoy your confidence, I shall show the swindlers no more pity than the Austrians. The Company Flachat is a nest of robbers without money and without morality. . . . You, no doubt, calculated that your Administrators would rob, but that they would exhibit some sense of shame in so doing. They plunder in a manner so flagrant and impudent, that if I had a month of spare time, I would shoot every one. I never cease having them arrested and tried by court-martial ; it is a regular fair here, where everything is for sale. . . . Thevenin is a robber ; he is insolent in his luxury. Have him arrested, and keep him six months in prison; he is able to pay a war tax of 500,000 francs." On the 6th January, 1797, he wrote to the Directory: "Everyone is venal. The army consumes five times as much as is necessary, because the store- keepers give false receipts, and share with the Commissioners of War. The principal Italian actrices are kept by the officials of the French army ; luxury, depravity, malversation are at their height." There were other excuses — the contributions were not paid in, the confis- x:ated lands could not be sold — the banks did not forward the money paid into them. Even the Leghorn contribution of 40,000,000 did not reach the itching fingers of Barras and Company. Napoleon charged the bankers THE CISPADANE REPUBLIC 145 Flachat with having embezzled it. They were tried by court-martial and acquitted. The firm could show that they had not received the money Napoleon asserted had been paid. Afterwards, under the Empire, it was found advisable to destroy the report of this trial, with the evidence thereat produced.* Napoleon's next step was to set aside the two Commissioners and the Paymaster-General, Denniee, an eminently honest man, and to entrust the management of the funds, wrung from the overrun territories, to an arch- scoundrel, whom he had himself denounced as a " rogue " — the Swiss, Haller ; a man who, he said, " had only come into the country to steal." Nevertheless he made this rogue his confidant, and Haller had to give account of what he received and what he disbursed to none save Napoleon. In the autumn of 1796, the Commissioners did venture to investigate the accounts, when they discovered that a sum of five million francs was un- accounted for.f After that, no more accounts were transmitted to Paris. When the thirty million francs were paid by the Pope, in the spring of 1797, Napoleon kept the entire sum for his army chest. Bonaparte was resolved that the spoil of the land should enrich his soldiers. He knew that money sent to Paris would be pocketed by the Directors, and his soldiers had earned their reward with their blood. Moreover, he was creating Military Corps of Poles, who flocked to him across the Alps, and was raising and organising bodies of Italian Volunteers. Notwithstanding losses in battle, Napoleon's army swelled. On the 8th May, 1796, there were at headquarters at Piacenza, 46,378 men. In October the number had risen to 78,000 men. On the 20th April, 1797, at Treviso, he had 79,364 men ; and including those in garrisons in Italy, as many as 141,220 men. The Army of Italy was personally devoted to him. The soldiers serving under him contrasted their condition with that of their brothers-in-arms under Kellermann, who were inactive and unpaid in the Alps, and those under Moreau and Jourdan, who had been defeated and thrown back. Their young leader led them invariably to victory. " Italy shall be your prey," had been his promise, and he had kept his word. The Directory had first let slip the power, and now the profit was gone as well ; both were in the hands of the new Caesar. '^ Whether, at this time. Napoleon had in view the assumption of a Dictator- ship in Italy, the acquisition of an imperial crown as Caesar, is very doubtful. He did little to conciliate the Italians. Not only were they unmercifully fleeced, but they were deluded with hypocritical professions ; and it suffices to place side by side his proclamations to the people and his letters to the Directory, written at the same time, to show how recklessly he used assurances * In November, 1796, a month after his charge made agains-t the bankers Flachat, he sent a peremptory order to Faypoult, the French Minister at Genoa, to pay in all money received from contribu- tions and sale of lands, to his army chest, and not to expedite it to Paris ; so also, all the Leghorn con- tribution was to be deUvered to him, and not sent to the Directory. t Letter of N. B. to the Directory, of 12 October, 1796. L 146 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE which he had no intention of fulfilling, and which events must show the Italians were used merely to deceive them. The Italian patriot, Ugo Foscolo, had believed in the protestations of Napoleon, had refused to open his eyes to fact? ; it was not till after reading the Treaty of Campo-Formio that his faith in Bonaparte, as the liberator of his country, failed, and then, throwing it down, he cried, " Finis Italiae ! " XXI LEOBEN AND CAMPO-FORMIO (January— October i8, 1797) A FOURTH Imperial army had been formed, and poured through the ravines of Tyrol, to burst on the resolute and compact body of men commanded by Bonaparte in the plain, and to overwhelm it. Again it met with defeat, and was driven back into the Alps, in the battle of the Plateau of Rivoli. It had been composed in part of volunteers raised in Vienna, who marched under a banner embroidered by the hands of the Empress herself, and of troops raised in the recently acquired Polish provinces. The army numbered fifty thousand. The battle raged from the 19th to the 27th Nivose, and though contested with great valour, was lost through the incapacity of Alvinzi, who allowed himself on this occasion to be as completely out-generaled as at Areola. The shattered remnants of his host retreated to the mountains, and the fortress of Mantua surrendered to the French on the 14th Pluviose (2nd February, 1797). The war in Italy seemed terminated. The march of two columns towards the gorge of the Apennines had forced the Court of Rome to conclude peace with France. But when Bonaparte flattered himself that he could give repose to his soldiers, he learned that the Aulic Council, believing that it had no other general capable of resisting him except the Archduke Charles, had transferred him from the army defending the Rhine and Danube to that which had been mismanaged by Alvinzi. This necessitated immediate preparation to renew the struggle. Some divisions of the Army of the Rhine, under Bernadotte, were sent to strengthen that under Napoleon. The Archduke Charles found himself in command of a demoralised and dispirited remnant, very inferior in number to the army opposed to him. He demanded reinforcements, but at least a couple of weeks would elapse before they arrived. At Paris the Directory was impatient for peace. The command of the Army of the Sambre and Meuse had been taken from Jourdan and committed to Hoche, a very able general, and entirely relied on by the Democrats. Moreau, at the head of the Army on the Upper Rhine, was ordered, along with Hoche, to advance towards Vienna, so as to co-operate with Napoleon in Italy. The latter was uneasy. Unless he took precipitate action, and brought the campaign to an end before Hoche and Moreau had 147 148 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE effected great things, he would share laurels with them. There was something worse to be feared. He dreaded lest the supreme command should be trans- ferred from him — whom the Directory regarded with mistrust — to Hoche, on whom it could rely. He thereupon resolved to risk all in a forward movement before the armies of the Rhine had begun the campaign. If he succeeded — then the peace he would conclude would be due to himself alone. If, however, he succeeded not only in driving back the Archduke — of that he was certain — but of pushing on to the gates of Vienna, then he would place himself in a most precarious position. Drawn into the hereditary States — there a popula- tion, enthusiastically devoted to the Emperor, would be sure to rise en masse, and attack the Republican army on their flanks and rear ; he would also have behind him the ravines of Tyrol, Carniola, and Styria, covered with sharp- shooters, and still further in the rear, the Venetian Republic — which, though neutral, had been harassed and pillaged past endurance — and the other Italian States only waiting for a reverse to rise against the common foe. If he had considered the advantage of France, then certainly he would have awaited the advance of Hoche and Moreau, and not have run the tremendous risk of an advance on Vienna unsupported. A peace concluded at the gates of Vienna, with the three French armies united — victorious along the lines of their march — would have been at the dictation of France. But this did not suit the interests of Napoleon ; and he took the forward step. After defeating the Archduke, in the month of March, on the Tagliamento, he advanced; thereupon the Archduke retreated slowly, and in admirable order, towards Vienna, in the hopes of receiving reinforcements from the capital and from Hungary. General Landen was driving back the French detachments on the Upper Adige, and was almost on the verge of the plains of Lombardy. The Archduke was full of hope. Bonaparte, on the other hand, was anxious ; but disguising this feeling, and suddenly pretending to deplore the horrors of war, and to be desirous, merely for humanity's sake, for a peace, he wrote a flattering " philosophical " letter, as he called it, to the Archduke, calling him the Saviour of Germany, and representing the English — " the shopkeepers on the Thames" — as those alone concerned in the continuation of the war. (31st March.) The Archduke referred him for an answer to Vienna. Bonaparte was now at Judenburg, in Upper Styria, about eight days' march from Vienna. It was the weakness of this plan of invasion by the valleys of the Danube and Po which, later, lost Italy to the Directory, and it would have ruined Napoleon had he not now made peace. The Alps acted as a barrier between the two invading armies, and served as a covered way for the advance of a defending force between them, to threaten their flank or to cut their communi- cations. This was also the reason of Kellermann's apparent inactivity in Napoleon's rear. Moreover, Napoleon's line of communication between Nice and Genoa was, in places, within range of hostile cruisers. This made him solicitous about the fleet. Knowing how important for his safety was the forward march of the army o a > a < a i LEOBEN AND CAMPO-FORMIO 151 of the Sambre and Meuse, and of that of the Rhine, he at once sent money to them, as he did also to that of the Alps, and a large sum to Toulon for the fleet. At the same time, in order to protect his rear, his agents were engaged in stirring up a revolution in the State of Venice, and his officers in charge of detachments quartered there were enjoined not to quell the disorders, nor to suffer the Venetian Government to do so. By this means he hoped not only to paralyse that State, but also to furnish an excuse for the great act of treachery he was meditating with regard to it. On the 7th April Bonaparte consented to an armistice with the Austrians, and announced this fact to the Directory. "Our other armies," he said, "have not yet passed the Rhine, and we are within twenty leagues of Vienna ; the Army of Italy is, therefore, exposed alone to the efforts of one of the first powers of Europe. The Venetians are arousing the peasants, bringing their priests into the field, and setting in motion the whole mechanism of their anti- quated Government." The fact really was, that the demagogues, stirred up by his agents, were clamouring against the oligarchy of the few families of the Golden Book. At the same time great exasperation was felt at the out- rages committed by the French soldiers quartered in a neutral State, and the peasants in places rose in retaliation. On the 9th April Bonaparte wrote to the Doge of Venice, threatening war unless the armed peasants were disbanded. " Do you think," he asked, " that because I am in the heart of Germany I am powerless to cause the first nation in the universe to be respected ? " Junot was the bearer of this missive to the Doge. In some instances French soldiers had been killed, but, as Bonaparte himself wrote on a former occasion to the Directory, " it was necessary to exaggerate the assassinations committed against our troops." (July 20th, 1796.) To General Kilmaine he sent orders to fall unexpectedly on some village where the insurgents were not in force, and to burn it, and to arrest all the Venetian senators and nobles. In Vienna great was the consternation at the advance of Napoleon, and a strong party urged that peace should be concluded. The armistice was accordingly taken advantage of for coming to terms, and a preliminary agree- ment was signed at Leoben on the i8th April. By a secret article, it was arranged that Austria was to receive the neutral state of Venice, in compensa- tion for the loss of Lombardy. Immediately the news of this important treaty was despatched by Bonaparte, not only to the Directory, but also to Generals Hoche and Moreau. The former had crossed the Rhine at Neuwied, driven back the Austrians at Heddersdorf, and was on the point of cutting off their retreat, and capturing the whole army, when a courier brought him the tidings of the signature of the preliminaries, and arrested him in the midst of his successes. The army of Moreau, led by Dessaix, had also crossed the Rhine below Strassburg, and had driven the Austrians before it through the Black Forest. It also was obliged to withdraw, without accomplishing more, for the same 152 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE reason. By this means Napoleon had reaped the glory, but it was at the expense of France. Again he had transgressed his authority. Clarke was the authorised Commissioner, entrusted with the arrangement of armistices and of treaties. Bonaparte had left him behind at Milan. The General wrote to the Directory to ask confirmation of the treaty, knowing very well that it could not refuse. Napoleon now hastened back to Italy to pick a quarrel with Venice, so as to carry out the secret agreement with Austria. The excuse was afforded by an unfortunate accident. A French vessel, against harbour rules, had moored near the gunpowder magazine of Lido. The captain, called Tangier, refused to listen to the remonstrances of the commandant of the port, and that officer opened fire. Langier and a few men were killed. This gave Napoleon the excuse he desired. He called on the Venetian Government to dismiss the British Ambassador, to deliver up the British merchandise in the magazines, and to pay 70,000,000 francs. He further ordered all Venetian ships in Leghorn and Ancona to be seized. The Democrats in the State were set in motion by the agents of Napoleon. They rose in insurrection against the Doge and the nobles, set up the tree of liberty in the Square of S. Mark, roused the people to rebellion in Bergamo, Brescia, and other towns, and got possession of the castles. Napoleon en- couraged them with the hopes that by means of a revolution they would obtain a free, democratic republican Government, composed of delegates and repre- sentatives of the people. Then, under the pretence of keeping order, he introduced troops into Venice, and next, in plainer words, told the Doge and the Senate that the people must have a new Constitution, and demanded their resignation. Overawed, they obeyed. Bonaparte then took possession of the arsenal and docks, with all their stores, and all ships of war ; a provisional Government of the required democratic form was set up, and the Radicals danced round the tree of liberty in their red caps, singing " Ca ira'' believing that what had been promised them was given in good faith, and without the smallest foreboding that they and their country had already been signed away to the Austrian Emperor. At the same time, Genoa was democratised and affiliated. The Senate of the Republic had endeavoured to remain neutral, but had secretly co-operated with the French. The King of Piedmont cast covetous eyes on Genoa, and the thought to indemnify him therewith, as Austria was indemnified with Venice, suggested itself to the mind of Napoleon. The manner in which the old Republic of Venice had been treated was not allowed to pass without comment from the nobler spirits in France ; but the odium it provoked injured the Republican Directors, while the advantages that were purchased by the transaction were ascribed to Bonaparte. The summer was spent by Napoleon at the chateau of Montebello, near Milan, that was situated sufficiently high to be healthy, and which commanded a beautiful view over the Lombard plains. There he maintained considerable state ; he had his body-guard, and imposed a strict etiquette on all who sur- LEOBEN AND CAMPO-FORMIO 153 rounded him. He no longer received his aides-de-camp at his table ; he dined, as it were, in public, after the manner of the French kings. His saloons were constantly filled by the great nobles and other distinguished men of Italy who sought an introduction. Josephine was there as Queen in his little Court, his uncle Fesch had arrived, his lovely sister Pauline, and his brothers Joseph and Louis. Bourrienne, who came to him at Leoben, says, " I no longer addressed him as I had been accustomed to do. I appreciated too well his personal import- ance. His position placed too great a social distance between him and me not to make me feel the necessity of fashioning my demeanour accordingly." ALLEGORICAL ENGRAVING OF THE PERIOD. Representing the humiliation of Austria, and the exaltation of Bonaparte. Miot de Melito* gives us a glimpse of the working of Napoleon's mind at the time. Napoleon spoke often to him very plainly. " What I have accom- plished," said he, one day, " up to the present is nothing. I am only at the commencement of my career. Do you think that 1 have triumphed in Italy for the honour and glory of the lawyers of the Directory, for Carnot and for Barras ? Do you think that this is done in order to found a Republic ? What an idea ! A Republic of 30,000,000 souls, with our habits and our vices ! Where would be the possibility? It is a chimera with which the French are enamoured, but which will pass away, like many another. They require glory, and their vanity must be satisfied ; they have no conception of liberty. Look at the army ! The victories we have gained have restored to the French soldier his true character. I am everything to him. Let the Directory endeavour to deprive me of my command, and it will see who * Mimoires^ Paris, 1858. 154 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE is master. The nation requires a chief who has acquired glory, and not theories and phrases. Give them playthings, and they will be content to be led anywhere." The delay over the conclusion of the peace, of which only the preliminaries had been arranged at Leoben, irritated him. Although agreed as to the spolia- tion of their neighbours, each side desired to gain rather more than the other allowed. Accordingly, on both sides, reinforcements were sent to the armies, and preparations were made to renew the contest should a rupture ensue. At length Napoleon, impatient to have the matter settled, when in confer- ence with the Austrian plenipotentiary, flung down a costly porcelain vase, and dashed it into pieces, exclaiming, " I will break your monarchy, like this vase." The treaty of Campo-Formio was signed on the following day (i8th October, 1797)- The Directory, on the 29th of September, had forbidden the cession of Venice to Austria ; but Napoleon was strong enough to disregard his instruc- tions. Whatever may have been Bonaparte's feelings towards the Directory when he took the command of the Army of Italy, a year and a half of campaign and of victory in the field, of success in political combinations, had ended in his en- tertaining for the Government a sense of profound contempt, which he made no scruple to exhibit by his independent conduct, and which he expressed to his confidants. He believed that spies were employed by the Directory to watch him, and report on his proceedings. He was convinced that General Clarke had secret instructions to this effect, and was instructed to arrest him if an oppor- tunity offered for so doing. Whether he would be able to bell the cat, had not perhaps entered into the consideration of the Directors. For whom, then, for what, was Bonaparte fighting ? Not for France. Public opinion, though dazzled at his victories, was against the prosecution of the war, and the acquisition of tutelage over Italy. Not for the five " gredins " tricked up in Francis I.'s costume — hat, pantaloons, and lace, seated on rush-bottomed chairs, at a three-legged table, dictating the affairs of France. Not for any principle. He had ceased to believe in those which had swept France like a hurricane, and, in proclaiming " Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," had laid all men low, and rendered the country bankrupt. Not for the Italian people ; he despised them as unworthy of freedom ; he professed in all Italy he had en- countered but two menr He fought, negotiated, concluded peace, extorted contributions for his own advancement, to serve his own interests ; but in which direction his ambition was to look, that was not as yet clear to himself. * *' Good God," said he, "how rare men are ! There are eighteen millions in Italy, and I have with difficulty found two, Dandolo and Melzi." Ibid.^ 57. To Talleyrand he wrote, on 7th October, 1797 : "You little know these people here. They do not deserve 40,000 Frenchmen being killed for them. You imagine that liberty can make an enervated, superstitious, pantaloon-like, and cowardly nation accomplish great things. You desire me to do miracles. I do not know how to work them." XXII THE I 8th FRUCTIDOR (September 4, 1797) ^TT^HAT a moment would arrive when the legislative and the executive -*■ powers would be in conflict was inevitable. Sieyes saw that when the Constitution of III. was being elaborated, and he drew back from participa- tion. The body of Five Hundred had been composed of two-thirds of the Convention. In the spring of 1797, one-third of the Representatives of the people was required to withdraw, and one of the Directors had also to relinquish office. France, in the meantime, had become impatient at having regicides at the head of its Government — men, moreover, without principle. There was no guarantee as to the future. The country was exhausted by wars — glorious indeed, but bringing to France no particular advantage ; on the other hand, involving her in responsibilities that might be irksome, and provoking further military operations. The violent measures adopted by the Convention, in order to obtain for themselves places in the new Councils, had not been forgotten or forgiven, and there was no prospect of those who stepped out being re-elected. The Direc- tory trembled at the prospect opening before them. They had to contend against the Anarchists, the Constitutionalists, and the Royalists. The first had already broken out in the conspiracy of Baboeuf on the 12th Fructidor (the night of the loth-iith September), and had been crushed by the soldiery; the Constitutionals assembled in the club of the Rue Clichy, and murmured against the despotic measures adopted by the Directory. Behind them, sometimes co-operating with them, was the body of those inclined for a restora- tion of Royalty. On the 9th April, 1797, the fears of the Directory were stimulated by the result of the elections. In Paris, in Lyons, and in Marseilles, the people had chosen as their representatives men opposed to the Directory, and ready to favour a return to Monarchy. General Pichegru v/as elected President of the Legislative Council, by 387 voices against 57, and Pichegru was known to be opposed to Democratic despotism ; what was not known was, that he was in correspondence with the Bourbons. His recognised moderation had been the cause of his having hitherto been refused a command of troops. 155 156 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE In the Directory a different condition of affairs existed. Letourneur had stepped out, and his place had been filled by Barthelemy, a mild old man, who had been ambassador at Basle. There was already a schism in the executive. Carnot disliked and objected, to the unconstitutional proceedings of Barras and his tail — Rewbell and Lareveillere. The gulf between them widened daily, as the majority interfered with the liberty of the Press, sharpened the laws against emigrants, and tampered with the freedom of the elections. The Moderates, who preponderated in the Legislative Council of Five Hundred, and who unquestionably represented the feeling of the people of France, were Republicans, desirous of preserving all those advantages gained by the Revolution, at the same time resolved that the country should be governed by constitutional methods, and not be plunged into wars at the will of an ambitious general, be involved in alliances and responsibilities without being consulted, and be ruled by irresponsible Dictators. These latter were seriously alarmed for themselves. In the event of a restoration of the Monarchy, their heads were certain to fall, as they were all regicides ; neither had they any desire to be called to account by the representatives of the people for their conduct, which was but too culpable not to be impeached. The strain was much like that on the 13th Vendemiaire ; and it was obvious to Barras and his two followers that to hold their position they must have recourse to the same method as before — call the military arm to their aid. The decision must be made by the sword. The Royalists and the Constitutionals trusted in Pichegru and in Moreau. The former was in secret correspendence with the exiled royalists ; the latter was a man of moderation, and not likely to forgive the guillotining of his father. On the other hand, Hoche was a man of fiery radicalism, and of un- questionable ability. Barras knew that he could rely on Napoleon, but he was also shrewd enough to perceive the personal ambition of the successful commander of the Army of Italy. There was nothing to be feared from Hoche ; and he summoned him to his aid. A curious passage in the Histoire Secrete du Directoire, attributed to Fabre de I'Aude, shows how that already a true estimate was being formed of the character of Napoleon by men of observation and intelligence. The author was one day about this time in conversation with the poet, Joseph Chenier, when he expressed the wish that France might see Bonaparte, Pichegru, Carnot, and two others as Directors ; then, said he, the Republic would be looked after properly. Chenier laughed and replied, "The first two would begin by strangling the others, and then would proceed to eat each other up." "■ What is your opinion of the young Corsican ? " asked Fabre. " He will stroke the Republic," answered the poet, "till she shuts her eyes, and then he will bind her fast in chains. I have observed him closely. He has the look, the movement, the way of speech of a tyrant ; the Timoleon who would free us of him would deserve well of his country." " And what do you think of Pichegru ? " asked Fabre next. " He," answered Chenier, " has not got the THE i8th FRUCTIDOR 157 resolution to usurp the mastery ; he will work for the old gentlemen who are over us. Bonaparte will exploit the country to his own advantage ; Pichegru sell it to the highest bidder." That Pichegru was scheming the restoration of the Monarchy, no one knew better than Bonaparte, who had intercepted a correspondence between him and the Royalist agent, the Count D'Entraigues ; but, characteristically, he did not reveal this to the Directory, but allowed matters to take their .course, hoping that the conflict in Paris might thereby reach a head, and he would be called in to decide between the parties. On the 23rd June, the discontent among the Constitutional Party found open expression, when the delegate Dumolard stood up, and in the Council of Five Hundred demanded an explanation of the conduct of the Directory in the matter of Italy, and the negotiations with Austria. Dumolard was a man of moderation, and he had more than once praised ■Bonaparte. Even now, he said that he did not ascend the tribune to blame the General, but to interpellate the Directors. Dumolard was followed by Doulcet, to whom Bonaparte owed his promo- lion ; and he, whilst approving the principles advocated by Dumolard, cast blame on the Directors, and not on Napoleon. When the report of this inter- pellation reached the General in Italy, it threw him into a paroxysm of fury, real or simulated, although he had absolutely nothing to complain of. But he would not lose the chance offered of giving a push to the rotten Directory. It was his object at this moment to precipitate its fall, whilst his victories were still fresh. With his own hand he wrote : — "This motion, printed by order of the Assembly, it is evident, is issued against me. I was entitled, after having five times concluded peace, and given the death-blow to the coalition, if not to civic triumphs, at least to live tran- quilly under the protection of the first magistrates of the Republic. At present I find myself ill-treated, persecuted, and disparaged by every shameful means which their policy brings to the aid of persecution. I would have been in- different to everything except the species of opprobrium with which the first magistrates of the Republic endeavour to overwhelm me. After having ■deserved well of my country by my very last act, I am not bound to endure to hear myself accused in a manner as absurd as it is atrocious. I had not expected that a manifesto, signed by emigrants paid by England, should obtain more credit with the Council of Five Hundred than the evidence of eighty thousand men, than mine. ... If only base men, who are dead to the feeling of patriotism and national glory, had spoken of me thus, I would not have com- plained. I would have disregarded it ; but I have a right to complain of the degradation to which the first magistrates of the Republic reduce those who have aggrandised the French name and carried it to so high a pitch of glory. Citizens, Directors, I wish to live in tranquillity, if the poignards of Clichy will allow me to live. You have employed me in negotiations. I am not very fit to conduct them." This precious letter deserves close attention. It is in marked contrast with the extreme temperance with which Dumolard had spoken, and the forbearance with which he had treated Bonaparte. All that the Deputy had demanded was 158 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE the constitutional right of the Assembly to exercise its legitimate control over the foreign policy of the Government. He objected, as he had a right to object, to wars being engaged in, and treaties being concluded by irresponsible Generals, without the country being allowed to judge whether the wars were just, and whether the terms agreed to, on the conclusion of a peace, were advantageous and honourable. The weight of the condemnation fell on the Directory. Yet Napoleon launched forth in angry rebuke of the Directors, as though they were responsible for the interpellation. He resented all comment on his actions and criticism of his conduct, in a national, representative Assembly. In his wrath he requested his recall, but tacked to his request a significant threat. The pretence that the Club of Clichy threatened his life with daggers was nonsense ; but in his irritation he knew no moderation, and he actually despatched a stiletto with his letter, as a specimen of the weapons wherewith his life was menaced. As he often said, there is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and this step he now took. He called on the Government to suppress the reactionary journals that dared to criticise his conduct, to break the presses, and to tolerate only such newspapers as were officially inspired. The crisis neared. One side or other would appeal to arms ; the Directory to maintain its supremacy, or the Constitutionals to upset it. The latter party was, unhappily, clogged with the Royalists, who com- manded no sympathy among the soldiers or the peasantry. The latter were afraid of losing the domains they had secured ; the former were opposed to a Royalist restoration, because the young officers had no inclination to see themselves displaced to make way for noble emigres. Aware of their danger, the Directory sounded the army. It was illegal, according to the Constitution, to call on the soldiers to debate on political matters, but they took occasion of the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille (July 14th) as a means of exciting their political and partisan feelings. The commanders of the armies on the Rhine, on the Meuse, in the Alps, and in Italy were invited to pronounce for the Directory, and asked if they could be relied on in the event of a struggle. Moreau gave an evasive reply ; Hoche was ready ; so also was Napoleon. The latter issued the following address to his soldiers : — •"To-day is the anniversary of the 14th July. You see before you the names of your comrades who have fallen on the field of honour, for the liberty of your country. They have furnished you with a brilliant example. You owe yourselves entirely to the Republic, to the welfare of thirty millions of French- men, and to the glory of that name which has received new lustre by your victories. " Soldiers, I know that you are deeply affected at the misfortunes that threaten your country ; but your country is in no real danger. The same men who triumphed over a coalition of Europe exist still. Mountains separate us from France ; but^ if needful, you will cross them with the rapidity of an eagky to support the Constitution^ and to protect the Republican Government. THE i8th FRUCTIDOR 159 " Soldiers, the Government watches over the sanctuary of the laws. The Royalists, as soon as they show themselves, will cease to exist. Do not be alarmed ; let us swear by the manes of the heroes who fell beside us in the struggle for liberty ; let us swear on our new standards — Implacable war to the enemies of the Republic and of the Constitution." There is in this address a cool effrontery and a deliberate perversion of facts which are almost amusing. It exhibits the manner in which Napoleon had adopted the Republican cant to pervert truths. It was illegality, interfer- ence with Constitutional rights, that had made the Directory obnoxious to the French people. The generals under Napoleon drew up addresses to the Government, to which they invited the soldiers to subscribe. The most violent of these was that of General Augereau, who threatened at once to march to Paris at the head of his troops. This announcement aroused the greatest excitement in the capital. It was a declaration of civil war ; and it was because he was afraid of the Frankenstein he had created that Barras deemed it expedient to call to his aid the less ambitious and less dreaded Hoche. The then Minister of War was dismissed, and Hoche appointed in his room. At the head of a portion of his troops, Hoche entered Paris on the 17th July, under the colour of proceeding to the coast to attempt an invasion of England. But as he passed through the streets, he was saluted with cries of " We are being surrounded — besieged by cannon and by troops." The Directory was intimidated. Barras thought he had been too precipitate, that the moment for striking with effect was not arrived, and he hastily cancelled the orders he had given and bade the soldiers withdraw (28th July). With bitterness in his heart, wounded and deceived, Hoche withdrew to his camp on the Rhine, there suddenly and mysteriously to die.* The death of Hoche, and the apathy of Moreau, left Barras no other re- source than to appeal to Napoleon. If the conqueror of Italy was to assist him, it must be with more circumspection and less display. Bonaparte had, in the meanwhile, sent his aide-de-camp, Lavallette, to Paris, to inform him how matters stood. Carnot and Barras had come to an open quarrel over the rickety table in the Council of the Ancients. " There is not a flea on your whole body which is not justified in spitting in your face ! " was the elegant exclamation of the latter. " I despise your insults," answered Carnot, " but the day will come when I shall give you a suitable reply." Barras was determined that that day should not arrive. " I will kill him ! " he exclaimed to his colleagues. Lavallette goes on to say : — " The house of Barras was open to me. All his speeches breathed hatred and vengeance. A month before the catastrophe took place it was secretly re- solved to make it terrible, and the victims were all marked out. My position and my duty forbade my taking any part in the contest, but I wrote the truth * Accusations of poison were made against the Royalists and against Napoleon ; they were wholly unfounded. The Directory ordered a post-mortem examination, which revealed nothing. i6o THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE to General Bonaparte. I observed to him that he would tarnish his glory if he gave any support to acts of violence, which the situation of the Government did not make necessary ; that nobody would pardon him if he joined the Directory in their plan to overthrow the Constitution and Liberty ; that proscriptions were about to take place against the National Representatives, and against citizens whose virtues made them worthy of respect ; that punishments would be inflicted without trial ; and that the hatred resulting from such measures would extend, not only to the Directory, but to the whole system of Republi- can Government. Besides, it was by no means certain that the party that was to be proscribed really desired the return of the Bourbons." * Barras was uneasy when he found that the agent of Bonaparte wrote letters in cipher to his master ; and he became more so when Napoleon, in his corre- spondence, avoided all allusion to the interior situation of France, and then for six weeks ceased to write. The letters of Lavallette had made him hesitate. He deemed it advisable not himself to appear on the scene, but to control the results by means of his agents ; and for this purpose he employed two of very different character and calibre — the vain firebrand Augereau, daring, but devoid of brains, and the cold and cautious Bernadotte. The success of the Directory was essential to Bona- parte ; but he desired to avoid being again associated with a street fight, in which he would have to blow Frenchmen into eternity with a whiff of grape. This he would leave to Augereau, on whom all the blame of failure and un- popularity of success might be cast. To assist Barras, he sent him three million francs. He also despatched money to the several armies, and to the fleet. This was a notice to the soldiers and sailors, to whom it was that they must look to find the pay that the Government was incapable of furnishing. As Colonel Jung happily says, Barras accomplished the 13th Vendemiaire with Bonaparte, Bonaparte accomplished the i8th Fructidor with Barras, in preparation for the i8th Brumaire, which he was about to undertake and carry through without Barras. "For the apprentice of Ajaccio, the i8th Fructidor was a coup d'essai, a sort of political sounding." f Barras had money, supplied by Bonaparte, and he had troops. Detach- ments of troops were secretly introduced into Paris, and placed under the command of Augereau, who rode about in splendid regimentals, glittering with diamonds, the spoil of the shrines of Italy, announcing that he had come to kill all Royalists. The Legislature, alarmed, decreed the immediate arming of the National Guard, and that Pichegru should place himself at their head. But whilst he hesitated, Augereau put some grape and canister into his guns, and, with twelve thousand men and forty pieces of artillery, surrounded the Tuileries. Eight hundred Grenadiers of the Guard were under arms behind the rails to defend the Legislative bodies, but they had been gained with the money forwarded by Napoleon. Pichegru and above sixty other members of the * Memoirs of Lavallette (English ed., 1831), i. 253. t Jung, iii. 178. THE i8th FRUCTIDOR i6i Legislature were thrown into the Temple. Carnot and Barthelemy were ejected from the Directory, and their places filled with Merlin de Douai, a timid, submissive lawyer, and FranCois de Neufchateau, a scribbler of senti- mental ve'rses. The arrested Deputies, and the editors, proprietors, and writers of forty- two journals, without trial, were despatched to perish in the swamps of Cayenne. On the 1st Vendemiaire the Directors and the Ministers, and all the constituted authorities, marched to the Champ de Mars to celebrate the New Year, according to the Revolutionary Calendar ; and Barras, standing at the altar of La Patrie, harangued the multitude on the great triumph that had been won over the enemies of the Government. The coup d'etat of the i8th Fructidor owed its success to Bonaparte, who had pulled all the threads, and had supplied men and means to make it successful, without in any way showing his hand. It was as important to him as to the three Directors. It had swept aside all those likely to criticise his action, but he was perfectly aware that the Directors he had sustained eyed him with suspicion. So long as Hoche lived, they had another to whom to turn ; but the oppor- tune death of Hoche left Napoleon in undisturbed mastery. The five gentle- men dressed up in theatrical cloaks, with round caps on their heads, and rosettes on their pumps, who figured at the head of the Government, Bonaparte knew served as a mere stop-gap, till it suited his convenience to turn them out. The Constitution of the Year III. was rotten, and inspired no regard. It would be hard to say whether the Directory inspired more contempt or dislike. Barras was afraid of his young protege, and would gladly have been rid of him had it been possible. Meanwhile, Talleyrand, who had been appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, with insight as to the person with whom the power lay, had begun a correspondence with the conqueror of Italy. After the i8th Fructidor, Augereau, who had made himself useful, but was now troublesome, was dismissed to take the command of the Army of the Rhine and Moselle, where he blustered and bragged that he was a better man than Bonaparte. As Barras and his confederates felt that the ground under their feet was rocking, they knew of no other means for retaining their position, than by dis- tracting public attention from themselves by foreign war. A condition of war allowed of much independence of action to themselves, and had this additional advantage, that it kept generals and soldiers employed at a distance ; and so long as an army maintained itself at the expense of a country overrun, there was no immediate occasion for bringing hostilities to an end. The Directors accordingly wrote to Napoleon to break off negotiations with Austria ; but to this he paid no attention, and he signed the Treaty of Campo- Formio against their orders. i62 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Bourrienne, who was with Napoleon at the time as his secretary, says — " At this period Napoleon was still swayed with the impulse of the age. He thought of nothing but Representative Governments. Often has he said to me, ' I should like the era of such to be dated from my time.'" But his acts belie his words. That he flourished such phrases as had become popular is certain. They still told on the soldiery, they had effect on the population of Italy. But that other thoughts were in his mind would appear from the question put to General Dupuis, "Que feriez-vous, si je me faisais roi d'ltalie?" To which Dupuis answered, " Je vous tuerais de ma main." XXIII IN PARIS (October 17, 1797— May 4, 179S) "nr^HE peace articles between France and -^ Austria had been signed at Campo-Formio, ■on the 17th October. The Emperor ceded to France all the Netherlands, and the left bank •of the Rhine, with Mayence, the great outpost and bulwark of Germany. He gave up, nominally to the people of North Italy, but virtually to the French, all that he had held in Lombardy ; he acknowledged the independence of the Milanese •and Mantuan States, under their new name of the Cisalpine Republic ; and he consented that the French Republic should have the Ionian Islands, which then belonged to Venice, together with the Venetian possessions in Albania. On the other hand, the French Republic handed over Venice, with its territory in Italy as far as the Adige, together with Istria and Dalmatia. But the provinces between the Adige and the Adda were to be incorporated into the Cisalpine Republic ; Modena, and the Papal provinces of Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna, Faenza, and Rimini were also annexed to this North Italian Republic. The treaty of Campo-Formio had been concluded in all haste by Napoleon, •against the orders received by him from the Directory, and only a few hours before a second courier from Paris was due with more emphatic condemnation ■of his agreement to give up Venetia to the Emperor. But if the Government in Paris was dissatisfied, so also was Thugut, the Imperial Prime Minister, who had been overborne by the determination of the populace, the nobility, and the Court to have peace at any price. He saw that this was no enduring peace, that it was cobbled up to suit Napoleon's convenience, and that it would be torn to shreds so soon as he saw an opportunity for renewing the conflict. The peace of Campo-Formio was a necessity to Napoleon. The Alps were 163 BUST BY THORWALDSEN. i64 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE putting on their winter caps, and snow and short days would impede opera- tions against Austria. He had gained a foothold on the Adriatic, and was now turning a wistful eye on Malta. He had formed the design of an Oriental campaign, in order to outflank Austria, and nip Germany between France on one side and a victorious army of the East on the other. To facilitate the execution of this scheme, he had devoted much attention to the formation of a navy. That he might obtain leave to carry it out, it was necessary for him to visit Paris. On the 13th September, he wrote to the Minister of Foreign Affairs : "Why should we not seize on the island of Malta? Admiral Brueys might anchor there and take it. Four hundred knights and a regiment of five hundred men alone constitute the garrison of Valetta. The inhabitants are favourable to us, and are sick of their knights. With the isle of S. Peter in our possession, ceded us by the King of Sardinia, with Malta, Corfu, &c., we shall be masters of the Mediterranean. If, upon making peace with England, we are obliged to cede the Cape of Good Hope, it will be necessary for us to secure Egypt. To armies such as ours, indifferent to all religions — to that of the Mahomedan, the Copt, the Arab, and to Idolatry — we can respect one like another." Napoleon was aware that he had everything in the hollow of his hand. Pichegru was in exile, Moreau in disgrace, Hoche was dead. He was without a rival, save the braggart Augereau, and he took the first opportunity after his return to Paris to have him sent to kick his heels at Perpignan. The Directory was discredited. The army was devoted to him, and the people of France were looking towards him as one who might give them a stable and respect- able Government. As was the way with him when he had a scheme in his head and was pre- pared to act energetically, he feigned lassitude, sickness, a longing for repose, and distaste for honours. On the 25th September, he wrote : " I beg you will replace me, and accept my resignation. . . . My health, which is greatly shattered, demands repose and tranquillity. Too long has great power been lodged in my hands." On October ist: "The arrangements I make at this moment constitute the last service I can render to my country. My health is entirely broken. I can hardly mount my horse. I need two years' repose." On the loth October, when the treaty of Campo-Formio was virtually con- cluded, he assured the Directory that nothing now remained for him but to take hold of the plough of Cincinnatus, and set an example how a man should respect the Government, and do all in his power to set aside the danger of a military despotism — the rock on which so many Republics had been wrecked. Nothing, however, was further from his thoughts than retirement from the scene. He was, at the time, in private correspondence with Talleyrand and Sieyes relative to a new Constitution. He drew out his scheme, and submitted it to them for consideration. In preparing for his return to Paris, Napoleon had two ends in view — alternative plans ; the one, if the aspect of affairs in France proved such as promised success, then at once to upset the Directory. IN PARIS 165 If, however, the time for such a bold venture had not arrived, then to prosecute his Oriental scheme, and urge the Directory to give him a free hand to occupy Egypt and push East, either with the object of attacking England through India, or else of circumventing the head of the Mediterranean, and crushing the Ottoman Empire. On the eve of his departure from Italy, Bonaparte issued a proclamation to the Cisalpine Republic he had called into existence, stuffed with commonplaces about freedom and popular representation, the overthrow of tyrannies, and the consecration of the will of the people. At the same time, he took measures to place his own creatures in the administration. Simultaneously, also, he advised his brother Joseph, who was representative of the French Republic at Rome, to use underhand means to stir up revolution both there and in Naples, so as to provide an excuse for interference, and the overthrow of the Papal sovereignty and the Neapolitan kingdom. On the 17th October he wrote to Talleyrand: "Our Government must destroy the English Monarchy, or expect itself to be destroyed by these intriguing and enterprising islanders. The present moment offers a capital opportunity. Let us concentrate all our efforts on the navy, and annihilate England. That done, Europe is at our feet." To the Directory he wrote, on the 5th November : " For an expedition against England we require — ist, good naval officers; 2nd, a great army, well commanded; 3rd, an intelligent and determined general-in-chief ; 4th, thirty million francs in ready money. . . . Although I truly need repose, yet I shall not refuse, as far as possible, to sacrifice myself for my country." As Napoleon said, the opportunity for an invasion of England was come. She was without an ally, the fleet was in mutiny, the Bank had suspended cash payments ; moreover, rebellion was simmering in Ireland. An invasion of Great Britain was determined on, Bonaparte appointed in command, and the cream of the Army of Italy was drafted to form that of England. On his way through Switzerland, Napoleon arrested and imprisoned the banker Bontemps, who had assisted Carnot to escape proscription. Bonaparte owed much to Carnot ; he had been for long on terms of friendship with him, and had so completely hoodwinked him up to the eve of the i8th Fructidor, that the Director even then believed him trustworthy. Napoleon passed through Nyon, where he was hiding, and Carnot illumined his windows. " I was so positive," wrote he in his Metnoires, " that Bonaparte had not taken any part in my banishment, that I was on the point of writing to ask for an interview, and I only refrained through fear of compromising him." He was afterwards convinced that, if Bonaparte had known he was there, he would have seized on him and deported him, without compunction, to the swamps of Cayenne. At Lausanne, Napoleon received the ovation of the democratic party, and prepared for a rising in the Canton of Vaud against the sovereignty of the Bernese. Bonaparte reached Paris on the 5th December, and took up his lodging in a i66 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE small house in the Rue Chantereine, that belonged to Josephine. On his arrival, he was immediately visited by Barras. The head officials of the Department of the Seine inquired when it would be convenient for the General to receive them, and he at once forestalled them by visiting them himself. He exhibited the same urbanity by calling on all functionaries, down to the Juges- de Paix. The Moniteur praised his simplicity, modesty, graciousness of address. He drove about in a carriage drawn by a pair of horses, and without retinue ; and he somewhat ostentatiously showed himself engaged on the flower beds in his little garden. At Montebello, he had surrounded himself with royal, state ; at Paris, he exhibited himself as a plain citizen, and avoided every kind of display. On the loth December, a great festival was celebrated to commemorate the conclu- sion of Peace. The Court of the Luxembourg was trans- formed into an amphitheatre; at one extremity was erected the altar of La Patrie, on which were grouped statues of Liberty, Peace, and Equality ; and it was adorned with the standards captured in Italy. Behind it were fifty thrones for the Ancients and the Ministers, who attended rigged out in their fantastic costumes. The festival began v/ith a chorale that was interrupted by a roar of applause as the Victor of Italy appeared, small, sallow-faced^ and looking what he affected to be — out of health. All rose and removed their hats, handkerchiefs were waved, incense was thrown 'into the standing braziers, and Talleyrand, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, stepped forward to welcome the General. He did so in a fulsome address, in which he lauded Napoleon as the Champion of Liberty, the breaker of the chains imposed by tyranny, and withal a stoic hero, who had no love for pomp and reward, but delighted in study, in art, and in living in obscurity. Bonaparte answered :— " Citizens, Directors : — The French people, to be free, was constrained to conquer Kings. To obtain a Constitution founded on reason, it had to conquer the prejudices of eighteen centuries. The Constitution of the year III. and LE GENERAL DE LA GRANDE NATION. Unfinished profile by David. IN PARIS 167 yourselves have overcome all these impediments. Religion, Feudalism, Royalty for twenty centuries have ruled Europe in succession ; but the epoch of Con- stitutionalism dates from the conclusion of the Peace recently signed. " It has been your good fortune to organise a mighty nation, so that its territory extends to those frontiers Nature has herself planted. "You have done more. The two finest portions of Europe (the Netherlands and Italy), the nurseries of Art, Science, and great men, inspired with the fairest hopes, will see the genius of Freedom rise out of the graves of their ancestors. These are two pedestals on which the fate of two mighty nations rests. " I have the honour to hand over to you the terms of Peace signed by His Majesty the Emperor, at Campo-Formio. Peace assures the freedom, the weal, and the fame of the Republic. " So soon as the good fortune of the French people shall be based on the best organised laws, then all Europe will be free." The last paragraph was the only one of real significance. It contained a hint that he did not consider the Constitution of the year III. as final. When the applause that echoed this address had died away, Barras rose, and in a pompous address, after enumerating Napoleon's exploits, and comparing him to Socrates, to Caesar, and to Pompey, said : " Go and chain up that gigantic freebooter who oppresses the seas. Go and chastise in London outrages that have been left too long unpunished. Numerous votaries of liberty await you there." Notwithstanding this ovation, Bonaparte was aware of the mistrust he inspired. Augereau liad plainly told the Directory that the little Corsican was ambitious, and was no sincere friend to Democratic ideas. His own country- man, Arena, had not only accused him to the Directors of having " stolen twenty millions in Italy," but had added, " Liberty has no greater foe to fear than Bonaparte." Treacherous himself. Napoleon suspected treachery in others. He despised and hated the Directory, and purposed upsetting it ; he knew very well that the Directors hated him, and would like to be rid of him. He endeavoured to have himself appointed to the Directory, but was con- fronted with the rule which forbade any man being made Director under the age of forty. After vain attempts to get the law modified in his favour, Bona- parte was obliged to abandon this hope ; and then he turned his attention more vigorously than before to the scheme of an invasion of England, and, if that were not possible, then to an occupation of Egypt. He did not much appreciate the incense offered him by the people of Paris. " Bah ! " said he. " The mob would crowd as thick to see me on my way to the scaffold." To Bourrienne he said : — " Europe is a mole-hill. It is only in the East that great empires and revolutions are possible, where there are six hundred millions of men. " Madame Junot records a conversation, or rather gives a summary of several that her brother Albert had, at this time, with Bonaparte, relating to his designs. After a visit to Napoleon, Albert de Permon said to his mother : — "I can plainly see that his great spirit stifles in the contracted space to which these needy Directors wish to confine it. It demands a free flight irt infinite i68 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE space. If he remains here, it will be his death. This morning he said to me, ' Paris weighs me down like a cloak of lead ! ' and then began pacing his room. ' And yet/ replied Albert, ' never did grateful country hail one of its sons more cordially. The moment you appear, the streets, the promenades, the theatres ring with shouts of Vive Bonaparte ! The people love you. General. ' " "While my brother thus spoke," says Mme. Junot, "Bonaparte looked steadily at him. He stood motionless, his hands crossed behind him, and his whole countenance expressing attention mingled with interest. He then re- sumed his walk with a pensive look. ' What think you of the East, Permon ? ' he abruptly asked. ' Your father destined you for the diplomatic line. You speak modern Greek?' Albert nodded assent. 'And Arabic?' Albert answered in the negative, adding that he could learn to speak it in a month. "' Indeed ! well, in that case, 1 ' here Bonaparte paused, as if fearful of having committed himself He nevertheless reverted to the subject a moment afterwards, and asked Albert if he had been at M. de Talleyrand's ball. ' That was a delightful fete .... it was more magnificent than our royal enter- tainments of old. The Directory ought not thus to forget its Republican origin. There is affectation in such pomp displayed before those who can upset it. / represent the Army I added Bonaparte, '-yes, I i^epresent the Army, and the Directors know now whether or not the A rmy is a powei^ful factor in France^ " Albert told Bonaparte that it was generally believed that the projected expedition was destined against England. The smile that now played about Napoleon's lips had so strange, so incomprehensible an expression, that Albert could not tell what to make of it. ' England ! ' said Bonaparte, ' so you think we are going to attack it at last ! The Parisians are not mistaken ; it is indeed to humble that saucy nation we are arming. Yes — war with England for ever, to its utter destruction ! ' " Bonaparte started for the north coast, to examine the preparations made for the descent upon the English coast. He questioned the pilots and sailors, collected information relative to the marine strength of Great Britain, examined into the condition of the French fleet, and returned to Paris to report that nothing was ready or would be for months to come, and that he was not disposed to risk the fate of France on such an uncertain throw. Actually, Bonaparte had no desire to make a direct attack on our island. His imagination was fired with the idea of an Oriental Empire, and his way to that was through Egypt. To accompany him, Napoleon collected his best officers who had served him in Italy, and the pick of the soldiers as well. He gathered together besides a body of scientific men, who would not merely collect material for the profit of the learned, but would be able to advise on the development of the industries and resources of the land he was about to invade. A further reason actuated Bonaparte in urging on the expedition to Egypt, in addition to the chimerical scheme of founding an Oriental Empire. He wished to be out of France for a while ; the pear was not ripe, as he said. The Directory was discredited, but the country was not ready to rise with acclama- tion, if he attempted to overthrow it. His best chance was to go to a distance, add to the splendour of his name, and leave the Directory to stultify itself IN PARIS 169 Inevitably, with time, it would go to pieces ; it would be injudicious to pre- cipitate its fall, and he desired to be dissociated from it when it fell. Nor did he desire to be associated with any one of the parties, then watch- ; ing each other, ready to fly at each other's throats, Anarchists, Royalists, Con- ! stitutionals, whilst the great mass of the people cared only for tranquillity and \j the pursuit of material advantages. This was manifest in Paris, and it was predominant in the country.* Before leaving Italy he had said to Miot de Melito :— " I can no longer obey. I have tasted the pleasures of command, and I cannot renounce it. If I cannot be master, I shall quit France. "f At Brienne, Napoleon had been a diligent student of English history. He was ready to play the part of a Cromwell, but not of a Monk. One day his uncle, Fesch, found him reading the life of the great Protector, and asked him what he thought of the usurper. " Cromwell," he replied, " is fine — but incomplete." " How so ? " asked Fesch, and looked at the volume. " It is not of the book I speak," answered he hastily, " but of the man." J On the eve of starting, an incident almost changed the purpose of Bona- parte. At Vienna, the French Ambassador, Bernadotte, had been insulted by the city mob. Bonaparte rushed before the Directory, and demanded that the affront should be resented, and asked to be sent to the Congress of Rastadt to demand redress. The Directory nominated another instead. Then he declared that, under the circumstances, he would not leave Europe ; he would send in his resignation. " Do so, sign it, you have need of repose," said Rewbell,§ and extended to him the pen. Merlin snatched it away. Bonaparte withdrew in a fury. On the morrow Barras urged him to depart as quickly as possible. *' Believe me," said he, " I give you the best advice possible." On the 3rd May, 1798, Napoleon started for Toulon, taking his wife with him as far as that port. At the last moment he again hesitated. He felt that the Directory was so lost in public confidence, that he was inclined — as Mathieu Dumas tells us in his Memoires — to turn back and overthrow it. But the sight of the fleet, admirably ordered, and under the command of the great Admirals, Brueys, Gantheaume, Villeneuve, and Decres, the enthusiasm of the troops, the hopes of his generals, the ardour of the savants he took with him, roused again in his imagination the dreams of Oriental conquest, and he postponed the attempt to a more suitable occasion. * " Paris veut de la tranquillite, il est actuellement plus facile d'en obtenir de la soumission que de renthousiasme." Rapport du Bureau central des Dep. de la Seine, March 12, 1798. t Miot, Mi?n. i. 184. % Secret Mem., by C. DoRis, 1815. \ According to another account it was La Reveillere-Lepeaux. A XXIV THE FAMILY BONAPARTE IN 1797 T this time the author of the curious Secret Memoirs^ by one who never quitted Napoleon for fifteen years ^ was connected with him. He says, " I must confess that I was by no means prepossessed with his exterior. I had formed to myself the most engaging portrait of the conqueror of Italy. I was surprised, even humiliated, to find him a man of a very ordinary cast. His deportment had nothing in it that was striking ; his physiognomy had neither the fire nor the dignity of a hero ; his manner was devoid of ease, and had a strong tincture of his cold, dry, and laconic mode of speech. Taken altogether, he inspired neither confidence nor respect ; the principal feeling he inspired was a desire to get out of his presence as quickly as might be. His severe and disdainful glance indicated the man who com- mands, but not him who is to be admired. " First impressions have always a stronger influence on a young man than on one who is older. The unfavourable impression produced on me by Bonaparte made a sudden revolution in my wishes with regard to the pro- fession I thought of embracing, and I desired the relation who was my patron not to speak to the General in my behalf. At this time I was introduced to M. d'Harved the elder, who had been much acquainted with Bonaparte both at Brienne and at the Military School in Paris. I communicated to him the impression produced on me by first sight of the celebrated Corsican, and he said frankly to me : ' You, who are young, judge of men by their outward appearance, and, in so doing, resemble the multitude. But, mark me, think otherwise of Bonaparte ; this man, be assured, will create a new era in the world. 1 will say more — if Europe were not now full of his name, Asia would for two years have resounded with it. Bonaparte,' continued M. d'Harved, ' is born to command mankind. He knows it ; he is but too impressed with the conviction. His first successes have augmented and confirmed it. Perhaps he may not have all the qualities for realising his ambitious views, but he conceives that he has them, and that is enough. He knows not how to make himself beloved, but he does know how to make himself obeyed. In the part he now plays, and in those he probably will play, these two qualities will make his fortune. His air, coldly concentrated, and his unabated moroseness, have established him in the mind of the vulgar as a superior being. The emulation not to be as others, and to impose laws on others, was planted in his very being. At Brienne, at the Military School of Paris, as a sub-lieutenant, he thought the same, and he will never think otherwise. If he did not command men, he would hector his servant-maid. He believes himself superior to all men, and values others very little. " ' If France has chanced to be the theatre of his d^but, it is because the 170 THE FAMILY BONAPARTE IN 1797 171 opportunity there first presented itself to him. An ardent thirst for domina- tion made him a cosmopolitan from his earliest years. His true country will ever be that in which he will acquire the greatest power. To him the banks of the Seine and the shores of the Bosphorus are alike indifferent.'" We may here add a few details relative to the family Bonaparte, which had thriven with the rising star of Napoleon. Joseph had been appointed, as we have seen, representative of the French Republic at Rome, where he remained till the riot broke out, which led to the death of General Duphot. Joseph, accom- panied by his wife and family, had arrived in Rome on August 31 1797, and lodged in a new hotel on the Piazza di Spagna, but afterwards moved into a splen- did official residence in the Corsini Palace. He had in his suite Eugene Beauhar- nais, a youth of seventeen, and General Duphot, who was only seven-and-twenty, and was engaged to be married to Desiree Clary, sister of Joseph's wife, Julie, which latter Barras describes as ugly and pimpled. Joseph had received special instructions from his brother to foment insurrection.^ He did not esteem the quality of the Roman patriots, for he wrote to Napoleon : " They think like Brutus, talk like women, and act like children." The riot he was encouraging secretly broke out on the 27th December, and in it Duphot was shot. Desiree Clary was not inconsolable : she hid her tears eight months after the murder of her lover behind a wedding veil, when she married Bernadotte (Aug. 1 6th, 1798). Lucien Bonaparte, the ex-Brutus, had been appointed Commissioner of War to the Army of the North. There were several reasons why Napoleon did not want him near himself. He was a bad-tempered, inordinately vain, and perverse man, and could not endure to witness his brother's success. His wife, Christine, was uneducated. Hardly was he with the Army of the North before he quarrelled with the other officials, had to leave, and came to his brother at Milan, where he was not very cordially received, and ordered not to visit Paris, as he proposed. He disobeyed, and Napoleon wrote to Carnot to have him despatched to Corsica. He was accordingly sent to Ajaccio. There, Lucien succeeded in getting himself elected Deputy to the Five Hundred. As he was MEDALLION OF BONAPARTE. By David. 172 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE born in 1775, he was not of age for admission into the Council, and it would seem probable that he made use of the false certificate of birth which he had employed for his marriage, and which gave him the requisite age of twenty- five instead of twenty-two. How he got his election acknowledged is hard to say, but it was not challenged, and he was in Paris at the beginning of 1798. Louis Bonaparte had been appointed captain in 1796, and was aide-de- camp to his brother Napoleon. He was then aged eighteen. He had been but three and a half months at the Military School, Chalons, and when, at the Bureau of Artillery, his request for promotion was refused, he appealed to the Directory, with a statement of services, which was characteristic of the way in which the Bonapartes systematically made false statements. He gave his date of birth wrong — 5th Sept., 1776, whereas he was really born on the 2nd Sept, 1778 ; he pretended that he had become adjutant of an artillery regiment on the 28th Frimaire, in the year I. (i8th December, 1792) ; lieutenant on the 4th Brumaire, in the year HI. (25th October, 1794) ; aide-de-camp 22nd Brumaire, IV. (i2th November, 1795) ; that he had served in four campaigns ; had been at the taking of Toulon ; also in the military campaigns in Italy. And this wonderful document was attended by three certificates, authenticating the statements, nearly all of which were false. However, he obtained his promotion, and accompanied his brother to Egypt. Laetitia Bonaparte had remained at Marseilles till May, 1795, when she went to Italy, and there, for the first time, met Josephine. She afterwards went with Joseph to Rome, and after the affair of Duphot, left for Corsica, taking along with her the youngest daughter Caroline. Elise was married on May 5th, 1797, to a Corsican, Paschal Bacciochi, a good fiddler. Pauline had been in love with Freron, and he with her. He was a fop, good-looking, but with infamous antecedents. As long as convenient, and whilst Napoleon wanted the help of Freron, he favoured the suit, but no sooner had he his foot in the stirrup, than he insisted on the engagement being broken off. Napoleon took Pauline to Italy, where she was retained, alongside of Josephine, to cool her passion. Her love-letters have been preserved, and show considerable ardour in that shallow mind. This is a sample : '' Ti amo sempre, e passionattissimamente, per sempre ti amo, o bell' idol mio, sei cuore mio, tenero amico, ti amo, amo, amo, si amatissimo amante." He was unworthy of her love — this blood-stained, scurrilous petit hiaitre. Josephine received as tender letters from Napoleon, but she did not return his love with the same ardour. "Too Creole, too nonchalant, too accustomed to the thousand nothings of Paris life, and to the sweets of her little nest in the Rue Chantereine, to resolve to take a decision, Josephine contented herself with piling up these burning letters in her writing-desk, and she put off to the morrow the answer so greatly desired. And, it must be admitted, this ardour frightened her more than it attracted her." * Napoleon had been very impatient because she did not go to him in Italy ; * Jung, iii. 237. THE FAMILY BONAPARTE IN 1797 173 he became jealous, and believed she had formed an attachment in Paris ; he even wrote to Carnot that he held this to be the case. However, after a while she did go to Italy, and was well content to reign as a queen in Montebello, amidst a glittering court. But she had been attended into Italy by the young Captain Hippolyte Charles, of the staff of General Leclerc, and a flirtation sprang up between them, that was continued in a flickering, trifling manner all the time she was in Italy, and later was the occasion of a quarrel with her husband. XXV EGYPT (1798) THE eyes of France had been turned covetously upon Egypt from the time of Philip the Fair, to whom his minister, Pierre de Blois, had pro- posed the conquest. But the Hundred Years' War, and the religious broils, had occupied the attention and exhausted the energies of the Crown, and nothing had been done to acquire it. The most valuable colonies possessed by the French in America and India, had been wrested from them by the English, who, except for a short interval ■during the previous war, had assumed and maintained the dominion of the seas. Choiseul, the minister of Louis XV., had advised the annexation of Egypt, a.s the surest way of reaching India, and it was with an eye to this that Corsica had been purchased from the Genoese. The French people had felt keenly the humiliation of their losses in the East and West, and this feeling had been one of the factors in the revolt against the Bourbon dynasty. The long-desired opportunity seemed to have arrived. The English fleet had been withdrawn from the Mediterranean to guard the Channel, whilst a portion blockaded the Spanish navy in Cadiz. The Turks had no fleet. Those ■of Genoa and Venice were incorporated into that of France, which had been formed under the eye of Napoleon. Given a fair wind and a smooth sea, in a few days the transports would land the invading host at Alexandria. Napoleon kept counsel to the last. When he had persuaded the Directory to an attack on England through Egypt, they also were discreet enough not to allow the scheme to transpire, so that the English were in complete ignorance •of the destination of the fleet collected at Toulon, and the troops massed there. It was believed by the Ministry in London, that the object of the French was to relieve Cadiz and liberate the Spanish fleet, then to sail north, and unite with the fleet at Brest, for a descent upon England and Ireland. As already intimated. Napoleon selected the cream of the troops and officers who had served under him in Italy. But when Dessaix, who was to accompany the expedition, heard of the destination of the army, all he said ■was, " The project is good, if practicable." 174 EGYPT 175 Napoleon would not hear of objections, nor entertain doubts. To the Directors he promised, " No sooner shall I be master of Egypt and the master of Palestine, than England will be glad to give you a first-class ship for a sack •of corn."* And yet — such an undertaking was reckless, and it is surprising that a •Government composed of able men should have sanctioned it. Napoleon proposed with- till he believed that the army marching to his relief had been beaten. After- wards, to palliate his inactivity, Napoleon gave circulation to a number of charges against the gallant general, and threw on him the blame of the sur- render. Bonaparte no doubt had calculated on Melas at once abandoning Genoa to protect his communications. Genoa had served his purpose in detain- ing Melas whilst he crossed the Alps. But for this he might have been beaten in detail, as Alvinzi had been. When too late to be of any use, then, and then only, did Bonaparte march against Melas. He disposed his troops in masterly fashion at Stradella, and awaited Melas there from the loth to the I2th of BATTLE OF MARENGO. From an engraving by Chaffard. June, a prey to the greatest uneasiness, as he did not know where the Austrians were. Then he abandoned his position, which was almost impregnable, and advanced into the plain along the road to'J Alessandria. Still uncertain where Melas was, he detached Dessaix with a flying column in the direction of Novi. Dessaix could not find the Austrians there, and hearing firing in the direction of Marengo, returned, and arrived to retrieve the day, which was lost ; the French centre was broken, and the troops; in jflight. At the same time, Keller- mann, seeing the flank of the Hungarian Grenadiers exposed, on his own initiative flung himself upon it with his heavy dragoons, and the day was won ; for the Austrian army, drawn up in columns on the roads for the pursuit, could not deploy in time, and Melas was in his tent at the rear, writing despatches announcing his victory. 234 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE The whole disposition of the French troops had been so bad, the day was such a succession of surprises, that Bonaparte only won it by accident. After- wards he destroyed the bulletins and reports sent in relative to the battle of Marengo, lest his own faulty generalship should be disclosed. Dessaix had fallen ; he could therefore afford to praise him ; but Kellermann's services he recognized coldly.* That same evening he said privately to Bourrienne, "Little Kellermann made a lucky charge. He did it at just the right moment." However, when that officer approached the First Consul, Bonaparte merely said, "You made a pretty good charge." Then, turning to Bessieres, who commanded the Horse Grenadiers, he said, " The Guard has covered itself with glory," though, in fact, this body did not charge at Marengo till nightfall, when the success of the day had been decided by Kellermann. f The latter was greatly mortified. The fact seems to have been that Marengo was so nearly a crushing defeat, that Napoleon could not afford to allow to be generally known how his mistakes had been retrieved by others. As he cast blame for all disasters on other men, so he arrogated to himself the merit of every success. Moreau also was treated with injustice. When he was on the eve of finish- ing the campaign by the capture of Ulm, and an advance on Vienna through Bavaria, Napoleon deprived him of a quarter of his army, and peremptorily forbade advance. Later he endeavoured to deprive him of the recognition due to his merits by blame for not having followed up his successes by the taking of Augsburg and the occupation of Munich, contrary to the express orders given by himself. And when at Hohenlinden Moreau completely defeated the Imperial army, Bonaparte spitefully criticised his tactics, and attributed his success to one of the accidents of war. " Napoleon wrote reflections on this battle," says Lanfrey, " to which it is hard to give a name. If the word jealousy — which contemporaries did not hesitate to pronounce on this occasion — must be withheld, on the ground that he was superior to the need of fearing anyone, it is not possible to deny that his critiques were dictated by the most miserable and the meanest ani- mosity. The man whom Europe considered his rival, and whom the two campaigns of 1800 placed in the first rank of illustrious captains, was treated by him as a backward pupil." Henceforth Bonaparte eyed Moreau with dislike ; and, although for a while obliged to exhibit some respect, he waited but for an opportunity to arise which would enable him to crush his rival. For the purpose of separating Moreau from the troops he had led, and who adored him, he sent the latter to S. Domingo, under his brother-in-law General Leclerc, where the yellow fever swept them off in great numbers. Macdonald was another who excited the envy of Bonaparte, because in mid- * Savary denies that this movement was on Kellermann's initiative. He says that it was ordered by Napoleon, when Dessaix sent to him to entreat support. t '* During his reign," says Lanfrey, *' he thrice recast his bulletin, so as to modify it, in view of what history would say. In these three relations, preserved to us in the Memorial de la Guerre, he contradicts and contravenes his own statements at every point," THE CONSULATE 235 winter he crossed the Splugen in storms of snow, an undertaking incomparably greater than the passage of the Great S. Bernard in fine weather, in summer, and unopposed. Bonaparte wrote : — " The crossing of the Splugen presented, without doubt, difficulties ; but winter is not the season of the year in which such operations are conducted with most difficulty. The snow is then firm, the weather settled, and there is nothing to fear from avalanches." He left out of count the short days and the bitter nights, and that Macdonald had contested the passage against an enemy in the midst of snowstorms. Kleber was another whom Napoleon disliked, and the dislike was mutual. During the siege of Acre, Kleber said to Bourrienne, " That little scoundrel Bonaparte, who is no higher than my boot, will enslave France." Napoleon left Kleber in Egypt to maintain the con- quest, when he was aware that no further glory was to be won there. Kleber said that he once heard Bonaparte remark, " I don't want men of genius in the army," and Kleber added, " He said that because he feared such." BONAPARTE AND THE BATTLE OF MARENGO. Portrait by Bouillon. "Is Bonaparte loved ? How could he be, when he loved none? But he thought to supply the place of love by forming his creatures by advances and presents." * Bernadotte he particularly disliked, because he refused him assistance on the 1 8th Brumaire. Bourrienne says : — " He looked out for every opportunity to place him in difficult situations, and to entrust him with missions for which no precise instructions were given, in the hope that Bernadotte would commit faults for which he might be made responsible." Augereau, Berthier, Bessieres, Junot, Massena, Lannes, Kellermann, Suchet, were dashing soldiers, or careful tacticians without extraordinary ability, and * Mimoires dhme Conietnporaine, p. 162. 236 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE without daring ambition. But Moreau was nearer equality in strategy, and only his inferior in resolution and tenacity of purpose. Him Napoleon really feared. He could not allow him to gain too many successes, lest the army should be divided in its partiality. Among the generals of a second class, ready blindly to follow him and glitter with his reflected light, Napoleon was ready enough to dispense favours, and was careful to encourage affection. An instance of the real love he inspired in such men shall be given. It was after the failure of the pretended attempt of Ceracchi and Arena on the life of THE REVIEW. Drawn by Isabey and C. Vernet, and engraved by M^cou. the First Consul, when at the Opera. Junot came to the house of Madame Permon, to give her an account of the conspiracy, and of its failure. " He informed her that Ceracchi and Arena — the one actuated by Republican fanaticism, the other by vengeance — had taken measures to assassinate Bonaparte. As General Junot proceeded in his account his voice became stronger, his language more emphatic ; every word was a thought, and every thought came from his heart. In painting Bonaparte such as he daily saw him, his masculine and sonorous voice assumed a tone of sweetness — it was melody ; but when he proceeded to speak of those men who, to satisfy their vengeance or senseless wishes, would assassinate him who was at that moment charged with the future of France, his voice failed, broken by sobs, and leaning his head upon my mother's pillow, he wept like a child. Then, as if ashamed of his weakness, he went to seat himself in the most obscure corner of the room." * * Mem. of Mme. Jtinoty i, 356, THE CONSULATE 237 Moreover, Napoleon took special pains to ingratiate himself into the favour of the soldiers. Bourrienne says, he was never perfectly happy anywhere, save on a battle-field; and soldiers were the tool wherewith he carved out a place for himself Consequently it was to his interest that the tool should cut well, and adapt itself to his hand. Every fifth day — the week was still of ten days — the First Consul had a review, or parade, in the Court of the Tuileries ; and all the regiments in France were sent up alternately to Paris to be reviewed by Bonaparte, so that they were all brought under his influence. " Sometimes he galloped along the ranks, but this was rarely. He never, indeed, sat his horse, unless the troops had already passed in review, and he was satisfied that nothing was wanting. Even then he would address a few ques- tions to two or three soldiers casually selected. But generally, after having ridden along the ranks on his white horse, ' Ee Desire,' he would alight, and converse with all his field officers, and with nearly all the subalterns and soldiers. His solicitude was extended to the most minute particulars — the food, the dress, and everything that could be necessary to the soldier or useful to the man divided his attention with the evolutions. He encouraged the men to speak to him without restraint. ' Conceal from me none of your wants,' he would say to them ; * suppress no complaints you may have to make of your superiors. I am here to do justice to all, and the weaker party is especially entitled to my protection.' " Such a system was not only attended with immediately beneficial results, but was adroitly adapted to answer a general and not less useful purpose. The army and its chief thus became inseparably united, and in the person of that chief the army beheld the French nation." * A soldier of the 32nd demi-brigade having written to Bonaparte, reminding him of his services, his wounds, &c., received the following reply : — " To the gallant Leon ! I have received your letter, my gallant comrade: You are the bravest grenadier in the army, now that the gallant Benezette is dead. You received one of the hundred sabres which I distributed to the army. All the soldiers admitted that you were the model of the regiment. I greatly wish to see you. I love you as my own son." Such a letter would circulate ; it would inspire the soldiers with enthusiasm for the great general who called them gallant comrades, and declared that he loved them as his children. And such an expression was not an empty one. By his acts. Napoleon showed that he earnestly did seek the well-being of his soldiers. Nor was the sentiment feigned. It was the expression of his sincerest feeling. This was not the case when Napoleon cajoled men whom he mistrusted, such as Moreau. He could and did flatter them, but it was to gain them ; or if he could not gain them, to lull them to security, till the opportunity came when he could break and throw them aside. When Moreau arrived in Paris in October — this was before Hohenlinden — he went at once, without even changing his boots, into the presence of the Plrst * Ibid., 446. 238 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Consul. Napoleon was at the moment inspecting some inlaid pistols, purchased as a present for the King of Spain. They were set with diamonds. Directly the First Consul saw Moreau, he said, " These weapons come apropos," presenting them to the General of the Army on the Danube. " Citizen Moreau will do me the favour to accept them as a mark of the esteem of the French nation." Then, turning to Lucien, he added, " Citizen Minister, have some of the battles of General Moreau engraved on the pistols, but not all ; we must leave some room for diamonds." Shortly after that, Bonaparte proposed that Moreau should marry his sister Pauline ; the General declined the honour. Such a union implied that he was to surrender his principles and become a satellite about Napoleon. But the present of the pistols was significant. It meant — " Take my sister, sell yourself wholly to me for the diamonds wherewith I can besprinkle you, or a duel a I'outrance" Moreau accepted the latter alternative, and was defeated. 'of -HE UNIVERSITY OF XXX THE FIRST STEP TO THE THRONE (1800) ^T^HE first step openly taken to the re-establishment of Royalty, was in -*- February, 1800, when Bonaparte transferred his residence to the Tuileries. He was a little doubtful how this move would be viewed ; accordingly, he determined to dazzle the eyes of the Parisians with a splendid ceremony, and befool them with an ovation to Washington whilst making this advance. Washington had died on December 14, 1799, and Napoleon seized on this event for the purpose of a grand demonstration of Republican sympathy, during which he might transfer his lodging to the palace of Royalty. Bourrienne says : " Bonaparte did not feel much concerned at the death of Washington ; but it afforded him an opportunity to mask his ambitious projects under the appearance of a love of liberty. In thus rendering honour to the memory of Washington, everybody would suppose that Bonaparte intended to imitate his example, and that their two names would pass in conjunction from mouth to mouth. A clever orator might be employed, who, while pronouncing an eulogium on the dead, v/ould contrive to bestow some praise on the living ; and when the people were applauding his love of liberty, he would find himself one step nearer the throne, on which his eyes were constantly fixed. When the proper time arrived, he would not fail to seize the Crown ; and would still cry, if necessary, ' Vive la Liberie !' while placing it on his imperial head." The proper orator was found, it was M. de Fontanes, and he prepared a funeral harangue, which was calculated, at the expense of the memory of Washington, to exalt the glories of the First Consul. The ceremonial took place in the Church of the Invalides, which had been converted into a Temple of Mars, and where the place of the Crucified was occupied by a statue of the god of War. A national mourning for Washington was instituted to last for a week of ten days, and on its conclusion, Napoleon took up his residence in the palace of the kings. For a few weeks his brother Consuls were also accommodated with rooms therein, and then were bidden remove quietly to their private lodgings. Bourrienne, his secretary, says : " It was resolved that Bonaparte should inhabit the Tuileries. Still, great prudence was necessary, to avoid the quick- sands which surrounded him. He therefore employed great precaution in 239 240 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE dealing with the susceptibilities of the Republicans, taking care to inure them gradually to the temperature of absolute power. He advanced with firm step, but never neglected any artifice by which to conceal his designs." The preparation of the palace had been conducted in such a manner as not to provoke comment. It was true that some caps of liberty were effaced, and trees of liberty cut down by order of Napoleon, but he had the halls decorated in a grave and unostentatious manner. Mme. Junot says : "Madame Bonaparte occupied the whole ground-floor of the Tuileries. Her apartments were furnished tastefully, but without luxury ; the great reception -salon was hung with yellow draperies; the movable furniture was damask, the fringes of silk, and the wood mahogany. No gold was to be seen. The other rooms were not more richly decorated ; all was new and elegant, but no more. The larger assemblies were held upstairs. As yet there was neither chamberlain nor prefect of the palace; an old Councillor of State, formerly Minister of the Interior, M. de Benezeck, was charged with the internal administration of the palace, which was at first a little difficult to introduce among what remained of genuine republicanism. The functions of M. de Benezeck embraced those afterwards divided between the Grand Chamberlain and the Master of the Ceremonies. The maitre d'hotel and ushers performed the subaltern offices, and the aides-de-camp supplied the place of chamberlains." On the day following that on which Napoleon SNUFFBOX. had removed to the Tuileries, he said to By isabey. Bourrienne, " You see what it is to have one's Bequeathed by Napoleon to his son. mmd set on anythmg. Yesterday passed well. Do not imagine that all those who came to flatter me were sincere. Certainly they were not; but the joy of the people was genuine. They know what is right. Besides, consult the grand thermometer of opinion, the price of the funds — on the nth Brumaire at ii francs, on the I2th at i6, and to-day at 21. In such a state of things I may let the Jacobins prate as they like. But let them not talk too loudly, either ! " Then — " To be at the Tuileries is not all. We must stay here. Who, in Heaven's name, has not already inhabited this palace ? Ruffians, Conventional- ists. From those windows yonder I saw the Tuileries besieged, and the good Louis XVI. carried off. Be assured, they will not come here again." There was a presentation of ambassadors, described by Benjamin Constant in his Memoires : — "At eight in the evening, the apartments of Madame Bonaparte, which were situated on the ground-floor, overlooking the gardens, were crowded with company. There was a dazzling display of splendid dresses^ feathers, diamonds, &c. So numerous was the throng that it was found necessary to throw open THE FIRST STEP TO THE THRONE 241 Madame Bonaparte's bed-chamber, the two drawing-rooms being very small. " When, after considerable embarrassment and trouble, the company were arranged, Madame Bonaparte was announced, and she entered, conducted by M. de Talleyrand. She wore a dress of white muslin, with short sleeves, a pearl necklace, and her hair was simply braided, and confined by a tortoise- shell comb. The buzz of admiration which greeted her on her entrance must have been exceedingly gratifying to her ; she never, I think, looked more graceful. " M. de Talleyrand, still holding Madame Bonaparte by the hand, presented her to the members of the corps diplomatique, one after another, not introducing them by name, but designating them by the Courts they represented. He then conducted her round the two drawing-rooms. They had not gone above half round the second room when the First Consul entered, without being announced. He was dressed in a very plain uniform coat, white cashmere pantaloons, and top-boots. Round his waist he wore a tri-coloured silk scarf, with a fringe to correspond, and he carried his hat in his hand. Amidst the em- broidered coats, cordons, and jewels of the ambassadors and foreign dignitaries, Bona- parte's costume appeared no less singular than the contrast presented by the simple elegance of Josephine's dress compared with the splendour of the ladies around her." Bonaparte now settled the costume to be worn by the Consuls, Ministers, and different bodies of the State. Ever since the fall of the Monarchy, velvet had been abolished as a symbol of royalty. Bonaparte reintroduced it, and alleged, as a reason, that he desired to encourage the manufactures of Lyons. " It was," says Bourrienne, " his constant aim to efface the Republic, even in merest trifles, and to prepare matters so that all externals of a monarchy having been reintroduced there would remain but a word to be changed." On the 27th Nivose, a decree was published, suppressing all journals printed in Paris, with the exception of thirteen, as being " in the hands of the enemies of the Republic," and those tolerated were cautioned not to insert any articles ■*' against the Sovereignty of the People." Masquerades were again permitted. Bonaparte was glad to encourage the old amusements, as a means of diverting the attention of the people from his ambitious plans and stealthy advances. So also the Opera balls were again begun. As Bonaparte said — " Whilst the people of Paris are chatting about all this, they do not babble politics, and that is what I want. Let them dance and amuse themselves so long as they do not thrust their noses into the councils of the Government." NAPOLEON. From a lithograph by Raffet. 242 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE A far more important step was taken in the repeal of the law against emigrants, so far as affected those who had not taken up arms against the Republic. He was desirous of bringing back to France the old noblesse, and of cajoling it into forming a Court around himself and Josephine. He trusted that so long as they had the substance of a Court, they would forget who formed the centre of it. But with regard to the Royalist party, still in arms in La Vendee, he resolved to crush it with the utmost rigour. On the 5th January he wrote to General Hedonville, Commander-in-Chief of the army engaged in suppressing the Royalists :— " You are invested with full power ; act as freely as if you were in the heart of Germany. Let minor interests and personal considerations disappear in presence of the necessity of stamping out the rebellion. It is useless to hold courts-martial. The Consuls opine that all rebels taken in arms should be summarily executed. ... No matter what accusations are brought against you, the Government will support you ; your military action will be examined by a man who is accustomed to severe and energetic measures. ... It will be well to burn down two or three large villages. Experience has taught us that this is the most humane way of proceeding. Weakness is inhumanity." General Hedonville, not having shown himself sufficiently ferocious, was superseded by General Brunne. In the first instructions issued to the latter he was ordered to burn some large villages in Morbihan. " It is only by rendering war terrible," said Bonaparte, " that the inhabitants will be induced to shake off their apathy, and unite against the brigands " {ix. Royalists). At the same time hints were to be disseminated that Napoleon was desirous of restoring the monarchy, and great indulgence was to be shown to the priests. Those who were to be cruelly dealt with were poor peasants, but to all return- ing nobles great favour was to be shown, and every effort was employed to win them over to the side of the First Consul. A serious proceeding was the institution of a secret police, an organised body of political spies. The police who had charge of the public welfare were under Fouche ; this secret body was placed, at first, under Duroc and Mouncey, and then under Davoust and Junot. Josephine intensely disliked the system. Bonaparte himself was dissatisfied with its working, but he would not abandon the scheme. Every part of his administration was pervaded by spies — they obtained a footing about all the principal personages of State, they penetrated into families, they were placed in foreign Courts. This band Bonaparte called his Telegraphic Company, and they spied even on the proceedings of Fouche and his General Police. The number of these dangerous stipendiaries amounted in March, 1803, to three thousand six hundred and ninety-two.* This intolerable system grew out of the institution, in the days of the Terror, of every citizen being entitled to spy on his fellow, and of the clubs being organised bodies of accusers of political crimes. Napoleon adopted the principle, reduced it to a system, and enveloped the proceedings of his agents in secrecy. Bonaparte had seen that in the Republic there was no source of honour. * Secret Memoirs, p. 94. THE FIRST STEP TO THE THRONE 243 Decrees had indeed been passed in commendation of certain individuals as having deserved well of their country ; but those so commended were often the basest of mankind. The functionaries under the Convention and the Directory had worked for nothing save themselves. Robespierre, finding that this was universal, and unable to inspire any noble sentiment, sought to check the corruption by fear, and sent the worst peculators to the guillotine. The pecu- lators combined against him, and destroyed him. Thenceforth the rapacity of all office-holders, from the highest to the lowest, was unrestrained. To rectify this, Bonaparte instituted honourable rewards — rings, swords, guns, and trumpets of honour. The names of those who received these dis- tinctions were to be engraved on tables of marble, in the Temple of Mars. These honours were at first accorded exclusively to men in military service. But this was the preliminary stage to the insti- tution of the Legion of Honour, the cross of which was to be so coveted by men of all branches of the service. An important stride towards the attainment of that which Napoleon had in view was taken, when he set to work to conciliate the Church. He perfectly recog- nised the power of the Christian Church, and he saw how strong was the recoil from infidelity. If he could withdraw the clergy from their allegiance to the House of Bourbon, they would largely influence their flocks, and reconcile them to his autocracy. He had already begun this. Pope Pius VI. had been removed from Rome by the French in 1799, and hustled from place to place by order of the Directory ; placed for a while in the citadel of Turin, he was then conveyed over Mont Genevre to Briangon. Thence the official who received him sent to headquarters a formal receipt, couched in these terms : " Regu — un Pape, en fort mauvais etat." He was transferred to Valence, where he died, August 29th, 1799. In February, 1800, the First Consul had ordered the translation of the Pope's body, with great solemnity, to Rome. On the 17th of that month it arrived in the Eternal City ; and on the following day a grand funeral mass was sung in the presence of the new Pontiff, Pius VI L, and of many high function- aries, conspicuous among whom was the Minister of the French Republic, which two years before had invaded Rome, and had driven Pius VI. into exile. BONAPARTE. After Philips. Engraved by C. Turner. 244 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Napoleon had an account of this funeral printed in French, and distributed broadcast in Brittany, La Vendee, and wherever the peasantry were strong in their adhesion to Catholicism. When he was in Milan, after having crossed the Great S. Bernard, he took vast pains to conciliate the clergy. He published a manifesto, in which he declared the sentiments of profound respect with which he regarded the Holy Father, and the sincerity of his attachment to the Catholic faith. He assembled the priests of Milan, and reminded them of the protection he had afforded them on a former occasion. He assured them that his faith was the same as theirs, and that he was persuaded that no other religion could secure happiness and good government. He undertook to punish, even with death, anyone who should insult that religion or their sacred persons. He had disapproved of all that had been done against religion when he was a simple agent of the Govern- ment. " Modern philosophers," he added, " have tried to persuade France that the Catholic religion is the implacable enemy of every democratic system, and of every Republican Government. Hence the cruel persecution of religion and its ministers by the French Republic. . . . Experience has undeceived the French, and has convinced them that the Catholic religion is better adapted than any other to divers forms of government, and is peculiarly favourable to republican institutions." In a bulletin of the Army of Italy of the 4th June, he announced that "a Te Deum had been chanted in the cathedral of Milan, in honour of the happy delivery of Italy from heretics and infidels. . . . Even the priests were discontented at seeing English heretics and infidel Mussulmans profane the territory of holy Italy." And all this just a year after he had boasted in Egypt that he had destroyed the Pope, overthrown the cross, and that he was one with the Mussulmans in fighting for the unity of Allah against those who, " by their lies," proclaimed the Trinity. And, moreover, a few days after this, he appointed Abdallah Menou, his one general who had abjured Christianity and become a Mussulman, to be a governor in " holy Italy." In July, 1800, he wrote to the prefect of La Vendee to send delegates of his department to Paris. " And if there are priests among them, send them to me in preference to others, for I esteem and love priests who are good Frenchmen, and know how to defend their country against the eternal enemies of France, those wicked English heretics." His object was clear enough. By means of the priests whom he hoped to gain, he trusted to reconcile the Catholic Vendeeans to his rule. And, indeed, he ventured soon after, in a Council of State, to frankly declare : " With my prefets, my gensdarmes, and my priests, I shall be able to do just what I like." He made preparations for the Concordat. He had already his consecration by a Pope in view, and that was to him essential, as giving him the only divine sanction he could appeal to against the legitimate aspirant to the crown. But he used his wonted subtlety in this matter also. To the Catholics he showed himself as one eager to bring the country back into allegiance to the THE FIRST STEP TO THE THRONE 245 Church ; but to the freethinkers he held very different language. He repre- sented to them the power of the Church, and the great advantage it would be for the State to exercise control over it. " This is only religious vaccination," said he to Cabanis ; " in fifty years we shall have expelled religion altogether out of France." And to La Fayette he said, " I shall put the priests down lower than they were when you left them. A bishop will be only too grateful to be invited to dine with a prefet. . . . Will it not be something to get the Pope and the clergy to declare against the legitimacy of the Bourbons ? " To which the friend of Washington, with great shrewdness, answered : ^' A lions, general, con- fess your true aims; you want to have the little phial of holy oil broken on your own head."* * La Fayette, Mes rapports avec Le Premier Consul^ en M^moires, Correspondance, et Mamiscrits, Brux. 1837-8. XXXI IN THE TUILERIES IN a celebrated passage, Tacitus divides the life of Tiberius into epochs, and gives us the characteristics of the man in each of these. In the life of Bona- parte the epochs were very marked, and their distinction was indicated by a change in his personal appearance. To the first belongs the meagre and sour youth, when he was " Puss in Boots," an inveterate grumbler, and a bitter Jacobin. He had then the lean and hungry look of a conspirator. He wore his hair long, his cheeks were hollow, his tongue spiteful. After the 13th Vendemiaire he entered on his second stage, which was that of dissimulation, a preparation for a volte-face in sentiments. He had lost faith in principles. Men of principle he called idealists. " The word ideologue was often in Bonaparte's mouth ; and, in using it, he endeavoured to throw ridicule on those men whom he fancied to have a ten- dency towards the doctrine of indefinite perfectibility. He esteemed them for their morality, yet he regarded them as dreamers. According to him, they looked for power in institutions. He had no idea of any power except in direct force. All benevolent men, seeking the amelioration of humanity, were regarded by Bonaparte as dangerous, because their maxims and principles were dia- metrically opposed to the harsh and arbitrary system he had adopted. He always said that men were only to be governed by fear and interest."* In Italy he wore his hair long, but had it cut in Egypt. His features were becoming more set, and his expression more reposeful. He had suspected his own talents before the 13th Vendemiaire ; before the 1 8th Brumaire he knew them. With this latter day Napoleon entered on his third epoch, that of consolidation of his position, and of centralisation of all power in himself. Bourrienne thus describes his personal appearance at this time : — " His finely-shaped head, his superb forehead, his pale countenance, and his usual meditative look, have been transferred to canvas ; but the versatility of his expression was beyond the reach of imitation. All the various workings of his mind were instantaneously depicted in his countenance, and his glance changed from mild to severe, and from angry to good-humoured, almost with the rapidity of lightning. It may truly be said that he had a particular look for every thought that arose in his mind. Bonaparte had beautiful hands, and he was very proud of them ; while conversing, he would often look at them with an air of * Bourrienne, i. 331 {condensed). 246 IN THE TUILERIES 247 self-complacency. He also fancied he had fine teeth, but his pretensions to that advantage were not so well founded as those on the score of his hands. "When walking, either alone or in company with anyone, in his apartments or in his gardens, he had the habit of stooping a little, and crossing his hands behind his back. He gave an involuntary shrug to his right shoulder, which was accompanied by a movement of his mouth from left to right. This habit was always most remarkable when his mind was absorbed in the consideration of any profound subject. . . . When walking with any person whom he treated, with familiarity, he would link his arm into that of his companion and lean on it. ... His partiality for the bath he mistook for a necessity. He would usually remain in the bath two hours. While in it he was continually turning on the hot water to raise the temperature ; so that I, who read to him at the time, was sometimes enveloped in such a dense vapour, that I could not see to read." Madame de Remusat says: — " Bonaparte rose at no fixed hours, but ordinarily at 7 o'clock. When he awoke in the night, he sometimes began to wash, or he bathed, or ate. His awakening was generally melan- choly,and appeared painful. Not infrequently he had convulsive spasms in the stomach, which made him vomit. Sometimes he seemed to be much dis- quieted by such attacks, as if he dreaded being poisoned ; and then there was great diflficult). to prevent him increasing this tendency by trying all he could to excite vomitir^g."* This fear of attempts on his life was very present with him. Before the i8th Brumaire, when he dined with the Councils, at a banquet given in his honour, he would not eat of the meats prepared. On the i8th Brumaire, in the courtyard of S. Cloud, he never remained stationary for a moment, but moved about in zigzag fashion, lest he should be picked off by a shot from one of the windows. At Malmaison, he confined his walks to within the circle guarded by the police, lest an attempt should be made to poignard him. He was constantly on the look out for the daggers of the Jacobins, whom he well knew to be capable of anything. Most absurdly, he gave credit to the notion that the English Govern- ment hired assassins to remove him. In the fieM he thought he bore a charmed THE FIRST CONSUL. From a picture by Greuze. * Memoirs ^ ii. 335. 248 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE life, but not when at Paris. After the assassination of the Emperor, Paul I., his alarm on this score rose to a panic, and he actually indited to Talleyrand the following words to be addressed to the English Government : — " As to the small number of assassins who are actively employed in the interior, at the instigation of England, they were little to be dreaded, and the English Government must not calculate hopefully on their assistance." * " Bonaparte entertained a profound dislike," says Bourrienne, " of the sanguinary men of the Revolution, and especially of the regicides. He felt, as a painful burden, the obligation of dissembling towards them. He spoke to me in terms of horror of those whom he called the assassins of Louis XVI., and he was annoyed at the necessity of employing them and treating them with apparent respect. How many times has he not said to Cambaceres, pinching his ear, to soften, by that habitual familiarity, the bitterness of the remark, ' My dear fellow, your case is clear. If ever the Bourbons come back, you will be hanged.' A forced smile would then relax the livid countenance of Cambaceres, and was usually the only reply of the Second Consul." This horror of the Jacobins was due to his fear lest they should endeavour to compass his destruction, and he knew that to them all modes were in- different. It was through this dread of the dagger, that he was so much afraid of giving tete-d-tete audiences, and insisted on a second person being present. The Jacobins were not the sole object of this dread. " It is curious," says Bourrienne, " that amidst all the anxieties of war and government, the fear of the Bourbons incessantly pursued him, and the Faubourg S. Germain was to him always a threatening phantom." The besetting idea that England not only connived at the plots of the Bourbons to obtain his assassination, but even provided means, men, and money for such a crime, could not be got out of his head. The Corsican, with his inherited notions that the stiletto was the proper means whereby wrongs were to be righted, did not think such methods beneath the honour of a great nation and a responsible Government. It was in vain for Lord Hawkesbury indignantly to repudiate such a charge ; Napoleon believed that he was justified in return- ing to it, and the base Fouche did his utmost to foster this notion, and stir almost to frenzy his master's fear of the assassin. By his agents, he managed to obtain copies of the correspondence of Drake, the English agent at the Court of Munich, and of Spencer, who acted in the same capacity in that at Stuttgart, and he persisted in believing that this correspondence proved such connivance of the Ministry with plots for murder, though no one else could see any incriminating passages in the letters published. On them he wrote to Dessolles, commanding in Hanover (8th March, 1804), "Nothing can equal the intense stupidity of this plot, if it be not its wickedness. The human heart is an abyss which deceives calculation, and cannot be fathomed by the most penetrating genius." To Talleyrand he wrote on May 30th, 1804: — "The French Government is authorised to consider all the representatives of the British Cabinet as agents * Bonaparte to Talleyrand, 28th May, 1801. IN THE TUILERIES 249 of plot and war. The most noble profession, which enjoys a kind of sanctity, and which is surrounded by the veneration of men, is for the British Cabinet merely a veil to cover plots, crimes, and subversions ! An ambassador is a minister of conciliation ; his duty is always a holy duty founded upon morality ; and the British Cabinet says he is an instrument of war, who has a right to do anything, provided he does nothing against the country by which he is accredited. . . . The English Government has often given proofs of political ferocity, now it behaves with folly and imbecility." ■ 1 |l W^^^^^^^^^i t^^^^^l ^^^1 ^^H Ml^ni^H ■ 1 ATIEMPT OF THE 3RD NIVOSE. From a lithograph. Yet his own agents were everywhere engaged in the violation of every right, in arresting on neutral territory, in copying secret despatches, in bribing ministers, and in stirring up revolutionary movements. He was incapable of understanding the feeling of a nation roused against his encroachments, and violation of its rights and liberties. Opposition he attributed to the venality of the Courts and the stupidity of the people, the former bought by English gold, the latter hoodwinked to support those they ought to despise and resist. The first attempt at assassination was attributed to Caracolli and the Corsican Arena, but it was never brought home to them, and many believed that it was a plot manufactured by the police. Then the police discovered a sort of infernal machine, at the workshop of a man named Chevalier, but no evidence was forthcoming to show that it was designed to destroy the First Consul, though Chevalier was unable to prove that it had any honest purpose. The attempt which created greatest noise was that which produced an explosion 250 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE whilst the First Consul was on the wa}' to the Opera, which killed four persons and wounded sixty. This was on the 3rd Xivose (27th December, 1800). The man who had charge of it was injured, and his depositions were taken down. It seems to have been devised by a very few. Napoleon was filled with rage, and in a paroxysm of fear declared, in reply to a deputation of the Council of State to congratulate him on his escape, " This is not a plot of nobles, of Chouans, nor of priests ; but it is that of the Septembrists,* those scoundrels, covered with crime, who form a battalion in square marching against every successive Government. . . . Some means must be found to execute prompt justice upon them." Fouche, head of the police, and an old Terrorist, endeavoured as much as possible to screen his Jacobin allies, and he produced evidence that this plot was the work of Chouans. Nevertheless, Napoleon grasped the occasion to get rid of the principal Jacobins, and such enemies of his encroachments as he dared to lay hands on. Caracolli and Arena were executed, then Chevalier and four accomplices ; after that a hundred and thirty dangerous men were sentenced to be deported — " Not because they had been taken dagger in hand, but because they were universally known to be capable of urging on or partaking in such a crime." All but two died in the places whither they were transported. There can be little question that the bulk of Frenchmen were heartily glad that punishment should have fallen on the men who had stained the French soil with innocent blood, and that their deportation was regarded as a guarantee against further revolution. Although the Peace of Luneville had been concluded, Bonaparte had no desire for a prolonged state of tranquillity. All he needed was sufficient time to consolidate his position. He said to Bourrienne : — " A great reputation is a great noise ; the more there is made, the farther off it is heard. Laws, institutions, nations, all fall ; but the noise continues and resounds in after ages. . . . My power depends on my glory, and my glory on my victories. My power would fall were I not to support it by new glory and new victories. Conquest has made me what I am, and conquest alone can maintain me." Bourrienne remarks, " This was then, and probably always continued to be, his predominant idea, and that which prompted him continually to scatter the seeds of war through Europe. He thought that if he remained stationary he would fall, and he was tormented with the desire of continually advancing. Not to do something great and decided was, in his opinion, to do nothing. * A newly-born government,' said he to me, ' must dazzle and astonish. When it ceases to do that it falls.' " To return to his personal appearance and manner, the author of the Secret Memoirs says of this period : — " At the time that I knew him only as a general, his haughtiness, his dis- dain, his contempt for others, were perceptible through even his most trifling * Those engaged in the massacres in the prisons in September, 1 792. IN THE TUILERIES 251 actions. But no sooner did he become Consul, than the expression of his countenance was enlivened, his voice became less harsh, his eye mild, and his manner much less repulsive. Did he confer a favour, or promote anyone to an office, it was done with courtesy, often with the addition of some obliging expression. The beauties of language were little familiar to him ; he was a stranger to those brilliant obscurities, those neat inversions, so necessary to statesmen, who do not always express what they ought to say, but what they wish others to understand. To remedy this dearth of oratorical power, he formed a dictionary of chosen words and phrases, which he used according to the time, place, person, or circumstances. . . . Bonaparte was born a despot, the passion of domineering over men and crushing them was innate in him. Men and circumstances fed that passion, but even without such stimulants, he would never have been a good prince. Master of a school, or upon a throne, chief of a squadron, or a corporal on guard, at Paris or in Kamschatka, every- where he would have been a tyrant." * When Bonaparte was in good humour, his usual tokens of favour were a pinch of the ear, or a rap on the head, and he addressed those he was with as " fools," " simpletons," " blockheads." To women he was not much more polite. To one he would remark on the redness of her elbows, to another on the ugliness of her head-dress, and ask another how long she was going to appear in his presence in the same gown. One day, after he became Emperor, he said to the Duchesse de Chevreuse, in the presence of a large company, " What red hair you have got ! " " Sire," answered the lady, " it may be so, but this is the first time a gentleman has ever told me so." Napoleon shortly after banished her to Tours, because she declined to become maid-of-honour to his sister-in-law, the soap-boiler's daughter. Bonaparte had wrested Tuscany from the House of Austria, and constituted a Kingdom of Etruria, which he had given to the Spanish Infante of Parma with the title of King of Etruria. He and his bride were bidden to come to Paris, where Napoleon desired to display himself as the giver of crowns. As Madame de Stael wittily said, " He made an essay with this royal lamb, before bidding a King wait in his ante-chamber." The poor prince was feeble-minded; and Napoleon was rejoiced to have it in his power to show off a degenerate Bourbon to the jeers of the people.f Great festivities were given in Paris in honour of the young couple. At the theatre, where (Edipus was being performed, a sentence of Philoctetes was rapturously applauded: — "J'ai fait des souverains, et n'ai pas voulu I'etre." The First Consul was manifestly pleased at the application. The ephemeral kingdom lasted scarcely six years. The King died in 1803, and in 1807 the Queen was expelled from her throne by him who had constructed it for her. The production of the imbecile King, under the patronage of the First Consul, was a more successful coup than was that attempted by a pamphlet, drawn up by M. de Fontaines, corrected by Napoleon, and issued from the office of Lucien, who was Minister of the Interior. The pamphlet was entitled, * Secret Memoirs, 86, 89. t The poor, amiable, foolish Prince, was Louis de Bourbon, eldest son of the Duke of Parma, and was married to the Infanta of Spain, Maria Louisa, third daughter of Charles IV. 252 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE A Parallel between Ccesar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte, and the drift of it was the advantage of an hereditary monarchy. But the appearance of the brochure was premature, and met with general disapproval ; so that Napoleon was obliged to disavow it, cast the blame on his brother Lucien, and send him into Spain on a diplomatic mission. Lucien was in ill-humour over this. The pamphlet could not have appeared without his sanction, and yet he professed that the cause of his dismissal was due to the staunchness of his Republicanism,, and to his disapproval of the manner in which Napoleon was gathering into his own hand all the reins of government. Malmaison, though a charming country residence, did not now seem to Bonaparte sufficiently palatial for him as First Consul, and he obtained as his summer residence Saint Cloud, over the repair of which 600,000 francs was expended ; and the furniture to prepare it for his residence was taken from the national museums of Paris and Versailles, the tapestry came from the Gobelins and Beauvais. At one time. Napoleon had been proud of his being a member of the Institute, and had flourished his title to that honour before those of his military position. Now he ceased to relish it. " Do you not think," said he one day to his secretary, " that there is some- thing mean and humiliating in the words, ' I have the honour, my dear colleague, to be ' ? I am tired of it." XXXII THE SECOND STEP TO THE THRONE (1801-2) T>ONAPARTE, as already intimated, had resolved on a reconciliation with ( -■^ the Church, with the view of securing an ally. He had himself some sorKl of religious belief, but it was of the shallowest, and confined to a recognition of \ the Deity. "My reason," said he, "makes me incredulous respecting many things ; but the impressions of my childhood and early youth throw me into uncertainty." Bourrienne says, " He readily yielded assent to all that was proved against religion as the work of men and time ; but he would not hear of materialism. I recollect that one fine night, when he was on deck with some persons who were arguing in favour of materialism, Bonaparte raised his hand to heaven, and pointing to the stars, said, * You may talk as long as you please, gentlemen, but who made all that?' He had, however, no belief in the immortality of the soul. The only immortality he thought of was fame. ' The salvation of my soul ! ' he once exclaimed. ' With me, immortality is the recollection one leaves in the memory of man. That idea prompts to great actions. It would be better for a man never to have lived, than to leave behind him no traces of his existence.' " At a time when a multitude of the luxurious abbes, who had enjoyed titles and revenues, but had done no work for the Church, had fled the country, the parish priests had struggled against the prevailing infidelity, and had maintained the lamp of divine truth, had ministered the sacraments, and, as soon as it was possible, had reopened the churches. Some bishops had remained with their flocks, and had taken the oath of allegiance to the Constitution. As soon as the storm of the Reign of Terror was over, they set diligently to work to reorganise the Church in France, with full recognition of her old Gallican liberties. They had reconstituted fifty dioceses, and filled them with prelates zealous and able to distinguish between their religious and political duty. In jthe year V., four years before the Concordat, out of 40,000 parishes, 32,214 had their churches reopened, and priests serving them; and 4,571 were asking for :lergy to minister at their re-erected altars.* The Constitutional Church, as it [was called, was active, pious, and independent of political parties. It held its * Gregoire: Essai hist, sur les liberies de Viglise Gallicmie; also Mtimoires de Gr^goire, Paris, 1840, p. 107. 253 254 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE councils, which assembled and passed salutary canons. The revived Gallican Church rejected all fees for the ministration of sacraments. The independence of this Church was regarded with jealousy by the Pope, who dreaded, above all things, the resurrection of Gallican independence. Moreover, all the runaway abbes who returned clamoured for reinstitution. Pius VI. anathematised the reformed Church as heretical, contrary to Catholic dogma, sacrilegious, and schismatical. He threw himself heart and soul into the cause of that wretched ancient regime which had consumed France like a cancer. "The restoration of the old system," he wrote, " is the sole object of my thoughts and desires." The ex-bishops wrote pastorals to the clergy and to the faithful, forbidding them to hold communion with the con- stitutional prelates and clergy, forbidding burials to those who had received sacraments at their hands, and declaring marriages performed by them to be null and void. The oath, which interfered in no way with religion or the sacerdotal character, was twisted by designing hands into a sort of abjuration of the Christian faith, which, it was pretended, the Assembly had imposed on the clergy. The non - jurors declared that those who took it were apostates, Judases, worse than Mohammedans. Every nerve was strained to rouse the peasantry, and goad the women into resistance. " These clergy," says the Marquis de Ferrieres in his Memoires, " refuse to listen to any arrangement, and, by their culpable intrigues, shut the way to all conciliation; sacrificing the Catholic religion to an insensate obstinacy, and to a condemnable attachment to riches," As an instance of the spirit of the papalist clergy, may be instanced the occasion of the consecration of several bishops at S. Sulpice in Paris. The non-jurors sent a footman, dressed in ecclesiastical garb, to present himself for ordination, hoping thereby to turn the ceremony into ridicule. The trick was discovered, and the laquais turned out of the church. The Catholics of France were divided ; in some places the Constitutionals were most numerous, in others the non-jurors. Thus, in France, there existed BONAPARTE IN CORSICAN COSTUME. From a drawing by Vigny, engraved by Benoist. THE SECOND STEP TO THE THRONE 255 side by side two Churches, holding the same faith, exercising the same apostolic ministry, celebrating the same sacraments, and using the same ritual. Napoleon might have accepted an alliance with the Constitutional Church but he, as well as the Pope, viewed it with suspicion, because of the manly independence of the clergy in it. He accordingly entered into negotiation with Pius VII. towards a settlement of the religious question. In his notes dictated to Montholon, Napoleon gives his reasons plainly enough. He says that his object was "to attach the clergy to the new order of things, and to break the last thread by which the old dynasty communicated with the country." This result would not be obtained by an alliance with the Constitutional clergy, but it would be a master-stroke for him to bring over to his side those who had worked as much for the Bourbons as for the cause of religion. In his conversation with Las Cases he was still more explicit. After considering the various courses he might have adopted, he said that he had to choose between Catholicism and Protestantism, and he added, "At the time, my inclinations urged me to the latter." But, as he said, " I thought I should sooner reach the grand result with Catholicism. For, outside of France, Catholicism retained the Pope, and with my influence and my forces in Italy, I did not despair, sooner or later, by one means or another, of having him under my absolute control. Then, what an influence would have been mine ! What a lever in my hands wherewith to move the world ! " Passing thence to ulterior projects, and to that thought which lay at the bottom of his gigantic and unrealisable schemes, he said : " If I had returned a victor from Moscow, I would have induced the Pope no longer to regret his temporalities, I would have erected him into an idol ; he would have lived alongside of me. Paris would have become the capital of the Christian world, and I would have governed the religious world as well as the world of politics. That would have been an additional means of drawing together all the parts of the empire, and of keeping all outside in peace. My Councils would have represented all Christendom, and the Popes would have been merely the Presidents. I would have opened and closed the Assemblies, have approved and published their decisions, as did Constantine and Charlemagne."* Cardinal Consalvi was sent by the Pope to Paris to arrange matters. He arrived in June, 1801, and was bullied and cajoled. He was ready to sanction a great deal, if only the germ of independence in the Galilean Church could be trodden out ; and the object he and the Pope had at heart was, not so much to restore the Catholic Church as to destroy that which was Gallican, with all its liberties, and the energetic life which its liberty fostered. \ In July, 1801, the Concordat was signed, but it was not proclaimed till the April of 1802 ; whereupon a solemn Te Deum was chanted at Notre-Dame, on Sunday, the nth of April. Bourrienne describes the function : — " The crowd was immense. ... It is unquestionably true that a great number of the persons present at the ceremony expressed, in their countenance and gestures, a feeling of impatience and dis- pleasure, rather than of satisfaction, or of reverence for the place in which they were. Here and there murmurs arose expressive of discontent. The whispering, * Memorial de Las Cases. Ed. Brux., 1848. 256 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE which I might more properly call open conversation, often interrupted the divine service, and sometimes observations were made which were far from being moderate. Some would turn their heads aside to take a bit of chocolate- cake, and biscuits were openly eaten by many, who seemed to pay no attention to what was passing. " The Consular Court was, in general, extremely irreligious. Nor could it be expected to be otherwise, being composed chiefly of those who had assisted in the annihilation of all religious worship in France, and of men who, having SIGNATURE OF THE CONCORDAT. From a drawing by Gerard. passed their lives in camps, had oftener entered a church in Italy to carry off a painting than to hear mass. . . . On the road from the Tuileries to Notre- Dame, Lannes and Augereau wanted to alight from the carriage as soon as they saw they were being driven to mass, and it required an order from the First Consul to prevent their doing so. Next day Bonaparte asked Augererfu what he thought of the ceremony. * Oh ! it was all very fine,' replied the General ; ' there was nothing wanting, except the millions of men who have perished in pulling down what you are setting up.' Bonaparte was much displeased at this remark." During the negotiations with the Pope, Bonaparte one day said to his THE SECOND STEP TO THE THRONE 257 •secretary, "In every country religion is useful to the Government, and those who govern ought to avail themselves of it to influence mankind. In Egypt I was a Mohammedan, in France I am a Catholic. The policy of the religion of a State should be entirely in the hands of the Sovereign. Many people have urged me to found a Galilean Church, and make myself its head ; but they do not know France. If they did, they would be aware that the majority would not like a rupture with Rome." All the Constitutional and the emigres bishops received a Papal brief, enjoining them to resign their functions ; and Napoleon, who by the Con- cordat held in his hands the nomination to the archbishop- rics and bishoprics of France, was prepared to enforce the command. They therefore, for the most part, obeyed, the Constitutionals not without a protest. The institution of the Legion of Honour excited much more opposition than the Concordat. It was thought to be a recurrence to aristo- cratic distinctions, which had been abolished by the Revolu- tion. It required all the pres- sure that the First Consul could bring to bear on the three great bodies of the State to get them to pass it, and then he secured only a narrow majority. As Napoleon observed, " Vanity is the ruling principle of the French ; it was that which lay at the bottom of all the convulsions of the Revolution. It was the sight of the nobility enjoying privileges and distinctions to which they could not aspire, which filled the Third Estate with inextinguishable and natural animosity." But the conferring of the rank of Chevalier of the Legion of Honour was not the constitution of an hereditary caste ; it was the honouring of individuals ; and it was open to the humblest of citizens to aspire to it. It set before men something more noble than money-making, and that at the public expense. The opposition that Bonaparte had met with, in the Tribunate especially, made him very irritated with that body, and he resolved to silence its voice. THE FIRST CONSUL. From a drawing by Gdhotte. 258 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE According to the Constitution, the members of the Tribunate and Legislative Body were renewed in a fifth of their number every year, but there was no- provision as to who were to pass out each year. It had hitherto been deter- mined by lot ; but Napoleon seized on the opportunity to nominate those who- were to leave. In the Tribunate and Legislative Body, there were from fifteen to twenty on whom he could not reckon, and these he now eliminated from the two assemblies, and the Senate nominated, in their room, men who were creatures of the First Consul, fifteen generals or superior officers, and twenty-five functionaries. By this means, every vestige of representative government dis- appeared from these institutions ; and they became servile bodies, ready to- enregister the decrees of the First Consul, like the adulatory Senate of Rome under the Caesars. The Peace of Amiens had been signed on the 27th March, 1802, by Joseph Bonaparte and Lord Cornwallis. England retained Ceylon and Trinidad, other conquered colonies were to be restored to France and Holland ; Malta, which had been captured by the British, was to be made over to a reconstituted order of Knights. Burning questions were passed over, running sores veiled. It was obvious to all who chose to consider the condition of affairs on the Continent^ that this peace did no more than afford a breathing-time for the combatants to prepare for a death-grapple. Napoleon saw this clearer than anyone ; but it suited his purpose to posture as a peace-maker. France, like England, was weary of war, it was satisfied with the glory achieved by its arms ; it fondly ' believed that its Chief Consul was likewise content. But with Bonaparte, no- step was taken without intention of a further advance. The Treaty of Peace concluded at Amiens was not presented at once to the Legislative Body ; its presentation was purposely delayed. When finally it was produced, amidst a great flourish of trumpets, and glossed over with representations that gave to it a colour it did not really possess, it was proposed in the Tribunate " that to General Bonaparte should be accorded a distinguishing testimony of the national gratitude." The proposal" was at once carried, and Simeon, at the head of a deputation, appeared before the First Consul with the vote. He replied that he required no recompense but the affection of his fellow-citizens. Life was dear to him only because of the services he could render to his country, and death would be to him without bitterness if happiness was as secured to the Republic as was its glory. The terms of the vote were somewhat vague, and Napoleon did not relish them. The Senate, not to be behindhand, voted that he should be invested with the Consulship for ten years beyond the original ten, to which it was at first limited. When this was carried, and Bonaparte learned the form this " testimonial of national gratitude" had assumed, he was very angry. He treated the offer as an insult. Cambaceres had tried hard to get the Senate to vote for a Consulship for life; but this they were disinclined to grant. "They will,. perhaps, make wry faces," said Napoleon, " but they must come to it at last."" With a sudden affectation of diffidence, he pretended that he could not THE SECOND STEP TO THE THRONE 259 accept the honour that was being pressed on him, unless it were the wish of the people. "The interests of my glory and happiness," said he, "would seem to have indicated that the close of my public life should synchronise with the establishment of peace in the world. But the glory and happiness of the citizen must give way to the interests of the State, and the wishes of the public. You Senators conceive that I owe to the people another sacrifice. I will make it on condition that the voice of the people commands what your suffrage authorises." Many did not read between the lines that he was dissatis- fied with what was offered, and desired something more ; but this was speedily made plain to the Council, and they obsequiously agreed that the proposition to be submitted to a plebiscite was to be, whether Napoleon should be invested with the Consulship for life, with power to nomi- nate his successor. Accordingly on the nth May, 1802, the Moniteur an- nounced that registers would be opened in all the Mairies, in the offices of Justice, to receive the votes of the people on the question, "Shall Na- poleon Bonaparte be elected Consul for life ? '' The result of this appeal was announced by a Senatus Consultum, on August 2. It appeared that out of 3,557,885 citizens who had voted, 3,368,259 votes were in the affirmative. And the rapid rise of that barometer, the Funds, when the result was declared, showed that the nation felt confidence in the man it invested with such power, to whom, as Napoleon himself said, it had offered a blank cheque. The Funds, which had been as low as eight before the 1 8th Brumaire, rose to sixteen directly after, and then leaped to fifty-two. With such evidence as that, he was not to blame ; he might well conceive that the national instinct had fixed on him, as the only man capable of giving peace and prosperity to France. And had Napoleon, on his elevation to the Consulate for life, turned his THE FIRST CONSUL. By Boilly. 26o THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE attention primarily to internal organisation on a sound basis — that of repre- sentative government — he would for ever have been esteemed as the greatest benefactor France had seen. And surely, to have lifted his country into ease, and given her rest from her enemies round about, to have consolidated the institutions, the foundations of which had been already laid, would have been sufficient for a man of generous aspirations. But, unfortunately for France, for Europe, for himself, he was devoured by the fever of an evil ambition. He had used the Peace of Amiens as a means for obtaining the Consulship for life. No sooner was he invested with this, than he proceeded to kick over the stool. XXXIII PREPARATIONS FOR WAR (1803) T TATRED of England had been for some time growing to a frenzy in the ^ ^ breast of Bonaparte. England had stood in the way at Acre, and had diverted him from the accomplishment of his fondest and grandest conception. " My projects, my dreams," said he to Junot one day bitterly, in reference to his Syrian campaign, " England destroyed them all." England had broken up the French fleet in Aboukir Bay, and cut his communications with France. England had recently defeated the relics of his army in Egypt, had forced it to capitulate ; and Egypt, the corner-stone of his Empire of the World, was lost. Malta, that was all-important for supremacy in the Mediterranean, had been taken as well. England harboured, and, as he insultingly proclaimed, paid, the assassins deputed — so his police informed him, and he believed — to take his life by dagger, poison, or infernal machine. And England finally harboured the writers of pamphlets, and editors of papers, and designers of caricatures, that maligned, exposed, ridiculed him. He had strangled the Press in France. Of the thirteen newspapers licensed after the i8th Brumaire, five had since been throttled.* Now he savagely insisted that the Press should be silenced in England as well, as far as it treated of him and France, whilst he poured forth unrestrained abuse of Great Britain, through the channel of his own organ, the Moniteur. In England, the Ministry of Mr. Addington was in possession, seeking by all means to stave off war, ready to make the utmost compromise consistent with the national honour. In June, 1802, about two months after the signature of the Treaty of Amiens, Merry, the charge daffaires in Paris, notified the Government that the First Consul was again complaining of the attacks to which he was subjected on the part of the English Press. Napoleon then required of Otto, his Minister at the Court in London, to demand that (i) the English Government should adopt the most effectual measures to put a stop to the unbecoming and seditious publications, with which newspapers and pam- phlets printed in England were filled ; (2) that the emigres living in Jersey, * No book was allowed to be published till it had been seven days in the hands of the police. The play of Edward in Scotland was banished the boards, because it mentioned the exile of John Balliol, and this might be thought to refer to the Bourbons, 261 262 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE who were believed to send over batches of these publications to France, should be expelled the island ; (3) that George Cadoudal and other Vendeeans should be transported to Canada ; (4) that the Bourbon Princes should be ordered to leave the British Isles ; (5) that all such emigres as wore orders and decorations belonging to the old French dynasty should also be driven out of the British Empire. These extravagant demands were tantamount to ordering the English Government to abandon the Constitution, by the sacrifice of its main props, the liberty of the Press, and the privilege of habeas corpus. Lord Hawkesbury, Minister of Foreign Affairs, replied in a courteous note that this was not possible for the Government to grant ; but pointed out that it THE FIRST CONSUL AT THE HOTEL DE VILLE. From a drawing by David. was open to them to prosecute the principal offenders, if they transgressed what was tolerable in their attacks, and that the French Government had it in its power to stop the circulation of the objectionable papers in France. It agreed to send Cadoudal to Canada, but declined otherwise to transgress the laws of hospitality accorded to refugees. Then Bonaparte demanded the instant evacuation of Malta, Alexandria, and the Cape, according to the terms of the Treaty of Amiens, whilst himself trans- gressing its spirit by riveting the chains with which he held down Switzerland, and the letter as well by continuing to occupy Holland. The English Govern- ment immediately sent orders for the evacuation of the three places named, and this evacuation was in process of execution when, through the violence of Napoleon, the rupture was precipitated, and he lost the advantages he would have gained by the delay of a few weeks. PREPARATIONS FOR WAR 263 The rupture was provoked first by the publication in the Moniteur of the report of Colonel Sebastiani on the condition of the defences of the fortified places in Egypt and Syria, and of the state of the English forces there. It was stuffed with insinuations of the most offensive character. Finally, in an interview with Lord Whitworth, the English ambassador, Bonaparte flew into a violent passion, poured forth a torrent of abuse, and Lord Whitworth at one moment believed that the First Consul was about to strike him in the face. This led to the presentation of an ultimatum, which, not being accepted, the English ambassador asked for his passports and withdrew. This was on the 12th May, and the French ambassador embarked at Dover on the 1 8th. On the 22nd, Napoleon ordered the arrest of all English, between the ages of eighteen and sixty years, then travelling in France. Madame Junot, in her Memoirs, gives a graphic of the condition ENGLISH PLUM-PUDDING MENACED. From a caricature by Gillray. account of excitement in which Bona- parte was at the time. Junot was then Governor of Paris. He was sent for by the First Consul in the middle of the night, who put the order into his hands re- quiring the execution of the unprecedented measure. His eyes flashed fire ; his whole figure was trembling with agitation. "Junot," said he, "you must, before an hour elapses, take measures so that all the English, without one single exception, shall be arrested. The prisons will hold them ; they must be] seized." And, with these words, he struck the table violently with his fist. " This measure," said Napoleon, " must be executed at seven in the evening. I am resolved that in the obscurest theatre, or the lowest restaurant in Paris, not an Englishman shall this night be seen." Junot in vain attempted remonstrance. He pointed out that such an order would cover with ignominy all concerned in the execution. Bonaparte refused to listen. Under this decree, above ten thousand English travellers and merchants were at once incarcerated, and many did not escape for eleven years. The Annual Register says hereon, "The Great Consul, like a politic shep- herd, continues removing the pen of his bleating English flock from spot to spot, well knowing that the soil will everywhere be enriched by their temporary residence." 264 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE The infamy of the proceeding was the greater in that, only a few days before, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs had given the English in Paris an assurance that they would be permitted to leave the realm unmolested. Napoleon's own account of this proceeding, as given to Las Cases, is deserving of notice. " The more novel the act was, the more flagrant the injustice committed, the more it answered my purpose. The clamour it raised was universal, and, all the English addressed themselves to me. I referred them to their own Government, telling them that their fate depended on it alone." It is probable that the order was issued in one of those unreasoning bursts of fury to which he was liable, and in which he often gave the most sanguinary or outrageous orders, which, happily, those about him on those occasions as often failed to execute, or delayed executing, till his judgment had recovered sway. When, however, one of these orders had been carried out, his pride forbade its withdrawal, and made him seek justification for his conduct. Such an excuse has been offered for the murder of the Due d'Enghien, but it will not hold. The circumstances are well known. Napoleon had been led by spies to believe that the young Duke, then on Baden territory, was acting in concert with Pichegru and other conspirators. Fouche had been dismissed from office, and was out of favour with Napoleon. He was anxious to recover his lost posi- tion, and for this purpose set his agents industriously to work to manufacture a plot. Material was abundant ; and, by means of agents provocateurs, he suc- ceeded in drawing on a certain number of Royalists to conspire to enter France from England, and there agitate for the Bourbon cause. They landed on the French coast on January i6th, 1804, and made their way to Paris. Fouche had led them to believe that Moreau would join them. The Duke of Enghien, son of the Due de Bourbon, and a lineal descendant of the great Conde, was at this time at the chateau of Eltenheim, in the territories of the Duke of Baden, where he amused himself with hunting. He had been privately married to the Princess Charlotte de Rohan, to whom he was passionately attached. The gallant character of the Prince, his military reputation, had made him a favourite with many officers and men in the army. His name, as the last scion of the family of the great Conde, gave him prestige. Napoleon was determined to make a signal example, when told of the plot of Pichegru, Cadoudal, and his fellows, and when Fouche, trading on his nervous terrors, assured him that " the air was full of daggers." To accomplish this, he ordered the arrest of the young Duke, though on neutral territory, and that he should be brought to Paris. Cambaceres, the Second Consul, who saw that such a violation of neutral territory and the meditated execution of the Prince, would create a great revulsion of feeling against Napoleon, earnestly entreated him to forbear pro- ceeding to extremes, but was cut short with a bitter scoff, "You have become singularly chary of the blood of the Bourbons," an allusion to Cambaceres having voted for the death of Louis XVI. PREPARATIONS FOR WAR 265 The Duke was captured, conveyed to Strasburg, and intelligence telegraphed to Napoleon, who ordered that he should at once be brought to the capital. "I am resolved," said Bonaparte, "to put an end to these conspiracies. If the emigrants will conspire, I will cause them to be shot. I am told that there are some of them concealed in the hotel of M. de Cobentzell " (the Austrian Minister). " I do not believe it. If it were so, I would shoot Cobentzell along with them. The Bourbons must be taught that they are not, with impunity, to sport with life. Such matters are not child's play." ^^^^ ' ^#k; BONAPARTE AS FIRST CONSUL. After Nadet. This belief in being surrounded by assassins, this constant terror lest he should be attacked by them, was a remarkable feature in Bonaparte's mental condition. It resembles the ever-present fear of Nero, and is, in certain cases, an indication of derangement. There were no plots to assassinate him, except that one with the infernal machine. All the rest were inventions of Fouche, who had discovered how timorous his master was. Akin to this dread of assassination was the nervous mistrust with which he treated even his most devoted friends. When Josephine heard of the arrest of the Due d'Enghien, she interceded for him personally, but in vain. " In politics," said Napoleon to her, "a death destined to give repose is not a crime. The orders have been given. There is no possibility of retreat." 266 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Bonaparte, indeed, as soon as he heard that the Prince had been secured, had sent orders that he should be conveyed to Vincennes, and lodged in the castle. His aide-de-camp was, at the same time, sent to the Governor of Paris, with instructions to summon a special Council of War, consisting of seven members, and Murat was ordered to execute the purpose of his brother-in-law. To his brother Joseph he spoke on the matter with cold-blooded candour : — " I cannot repent of my decision with regard to the Due d'Enghien. This was the only means I had of leaving no doubt as to my real intentions, and of annihilating the hopes of the partisans of the Bourbons. Then I cannot conceal the fact that I shall never be tranquil on the throne so long as a single Bourbon exists, and this Bourbon is one the less. It is what remains of the blood of the great Conde, the last heir of the finest name of that house. He was young, brilliant, brave, and consequently my most redoubtable enemy. The sacrifice was necessary to my safety and grandeur. . . . Not only if what I have done were still to be done, would I do it again, but if I had an opportunity to-morrow of getting rid of the last two scions of that family " (the two sons of the Due d'Artois), " I would not allow it to escape." The circumstances of the murder are too well known to be entered into here — how the Governor of Vincennes was required to dig a grave before the Duke was brought to trial ; how that no evidence was produced against the accused, but a hasty form of trial hurried through in the night, and sentence pronounced and executed forthwith in the moat of the castle by lantern light, while Savory stood on the bank looking on, to make sure that the execution was completed. "When about to make himself Emperor," says Madame de Stael, "Napoleon deemed it necessary, on the one hand, to dissipate the apprehensions of the Revolutionary party as to the return of the Bourbons ; and to prove, on the other, to the Royalists, that when they attached themselves to him, they broke finally with the ancient dynasty. It was to accomplish that double object that he committed the murder of a prince of the blood, the Duke d'Enghien." He was preparing to have himself proclaimed Emperor, and, before doing so, sought to gratify the Jacobins. That may have been one reason, but it is more probable that it was an act of insensate panic. That some of his Ministers were eager for the murder can scarce be doubted, from the precipitation with which the order was carried out. This was not always the case. When he wished to shoot such an unimportant personage as the Prince of Hatzfeld, in Berlin, in 1806, those around the Emperor were resolved it should not be done. Certainly Savary, and, above all, Talleyrand, were determined to have the Duke killed, as a necessary step to the Imperial crown. Talleyrand was visiting, that same night, at the house of Madame de Laval, listlessly reclining in an arm-chair. He took out his watch, and, with- out showing any emotion, said, "At this moment the last of the Condes has ceased to exist ! " Three days after he gave a ball, and when he was asked why, if he disapproved of the murder, he did not resign his post, his laconic answer was, " Because the First Consul committed a crime, that is no reason why I should commit a folly." PREPARATIONS FOR WAR 267 The conspiracy in which George Cadoudal, Pichegru, and the Poh'gnacs were •engaged, or asserted to be engaged, was largely got up by Fouche. Pichegru was found garotted in prison. It was asserted that he had committed suicide, which was improbable. He was resolved to speak out very plainly when summoned before the tribunal. It was whispered that Napoleon had sent four of his Mamelukes, brought out of Egypt, to strangle him. An Englishman who was implicated, Captain Wright, was also found a few days later in prison with his throat cut, and this also was asserted to have been a case of suicide. There is not evidence sufficient to enable a judgment to be formed as to how Pichegru <:ame by his death. In an open court, the examination of Pichegru would have revealed the entire innocence of the Due d'Enghien, and that would have been inconvenient. Moreover, he was in possession of important secrets, relative to the 13th Vendemiaire and the i8th Fructidor, that deeply concerned the First Consul, and which, if made public, might have injured him in the minds of the people. Pichegru had been so imprudent as to say in England that, if he found an opportunity of speaking in public on his return to France, he would make use of these facts ; and this had been reported to Bonaparte. When Napoleon gave orders for his arrest, he had said, " If he resist, kill him ! " When Talleyrand was asked what he thought of the death, he drily replied, " It was very sudden, but very opportune." The pretence was made by the police that George Cadoudal intended to assassinate the First Consul. This he strictly and positively denied. He and the others in the plot did indeed desire a Bourbon restoration, and intended working for it, but not with a poignard. Twenty of the conspirators were sentenced to death, but the execution was only accomplished on twelve. The gentlemen had their sentence commuted to imprisonment. Desperate attempts were made to implicate Moreau in the conspiracy, but no evidence worth a rush was forthcoming. He was arrested, and put on his trial. One of the principal witnesses relied on was Picot, the valet of Cadoudal. His evidence was drawn from him by torture. But on trial, he recanted, and held up his hands, covered with bruises from the thumbscrew. Although the jury had been suspended, and the bench of judges packed with men aware that Bonaparte was determined on the destruction of Moreau, and although they had been solemnly assured that Bonaparte would pardon him, if they returned a verdict of guilty, and sentenced him to death, still the majority refused to find Moreau guilty of the crimes imputed to him, but unproved. Clavier, one of the judges, when told that the First Consul would pardon the accused, if condemned, answered, " Yes ; but who will pardon us ? " In the end, a compromise was agreed to, and Moreau was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. When this was communicated to Napoleon, he flew into a passion — a passion which makes one doubt the assertion that he would have spared his rival had he been condemned to death. A few days later, when Lacombe, one of the judges who had long maintained the innocence of Moreau, presented himself at the Tuileries with his colleagues, Bonaparte advanced towards him, 268 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE and violently exclaimed, " How dare you sully my palace with your presence ? " What Napoleon required rather than the life of Moreau, was that a stigma of treason to his country should attach to his name, and so destroy his popularity with the army, and the impotent conclusion of the trial hardly succeeded in doing what he desired. The sentence was changed into one of banishment, and Moreau left France. Jealous of Moreau's abilities, Napoleon was not : he knew him to be able, but lacking in energy; but jealous of the favour in which he stood with the soldiers, and the respect with which he was regarded by the officers, that he certainly was. Having spoken of the murder of the Due d'Enghien, and the supposed suicide of Pichegru, it may be as well here to mention some other cases of mysterious deaths, of which Napoleon is believed to have been guilty. As already mentioned. Captain Wright, who had disembarked three Royalist refugees in France, was taken. Napoleon at once, without a particle of evidence, concluded that these were assassins in the pay of the British Government. He wrote from Ostend on the 14th August, 1804, to Talleyrand, "We have obtained the proof (! !) that he was placed at the disposal of Lord Hawkesbury by the Admiralty, which had no idea of the duty he was intended for ; gallant officers like the Lords of the Admiralty would not have suffered the English Navy to be thus dishonoured. We are convinced that this dishonourable act is the personal affair of this officer Wright and of Lord Hawkesbury, who himself drew ;^40,ooo out of the Treasury as the price of this crime. ... It is for posterity to affix the brand of infamy on Lord Hawkesbury and those cowards who have adopted assassination and crime as a means of war." Wright was found with his throat cut in prison, and the razor which had cut it folded at his side. He had been heard the night before playing his flute, and was cheerful, anticipating his exchange. The gravest doubts remain as to the possibility of this having been a case of suicide. It seems likely that he was put to death in prison, because no evidence sufficient to convict him was producible, although Napoleon was firmly convinced of his guilt. The extraordinary, and to this day mysterious, disappearance of Mr. Bathurst was, at the time, attributed to Napoleon, who carried off Sir G. Rumbold from Hamburg, and confined him in the Temple. Bathurst had been sent on a secret embassy from the English Government to the Court of the Emperor Francis, early in 1809. Napoleon was extremely anxious to ascertain what communications were passing between Vienna and London, and on the way back from the Austrian capital, as he neared the Hanoverian frontier, then occupied by the French, Bathurst was spirited away, and was never seen or heard of again. The case of Villeneuve is more compromising. After the battle of Trafalgar, which he had lost, he was landed at Morlaix, and proceeded on his way to Paris, in order to demand that a court-martial should be held on his conduct. He had engaged the English against his judgment, and solely because obliged to do so by express written orders from Napoleon. PREPARATIONS FOR WAR 269 On reaching Rennes, he was found in his room stabbed in six places. Two of the wounds were mortal ; so that if this were a case of suicide, Villeneuve must have stabbed himself at least once after having received a mortal blow, and then have thrown the dagger away, as it was picked up at a distance from his body. It was pretended that a letter was found on the table, in which lie bade farewell to his wife, and announced his purpose of destroying himself, but the widow could never obtain a sight of this letter, and no traces of the original have ever been found. A strong suspicion existed that Napoleon had ordered the assassination, lest at a court-martial Villeneuve should produce his order, and so reveal that Napoleon himself was to blame for the disaster •of Trafalgar. On the very day of the Admiral's death, a letter from the Emperor to Decres ordered, " Send Admiral Villeneuve home, with orders to remain quietly in Provence until his exchange can be effected." This letter is in itself suspicious. It is inconsistent with the character of Napoleon's com- munications after a disaster. It shows no resentment at all, and it makes no mention of the court-martial which the Admiral demanded. The letter looks suspiciously like an attempt made to throw dust in the eyes of the public. The Peace of Amiens having been torn up, Bonaparte directed all his thoughts to the prosecution of the war with England. " All who had an opportunity of closely studying the character of Napoleon knew," says Mme. Junot, " that the predominating desire of his mind was the humiliation of England. It was his constant object; and during the fourteen years of his power, during which I was able to observe his actions and their motives, I knew his determination to be firmly fixed upon affording to France the glory of conquering a rival who never engaged upon equal terms ; and all his measures had reference to the same end." The loss of Egypt to him was a most bitter disappointment. Napoleon's resentment against England partook of the vendetta spirit of his Oorsican compatriots. To punish England — to cripple, if not to crush her — became to him a sacred duty, and to that he devoted the rest of his days of power. He had resolved on a rupture, whilst engaged in discussing the terms of peace ; but he needed time to prepare the minds of the French for a fresh launch into warfare. France had but just acquired tranquillity, and was tasting its advantages. To ruffle the calm, to let loose the dogs of war, to increase taxation, would be •eminently unpopular. Therefore it was necessary for Napoleon to provoke a war fever in those who had but one desire — to be allowed to enjoy the sweets of peace. To lash the French into fury, such as consumed himself, was his first undertaking. Violent, abusive articles appeared in the papers — fictitious letters from correspondents in England, but actually written in Paris — describing the weakness of the British Empire, the contests of parties equally balanced, the tyranny exercised by the nobility over the poor, and by the Protestants over the Catholics in Ireland. Absurd charges against England, such as having flung 270 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE plague-infected bales of goods on the French coast, were seriously published. The incompetence of the English generals, the inefficiency of her armies, the incapacity of her Ministers, and the insanity of her King, were all dilated on, so as to induce such as read these journals to believe that the conquest of England would be easy. Then the legion of officials was set to work to stimulate enthusiasm for war. All the organs of public opinion had been silenced, all the channels had been choked by means of which the truth could reach the ears of Frenchmen. Cen- tralization had placed in the hands of the First Consul the thread by means of which he set the whole vast organisation of the Bureau in motion throughout the land. And now might be seen an immediate result of the Concordat. The bishops had become the religious /r^^j of Bonaparte. A circular addressed to them on 7th June, 1803, ordered that prayers should be offered up in all churches that the French arms might be successful in the war against the King of England, " who violated the faith of treaties, in refusing to surrender Malta to the Order of S. John of Jerusalem." Napoleon trusted to the shortness of the memory of the bishops ; he hoped that they had forgotten that it was he who had snatched Malta from the hands of the Order of Knights. Many of the bishops thus addressed, as refugees had been given an asylum in England, and more than that, had been allowed each an income of ;;^2 5o; they had been accorded the kindliest and most generous hospitality during ten years. This was all forgotten now, and they preached a Holy War against the heretics, who withheld the rock of Malta from the Church. Next came invitations to contributions for the war. The Senate, from their salaries, undertook to provide a ship, and the Communes were expected volun- tarily to furnish men and money. Napoleon was afraid to impose too onerous a burden on the French ; he therefore had recourse to his old plan of forcing other and feeble States to pay for it. The unhappy Cisalpine Republic was constrained to grant an annual subsidy of over 100,000,000 francs. As soon as war was declared, Napoleon occupied Hanover, on the pretext of its dynastic connexion with England ; and forced it to supply 3000 horses, and maintain 30,000 French soldiers. Naples was at peace with France; it had concluded a treaty. French troops were, however, ordered to enter the kingdom, garrison fortresses, and demand that a large body of men should be equipped and paid by the King of Naples, and furnished for the prosecution of the war. Holland would have been but too grateful to have escaped further exaction. It had been cruelly drained under the excuse of protection. It was now required to furnish five men-of-war, five frigates, 100 gunboats, carrying from three to four hundred cannon, 250 flat-bottomed boats, and several hundred vessels of transport. Such was the financial exhaustion of the Batavian Republic that Bonaparte knew it was useless to exact of it any more coin. Switzerland, also protected by France — against no enemy menacing it — was PREPARATIONS FOR WAR 271 a poor country, and could supply but little money ; it possessed, however, hardy men, and by a convention, signed at Freiburg on the 27th September, 1803, Switzerland was required to furnish an army of 16,000 men, and a reserve of 4000 in addition. It was further stipulated that in the event of an attack by England on French territory, the contingent should be increased to 28,000 men. Next in turn came Spain and Portugal. The former was obliged to pay 6,000,000 francs per month, and the latter 16,000,000 annually during the war. The conduct of Bonaparte with regard to Spain deserves a few more words, as it exhibits that brutality — there is no other word for it — with which he systematically treated the weak. The poor King was mentally deficient, and ruled by the Prince of the Peace, who carried on an intrigue with the Queen. Napoleon sent two letters to Spain — one to be delivered into the hands of the King himself, the other to the Spanish Ministry — for the purpose of disclosing the rumoured shame of the King, and denouncing the relations of the favourite and the Queen. These two abominable letters were to be de- livered in the event of the subsidy demanded for the conduct of the war being refused. Copies of both were exhibited to the Prince of the Peace. The note to the Ministry said, " that the French, who had placed the Bour- bons on the throne of Spain, would be very well able to find their way to Madrid, to drive thence . . . this favourite, who had reached a position of favour unheard of in modern history, by the most criminal of means." That to the King was not less explicit. Bonaparte bade him "open his eyes on the gulf that gaped below his throne. All Europe was afflicted as well as disgusted to contemplate the sort of dethronement to which the Prince of the Peace had subjected his Majesty." " He," continued Napoleon, " is the veritable King of Spain, and I foresee with pain that I shall be forced to make war against this new king. May your Majesty remount your throne, and drive away a man who, by degrees, has laid hold of the royal power, whilst retaining all the base passions of his character,, who has existed only by his vices, and has been dominated solely by his avarice." These letters were to be flourished before the eyes of the Prince of the KING GEORGE III. AND BONAPARTE. From a caricature by Gillray. 272 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Peace as a threat that, unless the requisite supplies were granted, they should be delivered to those to whom addressed. The same absence of refinement of feeling made Napoleon exult over the derangement of George III. He inserted in the Moniteur an article breathing his wrath against England : — " You had once, in Europe, the reputation of being a prudent nation, but you have degenerated. All you say inspires nothing but contempt and pity. . . . The state of malady in which is your King has communicated itself to the entire nation. ... As for your King, he has to exercise his troops on horseback, so as to arouse some of that military ardour and that experience which he has acquired on so many battle-fields." " Why are we at war ? " was his answer to an English pamphlet that angered him. " Because the English have no one to guide their politics but a crazy King, and for First Minister an old woman." Knowing that the wealth of Great Britain reposed on her commerce, he formed the extravagant design of killing her commerce by shutting against her all the ports of Europe. To carry out such a plan demanded a despotic control over all the States of Europe, which he did not possess ; but it was to realise this method of revenge that he precipitated himself into the Continental wars that led to his ruin. As he traversed the north of France, to inspect the preparations made for the projected descent upon England, he passed, at Amiens, under a triumphal arch, on which was inscribed — "The Road to England." What Lanfrey says thereon is too striking not to be quoted : — " This was, in truth, the road that Bonaparte had just entered on in declaring war. This was the road he was never more to quit ; the road that he would continue to follow unconsciously, when he entered as a conqueror into Vienna, Berlin, and Moscow. It was destined to be much longer than he anticipated, and, it would be made illustrious by miracles unnumbered. But at the end of this triumphal avenue, if his eye could have pierced the darkness of the future, he would have beheld with horror, not the triumph he anticipated, but the motionless Bellerophon awaiting its guest."* * Hist, de Napoleon I. 1868, iii. 20. DOLLS MADE AT NURNBERG. XXXIV THE THRONE (December 2, 1804) T N the alcoholic condition in which France was at the declaration of war with -*- England, Napoleon saw that the time was come when he could take the final step, and mount the Imperial Throne. The title of King he could not assume; it was associated with too many recollections. But that of Emperor was justified by the history of Rome, where the Republic had led to the Empire, by much the same series of stages as in France. The title of Emperor was, moreover, one gratifying to the soldiery; it savoured of military domination. This time Napoleon made none of those feints wherewith he had disguised his ambition when he sought the Consulship for life. Negotiations on the pro- ject went on for a month between the Government and the Senate. The formal proposition was entrusted to the Tribunate, which had been deprived of nearly all its independence, but was the only body that possessed a shadow of popular representation. On the 25th April, 1804, the motion was made in the Tribunate that the head of the State should be entitled Emperor. In the Council of State the motion was carried by a majority of 20 to 7, and in the Tribunate there was but one dissentient voice. Bonaparte might now have exclaimed with Tiberius, " O homines ad servi- tutem parati." From all sides flowed in congratulatory addresses, petitions ; every form of adulation was adopted. The answer of the First Consul was delayed a month, that he might feel the pulse of French opinion. Only from a few conscientious Republicans did any T 273 274 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE murmurs rise. The people generally welcomed the prospect of a stable Govern- ment, even though it signified an autocracy more crushing, more despotic, than that of even Louis XIV. — than that of any king or emperor then in Europe. The answer of Napoleon was characteristic. He knew the people well enough to be aware that, so long as they were given the chaff of words, they would allow him to withdraw the grain of power from their hands. Words which were to him but counters, were still to them coin. His actions were in complete contrast with his speech ; and he employed the popular phraseology as the means of veiling his acts, whilst killing all that the popular phraseology meant. When he expelled the deputies of the Council of Five Hundred, he called it " opening the era of Representative Governments " ; and now, when formulating an autocracy, he called it " the consolidation of all the advantages secured by the Revolution, and purchased by the death of so many millions of brave men, who died for the people's rights." An appeal was made to the people, as in the instance of his acceptance of the Consulship for life. Registers were opened in every commune, and 3,521,675 votes were recorded for his acceptance of the purple, against only 2,569. "History," says Alison, "has recorded no example of so unanimous an approbation of the foundation of a dynasty ; no instance of a nation so joyfully taking refuge in the stillness of despotism." Lavallette most truly says, " It was the secret wish of all those whose ambi- tion looked for favours which a Republic was unable to bestow."* The vast mass of the people did not know Napoleon personally ; they were unaware of his ambition, that was insatiable ; did not dream that he had not at heart the desire for that peace about which he professed himself so solicitous. And they saw in a dynasty a prospect of stability, and in Napoleon, a child of the Revolution, security against return to the abuses and burdens swept away by the Revolution. The Senate had declared Napoleon Emperor of the French on May i8th, subject to the ratification of the decree by the people, and Bonaparte had acknowledged the proffered imperial dignity in these words : — " I accept the title which you believe to be useful to the glory of the nation. I hope that France will never repent the honours she has accorded to my family. In any case, my spirit will have ceased to be with my descendants on the day in which they lose the love and confidence of the Great Nation." The name of Bonaparte, used hitherto by the First Consul, was now laid aside for the Christian name, after the wont of sovereigns. He proceeded at once to flatter and secure his generals by creating eighteen of them Marshals of the Empire. The two Consuls, who made their bow and withdrew, were consti- tuted Arch-Chancellor and Arch-Treasurer, and were to be addressed as Serene Highnesses. The two brothers of the Emperor, who by their docility had not incurred his anger, that is to say Joseph and Louis, were to be entitled Grand Elector and Grand Constable, and to be addressed as Imperial Highnesses. His sisters were to be Princesses, but his mother only Madame Mere. The * Memoirs, ii- 3i« THE THRONE 277 Ministers were to be addressed as Excellencies. Talleyrand was created Grand Chamberlain. There were ladies-in-waiting, and pages, and grooms of the chamber, a grand marshal of the palace, a grand squire, a grand master of the ceremonies : — " For," says Lanfrey, with cruel wit, " never is there felt to be more need of prodigality of grandeur in title than when there is pettiness in the things them- selves. But, indeed, all these men, from the master to the valet, might puff themselves out in their purple and their liveries : all savoured of parody, bor- rowed plumes, the tinsel and spangles of a theatrical representation, of a carnival scene. It was not possible to forget, behind these travesties of courtiers, the parvenu, the Jacobin, the Terrorist, the regicide, who had won all they now had of power, influence, and riches, by fighting against such titles, dignities, and privileges as they now laid hold of with so much effrontery. It was not possible to forget that they had on their hands the stain of the blood of those who had preceded them in these functions ; that they had enriched themselves on their spoils ; that the world had rung with their declamations against royalty and aristocracy. On the other hand, it was not possible to forget that the old noblesse, bought at a price, and now the humble courtiers of their former pro- scribers, despised, from the depth of their hearts, a usurpation on which they seemed to exercise their revenge by imposing on it all that was ridiculous in a superannuated etiquette. Neither length of time, nor tradition, nor popular superstition lent any prestige to this herd of renegades from all regimes ; and it is asking too much of history to expect her to take a serious tone over such contemptible buffoonery." But where there is a Court there must be state, there must be order ; and to ensure both there must be functionaries. It was the misfortune, not the fault of Napoleon, that he had to make his Court up of patchwork. When once launched on a course of ceremonial, the work went on merrily. "Whoever," says Madame de Stael, "could suggest an additional piece of etiquette from the older time, propose an additional reverence, a new mode of knocking at the door of an ante-chamber, a more ceremonious method of presenting a petition, or folding a letter, was received as if he had been a benefactor of the human race. The code of Imperial etiquette is the most remarkable authentic record of human baseness that has been treasured up by history." But the mere accordance of the title of Emperor by the Senate and people of France did not suffice. Napoleon could not call himself " Emperor by the grace of God " till he had received the sacred unction, the token that the elec- tion by the people was ratified by Heaven. The representative of the Bourbons might entitle himself Louis XVIII., but he could exhibit no popular or religious sanction to sovereignty over the French people. But if he, the chosen of the nation, were anointed and crowned, and that by the Head of the Catholic Church, then indeed he felt that he would have a right which could not be shaken, though it might be disputed. Accordingly, he entered into negotiations with Pope Pius VII., to induce him to come to Paris, there to consecrate him. He had another reason. Europe was still shuddering at the assassination of the Due d'Enghien. If he could persuade the Pope to come to his coronation, that would, in the eyes of the world, be absolution for the crime. 278 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Napoleon had talked the matter of his coronation over with Lannes, who said to him, " If I were in your Majesty's place, I would leave the Vicar of Christ to sit quietly in his chair, and would do whatever I wish at home, by my own authority. We live no longer in times when the holy oil is an article of faith." ''That," replied Bonaparte, "is reasoning like a soldier; but do you forget that there are five-and-twenty millions to whom I am to give laws, of whom at least eighteen millions consist of fools, pedants, and old women, who would not believe me to be a legitimate Sovereign, if the unction of the Lord did not rest on me ? In a case so peremptory, we must not neglect to dazzle the eyes of the many. Splendour always prevents reflection." " I feel as you do," answered the General ; " but what if you should meet with a refusal ? " "What do you say — a refusal? The Pope dares not refuse. The good things of this world touch him as nearly as do those of heaven. I know Pius VII. I took his measure during the Concordat. Great promises on certain points, and great honours shown him on the road and at Paris, will be sufficient to bring hither that holy man."* As the scruples of the Pope multiplied, and his hesitation became greater,. De Cacault, the French Ambassador at Rome, was ordered to demand his passports, unless the difficulties were made to disappear by a given date. This so frightened the Holy Father and his advisers, that they pocketed their scruples, and abandoned the attempt to exact definite promises to adhere to- certain conditions, to obtain which the scruples had been produced and paraded. And yet there was a certain amount of sincerity leavening the hypocrisy of the negotiation. The Pope had read Bonaparte's proclamation in Egypt, in which he boasted of having overthrown both the Vicar of Christ and the Cross of the Crucified. He knew that Napoleon was guilty of the blood of the last of the Condes. He held in reverence the rights or claims of legitimate dynasties. But he possessed largely the ecclesiastical temperament so akin to the feminine — that craves after the exercise of petty revenges, and is greedy of power. The Pope had long harboured acute jealousy of the Constitutionals who had been made bishops after the signature of the Concordat, and resent- ment against the assermentes who had been left unmolested to minister at their parish altars. He had hoped to obtain from Napoleon, as the price of his consent to break the phial of oil on his head, that these men would be delivered over to them, that he might wreak on them his spite for having dared to act independently. Moreover, he hankered after the so-called Legations — Ancona^ Bologna, &c. — that had been detached from the Papal States, and he even daringly aspired to recover Avignon and Carpentras. Although Napoleon was profuse in expression of respect, there was a suspicious vagueness about his promises that could not deceive a Court in which the arts of dissimulation and evasion were carried to Oriental perfection. But if the promises were vague, the menaces were articulate enough, and finally the Pope yielded, thinking it his best policy to throw himself on the generosity of his terrible master, and trusting to his own powers of persuasion. * Secret Memoirs, p. 225. THE THRONE 279 When, finally, after the assurance of great concessions had been dangled before his eyes, Pius VII. did give way, then he announced that he did so "for the good and utility of religion " ; with certain niggling stipulations, as that Madame Talleyrand was not to be presented to him, and that papal etiquette should be strictly observed towards him in France. A serious hitch occurred when the oath of the Emperor came under con- sideration. Napoleon was to promise "to respect, and cause to be respected, the laws of the Concordat, and maintain liberty of worship." This was objected to on the part of the Pope as inconsistent with the Roman faith, which is essentially and radically intolerant. Talleyrand got over this difficulty by explaining that civil toleration only was meant. Then the Pope insisted on the religious consecration of Napoleon's union with Josephine. To this Bonaparte consented, on condition that the ceremony was performed privately. When finally the poor Pope approached Paris, the Emperor purposely met him, as by chance, in hunting costume, at Fontainebleau, surrounded by his Mamelukes and hounds. The two potentates embraced, and then entered a carriage simultaneously by opposite doors ; Napoleon seated himself on the right side, as that of honour. This was but the first of a series of annoyances to which the Pope had to submit during his stay in Paris. In his heart, Bonaparte despised the man, who, to gratify his ecclesiastical rancour, and satisfy his greed of power, threw over the Bourbons. Great preparations were made for the ceremony, which was to take place in Notre-Dame. A Master of the Ceremonies was imported from Turin, and Madame Campan was taken from her school to furbish up her memory, and detail all the little trifles of regal etiquette she could recollect as flourishing under the old regime. Isabey, the artist, was ordered to design the dresses, and make seven paintings representing the principal ceremonies of the coronation, by which all who took part therein might learn where to stand, and how to conduct themselves. How to do this when about a hundred were to be engaged in the function, and in the space of eight days allowed him, was impossible. But Napoleon was not the man to accept an excuse. " Isabey was saved by his inspiration full of resourse. He ran to a toy-shop, ordered a host of dolls about two inches high ; he designed their dresses, had them rigged up into princes and princesses, into marshals, ministers, grand officials, pages, and heralds of arms, and all was done in two days. Fontaine, the architect, forewarned, had executed a plan in relief of Notre-Dame on a corresponding scale. " Thirty-six hours after his visit to Saint Cloud, Isabey arrived at Fontaine- bleau, where was the Emperor, who, on seeing him, exclaimed, ' You have brought the pictures, eh ? ' ' Better than that, sire,' answered Isabey. Then he revealed his plan, constructed his theatre, and disposed his personages on the points numbered beforehand, like the squares of a chessboard. " Napoleon was so delighted with the invention of the artist, that he summoned Josephine, the ladies of the palace, and all the officers w^ho were to be in attendance. Then all proceeded to a rehearsal of the consecration, and each performer learned the place he was to occupy, and the part he was to play."* * y. B, Isabey^ sa vie et ses ceuvres^ par E. Taigny. 28o THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Only one of the ceremonies, more complicated than the rest, required actual personal rehearsal. This took place in the gallery of Diana at the Tuileries, by means of a plan traced in white chalk on the floor. Isabey had used his utmost taste in dressing the dolls, and by his address and talent saved the whole thing from being ridiculous. A curious letter from Napoleon to Josephine has been preserved, written directly he saw that the title of Emperor was going to be given him, in which he instructs her that she is to comport herself with dignity. " I have to acquaint you, madam and dear wife, that France is on the eve of acquitting herself of her debt of gratitude to me. In a few days, your husband will be proclaimed Emperor of the French. Begin then, from to-day, to assume the grandeur of that illustrious rank which I intend that you shall share with me. If the throne, on which you will soon be seated, is become, by my victories, the first throne in the world, let me have the sweet satisfaction of hearing that you are deserving of holding a rank with the first princesses in the universe. Prepare the people of your household for the new order of things. The Empress of the French ought no longer to be Madame Bonaparte, much less the wife of the First Consul." Poor, gentle Josephine ! There was no necessity for this underbred Corsican upstart to give her directions how she should conduct herself Her innate grace and natural refinement, together with the polish of her manner, fitted her to shine in any Court. At the time of his becoming Emperor, she was unhappy. She could not shake off the horror of mind caused by the murder of the Due d'Enghien, and this produced a restraint in her manner towards her husband which he did not fail to perceive, but which he could only account for as awe, inspired by himself in his new dignity, and as in accord with the haut ton that it became Imperial Majesties to affect. The announcement of the approaching ceremony produced a commotion in the Imperial Court. The Bonapartes had hoped at first that Josephine would take no other part than that of spectator ; but when they learned that she also was to be crowned, and above all, that the sisters of Napoleon were destined to act as train-bearers, then the effervescence in the hearts of Mme. Joseph, Mme. Murat, Mme. Borghese, and Mme. Bacciochi, caused an explosion so violent as to frighten Napoleon. Joseph, in particular, was vastly indignant ; he protested his rights, his dignity, as though he were a Prince descended from a long line of royal ancestors. Things went so far that, in a stormy interview. Napoleon asked him whether he purposed declaring war on him ; and when Louis also strutted and protested, Napoleon took him by the shoulders, and turned him out of the room. However, Talleyrand was called in, and succeeded in effecting an arrange- ment, whereby the new Imperial Highnesses agreed to touch the mantle of their sister-in-law, and make-believe they were holding the train, in return for which their own mantles were to be sustained by ladies of honour. At last the grand day arrived, the 2nd December, 1804 ; and in the morning the salons of the Tuileries were crowded with those who were to attend in the THE THRONE 281 pageant, dressed out, like actors, in a strange jumble of costumes, from the period of Louis XIII. to that of Louis XVI. Napoleon flourished about in red velvet, and striding into the midst of a knot of ladies gorgeously adorned, with all the delight of a child over a masquerade, exclaimed, " Ladies, you owe it to me that you are all so smart." Outside, the weather was dry and cold ; and the Pope was kept shivering for an hour in Notre-Dame, whilst Napoleon was enjoying the spectacle, at the Tuileries, of the actors in the performance belonging to his suite parade in ARRIVAL AT NOTRE-DAME. From a sepia drawing by Isabey. their new costumes. The procession of carriages started ; and when Napoleon and Josephine entered their state-coach, by mistake they took the place with their backs to the horses, and did not find out their error till the carriage began to roll forward. As the grand procession moved through the crowded streets, the people remained cold and impassive. One voice only was raised, to shout "Point d'Empereur!" Bonaparte, however, was satisfied at the resignation of the populace, and he said in Duroc's ear, " The game is won." He had not reckoned on enthusiasm, and he did without it. On entering the church, the unfortunate mantle of Josephine almost caused a fresh scandal. Her sisters-in-law held the train with such indifference, that the velvet, catching in a pile carpet, arrested her steps as though she were 282 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE gripped by a hand and held back. Napoleon had to turn on them, and rate them well, before they consented to raise it sufficiently to enable the Empress to proceed. The account of the Coronation cannot be better given than from the pen of that most delightful of all writers of memoirs, Madame Junot. "The day appointed for the ceremony was the 2nd December, 1804. "Who that saw Notre-Dame on that memorable day can ever forget it? I have witnessed in that venerable pile the celebration of sumptuous and solemn festivals ; but never did I see anything at all approximating in splendour to the coup d'ceil exhibited at Napoleon's coronation. The vaulted roof re-echoed the sacred chanting of the priests, who invoked the blessing of the Almighty on the ceremony about to be celebrated, while they awaited the arrival of the Vicar of Christ, whose throne was prepared near the altar. Along the walls hung with ancient tapestry were ranged, according to their ranks, the different bodies of the State, the deputies from every city ; in short, the representatives of all France, assembled to implore the benediction of Heaven on the Sovereign of the people's choice. The waving plumes which adorned the hats of the Senators, the Councillors of State, the Tribunes ; the splendid uniforms of the military ; the clergy, in all their ecclesiastical pomp ; and the multitude of young and beautiful women, glittering in jewels, and arrayed in that style of grace and elegance which is to be seen only in Paris — altogether presented a picture which has perhaps rarely been equalled, and certainly never excelled. " The Pope arrived first ; and at the moment of his entering the cathedral, the anthem Tu es Petrus was commenced. His holiness advanced from the door with an air at once majestic and humble. Ere long the firing of cannon announced the departure of the procession from the Tuileries. From an early hour in the morning the weather had been exceedingly unfavourable. It was cold and rainy, and appearances seemed to indicate that the procession would be anything but agreeable to those who joined in it. But, as if by the special favour of Providence, of which so many instances are observable in the career of Napoleon, the clouds suddenly dispersed, the sky brightened up, and the multitudes who lined the streets from the Tuileries to the cathedral enjoyed the sight of the procession, without being, as they anticipated, drenched by a December rain. Napoleon, as he passed along, was greeted by heartfelt ex- pressions of enthusiastic love and attachment. " On his arrival at Notre-Dame, Napoleon ascended the throne which was erected in front of the grand altar. Josephine took her place beside him, surrounded by the assembled sovereigns of Europe. Napoleon appeared singularly calm. I watched him narrowly, with the view of discovering whether his heart beat more highly beneath the imperial trappings than under the uniform of the Guards ; but I could observe no difference ; and yet I was at the distance of only ten paces from him. The length of the ceremony, however, seemed to weary him, and I saw him several times check a yawn. Nevertheless, he did everything he was required to do, and did it with propriety. When the Pope anointed him with the triple unction on the head and both hands, I fancied, from the direction of his eyes, that he was thinking of wiping off the oil rather than of anything else ; and I was so perfectly acquainted with the workings of his countenance, that I have no hesitation in saying that was really the thought that crossed his mind at the moment. During the ceremony of the anointing the Holy Father delivered the impressive prayer, which concluded with these words, ' Diffuse, O Lord, by my hands, the treasures of Thy grace and benediction on Thy servant, Napoleon, whom, in spite of our s 2 ' THE THRONE 285 unworthiness, we this day anoint Emperor in Thy name.' Napoleon listened to the prayer with an air of pious devotion; but just as the Pope was about to- take the crown, called the crown of Charlemagne, from the altar, Napoleon seized it, and placed it on his own head. At that moment he was really handsome, and his countenance was lighted up with an expression of which no words can convey an idea. He had removed the wreath of laurel which he wore on entering the church, and which encircles his brow in the fine picture of Gerard. The crown was, perhaps, in itself, less becoming to him ; but the expression excited by the act of putting it on rendered him perfectly handsome.* "When the moment arrived for Josephine to take an active part in the grand drama, she descended from the throne, and advanced towards the altar, where the Emperor awaited her, followed by her retinue of court ladies, and having her train borne by the Princesses Caroline, Julie, Elise, and Louis. One of the chief beauties of the Empress Josephine was not merely her fine figure, but the elegant turn of her neck, and the way in which she carried her head. Indeed, her de- portment altogether was conspicu- ous for dignity and grace. I have had the honour of being presented to many real princesses, to use the phrase of the Faubourg S. Germain, but I never saw one who, to my eyes, presented so perfect a personi- fication of elegance and majesty. In Napoleon's countenance I could read the conviction of all I have just said. He looked with an air of complacency at the Empress as she advanced towards him ; and when she knelt down — when the tears, which she could not suppress, fell upon her clasped hands, as they were raised to heaven, or, rather, to Napoleon — both then appeared to enjoy one of those fleeting moments of pure felicity which are unique in a lifetime, and serve to fill up a lustrum of years. The Emperor performed, with a peculiar grace, every action required of him during the ceremony ; but his manner of crowning Josephine was most remarkable. After receiving the small crown surmounted by the cross, he had first to place it on his own head, and then to transfer it to that of the Empress. When the moment arrived for placing the crown on the head of the woman whom popular superstition regarded as his good genius, his manner was almost playful. He^ took great pains to arrange this little crown, which was placed over Josephine's tiara of diamonds. He put it on, then took it off, and finally put it on again, PENCIL SKETCH OF JOSEPHINE. By David. * This act of self-coronation dreadfully disconcerted the Pope. He complained of it as an. infringement of the prescribed ceremonial, and a violation of his rights. But Napoleon was right. He was ready to receive unction for the office, a token of sacramental grace accorded to perform its duties, but not to receive the crown from the Pope, who had no right to confer it. That crown was-. conferred on him by the people of France, and he, as their representative, crowned himself. The Pope could in no way be regarded as the representative of the French people. 286 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE as if to promise her she should wear it lightly and gracefully. My position enabled me, fortunately, to see and observe every minute action and gesture of the principal actors in this magical scene. " This part of the ceremony ended, the Emperor descended from the altar to return to his throne, while the magnificent Vivat was performed by the full chorus. At this moment the Emperor, whose eagle eye had hitherto glanced rapidly from one object to another, recognised me in the little corner which I occupied. He fixed his eye upon me, and I cannot attempt to describe the thoughts which this circum- stance conjured up in my mind. A naval officer once told me that during a ship- wreck, when he had given himself up for lost, the whole picture of his past life seemed to unfold itself before him in the space of a minute. May it not be presumed that Napoleon, when he looked at me, was assailed by a host of past recollections — that he thought of the Rue des Filles de S. Thomas, of the hospitality he had shared in my father's house, and the ride in the carriage with my mother, when, returning from S. Cyr, he exclaimed, ' Oh ! si fetais maitre' "When I saw' the Em- peror a few days afterwards he said, ' Why did you wear a black velvet dress at the coronation? Was it a sign of mourning?' 'Oh, sire!' I exclaimed, and the tears started to my eyes. Napoleon looked at me, as if he would scan my inmost thoughts. 'But tell me, why did you make choice of that sombre, almost sinister colour ? ' * Your Majesty did not observe that the front of my dress was richly embroidered with gold, and that I wore my diamonds. I did not conceive that there was anything unsuitable in my dress, not being one of the ladies whose situations required them to appear in full court costume.' * Is that remark intended to convey an indirect reproach ? Are you, like certain other ladies, angry because you have not been appointed dames du palais ? I do not like sulkiness and ill-humour.' " THE CORONATION. From an engraving of the period. An incident or two relative to the coronation may be added. As Napoleon, wearing the imperial crown, neared his brothers, he said to Joseph, " What would father have said, had he seen this day ? " Quarrels about right to the succession to the Crown broke out in the family NAPOLEON IN COROXATIOX ROBES. From the portrait by Lefevre. UNIVERSITY OF THE THRONE 289 One day, when Bonaparte had his little nephew Napoleon, the son of Louis, on his knees, he said, " Do you know, little fellow, that you may be a king some day?" "And Achille?" hastily inquired Murat, anxious about his own son, also a nephew. " Oh, Achille," answered Bonaparte, " he will be a great soldier." Then to the little Napoleon, " Mind, my poor child, if you value your life, do not accept invitations to dinner with your cousins^* Presently the Marshals began to quarrel as to precedence, and to argue their claims before the Emperor. THE CORONATION PROCESSION. Drawn by Nodet. " I think," said Madame de Remusat, " you must have stamped your foot on France, and said, ' Let all the vanities arise out of the soil.' ' That is true,' answered the Emperor; 'but it is fortunate that the French are to be ruled through their vanity.' "f The noble picture of David, representing the coronation of Josephine by Napoleon, is not only a grand composition, but it is a treasury of portraiture of the important actors in that scene. It is not altogether accurate, as Madame Mere is represented as looking on. This was done by express order of Bonaparte. In reality, his mother was, at the time, in Italy with Lucien. She strongly disapproved of the assumption of royalty. Madame de Remusat, Mem. i. 220. t Ibid. , 72. zgo THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE ^ After the coronation, Pius VII. lingered on for sorrie months, waiting and hoping to receive what he had calculated on gaining as the price of submission. At last he had to leave, eating out his heart with bitterness of disappointment, carrying away a Sevres dinner service, and some pieces of Gobelins tapestry, but without having put his foot on the Constitutionals, or having recovered an acre of the Legations. But he had done the right thing, though it was done from the meanest of motives. If the voice of the nation can decide — and what else is to decide? — on who is to be its ruler, then the Bourbon dynasty was swept away, and the Corsican adventurer was chosen by the people unanimously in its place. " The powers that be are ordained of God," said the apostle. Acting upon this maxim, when the Merovin- gian sluggard kings had lost all political significance, Zachary, the Pope, had made no scruple to crown Pepin, the Palace Mayor, who held the real power. And when the Carolingians became de- generate, Hughues-Capet was accepted by the nation in place of Charles of Lorraine, the representative of the Carolingians, and was con- secrated by Adalbero, Arch- bishop of Rheims. There were consequently both Scriptural authority and ecclesiastical precedent to justity the course taken by the Pope, as well as common sense, which,. probably, was the element in the question the least Considered. Fouche unquestionably spoke what all France felt, when he said to Boiirrienne in 1805:— ' " I have no preference for one form of government over another. Forms signify nothing. The first object of the Revolution was not the pverthrow of the Bourbons, but the reform of abuses and the destruction of privileges. However, when it was discovered that Louis XVI. had neither firmness to refuse what he did not wish to grant, nor good faith to grant what his weakness PROFILE OF NAPOLEON.- Drawn during Mass in the Tuileries. THE THRONE 293 had led him to promise, it was evident that the Bourbons could no longer reign over France. You know everything that passed up to the i8th Brumaire, and after. We all perceived that a Republic could not exist in France ; the ^ question, therefore, was to ensure the perpetual removal of the Bourbons ; and I believe the only means for so doing was to transfer the inheritance of their throne to another family." And he might have added, as had been done in the case of the Merovingians and of the Carolingians. " The history of France justified such a change." XXXV AUSTERLITZ (1805) T70R a considerable time the project of an invasion of England had occupied -■- Napoleon's mind ; and not only had he thought it out in all its details, but he had set all departments in operation for the preparation requisite. Large numbers of troops had been concentrated at Boulogne, and all the docks were engaged, both in France and in Holland, in the preparation of flat-bottomed boats, suitable — or supposed to be suitable — for the transport of troops, cannon, and horses to the English coast. Further, the fleet in Brest under Admiral Gantheaume, and that at Toulon under Villeneuve, were instructed to combine, after . certain evolutions intended to distract English counsels and dissipate the English fleet ; and to cover the transport of the French army from Boulogne to the Kentish shore. Not only were vessels of various kinds being constructed in the dockyards on the coast, but also up the rivers ; stores of every description were collected at Boulogne, and spies had been employed in England and Ireland to examine and report on the defences of Great Britain, and to recommend the places most suitable for effecting a landing. But there were difficulties in the way which embarrassed Napoleon. His flat-bottomed transports could be used only when the sea was calm : even a swell was sufficient to capsize them when laden. And in the event of a suitable calm season being obtained, the currents in the Channel were so strong, that they would inevitably sweep his flotilla along with them. To counteract the currents, which had troubled Caesar in his descent on the coast, a capful of wind was requisite, so that sails could be spread. But there was another difficulty in the way ; Gantheaume was blockaded in Brest, and although Villeneuve had succeeded in escaping the English cruisers, and had thrust through the Straits of Gibraltar, he was unable to relieve the fleet cooped up in Brest, nor was he able to make his way into the Channel. Without the protection of his fleet the passage could not be adventured. Shortly after the coronation of Napoleon, the Legion of Honour was perfected as an institution. It was divided into cohorts, to each of which officers were appointed, and it was transformed into a knightly order. It was decided that the legionaries should carry at the buttonhole a moire ribbon, 294 AUSTERLITZ 295 of the colour of fire, to which should be attached a double star in silver and enamel, representing the effigy of the Emperor, with the superscription, Honneur et Patrie. The double star of commandants and the officers of cohorts was to be in gold. The grand officers of the Legion were to carry the badge attached to a cordon passing from right to left, together with the star at the buttonhole. A grand distribution of the decoration was made by the Emperor, at the Hotel des Invalides. Moreover, the flags of the regiments, inscribed with their victories, and surmounted by eagles, were also distributed by him, and this \ ^'WJ^j^j^mt-mM^^ J(» ^ ^ I ' ""% •4 ^m I^^^^^^M^ai^B^l^^flHH HHJ^^^yml'^^ \} ^H ME ^^1 ^^^^^^^^K^^^K' ^^^^^^^^P^^^K ip^p r T' St' ■Hl^^^^^s S^^^^^^^^^l ^^^HPR^^^^^*' \ ^^^H W^^" '-' ^'■-^2^^^ 9H ^^^Ir^^^^^^^l w .«^ ~'^^^^^H %&^ ^'- IH mmKMKS^^'-^^W^ .. ^^^: THE EMPEROR. From a lithograph by Raffet. forms the subject of one of David's pictures. In the original painting, a figure of Fame was introduced in the sky, scattering laurels ; but to this allegorical treatment Napoleon, with good judgment, objected, and it was omitted from the picture when completed. As a work of art, it is certainly inferior to David's picture of the Coronation. The attitude of the Marshals flourishing their batons is theatrical and grotesque. Bonaparte then went to the camp at Boulogne, where he also distributed honours, on the 15th August, his official birthday. Madame Junot, who was present, gives a graphic description of the scene : — " Near the Tour d'Ordre, on the most elevated point of the hill, a throne was constructed, around which waved two hundred banners that had been taken from the enemies of France. On the steps of the throne were ranged 296 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE the twenty-four Grand Officers of the Empire, whom Napoleon had selected from amongst the most distinguished military commanders. On the throne was placed the ancient chair known by the name of the Fauteuil de Dagobert, and near the Emperor was the helmet of Bayard, containing the crosses and ribbons which were to be distributed. The shield of Francis I. was also brought into requisition. In a valley cut by the hands of Nature there were stationed sixty thousand men, in several ranks, and in echelon. The valley was so formed that they seemed to be ranged in an amphitheatre, and could be seen from the sea, the waves of which broke against the Tour d'Ordre, or rather the foot of the hill on which it was erected. In front of the men was the throne, which was reached by a few steps. There was seated, in all the THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE EAGLES. From a drawing by David. splendour of his glory, the man whose genius then ruled Europe and the world. Over his head a multitude of banners, tattered by shot and stained with blood formed an appropriate canopy. Though the day was fair, the wind blew with extreme violence, so that the trophies of victory waved in full view of several English vessels then cruising in the straits. " The ceremony of the distribution was exceedingly long. Each Legionist ascended the twelve steps leading to the throne, and after receiving the cross and ribbon from the Emperor's hand, made his bow, and returned to his place. When Napoleon presented the cross to one of his old comrades, who had fought with him in Italy or Egypt, there seemed to be a glow of feeling which carried him back to his early and most brilliant glory. It was five o'clock, and for a considerable time I had observed the Emperor turning frequently and anxiously to M. Decres, the Minister of the Marine, to whom he repeatedly said some- thing in a whisper. He then took a glass and looked towards the sea, as if eager to discover a distant sail. At length his impatience seemed to increase. AUSTERLITZ ^ 297 Berthler, too, who stood biting his nails, in spite of his dignity of Marshal, now and then looked through the glass ; and Junot appeared to be in the secret, for they all talked together aside. It was evident that something was expected. At length the Minister of the Marine received a message, which he immediately communicated to the Emperor ; and . the latter snatched the glass from the hand of M. Decres with such violence, that it fell and rolled down the steps of the throne. All eyes were now directed to the point which I had observed the Emperor watching, and we soon discerned a flotilla, consisting of between a thousand and twelve hundred boats, advancing in the direction of Boulogne from the different neighbouring ports and from Holland. The Emperor had made choice of the 15th of August as the day for uniting the flotilla with the other boats stationed in the port of Boulogne, in the sight of the English vessels which were cruising in the straits ; while, at the same time, he distributed to his troops rewards destined to stimulate their courage, and to excite their impatience to undertake the invasion of England. " But the satisfaction of Napoleon was not of long duration. An emphatic oath uttered by M. Decres warned the Emperor that some accident had oc- curred. It was soon ascertained that the officer who commanded the first division of the flotilla had run foul of some works newly erected along the coast. The shock swamped some of the boats, and several of the men jumped overboard. The cries of the people at the seaside, who hastened to their assistance, excited much alarm. The accident was exceedingly mortifying, happening, as it did, in the full gaze of our enemies, whose telescopes were pointed towards us, and it threw the Emperor into a violent rage. He descended from the throne, and proceeded with Berthier to a sort of terrace which was formed along the water's edge. He paced to and fro very rapidly, and we could occasionally hear him utter some energetic expression indicative of his vexation. In the evening, a grand dinner took place in honour of the inauguration. About six o'clock, just as dinner was served for the soldiers, under tents, a heavy fall of rain came on. This augmented the Emperor's ill-humour, and formed a gloomy termination to a day which had commenced so brilliantly. ' It was now alone that Napoleon began to realise that the descent on England was much more difficult of operation, and attended with more risk than he had anticipated. This had been obvious to Decres for some time, as well as to others connected with the organisation of the flotilla ; but they had been afraid to urge their opinion on the Emperor, who was stubbornly set on the execution of his plan. But now one difficulty after another started up. He found that those combined actions, which he could skilfully carry out on dry land, were subject to various contingencies, when he had to do with the sea, that rendered them less certain. Gantheaume could not get out of Brest. Villeneuve, whilst attempting to double Cape Finisterre, encountered the English fleet, under Sir Robert Calder, when a fog prevented an action, then commenced, from ending in the entire rout of the combined French and Spanish fleets. Villeneuve, feeling his inequality, rapidly retreated to Ferrol, and then Corunna. When Napoleon received the news, he was furious. He then only perceived that with such a fleet as France possessed, the invasion of England was impossible. Daru, his private secretary, describes the effect of the news on the Emperor : — " Daru found him transported with rage ; walking up and down the room with hurried steps, and only breaking a stern silence by broken exclamations 298 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE of ' What a navy ! What sacrifices for nothing ! What an admiral ! All hope is gone. Villeneuve,' instead of entering the Channel, has taken refuge in Ferrol. It is all over ; he will be blockaded there.' " Napoleon, at once, with the mental agility that was such a distinguishing feature of his faculties, altered the whole plan of his campaign, and resolved to fall on Austria and Russia, in the place of England. Nor were the soldiers disinclined for a change of face. Whenever the British cruisers had allowed a little sea-room, the Emperor had embarked soldiers for a sail or row in their flat-bottomed boats along the coast, to accustom them to the sea. They suffered extremely, and returned with cadaverous faces, ashen lips, and a rooted horror of the waves. /^^^ VCaJZ^ "y-^^- ■'laajjg wmM Sra^^^ -TITii^^mL^^^^ IPI^^I; J ^ff: ,#*'■' w^. ^ PASSAGE OF THE RHINE. After an allegorical composition by Ingres. through the Black Forest, took possession of Ulm, Meiningen, and the line of the Iller and Upper Danube, where he fortified himself with great care. Meanwhile the seven columns swiftly advanced in separate lines. Berna- dotte, coming from Hanover, without scruple violated Prussian neutrality by crossing Anspach, and united with the Bavarians in the rear of Mack. Soult crossed the Rhine at Spires, and directed his march upon Augsburg, in Mack's rear. Davoust, Vandamme, and Marmont, who had entered Germany from different points considerably to the northward of Mack's position, turned his right wing, and gave the hand to Soult at Augsburg. What is especially astounding in the story is, that no news of the march of AUSTERLITZ 301 the enemy reached the Austrian general ; and he was completely taken by surprise, when it was too late for him to escape from his position. Mack lost his head. On the 20th October he agreed to evacuate Ulm, and give up his army. On that morning the Austrians, to the number of 26,000,* came out of Ulm, and defiled before Bonaparte. The infantry then threw down their arms at the back of the fosse ; the cavalry dismounted, and delivered up arms and horses ; whilst Napoleon looked on, humming an opera air. A very few days later he received intelligence that somewhat damped his pride. It was that of the destruction of his fleet and that of the Spaniards at Trafalgar, which happened on the 21st of October, on the day after Mack's THE BATTLE OF AUSTERLITZ. After Gerard. surrender. It clouded his triumph, and for a while depressed his spirits. " I cannot be everywhere," was his peevish remark. The way to Vienna was now open, and Napoleon entered it on the 13th November. On the 7th the Emperor Francis had escaped from his capital into Moravia. The decisive battle of the campaign was fought at Austerlitz, on the anniversary of the coronation of Napoleon in Notre-Dame. " The night before the battle the Emperor directed Junot, Duroc, and Berthier to put on their cloaks and follow him, as he was going round to see that all was arranged as he wished. It was eleven o'clock ; the bivouac fires were surrounded by soldiers, among whom there were many of the brave Guards, who were afterwards nicknamed the grognards (grumblers). It was the 1st December, and the weather was very severe, but none cared for that. They were singing and talking, and many of them were engaged in recounting the splendid victories of Italy and of Egypt. The Emperor, wrapped up in * Napoleon in his bulletins, of course, gives false numbers. He makes them 50,000 men, even 80,000. 302 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE his redingote grise, passed along unperceived behind the groups, in which were hearts devoted, not only to him and his glory, but to the glory of our arms. He listened to their conversation, smiled, and seemed greatly affected. Suddenly he passed a bivouac the fire of which, gleaming full in his face, discovered him. ' The Emperor ! ' exclaimed the whole group ; * Vive V Ejnpereur ! Vive V Empereur ! ' responded the next. Along the whole line, in the bivouacs and under the tents, the cry of * Vive V Empereur ! ' passed from mouth to mouth, and rent the air. The fires were immediately deserted, for the soldiers rushed forward to behold their beloved chief. They took the straw from their beds, and, lighting it, made torches, with which they illumined the gloom of the night, still shouting ' Vive V Empereur ! ' with that heartfelt enthusiasm which neither authority, seduction, nor corruption can ever repress. " Napoleon was moved. * Enough, lads ! enough of this ! ' he said. But this proof of attachment afforded him the liveliest pleasure, and his heart responded to it. " * Ah ! you seek glory ! ' exclaimed an old soldier, with moustachios which seemed not to have been cut since the first passage of the Alps. 'Well, to-morrow the good soldiers of the Guard will purchase it to crown your anniversary ! ' ' What are you growling about under those thick moustachios ? ' said the Emperor, approaching the old grenadier with one of those smiles which in him were so captivating. The grenadier, like most of his comrades, held in his hand a torch of straw, whose light revealed his swarthy, scarred face, the expression of which was at that moment most remarkable. His eyes were filled with tears, while a smile of joy at sight of the Emperor was playing on his hard but manly features. The Emperor repeated his question. * Faith, my General, that is, Sire,^ replied the soldier, *I only say that we will thrash those rascals of Russians, that is, if you desire it, for discipline before every- thing. So Vive /'Empereur ! ' and then fresh shouts conveyed to the Russians their death-warrant, for troops so animated could never be subdued."* In the morning Napoleon was on horseback long before daylight. Thick fogs hung over the plains and the heights on which the Allies were encamped. The sun could hardly break through the vapours, but hung, as a red and lurid ball, in the east. Bonaparte galloped along the line, shouting, " Soldiers, we must complete this campaign with a thunderbolt ! " And the soldiers waved their caps, and shouted, " Vive V Empereur ! vive lejour de safete!'' Napoleon had taken advantage of the light on the preceding day to observe the position of the Allies under the Russian General Kutusoff, and he had seen that the lines were unduly extended. "By to-morrow evening that army will be mine!" he said with confidence, and the event showed that he had calculated aright. The day ended in a complete defeat of the allied forces of the Austrians and Russians. In a lying bulletin Napoleon represented the French loss, in killed. and wounded, at about 2500 men, but in reality it was double that number. At ten o'clock in the evening the conqueror issued one of his grandiloquent proclamations to the army. " Soldiers," he said, " your Emperor must speak with you before night, and express his satisfaction with all those who have had the good fortune to fight in this memorable battle. Soldiers ! you are the first warriors in the world ! The * Madame Junot, Meinoirs^ ii. 460. I THE EMPEROR. From a drawing by Vigneux. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ^IFORf^^ AUSTERLITZ 305 memory of this day will be eternal. So long as history and the world will exist, it will be repeated, after millions of centuries, that in the plains of Austerlitz an army bought by the gold of England, a Russian army of 76,000 men, has been destroyed by you. The miserable remnants of that army, in which the mercantile spirit of a despicable nation had placed its last hopes, are in flight. It is not four months since your Emperor said to you at Boulogne, * We are going to march to annihilate a coalition plotted by the gold and intrigues of England ' ; and now the result is the destruction of 300,000 men in the campaign of Ulm, and of the forces of two great monarchs. . . . Soldiers, I am satisfied with you. An army of 100,000 men, commanded by the Emperors of Russia and Austria, has been cut to pieces and dispersed." The exaggeration employed is grotesque ; but the French soldiers were not disposed to be critical ; nor were the public, who devoured the equally mendacious bulletins sent to the Moniteur, in a position to check the numbers which the Emperor represented as opposed to, and annihilated by him. The battle of Austerlitz was disastrous, though not as disastrous as repre- sented. The Russians lost 12,000 men, and retired in good order. The coalition was not destroyed. Another Russian army was on its way ; the Archdukes Charles and John were within a few days' march, and were approaching on Bonaparte's flank ; and the Hungarians were rising en masse. More than this, the financial condition of France was at the moment desperate. Had the Emperor Francis but prolonged the struggle for two months, France would have been bankrupt. This national bankruptcy was only averted by the victory of Austerlitz, by the weak despair of Francis, and by the immense war indemnity which Napoleon forced him to pay, and which was turned into the exhausted exchequer. Unhappily, the heart of the Emperor Francis failed him, and Prince John of Lichtenstein, perhaps sold to the French, exercised great influence over his mind. Francis despatched the Prince to Napoleon ; and he, seemingly without a struggle, agreed to give up far more than Bonaparte could have gained in two or three successful campaigns. Lichtenstein, after this interview, returned to his master loaded with compliments ; and on the following day the Emperor Francis had a personal interview with Bonaparte, at the headquarters of the latter, by an old mill where his bivouac fire was lighted. The Austrian Emperor saluted Napoleon with " Sir — and brother." " I receive you," said the Corsican, " in the only place which I have inhabited for the last two months." "You have made such good use of that habitation," said Francis, " that it should be grateful to you." What passed further between the representative of an ancient dynasty and the founder of a new one that was not to last, is known only from what Napoleon chose to reveal, and no reliance whatever can be placed on his words. He pretended that the Emperor of Austria said to him, " France was justified in her quarrel with England. . . , The English are a set of X 3o6 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE shopkeepers, who set the Continent on fire, in order to secure to themselves the commerce of the world." The words are too much an echo of his own furious declamation against Great Britain, to be believed to have fallen from the^ lips of the Austrian Emperor. A treaty was concluded at Presburg, on the 27th December, 1805, by virtue of which Bonaparte was recognised as King of Italy ; the Republic of Venice was detached from Austria, and united to his Italian Kingdom ; the INTERVIEW BETWEEN NAPOLEON AND FRANCIS II. AFTER THE BATTLE OF AUSTERLITZ. From a painting by Gros. Electors of Wiirtemberg and Bavaria, as allies of France and traitors to the national cause, were to be created Kings ; the Duke of Baden, in reward for his having taken in good part the kidnapping and murder of the Due d'Enghien> was to be elevated to be a Grand-Duke ; and these three States were to be enlarged at the expense of Austria. Istria and Dalmatia were ceded. She agreed to pay a war indemnity of 140,000,000 francs. Gallant and loyal Tyrol was severed from the Crown of Austria, and handed over to Bavaria ; and Napoleon was constituted " Protector " of a Confederation of the Rhine, comprising all the Western States of Germany. There were other secret arrangements, which were speedily carried into AUSTERLITZ 307 effect. Eugene Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, Josephine's son, was given Augusta Amelia, daughter of the King of Bavaria ; and Stephanie Beauharnais, Eugene's cousin, was united to the son and heir of the Grand-Duke of Baden. Jerome Bonaparte was to take to wife a daughter of the Elector of Wiirtemberg. Such were the first royal alliances negotiated, the prelude to others, in which the blood of the Corsican petty attorney's children was to be mixed with that of the most ancient and princely families in Europe. v> XXXVI NEW FEUDALISM NAPOLEON hastened back to Paris, which he reached on the 26th January, 1806. He had received disquieting news from the capital. A financial crash impended, the inevitable result of the enormous drain on the metal currency caused by the preparations for the descent on England, and the stagnation of all trade and commerce, save such as was connected with military works. Napoleon arrived late in the night ; and without undressing and going to bed, he at once sent for the Minister of Finance, and remained closeted with him till morning. At eleven o'clock next day, the Council of Finance was assembled, and M. de Marbois, the Minister, was dismissed — an honest and capable man ; but Napoleon was resolved to make a scapegoat, and he threw the blame of mismanagement on Marbois, and on the company of Ouvrard and Vanlerbergh, which had advanced money to the Treasury, and had taken contracts for the supply of munitions for the army. These money-lenders were imprisoned and ruined ; and Napoleon endeavoured to divert the public suspicion from his own reckless expenditure, and to turn the stream of popular indignation upon those who were, in fact, called into existence by the strained condition of the finances, and upon the Minister who had been driven to desperate expedients to meet the expenditure always exceeding the revenue. On his return to Paris, the crisis was already past, for the victory of Austerlitz and the Peace of Presburg had revived the confidence of the French, and Napoleon was able to pay 85,ocx)jOOO francs into the depleted Treasury. He drew up a report on the condition of the Empire, calculated to dazzle imagination, and stimulate hope for the future. Everything that had been accomplished was painted in glowing colours, successes exaggerated, achieve- ments represented in the most promising aspect. This document concluded with a rapid survey of the advantages derived by France from the dissolution of the several coalitions which had been broken by the Emperor. "The first coalition, concluded by the Treaty of Campo-Formio, gave to the Republic the frontier of the Rhine, and the States now forming the king- dom of Italy ; the second invested it with Piedmont ; the third united to its federal system Venice and Naples. Let England be now convinced of its impotence, and not attempt a fourth coalition. The House of Naples has irrevocably lost its dominions ; Russia owes the escape of its army solely to 308 NEW FEUDALISM . /309 the capitulation which our generosity awarded ; the Italian Peninsula, as a whole, forms a part of the great Empire. The Emperor has guaranteed, as supreme Chief, the Sovereigns and Constitutions which compose][its several parts." The disaster of Trafalgar was alluded to by the Emperor in these evasive terms : " The tempests have made us lose some vessels after a combat impru- dently engaged in." He could afford to use these words, as the real facts were not allowed to be published, and leaked into France only through stray copies of foreign papers surreptitiously brought over. The return of Napoleon to Paris was commemorated by the column in the Place Vendome, composed of five hundred Austrian cannon ; it was on the model of the pillar of Trajan at Rome; and was sur- mounted by a statue of the Emperor. In a spiral band encircling the column, was a series of groups representing the victories of Napoleon, from the raising of the camp at Boulogne to the entry of the Imperial Guard into Paris on January 27th, 1806, in eighty bas-reliefs. The statue at the summit, by Chaudet, showed the Emperor in Roman habit, chlamys and cothurnus, holding a winged figure of Victory in his left hand. After the Austrian campaign, Naples had been invaded and occupied by French troops, to the number of fifty thousand, under the command of Joseph Bonaparte, and on the 15th February, Naples saw its future sovereign enter within its walls. On April 14th, Napoleon, by decree, created his brother King of the Two Sicilies. At the same time, the Venetian States were definitely annexed to the Kingdom of Italy. " The interests of our Crown," said Napoleon, " and the tranquillity of the Continent of Europe, require that we should secure in a stable and definite manner the fate of the people of Naples and Sicily, fallen into our power by the right of conquest, and forming part of the grand empire." To Miot de Melito, Napoleon wrote on the last day of January, 1806: — " You are going to rejoin my brother (Joseph). You will tell him that I have made him King of Naples, and that nothing will be changed as regards his relations with France. But impress upon him that the least hesitation, the slightest wavering, will ruin him entirely. I have another person in my mind who will replace him should he refuse. I shall call that other Napoleon, and he shall be my son. It was the conduct of my brother at the Coronation, and his refusal to accept the Crown of Italy, which made me call Eugene my son. I am determined to give the same title to another should he oblige me. At present all feelings of affection yield to State reasons. I recognise as relations only those who serve me. My fortune is not attached to the name of Bonaparte, but to that of Napoleon. It is with my fingers and my pen that JOSEPH, KING OF NAPLES. From a painting by Lefevre, 3ic^ -THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE I make children. To-day, I can love only such as I esteem. Joseph must forget all our ties of childhood. Let him make himself esteemed ! Let him acquire glory. Let him have a leg broken in battle ! Then I shall respect him. Let him give up his old notions. Let him not dread fatigue. Look at me ; the campaign I have just terminated, the movement, the excitement, have made me stout. I believe that if all the kings of Europe were to combine against me, I should have a ridiculous paunch. " I offer my brother a fine opportunity. Let him govern his new States wisely and firmly. ... I can endure to have no relations in obscurity. Those who do not rise with me shall no longer form part of my family. I am creating a family of kings, or rather of viceroys, for the King of Italy, the King of Naples, and others, will all be included in a Federative system. However, I am willing to forget what two of my brothers have done against me ; let Lucien abandon his wife, and I will give him a kingdom. As for Jerome, he has partially repaired his faults. But I shall never permit the wife of Lucien to seat herself by my side." At the same time that Joseph was made king, Berthier was elevated to be Prince of Neufchatel. Talleyrand was then created Prince of Benevento, and General Bernadotte, son of a poor saddler at Pau, in the south of France, in turn became Prince of Pontecorvo. This was not because Napoleon liked Bernadotte ; on the con- trary, he hated him, but because his wife was the sister of that of Joseph, a daughter of the soap-boiler. " You . understand," he wrote to the King of Naples, " in giving the title of duke and prince to Bernadotte, it is through consideration for your wife, for there are several generals who have served me better, and who are more devoted to me than he. But I thought it suitable that the brother-in-law of the Queen of Naples should hold a distinguished rank." Then Cambaceres was created Duke of Parma, and Le Brun, Duke of Piacenza. Napoleon now married his sister, Pauline, widow of General Leclerc, to Prince Borghese, whereby, as she exultingly said, she became " a real princess," and received the Duchy of Guastalla. His sister Elise was created Princess of Lucca Piombino ; and Murat, who had married Napoleon's sister, Caroline, was made Grand Duke of Berg and Cleves. Marshal Soult was given the Duchy of Dalmatia ; that of Istria was conferred on Marshal Bessieres; that of Friuli was given to his favourite aide-de-camp and Grand Marshal of the palace, Duroc ; and that of Cadore, to Champagny, formerly an officer in the navy, but now one of Bonaparte's favourite diplomatists. The Duchy of Belluno was granted to Marshal Victor, that of Conegliano to Marshal Moncey, that of Treviso to Mortier, that of Feltri to General Clarke, that of Vicenza to Caulaincourt, that of Bassano to the Secretary-Minister-of- State Majret ; and Savary, who had superintended the murder of the Due d'Enghien, was elevated to be Duke of Rovigo. Henceforth Murat, the son of a petty innkeeper, whose mother was wont to go out charing at a franc a day, never signed his name but as " Joachim, Grand Duke of Berg " ; and Berthier, son of a poor and obscure officer, signed, " Alexander, Prince of Neufchatel," just as the Czar signed, *' Alexander, Emperor of all the Russias." NEW FEUDALISM 311 Fouche, the scoundrelly Minister of Police, was created Duke of Gtfanto ; the paladin Lannes became Duke of Montebello ; the Jew Massena was raised to be Duke of Rivoli ; and Augereau to be Duke of Castiglione. With some of these titles territories were granted as military fiefs ; where not, pensions were drawn from the conquered or tributary countries. Thus the Kingdom of Naples and that of Italy were taxed to an enormous extent; and Hanover was made to contribute more than ;^90,ooo sterling per annum to keep up the state and dignity of these plebeian upstarts. THE I9TH MAY, 187 1. From a painting by Paul Robert. All the members of the Senate, indiscriminately, were ennobled, and given the title and status of Count. No satirist could have surpassed the farcical scene that ensued. Cambaceres, in announcing the Emperor's beneficence and magnanimity, exclaimed, " Senators, you are no longer plebeians, or simple citizens. The statute. which I hold in my hand confers on you the majestic title of Count ! " Half of these conscript fathers were men who had been rabid Jacobins, had mouthed and postured as adherents to the principle of equality, and had de- nounced,' titles and distinctions ; nevertheless, they roared out their applause, and their excitement and delight became frenzied, when they further learned that their titles would be hereditary. 312 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE A note in the handwriting of Napoleon in 1807 shows that it was his intention to have thirty dukes established in Paris, each with at least ;^4000 a year, to shed lustre on the throne ; also [sixty counts, with ;^2000 a year ; and four hundred barons, with at least ;^200 a year each. The dukes and the counts were to be given money to enable them to purchase residences worthy of their titles and the state they were expected to keep up. With Lucien, Napoleon had much trouble. He had fallen into disfavour after Napoleon became First Consul for life, because he endeavoured to press his advice on his elder brother, and somewhat freely boasted of the services he had rendered on the i8th Brumaire. Then Lucien entered into an intrigue THE VENDOME COLUMN, 6tH APRIL, 1814. With the statues by Chaudet and Seurre. with Madame Jouberton, the wife of a stockbroker, who divorced her, where- upon Lucien married the woman. Napoleon in vain endeavoured to induce him to break the connection, and marry a princess. If he would do this, he offered to provide him with a throne. To Lucien's credit, he refused. He shared with his mother the opinion that this reign of Napoleon was ephemeral. Having failed to get Lucien to take a crown, Napoleon asked him to let him have his daughter, Charlotte, to dispose of to the Prince of the Asturias. To this Lucien consented, and Charlotte was sent to Paris. But Napoleon was fond of peeping into private letters, and he read those addressed by his niece to her father, and discovering therein strictures on his roturier court, on the manners of his new dukes and duchesses, and on the prevailing laxity of morals, he sent her precipitately home. NEW FEUDALISM 313 From Milan, on December 17th, 1807, Napoleon wrote to his brother Joseph relative to Lucien : — " I saw Lucien at Mantua. I think he promised to send me his eldest daughter. This young person must be in Paris in January. Lucien, who appeared to be swayed by conflicting feelings, had not the strength of mind to come to a decision. I did all I could to persuade him to employ his talents for me and for his country. If he wishes to send me his daughter, she must start without delay, and he must send me a declaration placing her entirely at my disposal. . . . The interests of Lucien's family will be provided for. A divorce from Madame Jouberton once pro- nounced, and Lucien established in a foreign country {i.e. as King), he will be at liberty to live on terms of intimacy with Madame Jouberton, but not in France ; nor must he reside with her as if she were a princess and his wife. Madame Jouberton shall have a high title conferred upon her at Naples or elsewhere. Politics alone influence me in this matter. I have no desire to meddle with the tastes and passions of Lucien." That Lucien was not actuated by Republican opinions, as he pretended, is clear from his after-conduct, in buying of the Pope the title of Prince of Canino. The abbey of S. Denis had been the place of sepulture of the Kings of France. Their bodies had been torn from their tombs by the sans-culottes, and dispersed. Napoleon now restored the church, reorganised the chapter, and converted the minster into a place of sepulture for the new Imperial dynasty. As yet, indeed, he had no dead Bonapartes to lay in it; but he prepared chapels for such as were to come, three close by the spaces occupied by the tombs of the French kings of the first, second, and third race ; and the fourth chapel was to contain his own tomb, and those of the emperors, his successors. The thought of Charlemagne was before him now, as had previously been that of Alexander, and it was in imitation of Charlemagne that he created his military fiefs. But that was not his sole reason. " I felt my isolated position," said Napoleon later, to explain this creation of a new order of kings, princes, and dukes, " and I threw out on all sides of me anchors of safety into the ocean by which I was surrounded. Where could I so reasonably look for support as among my own relations ? Could I expect as much from strangers ? " The elevation of Louis Bonaparte to the throne of Holland followed not long after. A few words may be said here about Madame Mere at this period. As already said, she was not present at the coronation of Napoleon, being at Rome at the time with Lucien. Silvagni says, in his interesting book on the Court and Society of Rome in the i8th and 19th centuries : — " Madame Laetitia was tall, with a fair complexion, and black hair, which she wore curled upon her forehead ; her eyes were dark, and rather small, her figure lithe and graceful, her hands and feet thin and well shaped ; her countenance regular and dignified. She had partially lost the forefinger 314 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE of her right hand through an unsuccessful operation, which made writing difficult to her. She knew nothing of either French or Italian literature, and still spoke the Corsican dialect, while her acquaintance with the French language was below mediocrity. Finding she could not reconcile the two brothers, Napoleon and Lucien, she preferred, like a good mother, to follow the less fortunate into exile. " Madame Laetitia was a very superior woman, who kept herself aloof from politics, could hold her tongue, was prudent in her dealings with her daughters- in-law, and good and discreet in all her ways. She received very little, and saw very few people. . . . Napoleon had always the greatest respect for his mother, and treated her most liberally. He gave her the chateau of Pont-sur-Seine. Here it was that Madame Mere held her little court ; but so quietly and economically, that she never spent her million francs of revenue. The Emperor, who liked to see his relations and great officials spend the incomes he had awarded them, remarked to her one day, ' Madame Laetitia, I wish I could see you get through your million per annum.' ' I will spend it,' she replied, 'on condition that you give me two.'"* In fact, Madame Laetitia never could be brought to believe that the sudden elevation of her son would last ; and she saved money against the evil day, which her good sense told her must inevitably come on her and the rest of the family. Jerome Bonaparte got into a scrape by marrying a good-looking American young woman, Elizabeth Patterson, of Scoto-Irish descent. On the 20th of April, 1804, Decres, French Minister of Marine, by order of the First Consul, directed M. Pichon, Consul-General of France in New York, not to advance any money on the order of citizen Jerome. " Jerome has received orders, in his capacity of Lieutenant of the Fleet, to return to France by the first French frigate that leaves ; and the execution of this order, on which the First Consul insists in the most positive manner, can alone regain him his affection. But what the First Consul has prescribed for me, above everything, is to order you to prohibit all captains of French vessels from receiving on board the young person with whom the citizen Jerome has connected himself, it being his intention that she shall by no means come into France, and his will that, should she arrive, she be not suffered to land, but be sent immediately back to the United States." f " Jerome is wrong," wrote Napoleon to Decres, " to fancy that he will find in me affection that will yield to his weakness. Sole fabricator of my destiny, I owe nothing to my brothers. In what I have done for glory, they have found means to reap for themselves an abundant harvest ; but they must not, on that account, abandon the field when there is something still to be reaped. They must not leave me isolated, and deprived of the aid and services which I have a right to expect of them. If I completely abandon him (Lucien) who in maturer years has thought proper to withdraw himself from my direc- tion, what has Jerome to expect? So young yet, and only known by his forgetfulness of his duties, assuredly if he does nothing for me, I see in it the decree of fate which has determined that I ought to do nothing for him." On one condition alone would Napoleon forgive his brother. " I will receive Jerome SiLVAGNi : La Corte e la Societa Romana nei secoli xviii et xix, 1887, iii. c. 41. t Life and Letters of Madame Bonaparte, 1879, P- 25. NEW FEUDALISM 315 if, leaving in America the young person in question, he shallj come hither to associate himself with my fortunes. Should he bring her along]with him, she shall not put foot on the territory of France." * Jerome was obliged to return to France, and he parted from his giddy- headed young wife with vows of eternal fidelity, which, to her great disgust, he did not observe. Her empty head was filled with ambition, and the rest of her life was consumed with mortification that she had not become a Queen. Jerome was made of inferior stuff to Lucien, and he speedily agreed to repudiate his wife, who had nothing but beauty to commend her, and to place his fortunes unreservedly in the Emperor's hands. But now a new difficulty arose. Pope Pius VII. had been fretting over his dis- appointment at not being paid with the Legations, for his complaisance at the coronation ; and when Napoleon applied to him to pronounce the marriage of his brother and Elizabeth Patterson void, he took a malicious pleasure in refusing to do so. The Court of Rome is sufficiently unscrupulous about marriage matters.-|- We may be quite sure that no moral scruple touched the Pope. According to the decree of the Council of Trent, a canonical excuse for the dissolution of a marriage had been pro- vided, if the alliance had been conducted in a clandestine manner. But such a decree could only take effect where the decisions of the Council had been formally published ; and the Pope, instead of taking the broad ground that what God had joined together no man might put asunder, with the charac- teristic subtlety of a pettifogging mind, alleged that the most scrupulous examination having failed to discover that the decrees of the Council had been promulgated in the United States, it was not possible for him to annul the marriage ; and with equally characteristic cant, declared that to pronounce the desired dissolution would be " to render himself culpable of an abominable abuse of authority before the tribunal of God." | Napoleon found his own Council of State more compliant than the Pope ; and on the ground that the marriage was contracted when Jerome was JEROME. From a portrait by Kinson. * Life and Letters of Madame Bonaparte, 1879, p. 26. t As in the many cases in which she allows uncles to marry nieces ; a recent instance was that of the Due d'Aosta, 1888 ; and in which she annuls marriages, as that of Monacho-Hamilton, 1880. + Pius VII. to Napoleon, June, 1808. The hypocrisy of the refusal was revolting. No such scruple was felt by the same Pope Pius in dissolving the marriage of the Due de Berri, performed in 1806 in England, where the decrees of the Council of Trent had never been published. There was so little ground for annulUng this marriage, that the daughters of the Duke and of Madame Brown were made Countesses by Louis XVIII. , and were declared legitimate by Pius VII. But where his mean spite dictated his conduct, there his refusal was cloaked with the excuse that to annul Jerome's marriage would be "an abominable abuse before the throne of God." Such hypocrisy makes the gorge rise. 3i6 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE under age, and without the consent of his guardian, it was declared null and void. At the conclusion of the Peace of Tilsit, July, 1807, Napoleon informed Jerome that the members of the Imperial family were required to form alliances which would support his throne. Jerome had been accorded the throne of Westphalia, which was formed out of the territories of the Grand Duke of Hesse, of that of Brunswick, together with certain Prussian Provinces (i8th August, 1807); and on the preceding 12th August he was married to Frederica Catherina, daughter of the newly-created King of Wurtemberg, but not till two unsuccessful attempts had already been made to obtain for him an alliance with other Princesses. In Westphalia he launched forth into the most licentious excesses, and made himself generally abhorred by all classes.* Napoleon did not answer the Pope by letter till after Austerlitz ; but he showed Pius that he was not inclined to treat his scruples with consideration. He occupied Ancona with a detachment, under Saint Cyr, without troubling himself to announce this infraction of territorial rights* to the Papal Govern- ment. When the coast of Holland had been menaced by the English and Swedes, during the campaign in Austria, Napoleon had sent his brother Louis with an army to its assistance. This army took up its position on the frontiers of Westphalia. Immediately after the battle of Austerlitz, Louis hastened to congratulate his brother, then on his way to Paris, and encountered him at Strasburg. Napoleon received him very coldly. " What has made you leave Holland?" he asked. Louis replied that it was generally reported that Napoleon had determined to erect the Batavian Republic into a Monarchy. '' These rumours," said he, " are not pleasing to this free and independent people ; and I do not like to hear them myselff Louis, whose honesty and disinterestedness are beyond suspicion, was no more consulted in the matter than were Joseph and Jerome. As Lanfrey points out, this reluctance of the brothers of Napoleon to submit to be what he pleased to make of them, shows that they had little confidence in him. " There entered into their scruples at least as much mistrust towards so exacting a master, as mistrust of fortune." " Napoleon," says Louis, in the Memoirs he dictated, " informed him that his wishes were not to be considered in this matter, but as a subject he was bound to obey. Louis considered that he could be constrained by force ; and that as the Emperor was absolutely determined in the matter, it might happen to him as to Joseph, who, having refused Italy, was forced upon Naples. However, he made a final attempt ; he wrote to his brother that he felt how necessary it was that the brothers of the Emperor should depart out of France, and that he would like to be appointed Governor of Genoa or Piedmont." ^ Louis was recognised King of Holland on the 5th of June, 1806. Holland I sent her ambassadors on the occasion ; the Court was at St. Cloud, where the * Geheime Geschichte des Westphdlischen Hoffes zu Cassel, S. Petersburg, 1814. t Doctmtefits hist, sur la Hollande ^ par le roi Louis, Lond. 182 1. NEW FEUDALISM 317 Emperor presented to them his nephew, the son of Louis and Hortense. The child, then five years old, thinking to show off his acquirements, began at once to recite La Fontaine's fable of " The Frogs asking Jupiter for a King." Whether true, or ben trovato, the story circulated, and made Napoleon at the time vastly angry.* Louis resigned himself to be king over the frogs and marshes, and during his reign lost his little son. He was a good and kind man, and did his utmost to alleviate the sufferings of his subjects, and to rule with equity. At Naples Joseph had not an easy time of it: he was desirous, as was Louis, of winning the love of his subjects, but was allowed very little liberty by his imperious as well as imperial brother. He was taken to task for every token of mildness he exhibited, and was goaded on to acts of violence. "My brother," wrote Napoleon to Joseph on March 8th, 1806, " I see that in one of your procla- mations you promise not to levy any war contributions, and that the soldiers are not to exact meals from their hosts. It is not by cajoling people that you win them, and it is not by such measures that you will be able to recompense your army. Lay a contribution of thirty million francs on the kingdom of Naples, remount your cavalry and artillery, &c. It v/ould be too ridiculous if the conquest of Naples were not to procure the well-being of my army. . . . Massena should be settled at Naples, with the title of prince, and a large revenue." Only six days before, he had written to Joseph com- plaining that this Jew was a thief, and that he had stolen .three million francs ; and four days later he wrote : — LOUIS. From a portrait by Lefevre. " Advise Massena to give back the six million francs he has taken. The only way he has of saving himself is to restore them quickly. . . . There is too much brigandage. Have Saint Cyr watched. The details of their em- bezzlements are incredible ; I learned them from the Austrian, who blushed at them." " My brother," he wrote on the 22nd April, 1806, " I see with pleasure that you have burned an insurgent village. I presume that you allowed the soldiers to pillage it. That is the way in which villages which revolt should be treated." His treatment of brothers, uncles, relatives, was rough and humiliating. Cardinal Fesch, his mother's half-brother, he treated with scant courtesy. Thus he wrote to him (30th January, 1806) : — " I have found your reflections on Cardinal Ruffo very mean and puerile. You behave like a woman in Rome. You meddle with things which you do not understand." Madame JuNOT, Memoirs, ii. 506. 3i8 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE All the Bonaparte family resembled the mother in face, but Napoleon was most like his father, a sufficient answer to the offensive suggestion that he was in reality the son of M. de Marbeuf There was absolutely nothing to give colour to this scandal, saving the fact that Marbeuf had shown kindness to the boy, had placed him in Brienne, and furnished him with pocket-money. We can sympathise with Napoleon in his outbursts of fury when he saw such slanders against the honour of his mother in the pamphlets that issued from the London press, and were smuggled into France. " The great difference in the figures of the sons and daughters of the Bona- parte family," says Madame Junot, "while their countenances were so similar, was ,very extraordinary. Their heads possessed the same type, the same features, the same eyes, the same expression (always excepting that of the Emperor); beyond this nothing could be more unlike. The brothers were very dissimilar. The Emperor, the King of Spain, and the King of Holland, were all three perfectly well made, though small ; while the persons of the Prince of Canino (Lucien) and the King of Westphalia were as much in contrast with them and with each other as their sisters. The King of Westphalia's head and shoulders resembled those of the Princess Caroline ; and the Prince of Canino, much taller and larger than his brothers, exhibited the same want of harmony in his form as the Grand Duchess of Tuscany (Elise). There was one point of general resem- blance, one countenance, that of Madame Mere, in which all her eight children might be recognised, not only in feature, but in the peculiar expression PAULINE. of each."* From a painting by Lefevre. " PauHne was of mcdium height, of a marvellous pink and white complexion, with sparkling eyes, black hair, a Grecian profile, and such a perfectly-formed body, that she sat as a nude model to Canova, and may be admired in the Villa Borghese at Rome, under the semblance of Venus Victrix. Before Napoleon made Prince Borghese Governor of Piedmont, he had conferred the title of Duchess of Guastalla on his sister. When she was made aware of this, Pauline went to her brother, and the following conversation ensued : — "* Where is Guastalla, my good little brother? Is it a large town, with a fine palace, and many -subjects ? ' ' Guastalla is a village, a small place in the states of Parma and Piacenza,' replied Napoleon shortly. ' A village ! ' cried the Princess, throwing herself down in an easy chair. ' You treat me very shabbily, brother. And what would you have me do there ? ' ' What you like.' * What I like ! ' and she began to cry. ' Annonciade (Caroline) is a Grand Duchess, and she is younger than I am. Why should she have more than I ? She has a kingdom, she has ministers. Napoleon, I warn you, I will scratch out your eyes if I am not better treated ! And my poor Camille, why don't you do something for him ? ' ' He is an imbecile.' ' That is true ; but what does that matter ? ' Napoleon shrugged his shoulders, and the upshot of the matter was that Camille Borghese was created Governor of Piedmont. * Madame Junot, Memoirs, ii. 506. NEW FEUDALISM 319 " Prince Borghese had no qualities, either physical or moral, likely to please his wife. Even when he tried to do so, he only succeeded in making himself ridiculous. One evening, at a ball at Murat's house, he presented himself dressed as a Tyrolean girl, with his beard projecting below his mask ; and he went about, thus arrayed, kissing the ladies one after another." * That there was pride in Napoleon, in thus endeavouring to found a dynasty of princes, is likely enough. The reason he gave afterwards is, however, more near the truth. He felt himself a new man, isolated, in Europe, and was con- scious that the princely and noble families despised him as a parvenu. He hoped, by giving titles to those connected with him by blood or interest, to create a new royal dynasty and a new aristocracy, which might by its power, its abilities, and its character, do more than rival that which was mediaeval and ex- hausted, and crumbling away. And who can deny that, beside such creatures as filled the thrones of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Parma — even beside the German Princes of Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, and Hesse — his marshals shone out as planets, full of manhood, generosity, and public spirit ? The Jacobins and old Revolutionists who had survived that process by which Revolution, like Saturn, devours its own children, grumbled in their garrets and cellars. Lucien Bonaparte, out of favour, and soured, protested the purity of his democratic principles. The ancient noblesse of the Faubourg S. Germain sneered ; but this new aristocracy had the money, favour, influence, and patron- age. The parvenus could afford to laugh. The royal and imperial houses reigning in Europe writhed ; and yet, beaten- and brought to the dust, were forced to give their blood to mingle with that of the Corsican adventurer and his followers. ,,^ There lurked in the heart of Napoleon a feverish craving to be doing some- \ thing more than had been done, to exalt himself to a stage higher than he had already reached, and this was never allayed. Partly in jest, but mainly in earnest, he said : — " I came into the world too late. There is nothing more to be done that is truly grand. I admit that my career has been fine, that I have paved for myself a royal road ; but consider the difference between now and antiquity ! Alexander, after having conquered Asia, announced himself to be the son of Jupiter, and all the Orient believed him, except Aristotle and a few pedants of Athens. But if I were to proclaim myself the son of the Eternal Father, and were to proceed to give Him thanks in solemn state, there would not be a single fishwife who would not hiss me on my way. People are now too enlightened. There is no great thing more to be done." * SiLVAGNi, Op. cif., iii. c. 41. XXXVII JENA (1806) Prussia had maintained neutrality throughout the conflicts with Austria, -*- and Napoleon had played on her covetousness and her fears ; but the time had now come when, Austria being humbled, it was his intention to force Prussia to her knees. He had already violated her territory with impunity. ^ He now insisted on Prussia entering into the Prohibitionary League, which was to inaugurate the continental blockade of English mechandise. She was required to renounce the Margravate of Bayreuth, to recognise all the changes that had been effected in Italy, and to engage to close the mouths of the Elbe and Weser against English commerce — a clause which practically involved war with England. The position of Prussia was embarrassing. A fortnight before the capitula- tion of Ulm, she had signed a convention with England, Russia, and Austria, engaging herself to mediate between France and the Allies ; and in the event of Napoleon rejecting her offers, to join the Coalition. But the aspect of affairs was completely altered by the result of the battle ; and Prussia was unable to refuse the offer made by Napoleon, which was tantamount to a command, to surrender Anspach and Neufchatel, and to annex Hanover. By this skilful manoeuvre, Prussia was forced into hostility with England — a position she did not relish, but could not avoid. To accept Hanover at a moment when she was expecting subsidies from England was, as Fox after- wards described her conduct, "the union of everything contemptible in cowardice with everything that was odious in rapacity." The answer of England was the prompt seizure of five hundred merchant vessels sailing under the Prussian flag. Pitt was dead, and was succeeded by Fox, on whom Napoleon had exer- cised much personal influence. He believed, now that Fox was at the head of the Government in England, he would be equally prone to being cajoled. It was Napoleon's great desire to detach England from the Northern Coalition, so that he might crush Prussia and humble Russia separately ; after which he would have a clear field for trying conclusions with Great Britain. He accordingly opened negotiations with Fox, with the avowed object of peace. The initiation of the diplomatic correspondence began with a 320 JENA 321 pretended plot to assassinate the Emperor, that had been got up by Fouche for the purpose. Ah agent prqvocateur of Fouche had proposed to Fox to murder Napoleon. Fox, believing this to be a genuine conspiracy, sent information of it to Talleyrand, and this led to a complimentary exchange of letters, that opened up the way to a correspondence relative to the basis of a treaty. Lord Yarmouth was sent over to France as English, plenipotentiary : the discussion was protracted ; Lord Yarmouth was replaced by Lord Lauderdale, but the correspondence led to no results so. far as England was concerned, as Bona- parte made it a sine q^a non tha.t the alliance with Russia should be abandoned. Napoleon having already granted Hanover to Prussia, proposed now to take it away and give it back to England, and hinted that the old free commercial Republics — Hamburg, Liibeck, Bremen — over which he had not even the questionable right of conquest, should be handed over to England like dead stock, or bales of goods. Such proposals ought to have been met by an indignant rebuke and a cessation of conferences ; they proved, as Spencer Perceval afterwards declared Signature at thp Opening of the Campaign of 1806. in the House of Commons, that no negotiations with the Emperor could be entered into without contamination ; but Fox, deceived by his admiration for Napoleon, and blind to his duplicity, persevered in the path he had chosen. As Bourrienne said : " Bonaparte might have been induced, from the high esteem he felt for Fox, to make concessions from which he would before have recoiled. But there were two obstacles, I may say insurmountable ones. The first was the conviction, on the part of England, that any peace which might be made would be only a truce, and that Bonaparte would never relinquish seriously his desire of universal dominion. Moreover, it was believed that Napoleon had formed the design of invading England. Had he been able to do so, it would have been less with the view of striking a blow at her commerce and destroying her maritime power, than of annihilating the liberty of the Press, which he had extinguished in his own dominions. The spectacle of a free people, separated by only six leagues of sea, was, according to him, a seductive example to the French, especially to those among them who bent unwillingly under his yoke." ' In the meanwhile, Napoleon had resolved on the formation of a powerful Confederacy in Germany, in the interests of France against Prussia and Austria. The scheme was based on the Rhein-Bund, formed in 1658, when a number of German Imperial Estates united with Louis XIV., to open the way into Germany for French influence. But the conditions of the present 322 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Confederacy were not laid down with such consideration as before, and Bonaparte took no trouble to keep up the delusion, fostered in 1658, that the members of the Bund had obtained great advantages from France. He did not trouble himself to enter into correspondence with, and consult the wishes of any of the Princes concerned ; he simply laid down his scheme for a union, and insisted on their submission. The publication took place on the 17th July, 1806. Sixteen Princes, alarmed and overawed, agreed to leave the German Imperial Confederation, which they were no longer able to hold together, and bound themselves to place at the disposal of the Emperor Napoleon, their Protector, 100,000 men for every war on the mainland in which he engaged. In return, a number of small Principalities were " mediatised," and these terri- tories annexed to the larger subsisting kingdoms and grand-duchies. The Kings of Bavaria and Wiirtemberg, the Elector-Primate Von Dahlberg, the Elector of Baden, the Grand-Duke of Berg and Cleves (Murat), the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt, and ten other petty Sovereign Princes, were thenceforth to be detached for ever from the German Empire, and to be united in a distinct Confederation, to be guided by its own Diet, and to be under the immediate influence of Napoleon. All these German States were to be bound to one another and to France by an alliance offensive and defensive. The imitation of Charlemagne had advanced a stage. Bonaparte had now under his control the whole of the West of Europe. As emperor and king, he was absolute master of France and Italy ; as mediator, he was master of Switzerland ; as protector, he held in his grasp a considerable portion of Germany ; Naples and Holland he governed through his two brothers ; Spain had been reduced to passive and abject submission, and had already been engaged by him to subjugate Portugal. The formation of the Rhein-Bund greatly alarmed Prussia, and when she learned that Napoleon, after having given her Hanover, had offered its restora- tion to England, and even the annexation of the Hanseatic Towns, exaspera- tion became intense. In the degradation of Germany, nothing so irritated and offended the national spirit, now only beginning to wake up, as the formation of the Grand Duchy of Berg and Cleves, and the nomination to it of that mountebank, Murat, who spent 27,000 francs in four months, over his feathers,* and who with his ape-like affectations was repugnant to the grave German taste. On August 6th, the Emperor Francis resigned the Imperial Crown of Germany, and declared that the ancient Imperial Confederation was at an end. The malicious delight of all the friends of France in the Fatherland was extraordinary, but the vast majority of the nation remained mute and cold. Wherever a token of patriotic feeling manifested itself, in a cry of pain, or indignation. Napoleon took measures to silence it. None were allowed to tell the Germans that they had once been a great people, and that they might be so again, if they would be true to themselves and seek regeneration in the practice of the old German virtues. * Madame Junot, Memoirs, iii. 23. / JENA .. 323 / Among the patriotic writers of this time who exercised enormous influence in rousing the national feelings, were Gentz and Arndt. The former was a hireling, and a man without a character, but he was able to write, and he did so, in reproof of the degeneracy of his age. Arndt was a man of superior type. During the war of 1805, he published the first part of his Spirit of the TimeSy in which, in vehenient words, he appealed to the German conscience. "A man," wrote he, "is rarely so noble that he can endure foreign bondage and contempt without becoming bad — a nation can never do so." An anonymous pamphlet appeared at Anspach, entitled Germany in its Deepest Humiliation^ and it exhorted the Germans to self-reproach over the degenera- tion of the nation under French despotism. Palm was a bookseller of Niirnberg, a free town, recently ceded to Bavaria, and one over which France had no legitimate authority, though, at the time, it was momentarily occupied by French troops. Palm had, like all his brethren in the trade, committed the crime, not of publishing, but of selling, Germany in its Deepest Humiliation, Napoleon was unable to answer the tract otherwise than by violent means. And as in his letters to Joseph he recommended cold lead as an infallible means of calming patriotic zeal in the Neapolitans, he supposed that the same dose would suit the German constitution. Palm was arrested, and condemned to be shot, along with three other book- . sellers, who happily succeeded in effecting their escape. The sentence was V^xecuted on Palm. The murder of this unfortunate man created the liveliest indignation throughout the length and breadth of Germany, and was peculiarly calculated ;o rouse the German mind, so given to literature, and which considered the iberty of the press essential to its own intellectual life. Napoleon had not intended that Prussia should have heard of the offer of Hanover and the Hanse Towns made by him to Great Britain ; but the Prussian ambassador, Lucchesini, got word of it, and communicated the proposed traffic to the King. Napoleon had his spies in the Berlin Court, and they at once informed him that his treachery had been reported. He hastened to give a flat denial to it. Not only did he order Laforest, the French ambassador, to deny the existence of such a negotiation, but he was bidden swear to the King of Prussia that the only reason why peace had not been concluded with England was because he was resolute not to concede Hanover to England. He moreover wrote to Talleyrand (2nd August), " Let Laforest be convinced that this is so," in the hopes that the French ambassador might be better able thereby to deceive the King. At the same time Laforest was instructed to blacken the character of Lucchesini, and do all in his power to make him lose credit with the Prussian Cabinet — " This miserable, imbecile pantaloon, this false and base Lucchesini, with his ridiculous information !" (8th August). But Prussia was no longer to be hoodwinked. The spirit of the people was roused, and the alliance with Russia was drawn tighter. The formation of the Rhenish Confederacy caused real alarm ; and the exclusion of English 324 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE goods, and the stopping of all colonial produce from ' entering the ports, became irksome to the people, interfering with the comforts and necessities of every householder. Moreover, all confidence in the sincerity of Napoleon in- making alliances was at an end." Duplicity was a part of his policy. " He dealt with, peoples, -cities, provinces, nations^ in the most arbitrary manner, t^'a'risferring-'^them from one ruler to another, as suited his momentary 'interest, and without consulting the interests and wishes of the people -themselves'. He had offered to give away the Harise Towns. He had deceived England "by proniisirig not to require Sicily for the kingdom of Naples ; he had offered to detach the Balearic Islands from his ally Spain; he deceived Holland, for which he had procured the restoration of her colonies, the Cape and Ceylon, and then had thrown them over as indifferent. He had given Venice to Austria, then taken it away again. At one moment he had been zealous for the integrity of the Turkish Empire, then trafficked with portions of it, on which not a French sbldier had set foot. In opposition to the Confederacy of the Rhine, Prussia endeavoured to negotiate a Nord-Bund, but at once encountered difficulties raised by Napoleon, who menaced Saxony and Hesse in the event of their entering into this alliance ; and thus it became obvious to all clear heads in Prussia that, if they desired to maintain national independence, this must be done by the sword. The King was wavering in his opinion, and afraid of war, at the time when Napoleon was massing troops on the frontiers, and pouring military munitions into the depots behind them. The Prussian patriots endeavoured to stir the King to energy, and detach him from his old advisers. Stein drew out a plan of reform ; and in Sep- tember, 1806, the war party entreated Frederick William III. to dismiss the ministers under whom Prussia had endured such degradation. But the King refused, and all remained on the old footing ; whilst Napoleon pushed on his preparations on such a scale, that it seemed as if he purposed something more than the crushing of Prussia. The Moniteur was instructed to issue insulting articles on Prussia, and to sneer at her as a secondary power. By the Treaty of Presburg, all the French corps ought to have evacuated Germany. Instead of this, a part of the victorious army, which had fought at Austerlitz had been left beyond the Rhine, to preside over the new Con- federacy, or to live at free quarters in the rich Hanse Towns. And now Napoleon was concentrating his forces upon the frontier. At the beginning of September he collected his great captains around him in Paris — Soult, Augereau, and Bernadotte, who had been serving in Germany, and Murat, who had been residing in his Grand Duchy of Berg — and consulted with them as to the best means of opening and conducting a campaign against Prussia, so as to render it rapid and decisive, like his last campaign against Austria. At last the Prussian Ministry prepared an ultimatum, requiring that the French troops should be withdrawn, in accordance with the Treaty of Presburg, THE EMPEROR. By Meissonier. JENA : ' 327 that the Northern Confederacy should be acknowledged, and that various points of contention between Prussia and France should be submitted to arbitration. Napoleon answered in the haughtiest tone of defiance, that for Prussia to provoke the enmity of France was as senseless as to pretend to withstand the waves of the ocean. On the 25th September, before receiving his ultimatum, he had already left Paris, and was on the Rhine, prepared to commence opera- tions. In August the troops of the Rhein-Bund had occupied the Thuringian frontier, and the French host had been got ready to march. He was in Bamberg when, on the 6th October, he received the Prussian ultimatum, and war was declared on the 8th. Napoleon brought into the field a force numerically superior to the Prussian army. His French veterans were in admirable discipline. He was the first general of the age, and under him were commanders of first-rate abilities. As he advanced, he had on his flanks none but friendly States ; in his rear was an immense force in disciplined troops. On the other hand, Prussia was unpre- pared ; it had raw levies, who had not smelt powder ; old generals, brought up under Frederick the Great, and wholly unacquainted with the tactics of war as revolutionised by Napoleon. No ally had been gained save half-hearted Saxony, which would have stood aloof, and allowed Prussia to be destroyed, as in the preceding autumn Prussia had stood aloof when Austria was at a death- grapple with the invader, had not Prince Hohenlohe been sent into the country at the head of a division of the Prussian army. No sufficiency of stores had been collected, no plan of campaign formed, no provision for rallying-places made in case of disaster ; and, incredible as it may seem, nothing was done to occupy the ravines of the Thuringian mountains, by means of which, in separate columns, the French army must enter Saxe Weimar. Nothing had been done to arm and provision the fortresses on the Elbe, no provision made for recruiting the army with fresh supplies of men. In a word, the only chance for Prussia lay in a pitched battle and decisive success. In the event of a reverse, disaster of the most overwhelming nature was inevitable. The battles of Auerstadt and of Jena, that ensued, resulted as might have been anticipated. To make their situation more hopeless, the Prussians allowed themselves to be caught whilst executing an intricate counter-march ; and, to still further aggravate the evil, divided their forces when they ought to have been concentrated, and allowed the enemy to occupy the position they ought never to have left unguarded. The stress of the battle was at Auerstadt, where Davoust was opposed to the centre and right wing of the Prussians ; whereas at Jena Napoleon fought the left wing only, under Prince Hohenlohe. But, according to his invariable usage, he claimed all the merit to himself, reported the battle as that of Jena, and gave but a grudging acknowledgment to the great achievement of Davoust at Auerstadt. In his bulletins he did his utmost to disguise the fact that he had exposed Davoust, with an isolated corps, to extreme peril. This marshal had to contend against the greater portion of the Prussian army, whereas the Emperor crushed only the weakest 328 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE portion, with double the number of men at his disposal. Napoleon inverted thq parts in his bulletins : the brave Davoust with 30,000 defeated the King with 60,000 ; Napoleon pretended that he himself had 80,000 men opposed to him, Whereas there were but 40,000. He made of the 'battle of Auerstadt a secondary episode of the battle of Jena, whereas it was in fact the capital and decisive event.- , / ^ > • ' . It was during the battle that an incident occurred, immortalised by the brush of Horace Vernet. The Guards had not been brought into action, and were impatient. Napoleon had s^en his wings menaced by the cavalry of Bliicher, and was galloping, forward to order the front rows to form into squares. As he passed through the Guards a voice called '* En avantj'/ "Who said -'that?*' asked tHe Emperor, abruptly turning and reining in his horse. '"Let him -who spoke learn to wait till he has won thirty battles before giving his advice." The story has - probaibly been niagnified out of a small incident. ' - . ' ■ ■ ^ .- Immediately after the battle, which had ended in the utter route and de^ tnoralisation of thejenem^, Napoleon -expanded his army like a Jan, .and: :sent it' throughout the- kingdom of Prussia, "to sweep away the flying remnants ;of the "enemy, and to take the fortified towns. The. King of Prusteia fled over the frontier, and left to his generals to rally the 'dispersed troaps. Saicoriy hastened toconclude peace with the conqueror. ' . • ' *. On the! 5th October, Napoleon imposed a coiitribution of 1 59,000,000 francs on all the Prussian provinces this side of the Vistula, and ordered tlie confisca^ tion of all English goods found in the northern towns. Eight days after the battle, he detached the PrUssiaii provinces on the left bank of the Elbe/ and incorporated them in the French empire, together with Ihe principalities of the Hessian Electoral House and of the Prince of Orange, brother-in-law of the ■King. On the 27th Octobery Napoleon entered Berlin, where he showed the deep-rooted contempt and hatred he bore for all that was Prussian. He spared ^heBerlinese no humiliation. V He had the figure of Victory removed from the Brandenburg gate ; he carried off the sword of Frederick the Great from his tt)mb, on which it had lain, and sent it to- the Irtvalides at Paris. He drove the gallant regiment of Gensdarmes along' " Uhder the Linden" in rags; like a herd of cattle, and he refused to allow the body of the Duke of Brunswick, who had been opposed to" hina ^n tHe field Of Auerstadt^ to be taken to 'the ancestral mausoleum. On- the field of Rossbach, he destroyed a column erected to ~ commeniorate the Well-known ^ victory of the Prussians over the iP'rench, and sent it as a trophy to Paris. On entering Berlin, the magistrates presented him with the keys of the city ; they" were conducted by Prince Hatzfeld, to whorn the King of Prussia had entrusted the civil government. -Napoleon received them with rudeness. ,He ordei'ed the Prince 6ut of Jiis presence. " Don't you present yourself before me," he said, "I do not require ^your services ; Vfetire, go to your own property." Then he sharply catechised Count, Neale Relative to a lettet- by his daughter, which had been intercepted, and which qdntained patriotic sentiments. " The good people, of Berlin,^' ^# o « a <; : JENA ; : 331 exclaimed he, " suffer through the war that those have brought on them who have elected to run away. I intend to reduce the nobility of the Court to such a low state that they will be forced to go about begging their bread." * Next day, he proceeded to put this menace in execution, by laying his hand on the same Prince Hatzfeld. He had intercepted a letter of his, reporting to the King, his master, the entry of the French into the capital. Napoleon chose this as an occasion for charging him with being a spy, and ordered him to instant execution. The proceeding was such a violation of the laws of civilised peoples, that Berthier, Duroc, and Rapp interfered, but found Napoleon in- flexible in his resolution. The generals were determined not to allow this execution to take place ; they concealed the Prince, and between them con- trived a little scene, in which the Princess and her children were to plead with the conqueror for the life of husband and father. By this time, Napoleon had been convinced that it would be advisable to yield, and he pardoned Prince Hatzfeld. This has furnished painters with a subject which is entitled, " The Clemency of Napoleon." But perhaps the worst incident of this period is the inditing of virulent and. scurrilous charges against Queen Louise, the wife of King Frederick William. It was not the way with Bonaparte to spare women, any more than men, who opposed him. He had written concerning the Queen of Naples : " Fling from her throne this criminal woman, who, with such shamelessness, has violated all that is regarded as sacred among men." Now he launched forth into invective against Queen Louise, who had used her best endeavour to stir the sluggish mind of her husband to oppose French aggression. He found that she was looked up to and followed by the generous minds in the nation ; she was the soul of the national party. It was therefore his object to destroy her influence and reputation, and to do this, he devoted as much energy to the dirty work as though he was endeavouring to break the centre of an opposing army. After having described her as a person " sufficiently pretty, but with little wit," he endeavoured to stir minds up against her, as the sole author of this calamitous war. " She who had been accustomed to devote herself to the grave occupa- tions of the toilette," had forced herself into political life, " meddled with aff"airs of State, influenced the King, scattered everywhere the fire which consumes her heart." And the reason for this was that she was fascinated by the charms of the young Emperor of Russia. There was an engraving of a picture by Dahling, that represented the parting of the Emperor and the King at the coffin of Frederick the Great, in the presence of Louise. Napoleon, in his bulletin (17th), describes this : — " On one side is the good-looking Emperor of Russia, near him the Queen on the other side, the King, who places his hand on the tomb of the Great Frederick. The Queen, draped in a shawl, something like the London pictures of Lady Hamilton, places her hand on her heart, and seems to be ogling the Emperor of Russia. The shade of Frederick would be indignant at such a scandalous scene." * All this insolence he relates in his 21st bulletin. 332 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Afraid lest Jthis allusion should not be fully understood, Napoleon returned to it in his next bulleitin. : : : :;^ i . : . ' : "All the Prussians attribute the misfortunes of their country to the visit of the Emperor Alexander. The change which, from that moment, took place in the mind of the Queen, who was formerly a timid and modest woman, and then became turbulent and warlil nation en(4ures.^ One hears on all sides how she turned about after that fatal interview withr the Emperor Alexander. . . . We have Vaptually found the portrait of the Emperor of Russia in the apartment of the Queen at Potsdam J and this portrait he gave her." ^ . . i . ■•■ ,;::;..,:..; " . , ^: "^ ' ^ ■. - ' " : :: "^ On theses offensive bulletins of Napoleon, Lanfrey justly remarks; "The. gaps in the moral. organisation of Napoleon, as here instanced, are equivalent to a lack of. intelligence; for if he wounded the\most delicate scruples of the| human conscience, the cause lay in his own heart. He was vastly in error- in treatrng- other men* as^ though they had been 'divested, of all" sentiments :of honour and morality, as he was himself He did not' perceive that these vil^ insinuations/directed against a fugitive and disarmed woman by a man who stood at the Head oFsoo^ooo soldiers, missed their mark, and were calculated, not only "to excite the disgust of all elevated souls, but even to revolt the most commonplace ininds."*^ ' . : l. : : .: .: . .1 This brutality to Queen Louise has been excused on the grounds of poli^ tical necessity: but Bonaparte was by a nature a bully, and had all a bully's meanness. = , . • ,-, • . , On a smaller scale, he had shown the same brutality, the same lack of delicate feeling, when Junot introduced to him his young bride. Then he said to her, "I suppose you have heard of the harem your husband kept- in Egypt?" Mme. Junot tells a worse story than that of his treatment of her. But he behaved to the ladies of his Court, and even the wives of .his personal, friends,. of men who would, and did, lay down their lives for him, with as little consideration as he showed to Queen Louise. But we -must, in judging him,^ deal leniently, in remembering that in his youth he had not been associated with ladies ; and he. looked - on all women in the same light as Corsican^ peasantesses, and petty attorneys' wives. - = ■■ ^ Frqm Berlin Napoleon issued that decree which was to carry into effect,; the chimerical scheme on which he had set his heart, since he had. abandoned, the prospect of an invasion of England* He proposed to ruin her, by closing all ports against her merchandise. This decree was issued on November 26th^ 1806. It forbade the importation of English wares, and ordered the con- fiscation of all such as were already in the country, the imprisonment of every English subject, and the confiscation of his goods. Napoleon fondly thought by this means to destroy the commercial prosperity of England. But England was able to hold out against the blow, which recoiled on the trade of Germany.^ ; The decree, of Napoleon provoked more astonishment on the Continent than indignation, and men began to doubt whether he. were not drunk with; . * Lanfrey, iii. 501. , • JENA 333 success, and blind to the fact that this continental blockade was not possible unless every avenue of trade were stopped ; and such was not the case, so long as Austria and Russia were open to English commerce, and officials in every port ready to connive at smuggling ; nay, more, with those at the head of the State unwilling to have the blockade enforced. This was the case with Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, who would riot execute the decree, and "on ne passe pas." 'From a lithograph by Charlet. was sharply reprimanded for his neglect by the Emperor. But Napoleon himself found it impossible rigorously to maintain it. He was obliged to sign numerous permits, to allow of. the introduction of English goods that were essentially necessary to the army. An instance in point was when he imposed on Hamburg a contribution for the Grand Army of 50,000 cloaks, 16,000 coats, and 200,000 boots. There were no manufacturers of cloth in Hamburg, nor was there leather; consequently the requisite cloth and leather had to be purchased in London, and introduced from England."^ Officials grew rich by taking bribes to allow prohibited goods to pass. In 181 1, when Murat was ^ BOURRIENNE, H. 385. 334 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE King of Naples, and the continental system was applied there, the troops round his extensive line of sea-coast carried on an active trade with Sicilian and English smugglers. To such an extent was this carried, that the officers embarked in large commercial operations, going shares with the custom-house. There was a Count on Murat's staff, very noble, but very poor. After making several vain attempts to set him up in the world, the King told him one day he would give him the command of all the troops round the Gulf of Salerno ; adding that the devil was in it, if he could not make a fortune in such a THE EMPEROR IN PRUSSIA. From a lithograph by Raffet. smuggling district in a couple of years. The Count took the hint, and did make a fortune. As Bourrienne justly observes, the continental system of blockade of English goods resolved itself into nothing more nor less than one of fraud and pillage. " At Hamburg, under Davoust's government, a poor man had well-nigh been shot for having smuggled a loaf of sugar for the use of his family, while at the same moment Napoleon was signing a licence for the importation of a million sugar-loaves. Smuggling on a small scale was punished with deaths whilst the Government carried it on extensively." JENA 335 But not only was its execution impossible ; by raising the cost of colonial produce, brought round through the Baltic ports of Russia, and through Trieste, it caused privation to the poor, and discomfort to the rich, and served to nurture in all hearts a sense of resentment against the man who imposed this restraint on trade. Napoleon required the civil authorities of the Prussian provinces to take an oath of fidelity to him — a step wholly unprecedented, and one that clearly indicated his intention of annexing Prussia to the Empire. In North Germany, the National cause seemed lost. No army, nothing remained to the King but that portion of his realm which was beyond the Vistula. The principal generals had fallen at Jena, or afterwards had given up their swords. One man alone came forward with schemes of regeneration — Baron Stein — but the King refused to hear him. "You are," wrote he on the 4th January, 1807, "a per- verse, stubborn^ stiffnecked, and disobedient servant of the State, who, relying on his talents, instead of looking to the good of the State, is led by his caprices, passions, and personal vindictiveness." Yet Stein was the man through whom Prussia was to be revived. Another there was, Blucher, now on parole at Bremen, who foresaw that the valley of death must lead to a resurrection, and he said to Bourrienne, "You may depend upon it, when once a nation is resolved to shake off a humiliating yoke, it will succeed. I rely confidently on the future, because I foresee that fortune will not ever follow your Emperor. The more he enslaves the nations, the more terrible will be the reaction, when they break their chains." XXXVIII THE CAMPAIGN IN POLAND (Winter of 1806-7) NAPOLEON stayed long enough in Berlin to permit a deputation from the French Senate to arrive, and congratulate him on his successes. It was received between lines of grenadiers, each holding a standard captured from the enemy. The deputation ventured to hint to the conqueror that France was sighing for peace, and that some uneasiness was felt lest he should carry his arms beyond the Oder. The Emperor received this communication with a very bad grace. So far from regarding this remonstrance. Napoleon at once prepared for a Polish campaign. He prepared for it in a characteristic manner, by rousing to fanaticism the national feeling of the Poles, and allowing them to believe that he was coming to be their liberator from the powers which had partitioned their kingdom. The old hero Kosciuszko was living quietly at Fontainebleau. As his name was a power in Poland, a manifesto was drawn up, addressed to his country- men, exciting them to rise and welcome the French as their deliverers, and he was requested to put his name to it. But Kosciuszko had seen enough of Bonaparte to be sure that he purposed employing the Poles as a catspaw for his own interest only, and he refused his signature, saying that he would not be an instrument in deceiving his countrymen with hopes he did not himself entertain. In spite of this refusal. Napoleon ordered the proclamation to be printed in the Moniteur, with Kosciuszko's signature attached. On the 1st of November, when he was preparing to pour his Grand Army into Poland, he made General Dombrowski issue this proclamation, together with other addresses, wherein the Polish nation was told that Kosciuszko was hastening to fight with them for the liberation of their country, under the protection of the Emperor of the French. The few who were aware of the fraud perpetrated kept the secret. The Poles were worked into a fever of enthusiasm, and welcomed the advancing French columns with joy. All Prussian Poland was in a blaze ; and the Russians, who had advanced into these provinces with the design of crossing the Vistula, and succouring the 336 THE CAMPAIGN IN POLAND 337 King of Prussia, found themselves surrounded by a hostile population, that was pouring its manhood into the enemy's camp. So many volunteers arrived at headquarters, that, as early as the i6th of November, Dombrowski had formed of them four regiments. This blind enthusiasm was at its height when the Emperor arrived at Posen. He received deputations and addresses from the credulous patriots, all entreat- ing him to restore to their country its ancient independence. Some of the nobles, however, held back. They remembered how badly Napoleon had treated the Republics of Venice, Batavia, Switzerland ; and they demanded some guarantee that he would give them what they desired before compromising themselves with Russia and Austria. Murat, whose ambition was to become King of Poland, in vain solicited a public declaration of the intentions of the Emperor. Napoleon wrote to Andreossy, his ambassador at Vienna, to calm the un- easiness there felt at the agitation, which had spread into Austrian Poland : — " If the Emperor, feeling the difficulty of keeping hold on Austrian Poland in the midst of these movements, would like to have, as an indemnity for it, a portion of Silesia, Napoleon will be ready to entertain such an idea." The object of this insidious proposition was to produce a rupture between Austria and the Allies — Prussia, England, and Russia. But the Court of Vienna received the proposal coldly. On the 1 2th December, Napoleon issued one of those singular bulletins which might mean much or little, and which was calculated to stimulate hope, but committed him to nothing : — " The love of country, that national sentiment, has not only been preserved in the heart of the Polish people, but it has been strengthened by misfortune. Their first passion, their strongest desire, is to become again a nation. The richest among them quit their chateaux, to come and demand, with loud cries, the re-establishment of the kingdom, and to offer their sons, their fortunes, their influence. This spectacle is truly touching. Already have they everywhere resumed their ancient costume, their ancient customs. Will the throne of Poland be re-established ? Will this great nation recover its existence and its independence? From the bottom of the grave will it rise again to a new life? God alone, who holds in His hands the issues of all things, is the arbiter of this grand political problem ; but certainly there never was an event more memor- able, and more deserving of interest." The Emperor entered Warsaw on the ist January, 1807. Most of the private reports which had been received gave accounts of the discouragement of the troops. Food was scarce, the weather bad, the condition of the roads intoler- able. The French were uneasy at being thrust forward in mid-winter towards the snowy plains of Russia. The artillery could hardly be dragged through the deep mud. Talleyrand had been summoned from Paris by the Emperor, and his carriage stuck fast. " Ah, bah ! " said a soldier on seeing him deep in mire, " why does he come with his diplomacy to such a devil of a country as this ? " I 338 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE The Emperor issued the following proclamation to the soldiers on the anniversary of Austerlitz : — " Soldiers, — It is a year, this very hour, since you were on the field of Austerlitz, when the Prussian battalions fled in disorder, or surrendered their arms. Next day proposals of peace were talked of, but were deceptive. No sooner had the Russians escaped from the disasters of the third Coalition than they contrived a fourth. But the ally on whom they founded their main hope is no more. His capital, his fortresses, his magazines, his arsenals, 280 flags, and 700 field-pieces, have fallen into our power. The Oder, the Wartha, the wastes of Poland, and the inclemency of the season, have not for a moment re- tarded your progress. You have braved all, surmounted all. The Russians have in vain endeavoured to defend the capital of illustrious Poland. The French eagle hovers over the Vistula. . . . Soldiers, we will not lay down our arms until a general peace has secured the power of our allies, and restored to us our colonies and our freedom of trade. . . . Why should the Russians have the right to oppose destiny, and thwart our just designs ? They and we are still the soldiers who fought at Austerlitz." Bourrienne gives an interesting picture of the manner in which Napoleon dictated his proclamations, and of the effect produced by them : — " When Bonaparte dictated these — and how many have I written from his dictation !^ — he was for the moment inspired, and he evinced all the excitement which distinguishes the Italian improvisors. To follow him, it was necessary to write with inconceivable rapidity. When I have read over to him what he has dictated, I have often known him to smile triumphantly at the effect which he expected some particular phrase would produce. In general, his proclamations turned on three distinct points — (i) Praising his soldiers for what they had done ; (2) pointing out to them what they had yet to do ; and (3) abusing his enemies. The proclamation to which I have just now alluded was circulated profusely through Germany, and it is impossible to conceive the effect it pro- duced on the whole army. The corps stationed in the rear burned to pass, by forced marches, the space which still separated them from headquarters ; and those who were near the Emperor forgot their fatigues and privations and were only anxious to encounter the enemy. Frequently they could not understand what Napoleon said in these proclamations ; but no matter for that, they would have followed him cheerfully, barefooted, and without pro- visions. Such was the enthusiasm, or rather the fanaticism, which Napoleon could inspire among his troops when he thought proper to rouse them, as he termed it." * On the nth December, while the columns of the Grand Army crossed the Vistula, Napoleon signed an advantageous peace with the Elector of Saxony, whereby that prince was elevated to royal degree, and, in return, sent his army to join the oppressor in his march against the Russians. The Emperor had not neglected to stir up a diversion against Russia at Constantinople. His ambassador at the Porte, Sebastiani, had induced the Sultan to forbid the Russian vessels entrance to the Bosphorus, and to make pretensions on Walachia and Moldavia. The result was that war had broken out between Russia and Turkey, and a Russian army, originally designed for the Polish frontier, was diverted to these principalities. Napoleon was vastly * Bourrienne, ii. 372. THE CAMPAIGN IN POLAND 339 pleased at this success; he wrote to the Sultan, Selim, on the nth November : " Recover confidence. Destiny has resolved on the continuance of your empire ; I am commissioned to save it, and I place to your account all my victories." As though to give a more irrevocable character to these engagements, he inserted them in his messages to the Senate, and he pointed out how great would be the disgrace of abandoning Turkey, and what dangers would ensue there- from to civilised Europe. At the same time he sent a mission to the Shah of Persia, to engage him to march against the Russians by the Caucasus. MON KMPEREUR, C EST LA PLUS CUITE.' From a lithograph by Raffet. The severity of the climate, and the frightful state of the roads in Poland, the sleet and snow, the ice and cutting winds, would not induce the Emperor to forego a winter campaign. He was well aware that the enemy was worse pro- visioned than his own army. He desired, moreover, by a blow to break and scatter the army of Bennigsen in front of him, before the Poles had opened their eyes to the hollowness of his professions. The Russians under Bennigsen retired due north, in the direction of the Niemen, as if intending to cross that river, and draw the enemy into the wide country beyond. But this wise design was abandoned, and Bennigsen halted at Pultusk, at the distance of only a few days' march from Warsaw, and there a bloody battle was fought on the 26th of December, 1806. The Russians 340 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE were attacked by the divisions of Lannes and Davoust, and by the French Guards, the pick of Bonaparte's army They gallantly repelled the attacks made on their centre and on their left, and cut to pieces the French on their right. The French lost nearly 8000 men in killed and wounded, and the Russian loss was estimated at 5000. In the darkness of the night, the French began their retreat to the Vistula ; Bonaparte returned to Warsaw with his Guards, and the army was put into winter quarters. The Russians also retired to Ostrolenka, where Bennigsen was joined by Prince Galitzin. The critical "apres vous, sire!" From a lithograph by Charlet. situation of the King of Prussia, cooped up in Konigsberg, with only a few thousand men, and threatened by the divisions of Ney and Bernadotte, did not allow Bennigsen to take long repose. He resumed offensive operations with great spirit, and forced the French from their winter quarters into the field — a field covered with ice and snow, and swept by pitiless winds. In a proclamation to the army issued on the 30th of January, 1807, Napoleon announced an approaching victory as the result of his forward move- ment :— "The Russians are drawn on by that fatality which constantly dogs the counsels of our enemies. They go to war with Turkey at the moment when THE CAMPAIGN IN POLAND 343 we are on their frontiers. They break up their winter quarters and rush on their conquerors to experience fresh defeats. As it must be so, let us leave our repose, which damages our reputation, and let them fly before our eagles, scared beyond the Niemen. We will pass the rest of the winter in the beautiful land of Old Prussia, and our enemies will have only themselves to reproach for the disasters they will suffer." He had good cause to be confident. England had been slow in answering the appeals of the Emperor of Russia for men and money, and Bennigsen's forces were short of clothing, muskets, and ammunition. Napoleon had taken pains to secure the services of the Jews who swarmed in Poland. They spied on the movements of the enemy, they swept the country for provisions, which they brought to the French camp, whilst the Russians starved, and Bennigsen, through the misplaced parsimony of the English Government, the poverty of the Russian treasury, and the fraud of the commissariat officers, was unable to compete in the Jew market with the golden napoleons lavished by the French. The French, moreover, greatly outnumbered the Russians. They had in the field at least 85,000 men, to oppose 75,000 Russians and Prussians. The desperate and sanguinary battle of Eylau began at daybreak on the 8th February. Half-starved, half-naked as they were, the Russian infantry fought heroically ; and their artillery shattered the column of Augereau, and beat back Marshal Soult, who had advanced to the attack, preceded by 150 pieces of artillery. A snowstorm was raging at the time, and so thick was the snow in the air, that the P'rench columns did not perceive that the Cossacks were upon them on one flank, and the whole Russian right on the other, until touched by the Cossack lances ; and then they broke and fled in confusion, pur- sued by the Cossacks, who speared them. Of a corps of 16,000 men, only 1500 escaped. The fugitives rushed into Eylau, where the Emperor was standing in the churchyard, and he narrowly escaped being captured. The Imperial Guard was ordered up, and broke the Russian centre, which, however, did not fall into confusion, but allowed the Cuirassiers to pass through, then closed, and the French Cuirassiers were cut to pieces. Twelve French eagles were taken, and fourteen pieces of cannon ; but the balance was somewhat redressed by Davoust on the French right, who turned the Russian left. At this moment the Prussians arrived, and restored the fortunes of the day. Night came on, leaving the Russians practically masters of the field ; and had Bennigsen been able to pursue his advantage, the result would have been the total rout of the French. But his men were without ammunition or food, and to the surprise and satisfaction of the French, he retreated. The loss on both sides had been enormous ; no reliance can be placed on the numbers of killed and wounded given by Napoleon,* but his loss cannot have been under 30,000 men, killed and wounded. The best testimony as to the real effect of the battle of Eylau was borne * On the same day he wrote to Cambaceres, in Paris, that the French losses amounted to 3,000 killed and 1,500 wounded ; and to Daru, at Thorn, ** You say that there are only 5,000 wounded in the hospital. There must be more; I counted from 7,000 to 8,000." According to the heads of the corps, the number was 12,000. 344 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE by Bonaparte himself. It was usual with him to at once follow up a victory ; but after Eylau he remained inactive for eight days ; and instead of sending an arrogant message to the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, he wrote one of a courteous nature to Frederick William, containing proposals for peace, which he despatched by General Bertrand, who was instructed to throw the Poles overboard. " Let the General allow it to be seen that as to Poland, since the Emperor has come to know it, he sets no value on it at all." * Frederick William, however, refused to accede to any peace in which Russia was not included. On the 19th February, Napoleon evacuated Eylau, and re- treated to the Vistula. The fate of Napoleon at this period hung on a thread. Had Austria joined the Coalition after Eylau, instead of offering to mediate, and had not Russia, with strange infatuation, chosen this time for war with Turkey, and had England furnished the subsidies she had promised, the career of Napoleon in the morasses of Poland, away from his base, would have been cut short, and Europe would have been saved years of bloodshed. The rest of the winter was spent in entertainments at Warsaw, where the Emperor fell under the fascinations of a beautiful Polish Countess. Savary says : — " The Emperor and all the French officers paid their tribute of admiration to the charms of the fair Poles. There was one whose powerful fascinations made a deep impression on the Emperor's heart. He conceived an ardent affection for her, which she cordially returned. She received with pride the homage of a conquest which was the consummation of her happiness. It is needless to name her.f The rumour of this liaison reached Josephine, and made her uneasy. She begged to be allowed to come to Warsaw. Napoleon answered, ' Be gay, content, live happily. I love you, think of you, desire you — but don't come.' " Again, on May loth, 1807, Napoleon wrote to his wife, "I know nothing of the ladies you say correspond with me. I love only my good, pouting, capricious Josephine, who knows how to pick a quarrel with the good grace she exhibits in all she does ; for she is always amiable, except when she is jealous, and then she is the very devil. But to return to those ladies. If I were to notice any of them, I should like them to be rosebuds ; and none of them fulfil that condition." In spite of lying bulletins, % the truth that at Eylau the French army had met with disaster could not wholly be concealed from the people. Private letters, and the Russian account, transmitted through English papers, reached Paris, and much alarm was felt lest the Austrians should declare themselves, and cut the communication of the Grand Army with France. Unhappily for * Instructions y 13th February, 1807. t Memoires du Due de Rovigo, iii. 26. Her name was Walewska. The fruit of this liaison was the Count Alexander Florian Joseph Colonna Walewska, who filled several high posts under the Second Empire. X In Bernadotte's baggage, which fell into the hands of the Russians, was found evidence of the manner in which false bulletins were manufactured. Along with the official despatches of all the actions in the campaign, which were to be published, were private despatches for Napoleon's eye only, giving the facts as they really occurred. I^h'^ ifc. '^ k%. 1 ^1 .*i M. ■■m A |1- i* ' Hi M n^ NAPOLEON DECORATING A RUSSIAN SOLDIER. From a painting by Debret. THE CAMPAIGN IN POLAND 347 the peace of Europe, the Austrians remained neutral. England was likewise inert ; there was no Pitt now at the head of the Ministry. The general gloom in France was increased by the demand made by Napoleon, on March 26th, for a fresh conscription of 80,000 men ; this was the third levy which|had been called for since the Prussian War began. The three conscriptions supplied'^no less than 240,000 men in seven months, and the call for the third was a plain indication of the ravages caused by war. The number of young men who reached the age of eighteen annually in France was esti- mated at 200,000 ; consequently in half a year more than an entire annual generation had been swept up, and carried off to lay their bones in the East of Europe, fighting -for nothing national, solely to satisfy the caprice of one man. By the month of June Bonaparte had 200,000 men on the Vistula, and between that river and the Niemen. On the 14th June the decisive battle of Friedland was fought but a few miles distant from Eylau, and on the anniversary of Marengo. The battle was won by the concentration of the French artillery upon one point, whereas Bennigsen had scattered his along his line. At the outset success seemed to favour the Russians. Their Imperial Guard drove in the division of Ney, and shook that of Dupont. The battle was hardly contested, and the losses of the French so great, that Napoleon was unable to pursue his success, and complete the overthrow of a beaten enemy. Even after the reverse at Friedland, steadiness and fortitude on the part of the Czar, with no extraordinary exertion on that of his allies, would have retrieved the disaster, and would probably have resulted in the complete defeat of Napoleon, who viewed with alarm the assembling of an Austrian army on the Bohemian frontier, and whose soldiers, undeceived by his proclamations, saw that battle with Russians meant something very different from that with Austrians and Italians. j'l;* But Alexander was discouraged. His officers murmured at having to make such sacrifices on account of the King of Prussia. Above all, he was angry with Great Britain, which had left him in the lurch. He thought he had done enough for Prussia ; and, without consulting Frederick William, he proposed an armistice, to which the French Emperor eagerly consented. By the prospect of obtaining Finland from Sweden, and of being allowed a free hand in the Balkan Peninsula, the Czar allowed himself to be cajoled into a French alliance. Not till Alexander and Napoleon had agreed to an offensive and defensive [alliance against England was the deceived King of Prussia in- formed of his fate. On the eve of Austerlitz, Napoleon had suggested to Prince Dolgorouki that] Russia should expand at the cost of her neighbours, but the Emperor Alexander had] rejected the suggestion. The only neighbour of whom he coveted aught was Turkey. But now the aspect of affairs was changed. " The fortune of his adversary had grown with every obstacle opposed to him, and because of them. Nothing had held its ground against him, neither old systems nor modern ideas. Pitt had died of a broken heart ; Fox, whom 348 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE he had hoodwinked, was dead ; the Prussian monarchy had been ground to- powder in one day ; in France all opposition had ceased. Rights, liberties, virtue, genius, everything, had been twisted, turned aside, and had failed. Was not this a token of Destiny, a proof that this domination without precedent was of the force of Nature, and would it not be better to share with it, than to be lost in braving it ?"* The interview between the two Emperors took place at Tilsit, on a raft in the midst of the river Memel. On this was constructed a room, elegantly decorated, having two doors opposite each other. The roof was surmounted by two weathercocks, one displaying the Russian eagle, the other that of France. The two Sovereigns embarked at the same moment ; but Napoleon, having the best rowers, reached the raft first, and, passing through the room, stationed himself at the edge of the raft to receive the Czar. A salute of a hundred guns was fired the moment Alexander arrived where Napoleon was awaiting him. Napoleon was a master of the art of cajolery, and from the moment that he met Alexander he completely won him. " I hate the English," said the Czar, "just as much as you hate them." " If that be so," replied Napoleon, " then peace is soon made." The folly of the vacillating English Government had indeed so angered the Autocrat of the Russias, as to throw him into the arms of the French Emperor. This first interview lasted two hours ; and Alexander was so fascinated by the terrible Conqueror of Europe, that he was ready to have the town of Tilsit neutralised, that they might be enabled to meet the oftener. Meanwhile the humbled King of Prussia and his Queen were lodged in a mill in the suburbs, and it was not till after the two Emperors had settled the preliminaries that Frederick William was admitted to their company, and with sad countenance, but sadder heart, learned that his kingdom was reduced to Old Prussia, Pomerania, Brandenburg, and Silesia. Moreover, Napoleon insisted that it should be registered in the treaty that he made these con- cessions solely out of consideration for the Czar Alexander. This was to inflict humiliation after defeat. Out of the portion of Prussia on the left bank of the Elbe the kingdom of Westphalia was to be formed for Jerome Bonaparte, the youngest of the brothers, and the scapegrace ; and neither the supplications of the Prussian Monarch nor the entreaty of his beautiful Queen could induce him to modify his resolution. Napoleon treated her with scant politeness. Macaulay, in comparing Napoleon and Caesar, said truly of the latter, that he was a perfect gentle- man. Napoleon had not a particle of the element of a gentleman in him. As Talleyrand put it, " 'Twas a sad pity that so great a m.an had been so ill-bred." As the price of peace with Alexander, Napoleon at once cast overboard his pledges to Turkey. He had sworn not to make peace without the latter, and * Lanfrey, iv. 117. NAPOLEON RECEIVING QUEEN LOUISE AT TILSIT, From a painting by Gosse. r THE CAMPAIGN IN POLAND 351 to maintain its integrity ; now he professed his willingness for Alexander to take possession of Moldavia and Walachia, and, should Turkey resist, to assist him, and divide the European realms of the Sultan between Russia and France. Poland was also abandoned, but not with the same completeness. He erected a Grand Duchy of Warsaw out of the Prussian portion of Poland, which he gave to the King of Saxony. But the Peace of Tilsit was aimed chiefly against England. Russia was to enter into the continental system, and close her ports against the trade of Great Britain. By a secret clause, it was resolved that Napoleon should take possession of the Danish fleet lying at Copenhagen. More has been made of the disappointment of Polish hopes than is justified. Napoleon was in an extremely delicate position. He dared not offend Austria by taking from her that portion of Poland which had fallen to her share, and his desire to make peace with Russia precluded his detaching her portion from that Empire. The Poles of the so-called Grand Duchy of Warsaw gained nothing by their transfer from the crown of Prussia to that of Saxony, save the sentimental gratification of calling themselves members of a semi-indepen- dent Duchy, with a Constitution of their own. As Napoleon said to Rapp : — " I love the Poles ; their enthusiastic character pleases me ; I would like to make them independent, but that is a difficult matter. Austria, Russia, and Prussia, have all had a slice of the cake ; when the match is once kindled, who knows where the conflagration may stop ? My first duty is towards France, which I must not sacrifice to Poland ; we must refer this matter to the Sovereign of all things — Time ; he will presently show us what we must do." Had he succeeded as he expected in the campaign, and annihilated the army of Russia, as he had that of Prussia, he might, and almost surely would, have answered the expectations of the Poles ; but as his campaign had been but partially successful, it would have been unreasonable to require of him that he should do what under the circumstances was impossible. Whether, had he constituted Poland as a province, " protected " by him, it would not have been sucked dry of its resources, picked to the bone, as every other province was that was under his sway, is another question. XXXIX SPAIN (1807-8) ^nr^HE project formed by Napoleon of seizing on the Danish navy to supply -■- France with a fleet, was frustrated by the rapidity with which the English Ministry, informed of his purpose, forestalled him, and by sending Lord Cathcart to Copenhagen, removed the Danish fleet and stores beyond his reach. Bonaparte explained his scheme thus : — " After Russia had joined my alliance, Prussia, as a matter of course, followed her example ; Portugal, Sweden, and the Pope alone required to be gained over, for we were well aware that Denmark would throw herself into our arms. . . . The whole of the maritime forces of the Continent were then to be employed against England, and they could muster 180 sail of the line. In a few years, this force could be raised to 250. With the aid of such a fleet, and my immense flotilla, it was by no means impossible to lead a European army to London. One hundred ships of the line employed against her colonies would suffice to draw off a large proportion of the British navy ; eighty more in the Channel would have sufficed to assure the passage of the flotilla." * As his plan of securing the Danish navy was frustrated, he ordered Junot, at the head of a large body of young recruits, to hasten into Portugal by forced marches, and lay hands on the Portuguese fleet in the Tagus. But here again he was defeated, for on the very day on which Junot arrived, the fleet set sail, carrying with it the royal family, and 18,000 Portuguese, with all their movable goods (30th Nov., 1807). Napoleon had been enabled to send his troops through Spain by virtue of a treaty drawn up and signed at Fontainebleau on the 27th October, but which was not as yet published. By this treaty it was agreed with Spain (i) That a free passage should be granted through Spanish territories to a French army appointed to invade Portugal, and that a Spanish army should be furnished to co-operate with it. (2) That Portugal should be subjugated and divided into two portions, whereof the southernmost should be erected into a Principality for Godoy, the favourite, the Prince of the Peace, and the northern- most should be granted as indemnification for Tuscany, which was coveted by Napoleon, and this should be given to the Queen of Etruria. And (3) till the proclamation of a general peace, France was to occupy the city of Lisbon and * JOMINI, Vie de NapoUon, ii. 449. 352 SPAIN 353 three provinces. Nine days after the signature of this treaty, Junot was de- spatched with 30,000 men across the Bidassoa. As an excuse, an ultimatum had been presented to the Regent of Portugal, requiring him to enter into the con- tinental blockade, and to confiscate English goods, to close his ports against the English, and to engage to proclaim war against them.* The Regent agreed to every clause except one ; he demurred to the seizure of English wine-growers' estates. That sufficed Napoleon, and Junot was let loose on the unhappy land. The instructions given that general showed that the Emperor had other views than the occupation of Portugal. He bade him take along with him engineer officers, who on the march might map the Spanish roads, and observe the strong places. Junot's army, as already intimated, was made up of young conscripts, for the most part under the age of eighteen ; they had been enlisted in anticipation of the proper time. With these boys he was goaded on by the Emperor to take fatiguing marches over barren plains and mountain ridges ; the youthful soldiers died like flies, and to no purpose, as on the day before he arrived at Lisbon the fleet had departed. Thousands of innocent people, whose sole crime was that they had attracted the cupidity of a pitiless conqueror, were driven from their homes, their lands, their kinsfolk, to take refuge across the Atlantic in a strange land. By Napoleon's orders, not only were all the English merchandise and proper- ties confiscated, but also the whole soil of Portugal, which the landowners were required to redeem at the price of 100,000,000 francs. Every French soldier was to be quartered and maintained free of charge, and to be moreover furnished, in addition to his rations, with a bottle of wine daily, with which he might trade. The Portuguese arms were everywhere torn down, and the French tricolor was hoisted over every fortress. The House of Braganza, so it was announced, had ceased to reign. It had forfeited its rights by flight. A grand illumination was ordered by Junot, in honour of the change of Government, but only three houses were lighted on this occasion. The higher classes had fled, and the peasants re- tired to the mountains to organise revolt. In a letter to Junot, dated the 12th November, 1807, Napoleon drew a pretty picture of what the occupation of a neutral State signified : — " It is for you to set an example of disinterestedness. See, above all, that the army is paid. What is derived from captures, from jewels, and from English merchandise, shall go half to the privy purse and half to the army ; and, in this half, the generals and the chiefs will have no reason to complain of their treatment. The English goods must be seized, and Englishmen arrested and sent to France ; all English property, even funded, as well as houses, vineyards, &c., must be sequestrated in my name. . . . Have all the precious articles you take packed in boxes, and sent to the office of the Sinking Fund." " There is something at once lugubrious and grotesque," remarks the Hon. D. A. Bingham, "in this way of crying halves with Junot, who was about to let * By treaty concluded on the 19th March, 1804, Portugal had paid ;^640,ooo for the privilege of keeping open her ports and remaining neutral ; yet now, in 1807, Napoleon invaded and occupied Portugal, because she had done that which three years before she had bought permission to do. 2 A 354 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE loose his soldiery on an unfortunate country, which had committed no crime beyond remaining on friendly terms with England." Meanwhile a similar game was being played in Italy. Already, in 1806, the Pope had been warned to enter into the Convention against England. To his uncle, Cardinal Fesch, Napoleon had written on February 13th, 1806: — " I shall protect the Papal States against the whole world. Have the bulls sent to my bishops. They take a month (at Rome) to do the work of twenty-four hours. This is not religion. In Germany there is general outcry against the Court of Rome. Its conduct is re- volting. I hold you respon- sible for the execution of these two points — first the expulsion of the English, Russians, Swedes, and Sar- dinians from the Roman States ; second, the prohibi- tion of the ships of those Powers from entering the Roman ports. Say that I have my eyes open ; that I am Charlemagne, the sword of the Church, their Em- peror ; that they ought not to know that the Empire of Russia exists." Notwithstanding this as- surance that he would pro- tect the States of the Church, he was resolved to annex them ; and to do this, he proceeded in the same way as in Spain. He ordered BUST BY EUGENE GuiLLAUME. ^ French army to march, ostensibly for Naples ; to halt on its way in Rome to recruit itself, and take the opportunity of seizing on the castle of St. Angelo, and to remain in Rome on one pretext or another. "The intention of the Emperor," so ran the instructions given by Napoleon to his ambassador, " is to accustom the people of Rome to live on good terms with the French troops, in order that if the Court of Rome should continue to show itself as unreasonable as it is, the Papacy may insensibly cease to exist as a temporal Power, without it being perceived that it is so." On the 1 6th of November, Bonaparte quitted Paris to visit Milan and Venice. He had a deep object in this journey ; a peculiarly dishonourable SPAIN 355 intrigue was about to be played in Spain, and he desired to be out of the way whilst his agents were fulfilling his mandate. He also determined to make an end of the Kingdom of Etruria, which he had erected but a few years pre- viously ; and not to incorporate it into the Kingdom of Italy, but to unite it to the French Empire. Forthwith Tuscany, with all its ports, was occupied by French troops. There then remained in all Italy only the seaports of the Roman States open to the British flag, and these he determined to close immediately. French troops were sent to occupy Civita Vecchia, and secure the mouths of the Tiber ; and on the Adriatic a strong garrison was thrown into Ancona. The Pope was ordered to declare war on England. On the 2nd of April, 1808, Bonaparte by one of his sweeping decrees, annexed the Marches, or Adriatic provinces of the Pope, to the Kingdom of Italy. Pius VII. was hardly unprepared for this. His nuncio, Arezzo, had been admitted to an interview at Dresden with Napoleon a year before, wherein the views of the Emperor and his purposes had been put before him with toler- able frankness. Spain meanwhile was being traversed by French troops, under the pretext that they were on their way to support Junot in Portugal. On the 13th November, a second army, under Dupont, was sent across the frontier, in violation of the provisions of the treaty signed only a fortnight before, which limited the troops to the one army first to be despatched, unless the special consent of the King were granted. Dupont received orders to halt at Vittoria, and send officers throughout the country, mapping and making observations. Next came Moncey, at the head of thirty thousand men to occupy Burgos, and then Duchesne crossed the Eastern Pyrenees, and marched upon Barcelona, a march that could hardly be explained as one calculated to cover the Army of Portugal. At the same time, a fifth body of troops under D'Armagnac was sent across the Bidassoa to occupy the citadel and fortifications of Pampeluna, "sans faire semblant de rien," as Napoleon ordered. Already the nurpber of soldiers poured into Spain, exclusive of Junot's army in Portugal, amounted to 80,000 men, and next, Bessieres, at the head of another army, was directed thither. It was now only too clear to all but the dullest, that a military coup was levelled against Spain, and that the army of Junot was intended to operate against her in flank. The condition of the Government was such as to make Napoleon master of the situation with a little diplomatic manoeuvring. The King of Spain, Charles IV., was one of the feeblest of the faineant race of Bourbon ; a dull, timid man, and but little removed from imbecility. He retained a tame con- fessor about his person, for whom he used to whistle, as for a dog, when he felt a twinge of conscience, retire into an embrasure of a window, relieve his mind in two minutes, and dismiss his confessor till he whistled for him again.* The Queen, Louisa Maria of Parma, an unscrupulous woman, had made a paramour of Manuel Godoy, a private in the Guards, and had loaded him with favours. The weak-minded King, blind to the connexion, took a great liking to the burly * Constant, iv. 40. 356 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Guardsman, fell completely under his influence, and created him Prince of the Peace,* and Prime Minister. The Infante, Ferdinand, Prince of the Asturias, was also feeble-minded. He had been married to the daughter of the Queen of Naples. A letter from her to her mother had been intercepted, as well as one from the Queen of Naples, and as in the latter a hint was given to the Princess to get rid of her mother-in-law, the Queen of Spain thereupon had her poisoned. Ferdinand was the rallying-point of Spanish animosity against Godoy, and the palace was torn into factions. Ferdinand, in his feebleness and helplessness, appealed by letter (nth Oct., 1807) to Napoleon, and asked to be allowed to marry a Princess of the Imperial Bonaparte House. The Emperor had placed Beauharnais, his wife's brother, at Madrid, as ambassador ; an honest, single- minded man, and by his honesty and single-mindedness more likely than any- one else to perform the part designed for him ; for it was in accord with Napoleon's cunning, when he had a peculiarly treacherous game to play, to put forward as his agents honest men, whom he kept in the dark as to his ulterior objects, and who, by their honesty, imposed on those whom he purposed duping, as he duped themselves. The King, or Godoy, informed of what had been done by the Prince, had Ferdinand arrested, and all his papers seized. Amongst them was found, or pretended to have been found, a decree, in which the Prince assumed the title of King, and appointed, as Prime Minister, his friend and adviser, the Duke del Infantado. The old King then made a loud and absurd appeal to the justice of Napoleon, in a letter written under the direction of Godoy and his Queen, in which he accused his son of having formed a conspiracy to dethrone him. Napoleon was still at Fontainebleau when he received this letter. Every- thing was prepared for the invasion of Spain, both pretext and troops ; but this quarrel between father and son broke out somewhat prematurely for his designs. He immediately commanded, with the utmost secrecy, the accumula- tion of immense stores both to the east and west of the Pyrenees. He gave orders also for another army to be collected with rapidity from Metz, Nancy, and Sedan, and hastened to Bordeaux, so that it might cross the frontier on the 1st December. "Take care," he wrote to Clarke, who had the superintendence, " to instruct the generals to announce to the soldiers that they are proceeding by forced marches to the succour of the Army of Portugal, against an expedi- tion that is being fitted out by the English" (nth Nov., 1807). At the same time, he commanded a retrograde movement of 100,000 men then in Germany, so as to have them at his disposal if required. On the 1 2th November, the day following his order to Clarke, he counter- manded it, having received in the meantime news of the reconciliation of Charles IV. and Ferdinand. The Prince of the Peace had discovered the hand of France in the palace quarrel, and in his alarm lest it should bring the Emperor on the scene, he determined to hush the matter up. A junta, com- posed of eleven persons, was instructed not to examine evidence, not to try the * So entitled for having negotiated a peace with France whereby Spain was removed from the Coalition. SPAIN 357 conspirators, but to declare that they were all innocent, and that there had never been any plot at all. The Prince submitted, repented, and blubbered like a whipped schoolboy; and on the 5th of November appeared a royal decree, announcing the complete reconciliation of the King and Prince. But the Spaniards knew better; and aware that Ferdinand was more than ever the mortal enemy of Godoy, they took the Prince into their especial favour, and reposed all their hopes for the security of Spain in this weak and crazy vessel. The Prince of the Peace sent word to the governors of the several provinces to show the French troops every favour ; and thus they were suffered to occupy all the fortified places on their route. Charles IV. now wrote to Napoleon in the most flattering terms (Nov. i8th), to solicit an alliance with the Bonaparte House for his son, and at the same time requested the publication of the Treaty of Fontainebleau, which was already violated. Napoleon started for Italy, and gave no reply to the King till the lOth January, 1808, a fortnight after his return to Paris : " Your Majesty," he said, " ought to understand that no man of honour would wish for an alliance with a dishonoured son, till he has certified that he has recovered his father's good favour." To this rebuff poor Charles made no reply. On the 25th February, 1808, Napoleon wrote him another sharp letter : " Your Majesty asked of me the hand of a French Princess for the Prince of the Asturias. I replied on the lOth January that I consented (!). Your Majesty says no more about this marriage. I expect your friendship to relieve me of my doubts." At the very moment that he was playing with the King, he was proposing to Godoy 's agent, Izquierdo, that Spain should cede to him the provinces of the Ebro in exchange for Portugal. This was speedily followed by the nomination of Murat to the army of Spain, and half hints were thrown out to him that he might expect to acquire the crown of that realm. On the 27th March, Napoleon wrote to him, " Do not suffer any harm to be done to the King, the Queen, or the Prince of the Peace . . . until such time as the new King is recognised by me ; behave as though the old King still reigned"; and the same day he offered the Spanish crown to his brother Louis : — " I have resolved on setting a French Prince on the throne of Spain. The climate of Holland does not suit you. Besides, Holland will never recover from its condition of ruin. . . . Answer categorically. If I nominate you King of Spain, will you accept ? May I rely on you ? . . . Give your confidence to no one, and do not speak to anyone on the subject of this letter, for a thing must be accomplished before one admits having thought of it." Consequently, by the end of March, 1808, Napoleon had fully made up his mind to dethrone the royal family of Spain. On the loth March, Murat had arrived at Burgos to take command-in-chief in Spain, with the title of Lieutenant of the Emperor. It was also known that more troops, including a part of the Imperial Guards, were being hastily marched through France towards the Spanish frontiers. Godoy advised the King and Queen to fly to Cadiz, and the departure was fixed for the night of the 17th of March, whereupon the palace was surrounded by the people and by 358 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE the soldiery in a state of revolt. The intentions of the insurgents admitted of no doubt ; the mob shouted for the head of the traitor Godoy, and broke up the royal carriages, in which the King and his Court intended to escape. The Prince of the Peace hid himself in an attic, and when discovered, was only saved from death by the interference of the friends of Prince Ferdinand. In his alarm, Charles sent out to assure the people that he had resigned the crown ; and in the evening, in the presence of a few grandees, Charles IV., gouty and rheumatic, signed the act of abdication in favour of his heir, Ferdinand, Prince of the Asturias. That same evening Ferdinand was proclaimed. On receiving the news of the revolution, Murat hastened his march upon Madrid ; and on the 23rd, only four days after the signing of the abdication, he entered the capital of Spain, followed by a division of French infantry, a brigade of cuirassiers, and a train of artillery. That something of the sort had been expected, perhaps brought about by Napoleon's agents, would seem certain ; for on the 23rd March, the Emperor wrote to Murat that he anticipated the flight of the King, and that if he fled to Seville, he was to allow him to remain there in security for a while ; but that if he attempted to escape to Cadiz, and thence to fly to one of the Spanish colonies, he was to arrest him, as such an escape might entail the loss of the Colonies. " I expect to hear news of all that has passed at Madrid on the i6th or 17th of March." He was to announce that Napoleon in person was on his way to Madrid. Napoleon had not heard of the disturbance and the abdication of the King^ on the 27th March, when he offered the crown to his brother Louis. On the 30th, he wrote to Murat : — " You are quite right not to recognise the Prince of the Austurias. Put King Charles IV. in the Escurial, and treat him with great respect. I suppose that the Prince of the Peace will come to Bayonne." These last words were a hint that Murat was to force him to go thither. Napoleon ordered the King to be sent to Burgos. For the rest of the intrigue, someone more subservient than Murat was needed, who was playing for his own hand ; and Napoleon now sent that con- summate scoundrel, Savary, who had managed the murder of the Due d'Enghien, to compass the overthrow of the King and Queen and royal family of Spain. Napoleon himself now came to Bordeaux, where he arrived on the 4th April. What was the nature of the instructions given to Savary can only be judged by his acts ; they were probably never committed to paper ; and no trust whatever can be placed on the Emperor's own account of the transaction, any more than on the apocryphal letter Napoleon afterwards produced, for it was the object of both him and Savary to cast the blame on the shoulders of Murat, so as in a measure to clear themselves. There may, however, be truth in what Savary reports was said to him before he started, though he certainly does not give the whole truth. " Charles IV. has abdicated," said Napoleon," his son has succeeded him. . . . I was fully prepared for some changes in Spain ; but matters are taking a turn SPAIN 359 altogether different from what I intended. . . . Had Charles IV. continued to reign, we might have remained at peace ; but now all is changed, Should that country be ruled by a warlike Prince, he might succeed in displacing my dynasty on the throne of France by his own. You see what might happen in France, if I do not prevent it ; it is my duty to foresee the danger, and take steps to meet it. If I cannot arrange with both father and son, I will make a clean sweep of them both." This is entirely consistent with what he afterwards said at Bayonne to Escoiquiz. In fact, Ferdinand, brought in on the crest of a great national reaction, was a different factor to deal with than Charles IV., and made the overthrow of the dynasty a necessity ; a roi faineant and French administration were no longer possible. As soon as Savary arrived in Madrid, Murat was set on one side, and the Duke of Rovigo assumed the conduct of the delicate negotiation. Sufficient, however, had already been written to Murat to indicate the lines on which the concluding scene was to be carried out. " It is to be desired," wrote the Emperor on April 9th, " that the Prince of the Austurias should be at Madrid, or that he should come to meet me. In the latter case, I will await him at Bayonne. It would be unfortunate if he took a third course {ix. were to escape). Savary knows all my projects, and will have communicated to you all my intentions. When one knows the end at which one is driving, it is easy, with a little reflection, to find means to attain it." On reaching Madrid, Savary presented himself before Prince Ferdinand. It was an outrage, sending such a man to the Bourbon Court ; but Napoleon had none others, save the chief of his gendarmerie and secret police, whom he could entrust with so delicate a negotiation. Stupid as the Spanish royal family were, they must have known the Due d'Enghien's history, must have known that this Due de Rovigo was the infamous creature who had directed the murder. Savary began by flattering the Prince, giving him the title of "Your Majesty," which had been denied him by Murat. On his hasty journey from the Spanish frontier, Savary had everywhere given out that he was the precursor of the Emperor, who was following, his heart glowing with desire to effect a reconcilia- tion among the discordant elements in the royal palace ; and he named Burgos as the place where his master would await the arrival of Ferdinand. " The Emperor," said Savary, " has already left Paris; go and meet him, and hear him salute you as Ferdinand VII., King of Spain and the Indies." With very little hesitation, the stupid Bourbon Prince allowed himself to be persuaded. In his over-confidence in his strong position, he sacrificed all for the shadow of French recognition of it. But, indeed, his position was one that was full of difficulty, even to a man of brains. The capital was occupied by French troops. The patriotic peasantry were more astute than himself, and were rising to oppose his journey to Bayonne ; he did not for a moment conceive it possible that the Emperor of a great nation was luring him into a cunningly-devised trap. From the time he left Madrid, Ferdinand was to all intents a prisoner, as complete a prisoner as ever was felon or political offender in the grip of the French police, and he was under the escort of Savary's gendarmes. When he 36o THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE reached Burgos, it was found that the illustrious guest had not arrived. Great concerns of State had no doubt retarded him on the road ; but would his Majesty, Ferdinand VII., go a few stages further towards the frontier, to Miranda, for instance, or as far as Vittoria ? By so doing, he would have the satisfaction of encountering him upon the way. The unfortunate Prince, after a very slight hesitation, yielded. Between Madrid and Burgos there had been some chance of escape or rescue, for there were considerable Spanish forces on foot in that part of the country ; but between Burgos and the frontier of France the whole country was in possession of the French troops, whose several columns had been purposely concentrated, and then picketed along the high road. The counsellors of Ferdinand became alarmed. Don Pedro Cevallos, who has left us a narrative of the circumstances, was especially urgent that he should proceed no further. Savary saw that the Prince's mind was wavering. He protested loudly against any alteration of plan as a slight on the honour of the Emperor, and on himself as his envoy. " I will let you cut off my head," said he, " if in a quarter of an hour after the meeting of your Majesty with the Emperor, he does not recognise you as the King of Spain and of the Indies. To preserve consistency, he may, in the first instance, address you by the title of Highness, but directly after he will give you that of Majesty. The moment that is done, everything is concluded, and your Majesty can instantly return to Spain." The earnest manner of Savary, and his apparent sincerity — he was an arch dissembler — allayed suspicion, and the Prince proceeded on his way without a single Spanish guard attached to his person, along a road lined by French soldiers. But now the attitude of the people became menacing. At Vittoria their emotion and alarm became so demonstrative, that Savary, although armed with full power to use force to convey the Prince over the frontier, in order to pre- vent a riot, thought best to hurry forward to meet Napoleon, and obtain fresh instructions. Ferdinand wrote from Vittoria to the Emperor, to detail everything that he had done in accordance with his wishes ; and he desired to have some assurance from him as to his ulterior purposes. Savary brought back a letter from the Emperor : — " My brother," he wrote, " I have received the communication of your Royal Highness, who must have obtained a proof of the interest I have always borne towards you, from the papers received from the King, your father. You will permit me now to address you with frankness and loyalty. In coming to Madrid, I hoped to bring my illustrious friend to accept certain reforms very necessary in his estates." Then Napoleon entered into a long discussion of what had taken place, and of the position of the Prince of the Peace, to whom Ferdinand had not alluded in his letter : — " How can the Prince of the Peace be brought to trial without implicating the Queen and the King, your father ? The result of such a trial would be fatal SPAIN 361 to your crown. Your Royal Highness has no other rights than such as have been transmitted through your mother. If the trial dishonours your mother, your rights are torn to pieces. You cannot bring the Prince of the Peace to trial. The crimes of which he is accused are lost in the rights of the Throne." Not a word about guarantees, which Ferdinand had demanded; only an insult thrown in his face — the suggestion that he was a bastard ! The letter was dated April i6th. Next day Napoleon wrote to Bessieres : — " If the Prince of the Asturias comes forward to Bayonne, it is well. If he retrogrades to Burgos, arrest him, and bring him on." The Prince was still at Vittoria. An old minister, Don Luis Urquijo, came to pay him his respects, and to warn him that by further progress he was dis- honouring the ancient crown ; and he did not hesitate to declare that the Prince was being tricked and trapped to his destruction. When the Duke del Infantado remonstrated at this as a calumny against a hero, " You don't know what heroes are," retorted the old Don. " Go home, read Plutarch, and you will see that the majority of them stepped into greatness over heaps of corpses." However, Ferdinand allowed himself to be over-persuaded ; but, indeed, the opportunity to withdraw was gone. On the i6th April he crossed the little river which serves as frontier, and was surprised to find that the Emperor had sent no one to meet him, except three grandees of Spain, whom he had himself despatched to compliment the Emperor, and who were now returning, downcast at the reception they had met with. He had plainly told them that the end of the reign of the Bourbons in Spain had come. It is said that Bonaparte, on learning of the arrival of the Prince, exclaimed, " Ha ! is the fool really come ? I could hardly have thought it possible." Ferdinand was received at the gates of Bayonne by Duroc and Berthier, and escorted to a mean house, which was to be his residence. The Emperor rode from the chateau where he lodged, outside the town, to call on him, saluted him, invited him to dinner, and talked to him on indifferent matters. After dinner, Napoleon dismissed his guest. He seemed to have considered Ferdinand not worth an explanation, but retained his counsellor, Canon Escoiquiz, leaving to Savary to attend the Prince to his hotel, and enlighten him as to the inten- tions of his master. Napoleon had seen the character of the old Canon at a glance. He saw that he was vain, consequential, and desirous of playing the part of a states- man. He resolved to dazzle and gain him, and, through him, to work on the feeble mind of the Prince. Escoiquiz has given us full details of the interview. Bonaparte assumed towards him his familiar, feline manner, occasionally pinching his ear when he desired to impress a point. He treated him as a man of superior intelligence, a statesman free from all vulgar prejudices. He began by informing him that his purpose was to dethrone the Bourbons, and to give to Ferdinand, as com- pensation, the little realm of Etruria. As to Spain, it was to form an indepen- dent power ; he would not retain even a village in it. Napoleon went on to 362 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE assert that he could not recognise the abdication of Charles IV., wrung from him by his fears, and declared what was true, that the King had written to him protesting that the abdication was involuntary; a retractation wrung from him by Murat. The Canon endeavoured to explain that the King was weak, and under the influence of the Queen, who had forced him to send the protest. Bonaparte interrupted him with the significant question : — " Canon, tell me whether I ought to lose sight of the fact that the interests of my house and of my empire demand that the Bourbons shall no longer reign in Spain ? " It is impossible for you not to see that, so long as Bourbons reign in Spain, I shall never be able to have a safe and sincere alliance with that country. They will feign to be friends so long as, they are weak ; but their mortal hatred will declare itself as soon as they see me embarrassed in some other European war, and then you will see them join England, and my worst enemies. . . . Never can I count upon Spain so long as the Bourbons occupy the throne. The strength of your nation has always been considerable, and a man of genius at its head might disturb my repose." Thereupon Napoleon pulled the Canon's ear, and burst into a loud laugh. Escoiquiz spoke of the marriage project of Ferdinand with one of Bonaparte's nieces. " Canon, you are talking nonsense," he said. " You are perfectly aware that a woman is too feeble a tie to fix the political conduct of a prince, her husband. Who can give me assurance that the wife of Ferdinand will gain an ascendancy over him ? Besides, death may any day break that matrimonial tie, and then the old hate would revive. Allans done, chanoine ! vous me presentez la de veritables ehdteaux dEspagne. Do you think that if the Bourbons remain on the throne I can be as sure of Spain as I should be if the sceptre were placed in the hands of a prince of my own family .?"* Ferdinand had gone, like a fool, to Bayonne to get his father's abdication and his own accession recognised by Napoleon ; but Bonaparte had entrapped him there, in order to extort from him a renunciation of the crown in favour of his own brother Joseph, at present King of Naples. If Ferdinand had con- sented, which he obstinately refused to do, then the abdication of Charles IV. would have been declared valid. But, as Ferdinand remained stubborn, it was necessary to proceed to further measures. Murat was instructed to send the Prince of the Peace to him with all possible speed. On reaching Bayonne, he was received by the Emperor as a bosom friend ; and immediately after Napoleon wrote to the old King and Queen, to request that they also would come to Bayonne, as he was desirous of arranging the affairs in dispute with the utmost celerity, so as to place the Spanish Monarchy beyond danger from the usurpation of the Prince of the Asturias. On the 30th April, a huge, lumbering carriage, drawn by eight Biscayan mules, rolled over the drawbridge of Bayonne. It contained the all but imbecile Monarch, his Queen, his youngest son, Francisco de Paolo, and some * Escoiquiz, Expose de V affaire de Bayonne, Paris, 1816. NAPOLEON. From a coloured engraving by Dahling. OF^HE \ UNIVERSfTY/ OF / SPAIN 365 grandee attendants. Two or three other antiquated chariots discharged their cargoes of chamberlains and ladies-in-waiting. Godoy welcomed his master and mistress, and assured them that the intentions of the Emperor towards them were most liberal. This assurance was soon repeated by the Emperor in person, who declared that he was staying in Bayonne only to serve their Majesties. The childish King threw himself, weeping, into the arms of Napoleon, and called him his best friend and support. As the infirm old man was unable to walk unassisted. Napoleon took him under the arm to help him up the steps. Charles turned to the Queen, and said, " See, Louisa ! he is sustaining me ! " Whilst this poor King, thus basely betrayed, was surrendering himself to effusions of gratitude, the Emperor was observing those present. Next day he wrote to Talleyrand : — " King Charles is a worthy man. I do not know whether it is his position or circumstances that makes me think it, but I regard him as a frank and good man. The Queen has her passions and her story written on her face. As to the Prince of the Peace, he looks like a bull. He is tres bete, trh mechant, tres ennemi de la France!' Napoleon went on to say that he had intercepted and read a private letter of the Prince, in which he spoke of the "accursed French !" The resentment of the old couple against their son had increased. They attributed to him all the misfortunes that had come upon them. Ferdinand was summoned to their presence before Napoleon ; and then ensued a scene to which the Emperor afterwards looked back with disgust. The King loaded his son with bitter reproaches, and insisted on his surrendering the usurped crown. Then the Queen broke out into invectives. Losing all command over herself, this royal virago foamed at the mouth, called on her good friend the Emperor to send him to the guillotine, and had the indecency to declare that this son, though borne by her, had not the King for his father. The Prince answered with firmness and respect, but absolutely refused to yield. Then the old King, crippled with rheumatism, raised his shaking hand over him, and threatened him with his cane. After this deplorable scene all correspondence between them passed by means of letters. Ferdinand at length so far yielded, that he agreed to resign the crown, on condition that his renunciation was made publicly at Madrid, and in favour of his father only. This did not satisfy Napoleon. At this juncture Marbot, the aide-de-camp of Murat, arrived at full gallop from Madrid, to announce to the Emperor that an insurrection had broken out in the capital, in consequence of an attempt made to remove the remaining members of the Royal family. It had been suppressed by Murat with great severity, but the loss to the French had been from three to four hundred men. Murat had swept together a hundred of the citizens next day, and, without form of trial, had shot them. The number of Spaniards who had fallen in the fray had been about eight hundred. The Emperor at once seized on this outbreak as a means of reducing 366 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Ferdinand to submission. King Charles, under the instigation of Napoleon, charged his son with having provoked the riot, and told him he would be held responsible for it. Napoleon himself intervened, as the young man remained motionless and silent, with lowered eyes : — " Unless," said he, " between this and midnight you have recognised your father as King, and have sent information to this effect to Madrid, I will have you dealt with as a rebel." This is what the Emperor himself states in his correspondence ; but other testimonies are to the effect that Napoleon placed before him the alternative of instant submission or of being shot. The terrified Prince at last yielded. On the 6th of May, Ferdinand signed a formal renunciation of the crown. But, on the previous day, Charles had also surrendered his claims. On the loth of May, Ferdinand's renunciation was made more explicit and complete, and he was granted in return the palace of Navarre, and an income of 600,000 francs ; Charles was accorded the chateaux of Chambord and Compiegne. The deposed and disinherited Princes were to receive in all ten millions ; " but," as Napoleon wrote to Mollien on the 9th of May, " we will reimburse ourselves out of Spain." This was not all. Ferdinand was not suffered to reside at Navarre, as was promised, but, with cruel irony, Napoleon sent him off to live under the charge of Talleyrand. Talleyrand was then out of favour; he had himself retired in disgust from the thankless task of giving advice which was never hearkened to, and he was frightened at the extravagance of the schemes that fired the mind of the Emperor, mad with ambition, and giddy with success. Napoleon sent the Spanish Princes to him, escorted by a body of gendarmes, and he wrote to him : "I do not wish the Princes to be received with much pomp, but respectably, and that you do your utmost to amuse them. If you have a theatre at Valengay, it will be well to have a few actors brought there. Fetch Madame Talleyrand and some four or five ladies. If the Prince of the Asturias gets attached to any pretty woman, that will not be a disadvantage, if one is sure of her ... I want him to be occupied and amused. I suppose I ought to send him to Bitche, or some other strong fortress, but as he threw himself into my arms, and has promised to do nothing against my orders, and all goes smoothly in Spain, I have decided to send him into the country, and to have him watched and amused. So for May and June, till the affairs of Spain are settled, and then I shall be able to judge what part to adopt." It was an insult thus to constitute his old Minister of Foreign Affairs a gaoler and something besides. But this is not the worst incident in this long story of deception and violence. How the whole of Spain now flamed in revolt ; how the whole army of Dupont, surrounded by the insurgents, was forced to capitulate at Baylen, and that of Junot at Cintra ; how the French were expelled from Portugal ; and how after a year of English reverses. Sir Arthur Wellesley, with more adequate resources, began a series of victories, in which the greatest marshals of the Empire were beaten, and the French were finally forced back over the Pyrenees SPAIN 367 — all this is matter of history, and as in this book we consider only Napoleon, and deal with the incidents of his life, so far alone as they exhibit his character, and reveal the workings of his mind, all this has to be passed over. No wrong that any man does is sterile ; it provokes another. Far be it from me to dispute the right of Napoleon to assume the headship of the French nation, and to crown himself — that is, to take on him the outward and visible sign of what he was in reality. But when he was supreme master of France, two ways were open to him — the maintenance of the liberties won by the Revolution, and the giving expression in himself to the desires of the people for national development, unimpeded by antiquated and effete bonds ; for that, peace was necessary. But he rejected this course, and chose the opposite. He stamped out every form of liberty ; he crushed the peaceful aspirations of the French people, and waved before them the laurels won on the battle-field, instead of bidding them rest and be happy under the olive-branch. His path thenceforth was downward ; it was a moral declension ; and every evil that was done drew on another, which itself provoked a third. Had he made France peaceable and content, checked what little flutter for military glory there was in it, and maintained an unaggressive policy towards the nations round about, what could the besotted Bourbon Princes have done against a man who was the representative of the strength and greatness of the French nation ? But when he represented only its evil passions, when his throne rested on the bubble Fame, then he was forced to secure himself, by levelling all Powers that menaced, or might be conceived as likely to menace, his dynasty. That was why, in self-defence, he was constrained to make " a clean sweep " of the royal house of Spain, and enthrone a brother in its room. And yet, if he were only struggling to secure his crown, and to found a Napoleonic dynasty, a weak and stupid neutral monarchy on his frontiers would have been a security against aggression, and a source of cheap glory. But Napoleon, having the far larger designs of founding a European Empire, was resolved to be master of the resources of Spain, and to put a speedy end to an independence that was incompatible with such a scheme. Moreover, Portugal could only be controlled from -Spain, and Portugal was the great gap in the southern continental system which neutralised its efficacy as effectually as did Hamburg in the north. And there is some sort of justification to be offered for the shameful intrigue by which the royal family was inveigled to Bayonne. The Emperor had no desire to shed blood unnecessarily; and he believed that by this means he had accomplished his end almost without a blow. The invasion of Spain, the over- throw of the monarchy, and the elevation of Joseph to the throne, he considered to have been accomplished with the least possible amount of violence. He was mistaken, and he was mistaken because unable to understand the moral forces which influence men. Patriotism was to him unintelligible. He had felt it once, in his youth, when he loved Paoli ; but he had put away that and other -childish things. Military glory, greed of power, of wealth — these were forces 368 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE that he could understand ; but none of the noble and inspiring emotions which make martyrs and patriots. The reason is not far to seek: in place of respecting men, he despised them. Yet for this there is an excuse. He had been formed in the storm of the Revolution, wherein the basest characters rose to the surface, and the vilest deeds were committed under the invocation of the most sacred principles. He had thus, at a very early age, made shipwreck of his faith in men and in principles. XL A TURNING-POINT (1808-9) IN the Arabian Nights is the story of a fisherman who brought up a jar in his net, sealed with the cabaHstic sign of the pentacle. Despising or dis- regarding the symbol, he knocked out the cork, whereupon a jin that had been imprisoned, escaped, and stood before him as a mighty spirit, ready to destroy him. It may be said that since the first campaign in Italy, Napoleon had been knocking out the corks of the nationalities, breaking their seals, and unaware of the danger to himself, had been liberating the National Spirit in each, hitherto confined under feudal restraints. The time when these emancipated spirits would become a menace to himself had now arrived. In the story, the fisherman induces the jin to re-enter the jar, whereupon he replants the seal, and all is as it was before. But Napoleon had contrived to do this with France alone, with a spirit not of his own liberating. And he was the last to understand, to suspect what he had done. Who, for instance, could have dreamed that behind the seal of the Spanish crown was the fiery, intense patriotism of the individual Spaniard, that would burst forth and destroy his armies, and roll back his conquest, and send reeling from his throne the brother he had placed upon it ? Napoleon had encountered nothing of the kind in Italy, in Naples, in the Netherlands, in Austria, and in Germany. But the patient endurance and dogged resistance of the Teuton races was something different. The Spaniards resisted as individuals without troubling about their government ; whereas the Teuton looked to his government to organise resistance. It is a law of Nature that force is imperishable. It may alter its character, its name, its mode of manifestation, but it never dies. And it is a law of God that every violence done correlates itself into a force chastising the wrong-doer. The violence done to the Spanish nation by Napoleon had produced unex- pected results. The organisation of opposition was decentralised into local juntas that were absolutely incompetent. The only effective resistance possible was that of guerilla warfare, and to that the Spaniards had recourse. It was a nation in arms that the French had to contend with. 2 B 369 370 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE The revolt broke out everywhere simultaneously. It was without leaders, it was devoid of plan, but it was at once succcessful. The Emperor could not comprehend it. So little did he dread it, that he separated his columns, and sent them through the land, without providing that they should maintain contact with each other or with their base. So little doubt had he that his trained soldiers could disperse the peasants who had flown to arms, that he left Bayonne, to make a progress through the south of France. Of Dupont he wrote : — " Without a doubt, even with twenty thousand men, he can kick over all opposition." " There is nothing to be feared on the side where is Marshal Bessieres, nor in the north of Castille, nor in Leon ; there is nothing to be feared in Aragon — Saragossa will fall sooner or later ; there is nothing to be feared in Catalonia ; there is nothing to be feared as to the communications between Burgos and Bayonne, . . . The only risky point is where Dupont is, and he has far more than enough to produce grand results. . . . With only twenty-one thousand men, he would have more than eighty chances in a hundred in his favour."* The rising in Spain, more especially the siege of Saragossa, produced immense excitement in Germany. There it was not possible for the people to rise en masse, the French had too strong a force in the land ; but, secretly, everywhere the people prepared for a resurrection. And in Austria, where Feudalism maintained its paralysing hold on the heart of the nations that were combined under the Imperial Crown, a spirit of enthusiasm, of devotion, of resentment, began to rise. Hitherto Napoleon had fought governments ; now he was to encounter nations, and that, moreover, precisely at the time when he had denationalised his army, of which only a nucleus was French, but the bulk a composite mass of contingents from Italy, Naples, Holland, Belgium, the Rhenish States, Switzer- land, the Hanse Towns, Poland, and Spain. This conglomerate mass, differing in tongues, blood, religion, actuated by national antipathies, was treated as a machine : no motives were supplied to animate it, save glory and rapine. It was impelled into the field by vicious springs of action ; and now it was to encounter hosts animated by the noblest of all — love of country, and love of freedom. A strange change had come over Europe. The force of the Revolution, the spirit of all that was good in it, had left France, and had found its resting-place among her bitter enemies. Napoleon, cast up upon a throne by the wave of Revolution, had become a tyrant a hundred times more ruthless than the feudal kings whom he struck from their thrones. And now, everywhere throughout Europe, the enlightened, the educated, the broad and liberal minds, saw the cause of Reform identified with that of emancipation from the domination of the new Caesar; and their rights as citizens dependent on their assertion of national rights. * Notes sjtr la position acttielle de Vannee d^Espagne, 21 July, 1808. A TURNING-POINT 371 Napoleon still employed the old terms, coined at the Revolution, once full of explosive force, but he used them to disguise acts that were the reverse of what they signified. Thus, when he erected new Bastilles, he declared that he did this in behalf of Liberty and Fraternity. When he created a new order of nobility, he declared that it was to throw up a barrier against the feudal aristocracy ; when he declared war, he asserted that it was in the interests of peace ; when he came to a people, promising emancipation, it was to bind it in chains of iron ; and when he issued a decree confiscating estates, and sentencing ARC DE TRIOMPHE DE L ETOILE, to the scaffold some of the richest grandees of Spain, he entitled it an amnesty. If we look at the quick succession of his astounding victories, we can explain them without according to him so miraculous a genius. They were due, un- doubtedly, in large measure, to his great military abilities, but in quite as large a measure to the impotence of those opposed to him. The old generals of the Holy Roman Empire complained that he did not fight according to rule. Rule with them had become everything, smothering common sense and intelli- gence. The Austrian generals sent against him in Italy were hampered by plans laid 372 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE down for their" conduct by the Aulic Council. Their initiative was taken from them, they were made into puppets, pulled by wires, and the pedants at Vienna touched the keys which were to make them move. From the outset Napoleon would have none of this. He took no notice of the instructions of the Direc- tory, when to disobey was to run the risk of the guillotine. The Czar Alexander, even when nominally in command of his Russians, had to reckon with his generals. The King of Prussia, on the Thuringian frontier, was but one among several, of whom the majority were old men, whose only notion of ARC DE TRIOMPHE DU CARROUSEL. war was what they remembered to have learnt under Frederick the Great ; and he himself was more concerned how many buttons were on a soldier's coat than how his battalions were to be disposed. When Napoleon was met by a man of ability at Marengo, he was saved from defeat only by accident ; and when he encountered Bennigsen, a man of second-rate ability, at Eylau, he was defeated. Bennigsen was a far abler man than Melas. He out-manoeuvred Napoleon, and won one battle, and lost another. Melas was out-manoeuvred all round ; he won one battle, and then lost it again. Wellington, in the Peninsula, was given a free hand, whereas the French A TURNING-POINT 373 commanders were hampered by distant authority. Consequently he enjoyed precisely that advantage which had been enjoyed by Bonaparte in his Italian campaign. The great secret of Napoleon's success lies in this : he knew what he wanted to do, and he did it, without any fear of those behind his back at Paris. He had generals, marshals, under him, but he rarely called them to a council of war. What he required done, that he ordered them to execute, and it was this supreme control he exercised that enabled him with such rapidity to carry out his manoeuvres ; outflanking the enemy, or breaking their centre, then throwing himself first on one wing and then the other with concentrated force. But not only were the generals opposed to Napoleon in the field inferior in ability, and hampered by their instructions, but the Kings and Emperors, whose ofBcers they were, were infirm of purpose, timid, and mutually jealous. In the splendid campaign in Italy that opened to him his career, Napoleon could not have achieved his success had not the King of Sardinia and Piedmont lost heart at the first reverse, and basely abandoned his fortresses to the French, so as to allow Bonaparte to advance against Austria without fear about his con- nexions with his base. In the campaign against Austria, which concluded with the treaty of Presbqrg, Prussia held aloof Bonaparte had secured the feeble-minded Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria, who amused his Court by farcical tales,* and left the management of the policy of his country to his Ministers, who were in Napoleon's pay. In Wurtemberg reigned the little tyrant Frederick, of whom the Edinburgh Review remarked, after his death, that he resembled nothing more than the little devil of Rabelais, who was capable of no greater achieve- ment than raising a storm over a parsley-bed. He entered heart and soul into alliance with Napoleon, to win extension of dominion and a royal crown. Baden, the jackal of France at the beginning of the century, as it was the jackal of Prussia towards its close, was ruled by Charles Frederick Nestor, who was old, born in 1738, and too small a Prince to exercise any considerable power. Francis II., Emperor of Austria, exhibited the weakness of his character after Austerlitz, when he agreed to the scandalous Treaty of Presburg, at a moment when his adversary was in extreme danger, with the Archduke Charles hurrying up at the head of 80,000 men, to menace his flank and rear, the Archduke Ferdinand approaching at the head of the Bohemian levies, the Russian reserves coming to the relief, and when Prussia, with 100,000 men, was preparing to pour into Franconia, and cut off communication with the Rhine. When, moreover, bankruptcy was imminent in France, and only prevented by this ignominious peace, which a monarch with a soul above that possessed by a fly, would have blushed to sign. Francis had everything to gain by delay, and he threw away a splendid chance through feebleness of character and deficiency in foresight. Nor was Prussia any happier in Frederick William III. ; a poor creature, who could hardly be stirred to energy by the exhortations of his heroic Queen, * He was a great authority on the biographies of actresses and the genealogies of their lovers, was a bon-vivant, and very extravagant in his tastes. — Memoirs of the Bar-ones s Oberkirch. 374 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE a man the pettiness of whose mind provoked contemptuous comment from Napoleon. In Russia, reigned at first the madman, Paul, whose crazy brain was in- fatuated with enthusiasm for the great Bonaparte ; and when, for the good of his country, he was assassinated, his successor, Alexander, was young, inexperienced, without fixed principles, governed by the humour into which he was thrown by the niggardliness of England or the caresses of Napoleon. He w^as, moreover, an enthusiast, a dreamer ; well-meaning, indeed, but lacking in shrewdness. This put him at the mercy of such a schemer as Napoleon. His instability of ^^1 THREE STAGES IN THE CAREER OF NAPOLEON. From an engraving, 1S29. purpose and his impressionability prevented him from realising, or even retaining, the lofty ideals of his youth. In Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus, chivalrous and bold, was without political sagacity, and though resolute in his opposition to Napoleon, was not supported by his people, who were inclined for a French alliance. He had not the ability to take the part which his heart told him was that which was right for him to adopt. Russia deprived him of Finland, and he endeavoured to indemnify him- self for his loss by an invasion of Norway. This led to his deposition. In Spain, as we have already seen, the crown was worn by a fool, with a fool for a son. In Portugal, the Queen was deranged, and under restraint. In Naples, the King, Ferdinand, a man of debased mind, was governed A TURNING-POINT 375 by his unscrupulous Queen. His perfidy lost him the confidence of his subjects. There was, consequently, not a single able man on the throne in any Empire or Kingdom, capable of making head against Napoleon.* In the first period of his career, Napoleon achieved great successes with comparatively small forces at his disposal. In the second period of his career as a general, he laid especial stress on numbers. The heterogeneous nature of his armyj^took from it the elan that his purely French troops had possessed ; and he endeavoured to overwhelm his S. lAGO EXPELLING NAPOLEON FROM SPAIN. From a contemporary caricature. Opponents by masses, rather than bewilder them by rapid evolutions. The in- surrection in Spain put a severe strain on his resources. There were 6o,ocx) men on the Ebro with Joseph, about 20,000 in Catalonia, and now he resolved to bring 200,000 more from his Grand Army, who had fought under him in Prussia and Poland, the more effectually to annihilate the undisciplined, ill- armed, inexperienced guerillas who had humbled his eagles. In order to hold the Prussians in check he was forced to call out another levy in France of 160,000, an anticipation by sixteen months of their time; and to excuse this he said, " Frenchmen, I have but one end in view — your happiness, and the security of your children. You have often told me that you * LARPENT's/(7«r«a/, ed. 1883, P- 227. 376 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE loved me ; I shall recpgnise the sincerity of your sentiments in the readiness with which you second projects so intimately allied to your dearest interests, to the honour of the Empire, and to my glory." There was cruel mockery in these words. For the security of the children of France, he swept them together, and sent them to perish on the battle-field ; and for what advantage to France? None whatever. The deposition of a royal house, and the elevation of Joseph to the throne, in no way concerned the interests of any Frenchman save Napoleon only. Of the madness of the Spanish enterprise he had received full warning. Fouche, his police minister, had ventured to utter his opinion : " Let Portugal accept her fate. She is little better than an English colony. But the King of Spain has given you no cause to complain ; he has been the humblest of your prefects. Fleets, troops, seaports, money — all have been placed at your disposal. You cannot get more from Spain if you take the country from him." Napoleon replied, " My stake is immense. I will unite Spain for ever to the destinies of France. Remember, the sun never sets on the empire of Charles IV." Fouche cautioned him not to rely too much on the sincerity of the Czar Alexander. " Bah ! " answered the Emperor. " You talk like a minister of" police, whose business teaches him that there is no sincerity in the world." Talleyrand had also endeavoured to turn the wilful man from his project. But his words had been thrown away upon one whom success had driven mad. Napoleon, on hearing him, lost all command over his temper, and called him " Traitor " to his face. But that imperturbable, impassive mask betrayed no more emotion than one of the marble statues in the Tuileries garden. Talleyrand looked placidly out of the window at the shrubs and statues, then went home, shrugged his shoulders, and said, " This is the beginning of the end." On the Qth of August, 1807, just eighteen days before the conclusion of the Treaty of Fontainebleau, which was the preparatory step to the greater, but not mxore iniquitous scheme, Talleyrand had retired from office as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the obsequious and inferior Champagny succeeded him. From this moment, nearly all political wisdom and moderation disappeared from the councils of Bonaparte. It was eminently characteristic of Napoleon that after the failure of the Spanish enterprise, he endeavoured to cast the blame of its suggestion and inception on Talleyrand, the man whose clear judgment had foreseen the fatality of the step, and had pronounced against it ; and who, for so doing, had forfeited his portfolio. Of the effrontery with which he manufactured or altered news, misstated facts, or gave them a false colour, mention has already been made ; but at this point an example may be given, as belonging to the period when he was massing his forces on the frontier and on the Ebro for the complete reduction of Spain. Before a blow had been struck, on the 19th November, 1808, he wrote to A TURNING-POINT 377 Champagny, his Minister of Foreign Affairs : " Send off a courier with intelli- gence, who can spread the tidings that Spain is subjected, or on the point of being so, and that 80,000 Spaniards have been killed." To augment the effect produced by this false tidings, he enjoined Fouche to get inserted in the news- papers of Paris, Holland, and Germany a series of articles, announcing — first, great preparations made by Murat for a descent on Sicily ; then his disem- barkation in the island ; and finally, accounts of his great successes there. " Enter into details," he wrote ; " say that King Joachim has landed at the head of 30,000 men, and that he has left the Regency to his wife, and that the disembarkation took place at Pharos ... in order that this may be believed in London, and that it may alarm them." All this, which was pure invention, was to occupy a dozen articles. To the great disappointment of Murat, he had not been appointed King of Spain, but Joseph had been moved, very reluctantly on his part, to Madrid, and Murat had been elevated from Grand Duke of Berg to be King of Naples. Joseph had been obliged to fly from Madrid, after a residence there of eight days only. In vain did he tell his brother that the Spaniards would not receive him, that they resented his intrusion among them ; the iron will of Napoleon insisted on his occupying the rickety throne. With his huge armies, Napoleon easily defeated the Spanish insurgents, occupied Madrid, and reinstalled his brother (December, 1808). The reduction of the Spaniards had been no difficult matter ; they had shown extraordinary activity with their legs, and an absolute incapacity for concerted action. Behind walls they fought with great tenacity of purpose, but were scattered like chaff in the field. Their juntas wrangled, and the officials pocketed the money sent from England to supply the armies with munitions and pay. For three months Napoleon was in Spain, and effected very little. He had hoped to have done with the insurgents as he had done with the Prussians. The campaign against the latter had been virtually ended in eight days, because he had then been pitted against an army, and an army only. But with the Spaniards there was not an army, there were only swarms, and the swarms assembled everywhere, and as often as dispersed assembled again. No glory was to be won in Spain, no great coups de theatre produced ; he was disappointed in not being able to surround and annihilate the little English army under Sir John Moore, and did not take part in the long pursuit to Corunna, but had horses put to his travelling-carriage, and on the 17th January, 1 809, he left Valladolid for Paris. There can be little doubt that Napoleon still held to the belief that his mission was divine. In the Souper de Beaucaire he had hinted that power was its own justification ; and this principle was the only one that remained in possession. He was quite in accord with the saying of Champagny, "What policy counsels, that justice authorises." The conviction that all force came from God, and that its exercise carried with it its own justification, was deeply rooted in his mind. In the Catechisme Imperial^ drawn up under his direction for use in the \ ^ 37-8 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE schools of France, the same idea is thrown into shape, suitable for impressing it on the minds and consciences of the children. " Q. What are, in particular, our duties towards our Emperor, Napoleon ? ''A. We owe him love, respect, obedience, fidelity, military service, all the tributes ordered for the defence of the Empire and throne, and fervent prayers for his welfare and for the prosperity of the State. " Q. Why are we bound to show these duties to the Emperor? ''A. Because God has established him as our Sovereign, and has rendered him His image here on earth, overwhelming him with gifts, in peace, and in war. To honour and to serve our Emperor is, therefore, to honour and to serve God Himself. "g. Are there not particular reasons which should strongly attach us to Napoleon L, our Emperor? ''A. Yes, for it is he whom God has raised up to restore the holy religion of our fathers, and to be its protector. He has brought back and preserved public order by his profound and active wisdom, and he defends the State by his mighty arm ; he is the anointed of the Lord, by the consecration he has received from the sovereign pontiff. . . . Those who fail in their duties towards our Emperor, will render themselves deserving of eternal damnation." When Napoleon caused this to be taught in every school, there was in him no hypocrisy. It was in fact his one conviction, not opinion. And this convic- tion explains much that would otherwise be dark in his conduct. He was strongly, vehemently opposed to cruelty, to the shedding of blood unnecessarily, but he was absolutely unscrupulous about shedding any amount of blood to carry out his purposes, for these purposes were divine in their conception, and sanctioned from on high in their execution. Men were born and sent into this world and grew up to be his instruments, to carry out his will, which was but another word for the will of God. He believed himself to be the prophet of God as certainly as did Mohammed, and that his wars were sacred as those conducted by the prophet of Mecca. He was cruel in the crushing out of opposition. " Fusillez ! fusillez ! " was his repeated order to Joseph and to his generals. Whoever opposed him was a rebel ; that he fought for his country was nothing. "Fusillez! fusillez! he is a bandit!" He treated those who resisted his will with outrage, and covered them with insult, because they opposed the will of Heaven, operating through him. And all means were sanctioned by the end he had in view. He kept no faith with his enemies, he broke treaties as soon as he made them, and considered himself justified in so doing because he was swept forward by the breath of God. Every exercise of power opened the door to another explosion of force ; and force was the mani- festation of God, and he who had the power was the minister of God to use what was given to him. That Napoleon was a religious man at heart has often been asserted. It cannot be doubted that with him religion was a conviction that he was the anointed of God. Apart from himself, in the political sphere, he could not conceive of God acting. God swept away men by plague, by famine, by great cataclysms, with pitiless severity. War was but another phase K^A THE TRIUMPH OF NAPOLEON. From the group by Cartot on the Triumphal Arch of I'Etoile. A TURNING-POINT 381 of the exercise of this divine force for the destruction of men, for the carrying out of His divine purposes. There was much in the adulation wherewith he was received, that was calculated to foster this belief. Poets, painters, statesmen, princes, the very people, combined to laud him as though he were superhuman. His rapid elevation, his extraordinary success, the manner in which difficulties dis- appeared before him, all helped on in the same direction. As the Calvinist, who feels his calling and election sure, holds himself to be morally impeccable, and theologically infallible, so was it with Napoleon ; the consciousness of genius, of power, vv^as in him an evidence that he was subject to a supernatural afflatus, or, at least, was a chosen instrument ordained to create a world-empire, of which he should be the temporal and even spiritual head ; for, indeed, in his €yes, the Pope was merely his Minister for Religious Affairs, to be browbeaten, driven along his course, deposed if needs be ; the Vicar of Christ, under him- self, as the Vicegerent of God. From the moment of his coronation, we must not look at the representa- tions of him on canvas, in sculpture, or in medal, as genuine portraiture. He was deified, he was purposely likened in his features to Augustus. Look at the studies of the First Consul and then at those of the Emperor, and you see at once that every artist after the coronation has taken on him the task of giving Olympian traits to the features of the new Caesar. The hour for free inter- pretation was over. Ave Caesar! The master dictated his orders to his artists as he did to everyone else, and the image of Napoleon, whether represented by the official painters or sculptors, or by the humble illustrator of chap-books, must thenceforth be pictured, regardless of truth, according to certain con- ventional formulae destined to strike the imagination of the public, and to dazzle posterity. " It was necessary," says M. Frederic Masson, " that the Sovereign, the founder of the fourth dynasty, should appear beautiful, serene, grave — beautiful with a beauty more than human, like to the deified Caesars, or to the gods of whom they were the likenesses." Nevertheless, it still happened that a few conscientious artists made hasty sketches of his face, and these are of incomparably higher iconographic value than the official portraits, which represent the ideal, but hardly at all the actual man. XLI HOLLAND ( I 806-10) IT would occupy much paper to enter into an account of the conduct of Napoleon towards his brothers, and it will suffice to give, as an example, the manner in which he treated Louis, whom he had created King of Holland. Lucien had soon found out that, to retain self-respect, he must break with Napoleon. Lucien was sour-tempered, querulous, and envious by nature, and could ill brook that his brother should take his own course, without consulting him. When he was dictated to — then in a huff he withdrew. Napoleon had called a good many Republics into existence, and then had demolished them, or converted them into kingdoms for the members of his family. Switzerland had been formed into the Helvetian Republic in 1798, and in 1803 was transformed into the Swiss Confederation. The Pays de Vaud had been elevated into an independent Republique Lemanique in 1798, and the Valais into another in 1802. The Ionian Islands had been constituted the Republique des Sept Isles in 1800, and then abandoned to Russia in 1807. Italy had been cut into several Republics; the Transpadean had been intended to be formed out of Lombardy, but in 1797 it was joined to the Cispadean Republic, founded in 1796; to this the Venetian provinces and Roman Lega- tions were united, and in 1805 constituted the Kingdom of Italy. The Ligurian Republic was formed in 1797, and in 1805 was annexed to France. The Roman Republic was founded in 1798, but again fell under the Pope, to be once more taken from him, and annexed to the Kingdom of Italy. The Parthenopean Republic was shaped out of Naples in 1799, and afterwards con- verted into a kingdom for Joseph Bonaparte. The little Republic of Lucca was transformed into a Principality for Elise Bonaparte. Holland had been re- modelled as the Batavian Republic in 1795; in 1806, it was raised to be a Kingdom by Napoleon, who appointed his brother Louis the first King. Louis accepted his nomination with great reluctance, and remonstrated with Napoleon, who curtly answered, " It is better to die a King than live a Prince." Louis was amiable in character, his manners affable. Overawed by his brother, not daring to refuse, he submitted, and went in a dispirited mood to 382 HOLLAND 383 Holland, together with his wife, Hortense de Beauharnais, Josephine's daughter by her first husband, with whom he was not happy. Louis entered on his new duties with the best intentions, and he strove to benefit the country over which he had been set to reign. He felt acutely when the Dutch refused him the marks of respect which he conceived due to his position, but he was more sensitive to the fact that he was surrounded by spies in the pay of his brother, who reported his acts and words, and sent copies of his letters to the Emperor. Napoleon was specially desirous to have the blockade maintained against English commerce. Holland had suffered severely from the loss of her colonies, the Cape, Ceylon, and the East Indies, and the prosperity of the country depended on her trade. This was paralysed by the " Continental System." Louis saw it, and shut his eyes to the constant evasion of the laws against the trade with England. This was reported to Napoleon, and on the 20th December, 1809, he wrote, reproaching him with having for- gotten that he was a Frenchman, in his affectation of being a Dutchman. He went on : — " Your Majesty has done more ; you took advantage of the moment when I was involved in the affairs of the Continent, to renew relations between Holland and England, to violate the laws of the blockade, which are the only means of effectually destroying the latter Power. I expressed my dissatisfaction by for- bidding you to come to France, and I have made you feel that even without the assistance of my armies, by merely closing the Rhine, the Weser, the Scheldt, and the Meuse against Holland, I should have placed her in a situation more critical than if I had declared war against her. Your Majesty implored my generosity, appealed to my feelings as a brother, and promised to amend your conduct. I thought this warning would be sufficient. I raised my custom-house prohibitions, but your Majesty has returned to your old system. ... I have been obliged a second time to prohibit trade with Holland. In this state of things, we may consider ourselves really at war. In my speech to the Legislative Body I manifested my displeasure ; for I will not conceal from you that my intention is tv unite Holland with France. This will be the most severe blow I can aim against England, and will deliver me from the perpetual insults which the plotters of your cabinet are constantly directing against me. The mouths of the Rhine and of the Meuse ought, indeed, to belong to me. The principle that the furrow of the Rhine valley is the boundary of France is a fundamental principle. Your Majesty writes me, on the 17th, that you are sure of being able to prevent all trade between Holland and England. I am of opinion that your Majesty promises more than you can fulfil. I shall, however, remove my custom-house prohibitions whenever the existing treaties are executed. The following are the conditions : — First, the interdiction of all trade and communication with England. Second, the supply of a fleet of fourteen sail of the line, seven frigates, and seven brigs or corvettes, armed and manned. Third, an army of 25,000 men. . . . Your Majesty may negotiate on these bases with the Due de Cadore, through the medium of your minister ; but be assured that on the entrance of the first packet-boat into Holland, I will restore my prohibitions, and that the first Dutch officer who may presume to insult my flag shall be seized and hanged at the mainyard. Your Majesty will find me a brother, if you prove yourself a Frenchman ; but if you forget the sentiments which attach you to our common country, you cannot think it extraordinary that I should lose sight of those which Nature 384 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE created between us. In short, the union with Holland and France will be, of all things, most useful to France, to Holland, and the whole Continent, because it will be most injurious to England. This union must be effected willingly, or by force. Holland has given sufficient reason for me to declare war against her. However, I shall not scruple to consent to an arrangement which will secure to me the limit of the Rhine, and by which Holland will pledge herself to fulfil the conditions stipulated above." NAPOLEOxN ON THE TERRACK OF S. CLOUD, WITH HIS NEPHEWS AND NIECES. From a painting by Ducis. The correspondence between the two brothers ceased for a while ; but Louis was still subjected to vexations on the part of Napoleon. Louis saw that it was impossible for his people to exist situated as they were, reduced by the extinction of their trade to the resources of a not very fertile soil, painfully recovered from the sea ; and exhausted by the support of an army beyond its means, as it was outside its requirements, and which was solely placed in Holland for the purpose of riveting the yoke on the necks of the impoverished Dutch. For some years Holland had been living on its capital, on what it had saved in prosperity, and now that was exhausted. At this juncture to deprive it of the English trade, of coffee, tea, sugar, tobacco, which had become necessaries of life to the people, was a death sentence. Louis was attached to Napoleon, but he could not fail to disapprove of his HOLLAND 385 " Continental System," and he did his utmost to diminish the number of the contingents exacted to swell the army, to lighten the imposts, and to tolerate a traffic in smuggled goods. Napoleon, in offering Louis the crown of Spain, had admitted the desolate condition to which the Low Countries had been reduced. " They will not be able," he had written, " to recover from the ruin into which they are fallen " (27th March, 1808). After the ill-fated Walcheren expedition, Napoleon sent French troops to occupy Zeeland and Brabant, under the pretext that this was a demonstration against the English ; and the Emperor invited Louis to come to Paris to converse with him relative to Dutch affairs. Louis hesitated to accept this invitation, and called a council of his ministers, but as they were of opinion that he ought to go to Paris in the interest of Holland, he resigned himself to do so. No sooner did he arrive, than he read in the speech addressed by the Emperor to the Legislative Body, and which was reported in the Moniteur, that " Holland, placed between France and England, is vexed by both ; it is the mouth of the principal arteries of my empire. Changes have become necessary. The security of my frontiers, and the interest of both countries imperiously demand them." Louis was irritated, and his indignation inspired him with a degree of energy of which he was not believed to be capable. Amidst the general silence of the servants of the Empire, and even of the Kings and Princes assembled in the capital, he ventured to raise his voice and say, " I have been deceived by promises which were never intended to be kept. Holland is tired of being the plaything of France."* Louis tried to escape and return to Holland. He found that he was a prisoner. A few days afterwards, on leaving his mother's house, where he was lodging whilst in Paris, he was stopped by gendarmes. In this situation, he sent a messenger to Amsterdam, with orders to the Dutch to close the fortresses, and above all the capital, to the French troops then march- ing into Holland. Highly incensed. Napoleon thereupon showed him a decree he had drawn up, ordering the incorporation of Holland with France. How- ever, the Emperor hesitated : he thought that the menace would suffice. But at the beginning of March, 18 10, he heard that the commands of Louis had been obeyed, and that the French troops had actually been refused admission to Berg-Op-Zoom and Breda, and that the Dutch were fortifying Amsterdam. In a fury he wrote (3rd March, 18 10) to Fouche : " Has the King of Holland gone off his head ? Enquire of him if it is by his order that his ministers have acted thus, or whether it is of their own doing ; and tell him that if it be the latter, I will have every one of their heads off." Frightened out of his wits, Louis submitted in the most abject manner. On the 1 6th March, he signed a treaty, whereby he engaged to fulfil all the stipula- tions relative to the blockade, the supply of contingents, &c., and to accept a position of vassalage, which was more humiliating than ah abdication. He * BOURRIENNE, ii. 452. 2 C 386 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE surrendered to the Emperor all that part of Holland which lies on the right bank of the Rhine, that is to say, about a quarter of his territory, and he consented to entrust the defence of his realm to a French army of occupation, and to receive into his custom-houses French officers to replace those who were native, and to make them responsible to the French Emperor alone. On the 23rd of March, 18 10, he wrote the following letter to Napoleon : — " If you wish to consolidate the present state of France, to obtain maritime peace, or to attack England with advantage, those objects are not to be obtained by such measures as the blockade, the destruction of a kingdom raised by your- self, or the enfeebling of your allies, and setting at defiance their most sacred rights, and the first principles of the law of nations. You should, on the con- trary, win their affections for France, and consolidate and reinforce your allies, making them like your brothers, in whom you may place confidence. The destruction of Holland, far from being the means of injuring England, will serve only to increase her strength, for all industry and wealth will fly to her for refuge. There are, in reality, only three ways of injuring England, namely, by detaching Ireland, getting possession of the East Indies, or by invasion. These two latter modes, which would be the most effectual, cannot be executed with- out a naval force. But, I am astonished that the first should have been so readily relinquished. That is a more sure method of obtaining peace on good conditions, than the system of injuring ourselves for the sake of doing a greater damage to the enemy." But remonstrances produced no effect on Napoleon, by whomsoever made. The answer of the Emperor was brutal in its coarseness : — " Brother, — In the situation in which we are placed, it is best to speak candidly. I know your secret sentiments, and all that you can say to the contrary will avail nothing. Holland is certainly in a melancholy situation. I believe you are anxious to extricate her from her difficulties ; it is you, and you alone, who can do this. When you conduct yourself in such a way as to induce the people of Holland to believe that you act under my influence, then you will be loved, you will be esteemed, and you will acquire the power requisite for re- establishing Holland ; when to be my friend, and the friend of France, shall become a title of favour at your Court, Holland will be in her natural situation. Since your return from Paris, you have done nothing to effect this object. What will be the result? Your subjects, bandied about between France and England, will throw themselves into the arms of France, and will demand to be united to her. You know my character, which is to pursue my object, un- impeded by any consideration. I can dispense with Holland, but Holland cannot dispense with my protection. If, under the dominion of one of my brothers, but looking to me alone for her welfare, she does not find in her Sovereign my image, all confidence in your government is at an end, your sceptre is broken. Love France, love my glory — that is the only way to serve Holland. If you had acted as you ought to have done, then that country would have been the more dear to me, since I had given her a Sovereign whom I almost regard as my son. You have followed a course diametrically opposed to my expectations. I have been forced to prohibit you from coming to France. In proving yourself a bad Frenchman, you are less to the Dutch than a Prince of Orange. . . . You seem to be incorrigible, for you will drive away the few Frenchmen who remain with you. You must be dealt with not by affectionate advice, but by threats and compulsion. What mean the prayers and mysterious X -^ > fe HOLLAND 389 fasts you have ordered ? Louis, you will not reign long. Your actions disclose, better than your confidential letters, the sentiments of your mind. Be a French- man at heart, or your people will banish you, and you will leave Holland covered with ridicule. States must be governed by reason and policy, and not by the weakness produced by acrid and vitiated humours." The last sentence contains an allusion to his brother's infirmities. This letter contrasts notably with one of the apocryphal epistles Napoleon manufactured at S. Helena, addressed to Louis, and dated April 3rd, 1808, and intended to impose on posterity. Like most forgeries, it carries evidence of its own falsehood in its composition, for it contains a flagrant anachronism. This letter, as well as the other, composed about the same time to Murat, has been accepted as genuine by historians, although no traces have been found of either in the archives of Paris or Holland. It is, perhaps, needless to add that they have been inserted in the Correspondance de Napoleon^ the monument erected in honour of the founder of the dynasty by Napoleon HI., and that from the same collection have been omitted the letters to Louis given above, and which are of unquestionable genuineness. Napoleon I. had begun the falsification of his own correspondence by the hand of Bourrienne, before the dismissal of the latter ; and it was by the loss of his secretary that the proceeding was interrupted and abandoned. A few days after the letter just quoted had been despatched to Louis, Napoleon heard that the King of Holland had taken no notice of Serurier, his charge d'affaires, at a diplomatic reception, and that there had been a quarrel between the coachman in the livery of the ambassador and some of the Dutch ; the fellow had insulted a citizen of Amsterdam, in consequence of which he had been beaten. Napoleon wrote again to his brother a letter* full of insult and abuse. It ended thus : — " I don't want any more phrases and protestations. It is time I should know whether you intend to ruin Holland by your follies. I have recalled my ambassador ... he shall no longer be exposed to your insults. Write me no more of those set phrases, which you have been repeating for the last three years, the falsehood of which is proved every day. This is the last letter I will ever write to you as long as I live." At the same time the Emperor ordered the French troops to concentrate on Amsterdam, and gave as justification "the outrage committed on the eagles of France," i.e. on the buttons of the coachman's livery, and the refusal of the King to allow the French soldiers to enter his fortresses. Louis assembled his Council, and gallantly proposed to close the gates of Amsterdam, and flood the country by cutting the dykes. But the councillors were frightened, and advised submission. Louis, discouraged and disabused, abdicated in favour of his son, and fled secretly to Toeplitz. For a month Napoleon did not know what had become of him. The Emperor at once annexed Holland to France (9th July, 1 8 10), ignored the abdication in favour of his nephew, and when he discovered * Also omitted from the Correspondance. 390 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE where his brother was, ordered Otto, who had been ambassador at Vienna, to write- the following letter to Louis : — " Sire, — The Emperor directs me to address your Majesty as follows : — It is the duty of every French Prince, and every member of the Imperial family, to reside in France, whence they cannot absent themselves without the permission of the Emperor. Before the union of Holland to the Empire, the Emperor per- mitted the King to reside at Toeplitz, in Bohemia. His health appeared to require the use of the waters ; but now the Emperor requires that Prince Louis shall return, at the latest, by the ist December next, under pain of being con- sidered as disobeying the Constitution of the Empire and the head of the family, and being treated accordingly." " M. Constant," said Napoleon, soon after this, to his valet, " do you know what are the three capitals of the French Empire ? " Then, without waiting for an answer, he continued, " They are Paris, Rome, and Amsterdam." i XLII THE PEACE OF VIENNA (1809) ^nr^HE precipitate return to Paris from Spain had been occasioned partly be- ^ cause Napoleon saw that the reduction of the Peninsula would be a long, tedious, and inglorious work, but also because he had resolved on another cam- paign against Austria ; and such, he did not doubt, would be as successful and dazzling as had been the former, which had ended at Austerlitz. The Austrian army had been reorganised by the Archduke Charles. It consisted of 300,000 men, to which was added a reserve of 100,000. Moreover, the raising of the Landwehr had been ordered throughout the Empire. All the male population capable of bearing arms had been enrolled, with an enthusiasm that had been general, and had known no distinction of classes. The humiliation to which the Empire had been subjected had sunk to the heart of the nation, which nourished the keenest resentment. For the first time, patriotic feeling had been manifested in this singular conglomerate Empire, and a sense had sprung up throughout Germany that Austria had been the champion of the Teutonic race, of the rights of nations, and of national liberty. The activity with which the armament of the people was pressed forward in the Austrian Empire attracted the attention of Napoleon. On the 1 6th July, 1808, Champagny was directed to question Metternich on the intentions of his Government. The Austrian Government made profession of pacific intentions, and ex- plained that as all the neighbouring States — Bavaria, Westphalia, and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw — had transformed their military institutions, and had 391 NAPOLEON. After an engraving by Couche. 392 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE adopted the French system of conscription, it did not behove Austria to remain behind. No sooner had Napoleon arrived in Paris, than he took the matter up with energy. On the 15th of August, he addressed a pubUc remonstrance on the same subject to Metternich, the Austrian ambassador, using violent expressions, and losing his dignity in real or assumed anger. In order to overawe Austria, but mainly because for once he was less ready than his opponents, he determined on an interview with the Emperor Alexander of Russia, at Erfurt, that was also to be attended by all the princes and potentates subject to him. The meeting would afford him time to prepare before beginning hostilities. As Edgar had been rowed on the Dee by eight kings, so would Napoleon arrive attended by a train of sovereigns, his ob- sequious servants. When the French drummers began to rattle their sticks on the approach of one of these royalties, " Bah ! " said the commandant, " what are you drumming for ? This is only a king ! " Francis did not go to the Erfurt assembly on the 27th September, nor did the King of Prussia, who was represented by Prince William. Four kings of Napoleon's creation — those of Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Saxony, and Westphalia — the Prince Primate, the Grand Dukes of Hesse-Darmstadt and of Baden, the Dukes of Weimar, Saxe-Gotha, Oldenburg, twenty Princes, and any number of Counts, hovered round his Imperial Majesty Napoleon I., who took on himself the entertainment of the whole assembly. Gobelins tapestries, Sevres jars, chandeliers of cut glass, furniture, and a legion of cooks and lacqueys, were sent from Paris. The two Emperors walked, rode, dined with each other, and Napoleon carried off the attendant princes and kings to see Jena. He had the want of delicacy to make Prince William of Prussia attend him, when he showed them over the field. Berthier was annoyed, and afterwards remonstrated with the Emperor. " It was unwisely done," he ventured to say. " What ? " answered Napoleon, pinching his ear. " Do you think I was a fool to put canes in their hands wherewith to whip me? Be at your ease ; I did not tell them all." * At the theatre, where Q7.dipus was being acted, when the line was pro- nounced — " L'amitie d'un grand homme est un bienfait des dieux " — Alexander, who was in an arm-chair near Napoleon above the orchestra, rose, bowed and shook hands with Bonaparte ; whereat all the kings and princes, and grand dukes and little dukes, the highnesses and transparencies, clapped their hands and cheered. But that night Napoleon was oppressed with night- mare. He dreamed that he was being hugged, and his heart torn out, by a bear, and he roused his attendants by his cries, f Magnificent presents were given all round, and Napoleon sent his valet * Constant, M^moires, 1830, iv. 84. f Constant, Ibid., 76. THE PEACE OF VIENNA 393 through the streets carrying a handsome night-commode as a gift to his imperial brother. But, in spite of festivities and mutual compliments, mistrust lay at the heart of those most concerned. Alexander had seen how little reliance was to be placed on the promises of Napoleon, and that the execution of his part of the Treaty of Tilsit was far from his thoughts. " Romanzoff " (the Russian minister), wrote Champagny to the Emperor, his master, "allows me to perceive that the sentiment lurking behind every word he utters is one of mistrust — mistrust of events, and mistrust of our in- tentions." On the 29th September, the Baron de Vincent had brought Napoleon a courteous letter from the Austrian Emperor, in which he excused himself for not being able to attend the meeting at Erfurt. On the 14th October, Napoleon answered this in a very different tone. After having reminded Francis that he had been in a position to dismember the Austrian monarchy, but had not willed to do so — an allegation which was not true — he went on to say : — " What your Majesty is, that you are by my favour. . . . Your Majesty has no right to open up questions that have been settled after fifteen years of war. You must forbid every step likely to provoke war. . . . Your Majesty must abstain from all armaments which may give me uneasiness, and may make a diversion in favour of England. . . . Your Majesty must regard all such as speak of danger to the monarchy as persons who trouble his happiness, that of his family, and that of his subjects." And this extraordinary lecture terminated with the maxim, still more extra- ordinary as coming from him, " The best policy to follow is simplicity and truth." No sooner was Napoleon returned from Spain, than he pressed on prepara- tions for war with feverish haste. Bessieres was brought from Burgos to the Rhine, and was placed at the head of 80,000 men. Lannes commanded 50,000 men ; Davoust 60,000, concentrating on Bamberg ; Massena had 50,000, and was instructed to proceed to Ulm ; Lefebvre had 40,000 : Augereau, 20,000 ; Berna- dotte was despatched to Dresden to command 50,000 Saxons ; King Jerome was at the head of a contingent of 12,000 from Westphalia ; in all 324,000 men, and, with the Army of Italy, the forces at his disposal amounted to 424,000. Instructions were transmitted to the French ambassador at Warsaw to hasten the formation of three Polish divisions to menace Galicia. The Princes of the Rhenish Confederacy were enjoined to collect their respective contingents, and converge on the Danube. On the 27th March, 1809, appeared a declaration from the Emperor Francis, in which he recapitulated all his grievances against France. A manifesto was addressed to "the German nation," in which stood the significant words, " Resistance is the last resort for our salvation ; our cause is one with that of Germany." Gentz, in an appeal to the German nation on the 15th April, exclaimed, " The freedom of Europe has taken refuge under the banners of 394 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Austria." And this was true. Austria was alone ; it had to rely on its own arm unassisted. In Prussia men were indeed being enrolled ; but Prussia was unable to take the field in its crippled condition without the sanction of Russia, and the Czar had warned her at Erfurt not to draw the sword. Austria might have succeeded, had there been in her the requisite prompti- tude. In January there was a chance for her, as Napoleon was unprepared; but full time was granted him to collect his enormous forces. Even when war YOUR HAND ! AN INCIDENT OF THE PASSAGE OF THE DANUBE. From a lithograph by Raflfet. i was declared, an opening was given to the Archduke Charles to throw himself against each column of the enemy with all his force, as it approached, and to crush each in turn ; but he allowed all the columns to unite and concentrate, and the opportunity was lost. At the opening of the campaign he had not made up his mind as to his course — whether to stand on the defensive in Bohemia, or to enter Bavaria. Indeed, Davoust was for many days exposed to., destruction in his southward march, had Prussia risen round him, or Charles] fallen on his flank. That Napoleon should have exposed his columns to such] great risk, was only to be justified by conviction of the incompetency of thej Archduke. He knew that his adversary had no inspirations of genius. Thej THE PEACE OF VIENNA 395 Austrian army crawled over the country like a tortoise, against an enemy that moved with lightning speed. When the Archduke resolved to occupy the Bavarian tableland, the chance of defeating the enemy piecemeal was gone. His manoeuvres thenceforth were purposeless and blundering. In an engage- ment before Ratisbon Napoleon was slightly wounded in the foot. The Arch- duke extended his line unduly, so as to invite Napoleon to break through its centre, an invitation at once accepted, and carried out at Eckmiihl. The left THE DEATH OF LANNES. From a painting by Boutigny. wing was shattered and dispersed, and the right retired into Bohemia without the possibility of opposing the advance of the enemy on Vienna. The Austrians lost 50,000 men; and again, as in the campaign of 1805, Napoleon found none to resist his entry into the capital, which took place on the 13th of May. He calculated on detaching Hungary from the imperial crown, and issued a manifesto to the Hungarian population, calling them to independence (May 15th). But the proclamation produced no effect. More- over, Napoleon was not, on this occasion, destined to trample on Austria with as much ease as after Austerlitz. The Archduke Charles had led his force down the Danube along the left bank, and had taken up his position opposite Vienna. Napoleon resolved to attack him, to do which he was obliged to 396 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE traverse the river, then swelled and still rising, by way of the island of Lobau, that broke its course, and w^hich the Austrian general had neglected to occupy. Here, accordingly, the Emperor began to cross. The Archduke at once saw his advantage, and fell on the French when half their number had crossed, and in the two desperate battles of Aspern and Essling, fought on the 2ist and 22nd of May, defeated Napoleon, and drove him back on to the island. Had the Archduke pursued his success, and attacked the discouraged and beaten army on Lobau, or had the Archduke John fulfilled the orders given him to march directly from Carinthia to the assistance of the army of the Arch- duke Charles, the French would most certainly have been completely routed, and forced to retreat to the Rhine. The Prussian patriots were urgent that Prussia should declare herself, and take the field for Austria, but the King was not to be provoked to so bold a step. To the urgency of the Austrian plenipotentiary, he answered, " We will do what we can some day, but the moment is not now." As Napoleon retired, defeated and almost in despair, to Lobau, he saw his great friend, Lannes, on his litter, mortally wounded. Next day he visited him in the hovel to w'hich he had been carried. The moment Lannes saw him, " he turned on him eyes rather of a judge than of a friend or follower. In the presence of the great mystery which dissipates human illusions, Lannes rejected consolations, the emptiness of which he well knew. He broke forth in bitter reproach of the ambition, the insensibility of the frantic gambler, with whom men were but the petty coins, exposed without scruple, and lost without remorse. Lannes had been a Republican. He had remained an ardent patriot. More than once he had offended his master by the boldness of his censure, and had shown his disapproval in the midst of a servile Court." * The Emperor, with his usual energy, strained every nerve to animate his men and to concentrate all his forces. He was watched by the Austrians till June 5th, when the Archduke, to his astonishment and confusion, found that, during the night, the French had made fresh bridges at another point, and had transferred the whole army to the left bank. Then ensued the battle of Wagram. That was contested by the Archduke at the head of 140,000 men, pitted against 180,000. Charles calculated on the arrival of the Archduke John, who was repeatedly ordered to march up to his support ; but he was again disappointed. After a hardly contested day the French had barely gained a victory, and were exhausted ; then, only, the Archduke John appeared, and precipitately retired, without attempting to strike a blow. Six days later an armistice was concluded at Znaim,and Charles surrendered his command. Without an ally, Austria was unable to prosecute the war. Negotiations for the conclusion of a peace were entered upon, and protracted on account of the hard conditions imposed by Napoleon. At last, on October i;4th, the Peace of Vienna was signed, whereby the Kaiser sacrificed one-third of his territories, and was deprived of one of his main arteries, in that he was cut off from the Adriatic. Tyrol, Salzburg, went to Bavaria ; Gorz, Trieste, * Lanfrey, iv. 538. THE PEACE OF VIENNA 399 Carnlola, and Croatia were ceded to France ; Saxony and Russia had Galicia parted between them. The Austrian Emperor entered into the " Continental System," was condemned to pay eighty-five milUon francs, and was forbidden to maintain an army of above i5o,ocx) men. A curious circumstance came to Hght somewhat later, which showed how •entirely unscrupulous Napoleon was as to the means he employed against an enemy. In his hopes of destroying the credit of Austria, he had contrived the forgery in Paris of her bank notes. He was furious because the Emperor of Austria sent agents into France and Italy to endeavour to trace out the forgers, and he ordered the arrest of these emissaries.* Metternich, in his Memoirs, tells us how at a later period, after the marriage with Marie Louise, the Emperor frankly admitted to him that this had been his doing, a scheme of his own for rendering Austria bankrupt, and that he chuckled over his cleverness. Napoleon promised to have the plates and the notes destroyed, but he did not do so.f * To Fouche, 12th July, 1806. t Metternich, Memoirs, 1880-4, ii. 355. XLIII MARIE LOUISE (1810) A T Erfurt, Napoleon had informed Alexander that he intended to divorce ■^ ^ Josephine, because she was childless by him, and to marry another ; and he sounded the Czar as to whether he would give him his sister Catherine. Alexander evaded a direct answer : he expressed himself in the most flattering terms, but raised such difficulties as the difference of religion, and the objection of his mother. The matter was dropped ; but after Wagram, and whilst Napoleon was in the course of the negotiations which concluded in the Peace of Vienna, his resolution ripened. The Empress Dowager had in the mean- time hurried on a marriage of the Archduchess Catherine with the Duke of Oldenburg ; but there remained another sister of the Czar, Anna, and Napoleon now sent to his ambassador at St. Petersburg to formally ask the hand of this Princess for his master. On the 2 1st of October, he had written to poor Josephine : " I look forward as to a holiday to seeing you again. I await the moment with impatience. I embrace you. Altogether thine," and five days after, on his arrival at Fontainebleau, communicated to Cambaceres the project of divorce. This astute individual had already been struck with the elation manifest in the manner of the Emperor, who " seemed to strut in the halo of glory." Cambaceres represented to him that Josephine was vastly beloved by the French, and that an alliance with a member of an old dynasty might be contrary to the Republican temper of the people. But he speedily recognised that any objection offered by him would be in vain, and he set himself to work as a good servant to smooth the difficulties that stood in the way. Almost immediately, Austria got wind of the project, and was alarmed. She had no desire for a closer alliance between the Czar and Napoleon, and rather than permit this, was ready to sacrifice one of her own daughters. A hint v/as at once dropped by the Austrian ambassador at Paris, and was caught at with indecent readiness by Napoleon, who immediately despatched a courier to Russia (loth January, 18 10), demanding a categorical answer within ten days to his proposal for the sister of Alexander. The Czar had received the first communication only on the 28th December, 1809. This imperious demand was insulting, and Napoleon was satisfied that it would be so considered. He 400 MARIE LOUISE 401 had resolved in his own mind not to enter into the Russian alliance, but to secure a union with the House of Hapsburg. Notwithstanding that he had created kings, and dukes, and nobles of many degrees, he was not comfortable in the presence of the ancient dynasties and feudal aristocracies. He was conscious of a certain gaucherie, although invested in Imperial robes, and of gene in presence of those who had an hereditary title. To be able to link himself with one of the most historic of the Houses in Europe, would be a great achievement, and if he were so happy as to beget a son, his offspring would not labour under the disadvantage of being a man without an ancestry. The ultimatum sent to the Czar allowed him till the 20th January to make up his mind, but on the 21st, a fortnight before he could receive an answer, Napoleon assembled a private council at the Tuileries, composed of all the grandees of the Empire, to submit to them the choice between the two grand alliances offered to him. In the meantime, Alexander had received and answered the peremptory communication. As he was unwilling to quarrel with the French Emperor, he replied with courtesy, that he was willing to consider the proposal, but that his sister was not yet sixteen years old, and could hardly be married for a couple of years. This reply reached Paris on the 6th February, and Napoleon at once wrote to Caulaincourt that this was sufficient to release him from obligation to Alexander relative to his proposal,* and on the very next day, February 7th, he signed a contract of marriage with the Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria. For many years the fear that she would be divorced had preyed on Josephine's mind, and it was with a sad heart that she had viewed the prepara- tions for the coronation, as she foresaw that with the assumption of sovereignty, Napoleon's ambition would not be satisfied till he had a son, to whom he could transmit his crown. But after having long dreaded the misfortune that threatened her, the Empress had begun to hope that it would pass away, having been adjourned. Whatever may have been the errors of her early life, she had made amends when raised to be the associate of the greatest man of his age. In a towering position, she had remained humble, and her influence had been exercised for good. Kindly, gracious, sweet-dispositioned, she had made no enemies, save among the Bonaparte family, which could not forgive her past, and desired for their head a more illustrious wife. If not endowed with much wit, "File pouvait bien s'en passer," as Talleyrand said, and not- withstanding all his infidelities, she maintained a hold on Napoleon's heart, and, what was better than that, inspired him with personal respect. During long years, the dread of being divorced weighing like a nightmare on Josephine, had taken the brightness out of her pleasures ; but this fear had been laid at the very moment when the blow was destined to fall. She alone was unaware of what was in everyone's mouth. Napoleon arrived at Fontaine- bleau on the 26th October, 1809, and he had sent for Eugene Beauharnais and Queen Hortense, to soften the blow to their mother. The first intimation to * An extraordinary letter, impossible to quote. 2 D 402 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE her that something was determined, compromising her happiness, was given by the masons walling up the door of communication between her apartments and those of the Emperor. The Court left Fontainebleau on the 15th November, to return to Paris. All the Sovereigns in the constellation around the Emperor had been convoked. The restraint in the manner of her husband, the hesitation and anxious looks among her friends and attendants, warned Josephine that a crisis was at hand. Napoleon did not await the arrival of Eugene Beauharnais. On the evening of the 30th November, he broke to the unhappy woman the .' • . NAPOLEON BREAKING THE NEWS TO JOSEPHINE. From a picture by Chasselat. tidings of their approaching separation. How this took place she afterwards told Bourrienne. " We were dining together as usual ; I had not uttered a word during that sad dinner, and he had broken silence only to ask one of the servants what o'clock it was. As soon as Bonaparte had taken his coffee, he dismissed all the attendants, and I remained alone with him. I saw in the expression of his countenance what was passing in his mind, and I knew that my hour was come. He stepped up to me — he was trembling, and shuddered— he took my hand, pressed it to his heart, and after gazing at me for a few moments in silence, he uttered these fatal words : ' Josephine ! My dear Josephine ! You know how I have loved you. To you, to you alone, I ow6 the only moments of happiness I have tasted in this world. But, Josephine, my destiny is not to be controlled by my will. My dearest affections must yield to the.interests of France.' ' Say MARIE LOUISE 403 no more,' I exclaimed, ' I understand you ; I expected this, but the blow is none the less mortal.' I could not say another word. I know not what happened after that." . . The fullest details come from the pen of Bausset, prefet of the palace.* " Their Imperial Majesties were at table. Josephine wore a large white hat, knotted under her chin, hiding part of her face. I thought that I perceived that she had been crying, and had then a difficulty in restraining her tears. She was a picture of sorrow and despair. Silence during dinner was profound ; they touched the food presented them merely as a matter of form. The only words addressed to me by Napoleon were, ' Quel temps fait-il?' As he spoke he rose ; Josephine followed slowly.f Coffee was offered ; Napoleon took his cup, and signed to be left alone. I went out quickly, very uneasy in mind, troubled with my thoughts. I seated myself in the ante-chamber, on a sofa beside the door of the saloon, and mechanically watched the servants engaged in removing the dinner things, when all at once I heard violent cries, uttered by the Empress Josephine, issue from the saloon. The usher of the chamber would have opened ; but I prevented him, and told him that if his services were needed, the Emperor would summon him. I was standing by the door, when Napoleon opened it himself, and observing me, said hastily, ' Go in, Bausset, and shut the door.' I entered the saloon, and saw the Empress ex- tended on the carpet, uttering cries and piercing lamentations, ' No ! I shall never survive it!' J Napoleon said to me, 'Are you strong enough to raise Josephine, and to carry her by the inner staircase that communicates with her room, so that she may have the help and care administered to her that she requires?' I obeyed, and raised the Empress. With the aid of Napoleon, I carried her in my arms, and he took a candle from the table, and lighted the way for me, and opened the dining-room door, which by a dark passage com- municates with the little staircase to which he had referred. On reaching the first step, I observed to Napoleon that it was too narrow for me to be able to descend with my burden without the risk of a fall. He then called the keeper of his portfolio, who was placed night and day at one of the doors of his cabinet, which communicated with the landing of this little stair. Napoleon handed the candle to him, which we no longer needed, because the passages were lighted. He ordered the keeper to proceed, took hold of the two feet of Josephine, to assist me in descending with more safety. But we nearly had a fall, as I became entangled with my sword. Happily we reached the bottom without an accident, and placed our precious burden on an ottoman in the bed- room. The Emperor at once rang the bell, and summoned the waiting-women of the Empress. When I had raised the Empress in the dining-room, she ceased her lamentations. I thought she was unconscious. But when entangled with my sword on the stair, I was obliged to hold her rather tightly. She was on my arm, which was about her waist, and her back was against my breast, and her head rested on my right shoulder. When she felt the efforts I made to avoid a fall, she said to me in a low tone, ' You press me too much ! ' I saw then that I had nothing to fear for her health ; she had not lost consciousness. When the women came, Napoleon passed into a little chamber that was before the bedroom, and I followed him. His agitation, his disquiet, were extreme. In the trouble in which he was, he let me understand the cause of all that had come to pass, as he said to me, ' In the interests of France and of my dynasty, * Supplemented by Constant, also a witness. t " Holding her handkerchief to her mouth." — Constant. + " No.! you will not do it! You do not wish to kill me."— Constant. 404 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE I must do violence to my heart. This divorce has become a rigorous duty with me. I am all the more vexed at this scene, which Josephine has made, as for three days she has been prepared for it by Hortense— it is an unhappy necessity that obliges me to separate from her — I pity her from the depth of my heart. I did think she had more strength of character. I was not prepared for such an outburst of distress.' The emotion in which he was, forced him to speak at long intervals, so as to allow him to breathe between each sentence. His words escaped him with pain, and disconnectedly, his voice was agitated, and tears moistened his eyes. He must have been beside himself to give me so many details, for I was far outside of his counsels and confidence. This scene lasted from seven to eight minutes. Napoleon then sent for Corvisart (the doctor), Queen Hortense, Cambaceres, and Fouche; and before he went to his own apartment, assured himself of the condition of Josephine by a visit, and found her calmer and more resigned." * In order to obtain a legal divorce, it was necessary that Josephine should formally consent to it. Accordingly, a family gathering (15th Dec.) was assembled of all the members then in Paris. B] this time Eugene Beauharnai^ had arrived, and had learne( from the lips of his mothe| what was determined. The Empress entered th( hall, where all were gatherec together, in a very simple white dress, without th< smallest ornament, whereat the Bonaparte family wer^ all in gala costume. She was pale, but calm, and leaned on the arm o Queen Hortense, who was as wan as her mother, and more agitated. Prino Beauharnais stood beside the Emperor, his arms crossed, trembling so violently that it was feared he would break down. The Emperor, in a hard, metallic voice, read a declaration, announcing hi resolution to separate from Josephine : — NAPOLEON READING. A sketch from Nature by Girodet. " The interest of the people," he said, " required that he should leave family to inherit his love for them, and the throne on which Providence had * De Bausset, Memoires anecdoiiques, &^c. 1827, i. 370. MARIE LOUISE 405 placed him. For several years he had been hopeless of having children by his dearly-loved spouse ; consequently he was constrained to sacrifice the softest affections of his heart, so as to consider only the welfare of the State, and to desire a dissolution of his marriage." When Josephine rose to read the declaration that had been prepared for her, and which announced her consent, so little in agreement with her real senti- ments, sobs broke her utterance. It was not possible for her, in spite of her efforts, to articulate a single sentence, and her violent agitation and streaming tears gave a lie to the words put into her mouth. Regnault de Saint-Jean d'Angely took the paper from her hands, and read the document. Josephine sank into an arm-chair, and remained in one position through the recital, leaning her elbow on a table. That concluded, she rose, wiped her eyes, and, with great control of voice, pronounced her consent ; then signed the docu- ment, and retired, leaning on the arm of her daughter. Prince Eugene left the hall at the same moment, but, overcome by his emotion, sank insensible between the double doors. " During this painful scene the Emperor said not a word, nor made a sign. He was immovable as a statue, his eyes fixed, and almost dazed. He was silent and dispirited all day. That evening, as he was preparing to go to bed, and I was awaiting his last orders, suddenly the door opened, and I saw the Empress enter, her hair in disorder, her face distracted. Her aspect terrified me. Josephine — but it was no more Josephine — advanced, tottering, to the side of the Emperor's bed. Then she fell, flung her arms round the neck of His Majesty, and lavished on him the tenderest caresses. My emotion was inde- scribable. The Emperor began to cry also. He raised himself, and clasped Josephine to his heart, saying, ' Come, my good Josephine, be more reasonable ! Come ! courage ! courage ! I shall always be your friend,' stifled by sobs. The Empress was unable to reply. A mute scene ensued, which lasted several minutes, during which their tears and their sobs were mingled, and uttered more than words could express. Finally, His Majesty, rousing from his emotion as from a dream, noticed me, and said, in a voice broken with tears, ' Go outside, Constant' I obeyed. Presently I saw Josephine return, sad, and still in tears, and making to me a sign of kindly salutation as she passed. Then I returned into the bedroom to take away the candles. The Emperor was silent as one dead, and had so buried his head in the bedclothes, that I could not see his face."* Next day poor Josephine left for Malmaison. The Emperor provided that she should have a handsome provision made for her, and that she should retain the title of Empress. She was speedily deserted by most of her friends, and all her attendants passed over to the service of her successor. On the same day, the 1 6th December, the proces-vej^bal of this double declaration was presented to the Senate, which at once voted the dissolution of the marriage between Napoleon and Josephine. The rupture of the religious tie was less easy. It was necessary that some flaw should be proved in the marriage ceremony, which had been performed by Cardinal Fesch. It was thought that — as, by the decree of the Council of * Constant, iv. 223. 4o6 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Trent, a marriage must be celebrated by the incumbent of the parish, or by someone authorised by him — this would serve as pretext ; but Cardinal Fesch frankly admitted that he had acted under a dispensation from the Pope. The only canonical defect that could be discovered w^as that Napoleon had been married against his will ; and he had the indecency to swear that this was the case; and he produced the testimony of Duroc, Talleyrand, and Berthier, to show that he had submitted to the ecclesiastical ceremony only because, with- out it, the Pope had refused to crown him. On this miserable plea, the eccle- siastical court was false enough to its divine responsibilities to decree the nullity of the marriage which had united Napoleon to Josephine. Josephine had not loved Bonaparte when she married him, but she had come to throw all the fibres of her affectionate nature round him. She had clung to him with passionate devotion. His ardour had long cooled, but he loved her still, after his cold fashion, reserving his raptures and flames for illicit connections, which were numerous enough, but which he concealed as much as possible from her. The story of these attachments need not be given here. The Emperor was sensibly relieved when the separation from the elderly Josephine was accomplished, and then he looked forward with the utmost impatience to his marriage with Marie Louise, aged nineteen. " The Emperor then showed himself very lively, and took more care of his appearance. He required me," says Constant, "to renew his wardrobe, and order for him fresh suits, in a more modern fashion. His Majesty sat at the same time for his portrait, 'which was taken to Marie Louise by the Prince of Neufchatel. The Emperor received at the same time that of his young wife, and seemed to be enchanted with it. ] ' " His Majesty, to please Marie Louise, laid out more money than he had hitherto done for any woman. One day when alone with Queen Hortense and the Princess Stephanie (of Baden), the latter" maliciously asked him if he could waltz. His Majesty replied that he had never got beyond the first lesson. * When I was at the Military School,' said he, ' I tried often to overcome the spinning in my head caused by it, and failed. Our dancing master advised us to take each a chair in our arms and practise with that in lieu of a lady. I never failed on such occasions to tumble down with my chair that I was hugging, and to break it. The chairs not only of my room, but also of those of my comrades, were all broken by this means.' This story provoked bursts of laughter. The Princess Stephanie returned to the charge, and said, ' It is un- fortunate that your Majesty does not know how to waltz. The German ladies are madly in love with that dance, and the Empress is sure to partake of the tastes of her compatriots. She may have no other cavalier but your Majesty, and will thus be deprived of a great pleasure.' ' You are right,' answered the Emperor. ' Come, give me a lesson.' He rose and took some steps with the Princess Stephanie, humming the air of the Queen of Prussia. But after two or three turns, which were clumsily performed, the Princess of Baden halted, and said, ' Sire, that is enough to show me that you will always be a bad pupp. You are a man to give lessons, and not to receive them.'"* The marriage took place by proxy at Braunau, on the nth March, the marriage contracts having been signed at Paris on February 7th, and at Vienna * Constant, iv. 247. THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE. By Gerard. MARIE LOUISE 409 on February i6th, 18 10. Berthier, with the title of Prince of Wagram, acted as proxy. There was lack of delicacy in sending a man with such a title. Marie Louise was tall, fair-haired, graceful, with blue eyes. " She is not beautiful," said the Emperor, on a subsequent visit to Josephine, " but she is the daughter of the Caesars." Her eyes were curiously turned up at the corners, like those of Tartars, and the brows correspondingly raised. What charm she possessed was due to her youth and simplicity. She had none of the polished grace and warmth of heart of Josephine, and certainly nothing of her exquisite tact. " The Empress travelled by short relays ; and a fete awaited her in every town through which she passed. Every day the Emperor sent her a letter from his own hand, and she replied regularly. Her first letters were very short, and probably sufficiently cold, for the Emperor said nothing about them, but they gradually became longer and warmer, and the Emperor read them with trans- ports of pleasure. He awaited the arrival of these letters with the impatience of a lover of twenty years, and was always complaining of the slowness of the couriers, although they killed their horses through over-expedition." * According to the programme of the etiquette to be observed on the occasion of the meeting of Napoleon and Marie Louise, they were first to see each other at Compiegne, where a tent was erected, fashioned like the wooden house on the river at Tilsit, with openings opposite each other. The official programme directed : " When their Imperial Highnesses meet in the middle of the tent (into which they shall enter from opposite sides simultaneously), then the Empress shall incline to kneel, the Emperor shall raise her up, embrace her, and then their Imperial Majesties shall sit down."t But Napoleon had the good sense to break through these formalities. After the example of Henry IV., when he went to Lyons to meet his bride, Marie de Medicis, he had no sooner received intelligence of her approach to Compiegne, than, " Ohe ! ho ! Constant," said he to his valet de chambre, " Order a plain carriage without liveries, and help me to dress." He made his toilet with more than usual care, " laughing like a child at the effect the unexpected interview would cause," slipped on the grey redingote he had worn at Wagram, and jumped into the carriage. On reaching Courcelles, he passed the last courier sent on to announce the approach of the Empress. It was raining in torrents. The Emperor left his carriage and stepped into the church porch, and as Marie Louise's carriage approached, he made a sign to the postilions to stop. Then, throwing open the carriage door, he caught Marie Louise in his arms, just as she was contemplating his miniature. " Sire," said she, after she had looked hard at him, " the painter has not flattered you." The civil marriage was performed at S. Cloud with much pomp on the ist April, and then the Imperial couple started for Holland. " Josephine," said Napoleon, " was all art and grace ; Marie Louise was natural simplicity and innocence. The former never for a moment was without the manner and habits which made her agreeable and seductive . . . the latter * Constant, iv. 252. t Bausset, ii. 23. 4IO THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE never attempted anything but innocent artifice. The first was alwaysfa little on one side of truth ; the second was incapable of dissimulation. The first asked for nothing, and was always in debt ; the second never hesitated to ask when she was out of pocket, but that was rarely. Never would she take anything which she knew, in conscience, she would not be able to pay for. Both were good, gentle, and much attached to their husband." It may be asked, " What had Napoleon gained by this wrong done to Josephine, who had given him the first lift in life, by which his fortune had been made, and by putting in her room a daughter of the Caesars?" Literally RECEPTION OF MARIE LOUISE AT COMPIEGNE. nothing. He had offended the Czar, and he had inflicted one humiliation the more on Austria. A woman's hair would not bind together the two Empires. Afterwards, when an exile on S. Helena, Napoleon recognised that in the divorce of Josephine he had committed the main error of his life. To this period belongs the statue of Napoleon by Canova, which came into the possession of the Duke of Wellington. Canova was in Paris at the time when Bonaparte was First Consul,' as well as afterwards under the Empire, and he modelled a bust of him, which was an indifferent likeness; unhappily, Canova's mind was so filled with classic traditions, that he could not be true to Nature, aTid he elaborated a bust which was very classical and Greek, but not like the original. From this he adapted the head to his colossal statue. MARIE LOUISE 411 which was sent to Paris in 181 1. Meneval says of it, "As an object of art this statue is a fine work, but owing to want of resemblance to the original, and to its nudity, it did not please the Emperor. It was placed in the Louvre, but not exposed." Bourrienne gives as the reason of the failure that Napoleon exhibited such restlessness and impatience as not to give Canova a fair chance of catching his likeness. " Canova often expressed to me his displeasure at not being able to study his model as he desired, and at the indifference of Bonaparte, which, he said, chilled his imagination. All the world agreed that he had failed." XLIV ROME (1809— i8io) ^ I ""HE anger of Napoleon against the Pope had been long gathering. It ^ exhibited itself in peevish complaints, brutal insults, and in letters devoid of dignity. On January ist, 1809, he wrote to Champagny : — " It is the custom of the Pope to send tapers to the various Powers. You must write to my agent at Rome that I will not accept one. The King of Spain, too, does not want one. Write to (the Kings of) Naples and Holland to refuse them likewise. They must not be received, because the Papal Court had the insolence not to send them last year. This is the course I wish to be taken as concerns me. My charge d'affaires will make known that at Candlemas I receive tapers blessed by my cure ; that it is neither the purple nor the power which gives a value to those kinds of things. There may be Popes as well as cures in hell ; therefore the taper blessed by my cu7'e may be quite as holy as that of the Pope. I will not receive those given by the Pope, and all the Princes of my family shall follow my example." The puerility of Napoleon in one of his peevish moods was rarely more conspicuous than in this grotesque letter. Then he took it on him to lecture the Holy Father on his immorality in negotiating with the English, who were Protestants, and on having political dealings with the Russians, who were Schismatics. On the 17th May, 1809, Napoleon had issued, from "his Imperial camp at Vienna," the decree which put an end to the temporal power of the Pope. On Trinity Sunday, June loth, the guns of S. Angelo announced to the citizens that Rome had become an Imperial city. The Pope at once launched an ex- communication, so prolix, involved, and obscure, as to hurt no one. The Empei-or was not named in it, nor his ministers nor generals ; it was a bang from a mortar charged with gunpowder only, that made a flash, and did no harm. Yet the temerity of the proceeding so frightened Pius VII. — the only person it did frighten — that he hastily withdrew the bull. The Imperial ensign was hoisted on the castle of S. Angelo, and half a squadron of cavalry appeared in the Piazza del Popolo, preceded by trumpeters. 412 ROME 413 The trumpets sounded, and a herald advanced, arrayed in a red coat, and read the following proclamation : — " Napoleon, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, and Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, &c. " Considering that when our august predecessor, Charlemagne, Emperor of the French, gave various States and territories to the Bishops of Rome, he did it solely to increase the happiness and prosperity of his own States, and that Rome by no means ceased thereby to form a part of his Empire. " Considering also that the union of the spiritual and the temporal powers in the same hands, as it is now, is a source of continual disorders ; that the Popes too often avail themselves of the one to sustain the pretensions of the other; and that spiritual matters, which are by their very nature immutable, must come into opposition with terrestrial affairs, which change according to circumstances and the politics of the time. " Considering, lastly, that all our efforts to reconcile the safety of our armies, the tranquillity and well-being of our people, the dignity and integrity of our Empire, with the temporal pretensions of the Pope, have been unavailing. "We have decreed and we decree the following : — "Article I. The States of the Church are united to the French Empire. "Article II. The city of Rome, the first seat of Christianity, and so justly famous for its ancient memories and the grand monuments of antiquity there preserved, is declared a free and Imperial city. The government and adminis- tration to be settled by a special statute. "Article III. The monuments of ancient Roman greatness will be main- tained at the expense of our treasury. "Article IV. The public debt is declared the debt of the Emperor. " Article V. The actual yearly income of the Pope will be raised to two millions of francs, free of every liability. " Article VI. The property and the palaces of the Pope will not only be exempt from every charge and imposition, jurisdiction or inspection, but will enjoy special immunities. "Article VII. A Special Commission will take formal possession of the States of the Church in our name, on the first day of June in the current year, and will so arrange matters that the constitutional form of government shall be in full working order by the ist January, 18 10." The Pope was, as will be seen, treated with generosity, and had he been a man of apostolic spirit and broad intellect, he would have rejoiced to be freed from the obligations of a temporal sovereignty, which in its direct effect on the welfare of the population of the Papal States was as lowering to the credit of the Church, as in the indirect moral effect it had on adherents through- out Europe. But the words addressed to S. Peter were prophetic of his reputed successors. " Thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." As Pius VII. was seated in his carriage to leave Rome, he raised his hands with a sudden exclamation of despair, " I forgot to bring away any money ! " Then, recovering himself, he added, " This may be called a truly apostolic journey." * Miollis, the French general in command in Rome, answered the excom- munication by sending the Pope to Savona. This was an act of excess of zeal, * Salvagni's La Corie, &'c., iii. c. 37. 414 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE and Napoleon at once declared that the removal of the Pope was contrary to his wishes. " It is a great folly," he wrote to Fouche, on the i8th June, "and I am much annoyed at it"; and to Cambaceres, on the 23rd June, "It was without my orders, and against my will, that the Pope has been taken from Rome." However, as the removal had been effected, he did not advise that he should be sent back. The proclamation of the union of the States of the Church with the King- dom of Italy caused vast rejoicings in the people, who saw therein a promise of life and activity, after the death or stupefaction caused by priestly rule. No sooner was the Pope gone, than a clean sweep was made of the old regime. The police force was reorganised, senators appointed, the law courts reformed, the army set on a new footing, and the system of finance over- hauled ; and so rapidly and effectually was all this done, that by the 15th August the Administration was in good working order. The monopolies, which had pressed so heavily on the people, were done away with. The House of Albani no longer enjoyed the exclusive right to manufacture pins; Andrea Novelli was not allowed to be the only man to fill the lamps of the Romans ; the ferryboats ceased to be the exclusive property of Alexandre Betti ; rags and paper were free to everyone. The city, which had been in physical as well as intellectual darkness, was now furnished with lamps. The right of sanctuary exercised by the cardinals was abolished. The captivity of Pius VII. at Savona was the prelude to other measures for the transformation of the Church. The Emperor was afraid lest the cardinals should make an attempt to supply the vacancy in the See. He therefore ordered that their college should be removed to Paris. They showed their anger by abstaining from occupying the seats prepared for them in the long gallery of the Louvre, where the religious ceremony of the marriage was per- formed, after Napoleon had been united to Marie Louise, civilly, and by proxy. There were twenty-seven cardinals then in Paris, and very few occupied their stalls. Napoleon's eagle eye at once perceived the vacancies, and he asked. Where are my cardinals ? " and then he muttered, " The fools ! the fools ! " Frightened at the report of his anger, they crowded to his reception at the Tuileries on the morrow, whence Napoleon indignantly swept them out, and deprived them of their scarlet habits. On the 25th February, 18 10, the Emperor issued a decree, repeating the four famous clauses of the Charter of the Gallican clergy, assuring the independence and liberty of the National Church, which were expounded in all the schools of the Empire. Then the Chapter of Paris voted an address to Napoleon, in which they declared that the head of the State was not subordinate, in any of his acts, to the head of the Church, the latter being a subject of the Emperor, and therefore bound to obey his laws. But although Napoleon found a ferment of the old Gallican spirit among the bishops and clergy of France, yet he had fatally injured the cause of the Church by the Concordat; and Pius VII. now used the power admitted by that compact, to refuse to confirm the nominations made to vacant bishoprics, so that a considerable number of sees were left with- ROME 415 out their spiritual heads. This was all that the Pope ventured to do. It was an unscrupulous manner of resenting an injury, thus to deprive dioceses of their spiritual pastors, to paralyse the system of parochial organisation and the supply of priests to vacant benefices ; but it was the only method whereby he was able to annoy the Emperor. It is instructive to note the eagerness with which certain writers have seized on Napoleon's harsh treatment of the Pope, and confiscation of the States of the Church, as synchronising with the decline of the fortunes of the Emperor, and have endeavoured to trace in them a sequence of cause and effect. Even a man of Alison's intelligence could not resist the temptation. It is easy to point out that the declension of Napoleon's power, the disasters which crowded on him and ended in his ruin, had nothing whatever to do with his treatment of the Pope, and are explicable on other grounds, so obvious and distinct, that to associate the one with the other shows an inexcusable blindness to facts, or bias in their treatment. Napoleon had been carried into power on the wave of French national feeling, now expended, while on all sides angry and threatening rose the nationalities released by him. His fall was inevitable, from the moment that he had roused Portuguese, Spaniards, Austrians, Germans, and Russians to a consciousness of their several national existences, and of the vital force inherent in them each as a nation, at the very moment when he had pulverised liberty in France herself In the great upheaval. Southern Italy alone was torpid. There, in a people rendered debased, superstitious, unmanly, by past misgovernment, the seeds of true national life hardly existed, or were only now strewn, and had not as yet had time to germinate. Later, indeed, they appeared, and have pro- duced the United Italy of to-day. What Napoleon had set before him was a just object — the union of Italy, but the time for that union was not yet arrived. An Italy without Rome would be a body without a heart. The temporal sovereignty of the Pope was worse than an anachronism ; it was a political crime protracted from year to year. A tree is known by its fruits. The fruits of Papal sovereignty had been the debasement of the Italian people under its rule to the lowest degree of degradation to which man can be brought, who had once been civilised, and lives among traditions of his former high estate. The temporal power debased those subjects to it, and depraved the rulers. It was a tree that had brought forth apples of Sodom ; nay, worse than that, rank poison. Napoleon, however, acted with too great precipitation, and time for his experiment to work out results was not granted. On March 31st, 18 14, Pius VII. re-entered the States of the Church, and the sheet of lead was recast over the reviving nationality. In a proclamation, he communicated his reactionary intentions. Some of his promises may be quoted : — The abolition of the Code Napoleon, and the re-establishment of Pontifical legislation. The abolition of all the newly-instituted tribunals. 4i6 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE The abolition of all municipal rights. The restoration of the property of suppressed religious communities. The re-establishment of sanctuaries for malefactors. The Edict concluded with these words : — *' Fortunate subjects of the Holy See, and of a Pontiff so grand, so generous, so holy ! from these traits you may judge of the happiness which awaits you. It will be completed when the moment you so greatly desire shall have arrived, and you see your beloved sovereign again. You will receive him with devout exultation, and your tears of love and gratitude will render you more than ever worthy of those stupendous gifts he will pour upon you with no niggard hand." Promises of real benefits were made, as the abolition of feudal rights (31st March), but were not kept. On July 30th, the order was issued "that every baron should resume his feudal jurisdiction, with all his rights and privileges." The proclamation of Pius might well have been headed with the text from Jeremiah, " While ye look for light, he will turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness." XLV THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM /^N the 17th March, 181 1, at seven o'clock in the evening, Marie Louise became ^^ the mother of a son, and the joy of Napoleon seemed to be fulfilled. The young Prince was to be King of Rome, and it appeared as though Fortune favoured the Emperor, and promised that his dynasty should continue. But at that very time the whole structure raised by him was tottering to its fall. His generals, dazzled by his successes, did not see this, but statesmen did. Wellington, behind the lines of Torres Vedras, was certain of it ; Talleyrand, in his country house, only wondered that it did not fall to pieces faster. " Marmont," said Decres, " you see everything in a rosy light. May I put before you the truth, and unveil to you the future? The Emperor is mad, wholly mad. He will upset us all, and the end will be an overwhelming catastrophe." The members of the Rhenish Confederation were oppressed with exactions. The future of their populations was menaced by the drain of young men for the field, and the prosperity of the country jeopardised by the Continental System. " It is coming to this," said Maximilian of Bavaria, " that we shall have to lock up our houses, put the key under the door, and run away." Prussia had been torn to shreds, and nursed projects of vengeance in her heart. Although forbidden to maintain more than a moderate army, she evaded the decree by passing all her male population in succession through the ranks. Into the flank of the Empire was driven the iron wedge' of Wellington's little army, entrenched in such a position that it could not be expelled. The English general waited behind his lines, in confidence that the time was near when all Europe would again be in flames. Meanwhile he was teaching a lesson to the enemies of Napoleon how to meet him, by threatening his communica- tions, and opposing to him a method of resistance that avoided pitched battles, dispirited his troops, and took from the marshals the glory of victories — a lesson shortly to be put in practice in Russia. This latter Empire was by no means well disposed towards Napoleon. The Russian people were ill-satisfied at seeing their Czar on good terms with the Corsican. There existed among them an hereditary hatred of the Poles, and the creation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw was, as they believed, an earnest 2 E 417 4i8 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE of a re-establishment of the Polish kingdom. The annexation of Austrian- Galicia to this Duchy, in accordance with the stipulations of the Treaty of Vienna, had further excited their apprehensions. Indeed, Napoleon ought to have seen, in the eagerness with which Austria shifted Galicia from her shoulders, that Francis anticipated an advantage thereby ; but, in his impatience to have the peace concluded, and in his desire to do something more for the Poles, who had served him. Napoleon overlooked the danger. Alexander, suspicious and irritated, was further offended by the cavalier manner in which he had been treated relative to the marriage. The Emperor had probably some idea that the incorporation of Galicia with the Grand Duchy of Warsaw would cause irritation in Russia ; and on the same day on which the Treaty of Vienna was signed (20th Oct., 1809), he made the extraordinary proposal to the Czar that he should concur with him in " causing the names of Poland and Polish to disappear, not only out of every transaction, but even out of history." Alexander, by this time, had seen through the character of his ally, and his enthusiastic friendship for him had considerably cooled. He had learned ■thoroughly to mistrust his word, and to be on his guard against his ambition. He had consented to Russia entering the league against English commerce, and the inconvenience was seriously felt by his people. In Portugal, Wellington was anticipating that after the conclusion of the war with Austria, the troops that had been victorious at Wagram would be poured into the Peninsula, and that the Emperor would place himself at their head. This also was the expectation of all Europe, and it explains the timidity of the English Ministry. But to the surprise of everyone, instead of doing this, Napoleon sent the major part of the troops thus set free, to guard the seaboard from Antwerp to Danzig, converting them practically into a coastguard-force against the importation of English and colonial goods. He made little account of the genius of Wellington ; he knew that the army at his disposal numbered hardly 25,000 men, that is to say, Englishmen ; the Portuguese and Spanish contingents he considered wholly unimportant. For the same reason he grudged reinforcements, and on the principle he had laid down that a country occupied should pay for the force occupying it, regardless that the Peninsula was exhausted, he withheld likewise the provisions that were necessary for its support. It was the way with Napoleon to concentrate his thoughts on one matter at a time, and this largely tended to his success. But what succeeded in warfare, did not succeed in State policy. He was now more than ever resolved on perfecting his continental blockade, and in order to do this, he neglected to take personal command of his armies in the Peninsula. When he had completed his arrangements for closing all Europe to the English, then, if the work had not already been accomplished by Soult, Massena, or Ney, it would be time for him to enter the field, and by one masterly engagement throw the English into the sea. The decree against English commerce had been issued at Berlin. In 1807, after his return from Poland, Napoleon paid a visit to Italy, and from Milan MARIE LOUISE AND THE YOUNG KING OF ROME, From a painting by Franque. THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM 421 issued a second decree, extending and aggravating the clauses of the first, as an answer to the British Orders in Council, which put an end to the immunity which had been enjoyed by the vessels of neutral Powers. Such Powers, as the British Government justly argued, had become accomplices when accepting the dictation of Bonaparte, and must take the consequences. Napoleon by his second decree struck not only at the English trade, but also at those American vessels which had submitted to be searched, or had touched at any English port. On the same day on which the Milan decree was signed (December 17th, 1807), he wrote to Vice-Admiral Decres ordering the detention of a Russian vessel which had put into Morlaix, because, if really Russian, she would inevitably be taken by BAPTISM OF THE KING OF ROME. From a drawing by Gonbaut. English cruisers, and if she used the Russian flag merely as a protection, she deserved detention. One of Napoleon's brothers protested that this system " was more likely to ruin France than England," and Talleyrand declared that if it should succeed, the ruin of the English Constitution would be the most serious disaster that could happen to Europe. It was to enforce this vendetta against England that fire and sword were carried through Europe from Portugal to Russia, and that Napoleon dashed himself against the laws of Political Economy, and was broken to pieces. "When Napoleon," s^iys Lanfrey, "had published his two decrees of Berlin and Milan ; the former, by which he declared that England was blockaded, and that at a time when he was not able to hold a single ship on the seas ; the 422 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE second, by which he denationalised, and declared liable to be taken as prizes, all vessels belonging to neutral Powers, which submitted to the Orders in Council of the British Admiralty, and accepted their licences to sail unmolested, it was supposed to be a sort of bravado on his part, and an attempt at intimida- tion, rather than a determined system that was to be carried into execution. It was, in fact, difficult to imagine that a man with so penetrating a genius, after having recognised the impossibility of conquering England on the high seas, should have conceived the foolish idea of forcing her to capitulate by THE HOPE OF THE FRENCH EMPIRE. From a contemporary engraving. stopping all the mouths ot commerce on the Continent. The first condition for realising such a dream was that Napoleon should be absolute master on the Continent, and even then, that hypothesis being admitted, the execution would have been very difficult. Now in 1807 and 1808, the Emperor was far from being that. The continental blockade, when first announced, had seemed to be a threat, an attempt on paper to make a reprisal, a final echo of the miserable declamations of the Committee of Public Safety. It was further so considered, because at first it was observed with laxity, especially during the war with Austria. "But this illusion was of short duration. No sooner was the peace signed than Napoleon reverted with ardour keener than ever to this, his favourif THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM 423 scheme, and he proudly announced that it was his resolve to have the blockade maintained in its rigour. " To understand this system in its full severity, it is necessary to know what were its practical consequences. What it really implied was not only, as it seemed to be, the interdiction of English commerce, but that of all maritime commerce whatsoever. The first effect of the measures commanded by Napoleon had been the annihilation or immobilisation of the commercial marine of all the ancient neutral Powers. No commerce was possible except through England. The blockade meant not only the privation of manufactured goods of English make, but the absolute prohibition of all those colonial products which, in the North especially, had become objects of prime necessity, as sugar, cotton, coffee, tobacco, tea, spices, woods for dyeing, so necessary for manufacturers, and of pharmaceutic products, such as quinine ; finally, of salt itself, which in some lands, such as Sweden, only arrived by sea. "But these were not the sole inconveniences. At the same time that these precious importations from more favoured regions were forbidden entry into the Northern lands, their exports were stopped ; for their natural produce of iron, building timber, tar, were capable of transport only by water. Land carriage •tripled their cost, and created a veritable prohibition. " Thus the continental blockade meant, for the majority of the European States, the destruction of their commerce and of all great manufactures, the privation of necessaries of life, the loss of ships and of colonies ; it meant, in one word, misery and ruin. Finally, on them was imposed a whole series of insupportable vexations, for the prohibited merchandise was not only confiscated on the frontiers, but was hunted after and seized even in private houses. And with good cause has it been affirmed, especially with reference to Germany, that the Continental System served, far more than did conquest, to rouse the people against France." * Bourrienne, who was French Minister at Hamburg, had ample opportunity for judging of the effect of this mischievous system. It encouraged smuggling among the people on the frontier and fraud among the officials. On the coast of Oldenburg, he says, the trade with England was carried on uninterruptedly. When the custom-house officers succeeded in seizing contraband goods, fights ensued, in which they sometimes came off worst. On July 2nd, 1809, for instance, the officers captured eighteen waggons laden with English goods at Brinkam ; but the peasantry armed, fell on the officers, and recaptured the entire convoy. In Hamburg, about 6,000 persons of the lower orders were employed in smuggling. They passed backwards and forwards between Altona and Ham- burg some twenty times a day, conveying contraband goods into the town. On the left of the road were sand-pits, whence sand was extracted for laying on the streets. The smugglers filled the sand-pits with brown sugar, and the little carts, which usually conveyed the 'sand into Hamburg, were filled with sugar. Then a sudden mortality seemed to have broken out among the poor, and the number of funeral processions which passed in and out of the gates created both surprise and alarm. On a hearse being arrested and examined, it was found stuffed with coffee, vanilla, and indigo. * Lanfrey, v. 237. 424 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Napoleon found it impossible to maintain the system in all its rigour in France, the fertility of which, and its favourable climate, rendered it more capable of enduring the privation of colonial goods than Germany, Sweden, and Russia ; and he devised a means of signing licences, which empowered trading vessels to import foreign goods into France, on condition that they exported an equivalent of French goods. But this did not succeed. England was, indeed, ready enough to receive French wines, but it refused French silks ; and it was a common practice to lade a vessel with old and damaged silks of French manu- facture, throw them into the sea, and return laden with articles supplied by England. The scandalous feature in this organised fraud on the system he had himself invented and enforced, was that Napoleon derived an enormous profit from exemptions, and felt no scruple whatever in ruining honest traders by granting monopolies. The agents under him followed his example. But in violating his own laws, he intended to reserve all the benefits of transgression for himself, and he pursued with savage resentment everyone else, his brother and brother-in- law included, who would not enforce his decrees, and punish every infraction. This intolerable system gave him an opportunity to meddle with, hector, and browbeat all the kings, princes, and grand dukes under his control, and afforded him at any moment an excuse for deposing them, and annexing or parcelling out their lands. In 1809, when Sweden concluded peace with Russia, Napoleon exacted, in return for Stralsund and Pomerania, which were occupied by his troops, that she should enter into the Continental System. To Sweden, colonial produce was of prime necessity, and to enforce his blockade was to kill her iron manufacture, and to deny her people the necessaries of life. This soon mani- fested itself, and the blockade was very inadequately enforced. Napoleon, who was made aware by his agents and spies of all infractions of his decrees, complained a very few months after the signature of the treaty. He demanded the expulsion of the English consuls, and the seizure of colonial merchandise. " My intention is," added he, " to make war against Sweden rather than endure to be insulted by her," * and a month later, he peremptorily informed the Swedish Minister in Paris that he would have his passports sent him if the Regent delayed any longer the execution of the Convention relative to the blockade. In his blundering notions of social economy, Napoleon thought by the blockade to profit France, by sealing up the mouths of the German and other rivers. He hoped to establish an industrial and commercial monopoly for France, or rather for himself and his own creatures. All seized goods fell to him, and he granted licences to certain firms to manufacture the coffees, and use the dyes, which by this means came into his possession ; and as these imports were forbidden everywhere else, he supposed that the Continent would have to come to France for all its manufactured cotton goods and dyed silks. Speculators calculated on this, and were ready to pay large sums to him for these privileges. But the English, who had become absolute masters of commerce, by the very * To Champagny, i6th May, i8io. THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM 425 measures Napoleon had adopted against the neutral Powers, sold their wares at enormous prices to those who were licensed to buy of them. They sold a pound of sugar, which cost them fivepence, for four or five francs. The merchant who paid this sum had also to add to the cost what his licence had cost him, and to make some profit for himself. It may be conceived that these products, when brought into the market, were thus placed at a price that was beyond the means of all save the very rich. The result was that people learned to do without them, or bought only such as could be smuggled into the land. The manu- facturers were obliged to discharge their workmen ; the banks, which had advanced them capital, could not recover their loans, and were compelled to suspend payment ; and the financial crisis, that had been averted only by the victory of. Austerlitz, again threatened France. In spite of evidence to the contrary. Napoleon insisted in believing that he was strangling England by his Continental System. The result of the blockade, and of his measures against the neutral powers, was that England had been freed from competition ; and although there was, indeed, a glut of good things from the East and West Indies in England, yet this was only temporary, and with a little ingenuity, and with the connivance of the authorities in the several States, all this superfluity was, little by little, sure of infiltration into the countries that demanded them as requisites of existence. Russia suffered very severely from the embargo placed on the English trade. It was inevitable that Alexander should discover how that, in France, what was so severely exacted of him was not enforced, and that Napoleon was en- deavouring, by his blockade, to produce a monopoly in produce for his own special benefit. The Czar complained, and pointed out that the results of this system were ruin to Russia, and that the granting of licences to favoured persons and firms in France was an intolerable breach of the contract. Napoleon answered by denying what was an open secret. It was true, he said, that he did give licences, permitting the export of French produce, such as corn and wine, but he absolutely denied that he did so for imports.* * To Champagny, Feb. i8th, 1810. XLVI GREATNESS OR LITTLENESS A T this point, before coming to the rupture with Russia, we may pause for -^ ^ a moment, to look a Httle more closely at Napoleon himself, his surround- ings, his private life, and the workings of his mind. It is impossible not to see, running through his conduct, a vein of savage irritation against England. It was this which prompted his Continental System, and drove him to his ruin. This hatred of his was constantly fed, and that un- necessarily. The English press poured forth the bile of the emigres^ and the British people enjoyed their laugh at " Old Boney," when presented in the caricatures of Gillray and Cruikshank. But he himself forfeited all right of complaining of the attacks of the English press, by dictating the most scurrilous articles against George III. and the British Government. In an article in the Moniteur^ he asserted that George Cadoudal had received the Order of the Bath for attempting to assassinate him, and that he would have been honoured with the Garter had he succeeded. He actually kept Mounier and twelve clerks at work, extracting, translating, and, abridging the pamphlets and news- paper notices that were launched against him from England, and the com- positions of the caricaturists were regularly transmitted to him, rousing him to transports of fury. . Napoleon was mentally incapable of understanding a joke, especially one levelled at himself. He was suspicious and jealous of those who surrounded him. He employed spies to watch even his most faithful friends, and, with the inquisitiveness of a low-class servant-maid, peered into their private corre- spondence. He had no more devoted adherent than Junot ; yet even he was subjected to the indignity of being watched and reported on. One day, as Napoleon stood at a window, he noticed that one of his officers stooped and picked up and studied a bit of paper. His suspicions were at once aroused, and he despatched an aide-de-camp to summon the officer into his presence, and learn from him what was on the scrap of paper.* If he saw two persons whisper or look significantly at each other, he insisted on questioning them, to twist out of them what they had said, or what they meant by the look. As it may be recollected, his ever-watchful suspicion bade him observe and comment on Madame Junot wearing dark velvet at his coronation. * Secret Memoirs, p. 229. 426 GREATNESS OR LITTLENESS 427 In conversation with ladies, he was not only rude, but coarse. Madame de Remusat says, " He, who never esteemed women, always professed positive veneration for Hortense (Beauharnais). In her presence, his language was always careful and decent. ' Hortense,' he said more than once, ' compels me to believe in virtue.' When General Bonaparte was in high spirits, he was. equally devoid of taste and moderation, and on such occasions his manners smacked of the barrack-room." NAPOLEON At THE THEATRE. From a sketch taken from life by Girodet, April 13, 1812. "During his journey in Italy, the idleness of life in palaces and its oppor- tunities had given rise to several gallant adventures on his part, which were more or less serious, and these had been duly reported in France, where they fed the general appetite for gossip. One day, when several ladies of the Court — among them those who had been in Italy — were breakfasting with the Empress, Bonaparte came suddenly into the room, and leaning on the back of his wife's chair, addressed to one or another of us a few words, at first insignificant enough. Then he began to question us about what we were doing, and let us know, but only by hints, that some of us were very lightly spoken of by the public. The Empress, who knew her husband's ways, and was aware that, when talking in this manner, he was apt to go very far, tried to interrupt him ; but the Emperor, persisting in the conversation, presently gave it an exceedingly 428 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE embarrassing turn. ' Yes, ladies . . . they say that you, Madame , have a liaison with M. ; that you, Madame ,' and so he went on, addressing him- self to three or four ladies in succession. The effect upon us all of such an attack may easily be imagined. The Emperor was amused by the confusion into which he threw us. * But,' added he, * you need not suppose that I approve of talk of this kind. To attack my Court is to attack myself, and I do not choose that a word shall be said, either of me, or of my family, or of my Court.' While thus speaking, his countenance darkened, and his voice became extremely harsh. . . . He proceeded to work himself into a furious passion upon this text, which he had entirely to himself, for not a single one of us attempted to make an answer. The Empress at length rose from the table, in order to terminate this unpleasant scene, and the general movement put an end to it Bonaparte was greatly surprised when the Empress represented to him the impropriety of this scene ; he always insisted that we ought to have been very grateful for the readiness with which he took offence when we were attacked." He could be rude also to men. He rarely remembered a name, and his first question to a lady or to a gentleman whom he saw in his saloons was, " And pray, what do you call yourself?" Gretry, the musical composer, who frequently attended the Sunday receptions, was a little tired of this oft- repeated question, and he once answered, " Sire, I am still Gretry." Ever afterwards the Emperor recognised him perfectly. His immoralities were repeated, and he was very angry if his wife were jealous. Madame de Recamier says : " 1 observed that from the moment he paid attention to another woman — whether it was that his despotic temper led him to expect that his wife should approve this indication of his. absolute independence in all things, or whether Nature had bestowed upon him so limited a faculty of loving that it was all absorbed by the person preferred at the time, and that he had not a particle of feeling left to bestow upon another — he became harsh, violent, and pitiless to his wife. Whenever he had a mistress, he let her know it, and showed a sort of savage ^surprise that she did not approve of his indulging in pleasures which, as he would demonstrate, so to speak, mathematically, were both allowable and necessary for him. ' I am not an ordinary man,' he would say, ' and the laws of morals and of custom were never made for me.'"* Of tenderness of feeling he had little or none. He was as fond as he could be of his little nephew, the son of his brother Louis, but only because the child was to reign in his room and perpetuate his dynasty. When it died of croup, he showed such obtuseness of feeling that Talleyrand was constrained to reprimand him. " You forget, Sire, that a death has occurred in your family, and that you ought to look serious." " I do not amuse myself," replied Bonaparte, " by thinking of dead people." An instance of his insensibility is mentioned by Constant. Lannes had been killed at Aspern. As one day Napoleon was walking through the manufactory at Sevres with Marie Louise and Mme. Lannes, he halted in front of a porcelain bust of the deceased Marshal, and regardless of the pallor of the widow, asked her whether she thought it like her husband. "She could not answer him, but burst into * Mhnoires^ i. 91. GREATNESS OR LITTLENESS 429 tears, and it was several days before she reappeared at Court, and, indeed, it was only with difficulty that her friends could persuade her to resume service with the Empress."* . An amusing story is told, illustrative of the overbearing conduct o4 Napoleon in his own family. He had been invited by Joseph to dine with him at his house at Mortefontaine. It was to be a family gathering. The mother of the Bonapartes was there. This was before Napoleon became Emperor, when he was First Consul. Joseph told his brother that he intended taking his mother in to dinner, and that Josephine would sit on his left. Napoleon fired up, was very angry, and insisted that Josephine should be given precedence over his mother. Joseph, with quiet dignity, remarked that in his own house he chose to show highest respect to his mother, and gave his arm to the old lady. Lucien escorted Josephine, The First Consul in a towering rage rushed across the room, snatched his wife away from Lucien, pushed out of the room before Joseph and his mother, seated himself at the table and Josephine beside him, and signed to Madame de Recamier to take the place on his left. The company was greatly embarrassed, and Madame Joseph, the lady of the house, who was to have been on Napoleon's arm, came straggling in without a partner. The whole dinner party was spoiled by the conduct of Napoleon. The brothers were angry, the old lady was wretched. The First Consul would not address a single member of his family during the meal, but talked only to his wife and Madame de Recamier. As may well be imagined, with such scenes enacted when he was only on the step to the throne, he became afterwards far more exacting. Of the duplicity with which Napoleon acted, many instances have been given. His assurances, his engagements, could not be trusted. He broke his promises as fast as he made them. He was a master of dissimulation. Knowing how he frightened and imposed by an outburst of anger, he was able to simulate one, and after a terrific explosion, would bid his intimates feel his pulse, to see how little agitated he really was. A letter to Eugene Beauharnais, on his appoint- ment as Viceroy of Italy, reveals some of the cynicism of his views, and liking for dissimulation : — " As you are not of an age to be acquainted with the perversity of the human heart, we cannot recommend too much prudence and circumspection. Our subjects in Italy are naturally more false than the citizens of France. The only means you have of preserving their esteem, and of being useful to their happiness, will be by not according your entire confidence to anyone. . . . Dissimulation, natural at a certain age, should be to you a matter of principle. When you have spoken according to your heart, and without necessity, consider that you have committed a fault, and do not be guilty of the same error again. Show the nation over which you rule the more esteem, the less reason you find for esteeming it." The Duke of Wellington said : " Bonaparte's mind was, in its details, low and ungentlemanlike. I suppose the narrowness of his early prospects and habits stuck to him. What we understand hy gentlemanlike feelings he knew * Constant, Memoirs, iv. 154. 430 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE i nothing at all about. I'll give you a curious instance. I have a beautiful little watch, made by Bregnet at Paris, with a map of Spain enamelled on the case. . . . Bonaparte had ordered it as a present to his brother, the King of Spain ; but when he heard of the battle of Vittoria, he remembered the watch he had ordered for one whom he saw would never be King of Spain, and with whom he was angry for the loss of the battle, and he wrote to countermand the watch ; and if it should be ready, to forbid its being sent. A gentleman would not have taken the moment when the poor devil had lost his chateaux en Espagne to take away his watch also." * (^. A noticeable feature of Napoleon's character was his determination to be first, and to imitate what former sovereigns had done, as part of his assumed position. When negotiating with M. de Cobentzel the Treaty of Campo- Formio, he observed a dais with a chair on it, and he asked the meaning. He was informed by the plenipotentiary that it was customary so to set a seat as symbol of the presence of his Imperial master. Napoleon at once ordered the removal of the chair, *' For," said he, "I cannot endure to see any seat higher than mine. At once I want to occupy it." When he entered Brussels, the clergy proceeded to the great gates to receive him, and waited long, but he did not arrive. Presently they learned that he had entered by a side door, because Charles V., on a visit to S. Gudule, had gone through that entrance. " The same pride made him depreciate his generals, and arrogate to himself all the merits of a victory. This was notoriously the case at Marengo and at Auerstadt. Moreover, if he made a blunder, and disaster followed, he at once cast the blame on his instrument, and distorted facts, or suppressed information which would show that the fault was due to himself. Monsieur de Remusat gives so interesting an account of Napoleon's treatment of his generals and manipulation of bulletins, that it deserves reproduction : — " The Emperor took the utmost licence in composing his bulletins, seeking especially to eclipse all the others {i.e., his generals), and to establish his own infallibility. . . . Truth lagged a long way behind all these statements. Nothing could equal the surprise of the officers on reading the bulletins which came back to them from Paris ; but they made few complaints. " The Emperor gave but little praise to the great generals of his time. Military men are more jealous of each other than those of any other profession ; they are the least to be relied on in their estimation of each other. To this natural jealousy the Emperor added the calculations of a despot, who will allow no one to be of importance except himself. . . . He was always resolute in deny- ing, or in preserving silence concerning, anything which might injure himself. This rendered the service unbearable to those generals who were at a distance from himself. They accused him of selfishness, of injustice, of perfidy, and even of malice towards them, or of envy. Barante has told me that, when attached to the staff of Lannes, during the campaign of Poland, I believe, he heard the Marshal frequently say at his own table that the Emperor, being jealous of him, and eager to ruin him, gave him orders with this end in view ; and once, when suffering from internal pain, he went so far as to assert that the Emperor had tried to have him poisoned." * The Croker Papers^ 1884, vol. i. p. 339. GREATNESS OR LITTLENESS 43i\ Belief in himself as destined to a great work, an absolute conviction in his " calling and election," seem to have been in him from an early age. Madame de Rdmusat very truly observes of him :^ " He never took anything into account but success, in the calculations on which he acted. Perhaps he was more excusable than another would have been, in doubting whether any reverse could come to him. His natural pride shrank from the idea of defeat of any kind. '/ shall win,' was the basis of all his calculations, and his obstinate repetition of the phrase helped him to realise the prediction. At length his own good fortune grew into a superstition with him, and his worship of it made every sacrifice which was to be imposed appear fair and lawful in his eyes. And we ourselves — let us admit it — did not we also, at first, share this baleful superstition ? " • The confidence in Napoleon's good fortune was indeed general throughout France, and he was credited with a sort of infallibility, not only in war, but in politics. At the outset of his career, he was filled with fancies of founding a mighty Oriental Empire. With the death of this dream rose that of a mighty Western Empire. His first ideal had been to walk in the steps of Alexander ; his second, to be a new Charlemagne. From thenceforth France became to him but one province in the empire, and the foreign sovereignties he created or subjugated were to be to him feudatories. He believed that he could attain his object by placing members •of his own family on the various thrones of the countries he conquered, and he imposed on them oaths of allegiance to himself He said : — " It is my intention to attain to this, that all the kings of Europe will be forced each to have a palace in Paris ; and that, on the occasion of a coronation of an Emperor of the French, all will be summoned to reside there, so as to attend at the ceremony, and pay their homage." It must be recalled that he had the Holy Roman Empire before him, broken up by his power, but never other than a phantom empire. What was a phantom of the Middle Ages he desired to revive as a reality, with Paris as its centre. His creation of great feudatory nobles was a step in that direction. In the Middle Ages the nobles had been checks on the crown ; but what he designed with his new nobility was to make them buttresses of the throne. For this reason, he gave to them the so-called Majorats, or power of leaving large hereditary estates, their ducal properties, unparcelled up, to their successors in the title. The idea was a very great one, and, perhaps, would not have been impossible of execution, had it not been advanced with such violence. More- over, just as England stood in the way of his realising this Oriental scheme of empire, so did she frustrate, at every point, the consolidation of his Occidental Empire. It seems to me that Madame de Remusat has hit, with real genius, on what is at once the greatness and the weakness of Napoleon, when she says that in him were two individuals, the one gigantic rather than great, and 432 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE the other petty and base. Her appreciation is as acute as any by Tacitus. She says : — " There would seem to have been in him two different men, the one gigantic rather than great, but, nevertheless, prompt to conceive, also prompt to execute, who laid, from time to time, some of the foundations of the plan he had formed. This man, actuated by one single idea, untouched by any secondary considera- tion likely to interfere with his projects, had he but taken for his aim the good of mankind, would, with such abilities, have become the one greatest man of the earth. Even now he remains, through his perspicacity and strength of will, the most extraordinary. " The other Bonaparte, forming a kind of uneasy conscience to the first, was devoured by anxiety, agitated by continual suspicion, a slave to passions which gave him no rest, distrustful, fearing every rival greatness, even that which he had himself created. . . . When seized upon by this spirit of mistrust, he gave himself up to it entirely, and thought only of how to create division. He loosed the ties of blood, and endeavoured to promote individual rather than general interests. Sole centre of an immense circle, he would have liked it to contain as many spokes as he had subjects, that they might meet nowhere save in himself This suspicious jealousy, which incessantly pursued him, fastened like a canker on all his undertakings, and prevented him from establishing, on a solid foundation, any of those schemes which his prolific imagination was continually inventing." THEY GRUMBLED, BUT FOLLOWED. From a lithograph by Raffet. XLVII MOSCOW (1812) '' I ''HE effusion wherewith Alexander had embraced Napoleon at Erfurt, before -^ an audience in the theatre, had been suitable to the place where the de- monstration was made. It disguised mistrust, and an inclination to dissolve partnership. This mistrust had gathered strength since the meeting. The addition of territory accorded to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw not only annoyed Alexander, but exasperated the susceptibilities of the Russians. The Autocrat of the North could not afford to disregard the will of his people. His father and his grandfather had been assassinated, and there were mutterings about his throne that a similar fate would befall him if he continued the intimacy. The compact forced on him, of entering into the continental blockade, had provoked general irritation. The produce of the Empire remained on hand, as the English, in retaliation, refused to receive it. The great landowners complained. Tea could be imported from China by land, but not coffee, sugar, and logwood. Moreover, he was personally offended by the demand for his sister, couched as it was, and he was incensed with Napoleon for making his arrangements to take an Austrian Archduchess, without awaiting the expiration of the term he had himself named. The retention by France of the seven Venetian Islands, situated so near Greece, made him fear a watchful and redoubtable enemy, should he resume Catherine's old plans with regard to the Ottoman Empire. 2 F 433 434 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE The rigour with which Prussia had been used displeased him, as well as the continued occupation of Danzig and the Hanse Towns. The Czar began by degrees to seek reconciliation with England. All the Powers of the Continent had suffered severely ; Russia alone still preserved her energy, and her strength was unimpaired. Then, with singular lack of discretion. Napoleon laid his hand on Olden- burg, with the Ducal House of which the Czar was closely related. Alexander's reply to the taking of the Duchy of Oldenburg was a ukase, dated the 31st December, 18 10, by which he detached Russia from the commercial system of Napoleon, and without as yet opening his ports to English manu- factures, he admitted colonial merchandise, resumed the liberty of tariffs, and imposed duties on certain French manufactures. Before a final rupture with France, Alexander proceeded to raise levies, to make peace with Turkey, to collect his forces on the Polish frontier, and to execute defensive works on the Dnieper and Dwina. The infatuation of Napoleon in his Continental System continued. It was now, he believed, but a matter of holding out for two or three years, and England would become bank- rupt. She was, he said, a deux doigts de sa perte. Only continue the blockade till she collapsed financially, and then he would be able to march an invincible French army into London, change the selfish and anti-social Constitution of the country, and declare that the dynasty of Brunswick had ceased to reign. Allans^ then ! let us persevere a little longer ; let us burn all British merchandise, wherever found ; let us punish as traitors all those who attempt to introduce British goods into any part of the Continent ; and, for the triumph of this great system, let us brave, if needs be, the remonstrances and the enmity of even the Czar Alexander ! The resentment of Napoleon against Russia, for receding from the Continental System, may be conceived. Some of the French writers in the pay of the Emperor, who had formerly been employed in writing eulogiums of Alexander, were now set to work to traduce him, his whole family, his Court, his country, and his people ; and between the autumn and the winter of 181 1, and the spring of 1812, as many calumnies were produced against Alexander, as had been issued against the unfortunate Queen Louise, preceding the opening of the Prussian war of 1806. A pretended history of the Russian Empire — a libel from the first page to the last — was published in Paris, and widely circulated, under the auspices of the police. In this book every vice and crime which Suetonius attributes to the Roman Emperors was saddled on the Russian Czars ; and Alexander himself was charged, not merely with being privy and consentient to, but an actor in, the murder of his own father. The French press was entirely under the control of the police. This was one of Bonaparte's methods of preparing the public mind for the outbreak of hostilities. After the deposition of the King of Sweden, and the death of the Crown Prince, Marshal Bernadotte had been elected to be Prince, with expectation of the crown, not to the satisfaction of Napoleon, who hated him ; but he did not actively oppose the election, because Bernadotte was married to the sister of his MOSCOW 435 own brother Joseph's wife, and he thought it gave an air of dignity to the soap- boiler's daughters, to be both of them queens. Bernadotte was by no means disposed to be dictated to by Napoleon, and he refused to join the continental blockade, which would ruin his adopted country. Thereupon the Emperor seized and confiscated fifty Swedish merchantmen ; and, lastly, in January, 1 8 12, he sent Davoust, one of the roughest of his generals, who was in com- mand of the army of occupation on the Baltic, to take possession of Swedish Pomerania and the Isle of Riigen. This aggression induced Bernadotte, who had been corresponding with Russia before, to sign a treaty of alliance with Alexander (March, 1812); and in an interview between the Gascon saddler's son and the Czar their plan of resistance, inspired by the success of Wellington in Portugal, was settled. This was, in the event of invasion, to retreat before the invading army, and avoid pitched battles, but to strongly fortify and hold fortresses in the interior. The French agent at Stockholm, by means of bribery, got hold of these plans, and communicated them to Napoleon, but the infatuated Emperor disregarded the important information sent him. Although war was not declared, Bonaparte poured troops into Prussia, Pomerania, and the Duchy of Warsaw. The frontiers of the Polish Duchy touched the limits of Alexander's domains, and the Poles, inflamed by their old animosities, and animated by their hopes for the re-establishment of their king- dom, flocked to the French eagles. Talleyrand had been in disgrace ever since he had cautioned Napoleon against his attempt upon Spain. Others beside saw that the Emperor, in the madness of pride, was rushing on his ruin. Fouche ventured to interpose. He presented the Emperor with a memorial full of statistics, and employed argu- ments and entreaties ; but this interference, together with advice from other quarters, was thrown away. Napoleon's old marshals and generals shook their heads at the suggestion of war with Russia. They recalled the difficulties and disasters of the cam- paign in Poland. In his intoxication of success. Napoleon had forgotten his defeat at Eylau, and the tenacity with which the Russian soldiers contested every foot of ground, as well as the assistance lent to the enemy by the climate of the North. His marshals were glutted with spoil, they were weary of war. All they desired was peace, that they might enjoy the fruits of the plunder of the lands they had conquered. Napoleon was incensed at their reluctance ; he would not listen to their objections. Unable to inspire them with enthusiasm and confidence, he estranged himself from their society ; and when his views met with opposition in a council, would start up, retire to an embrasure of a window, and there pour forth his assurances of conquest and spoil into the ears of some young general who had his fortune to make, and who was therefore on fire to undertake any daring expedition.* " I regulate my conduct by the opinion of my army," exclaimed the Emperor. " With 800,000 men I can oblige all Europe to do my bidding. I * Fain, Qampagne de 1812 en Riissie^ 1827, i. 46, 47. 436 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE will destroy English influence in Russia, and then Spain must fall. My destiny is not yet accomplished ; my present situation is but the outline of a picture which I must fill up. I must make one nation out of all the European States, and Paris must be the capital of the world. There must be all over Europe but one code, one court of appeal, one currency, one system of weights and measures. I will destroy all Russian influence, as well as all English influence in Europe. Two battles will do the business ; the Ernperor Alexander will come to me on his knees, and Russia shall be disarmed. Spain costs me dear ; without that I should have been master of the world by this time ; but when I shall become such by finishing with Russia, my son will have nothing to do but quietly retain my place." The purposes of Napoleon in undertaking the campaign against Russia were not, perhaps, as clearly defined as they seem to us, and as they have been stated by his panegyrists. He poured forth his ideas into the ear of his aide- de-camp, M. de Narbonne, in incoherent language, in which they clashed with- out order and connection. De Narbonne, who had a cool and clear head, was struck with the confusion in the ideas of the Emperor. On leaving one of these interviews, he exclaimed, " What *a man ! What dreams ! Where is the keeper of such a disordered genius? It oscillates between the Pantheon and Bicetre (a lunatic asylum)." Napoleon showed the same confusion and indecision of thought in his con- versations with his intimates. The members of his family w^ere seriously un- easy at seeing him risk his fortunes in the Russian plains. " Do you not see," said he impatiently, " that I was not born to the purple, and that I must main- tain myself on the throne by that same military glory which lifted me into it? Do you not perceive that I must go forward ? If 1 halt, I am lost." To the remonstrances of Cardinal Fesch, he contented himself with opening the window and saying, "Do you see that star?" "No, Sire, I do not." "Look again." " Sire, I see nothing." " That matters not. I see it." All those engaged in the expedition entered on their duties with reluctance. Cambaceres entreated him to finish with Spain before embarking in a war with Russia. Gaudin and Mollien warned him that the French finances were on the eve of bankruptcy. Duroc and Caulaincourt told him plainly their minds, with the daring of desperation. Berthier implored him to desist, with tears in his eyes. And Napoleon did pass the end of his stay in Paris in a condition of cruel indecision, combating the dangers he foresaw as well as did his generals and ministers, yet carried away by his fatalism. His health, moreover, was not what it once had been. He had become stout; after a meal he was drowsy. Occasionally he fainted ; and his readiness to eat any food, and content himself with little, had given way to daintiness and a love of luxury. His nervous excitement had become normal, at the same time that his physical powers declined. Lying on a sofa, he read all that was brought him about the condition of Russia. He often repeated the name of Charles XII. The state of his mind was such that he was subject to hallucinations. He would start up suddenly, shouting, " Who calls me ? Who calls me ? " then drop off to sleep again. MOSCOW 437 Preparations went on slowly, and it was not possible to begin the campaign in the spring. When the mistake of delaying the opening was pointed out to him, Bonaparte put away the warnings of evil with a gesture of impatience. He needed, said he, only a campaign of two months. He reckoned on the help of Sweden. He summoned Bernadotte to conclude an offensive alliance with him. The Prince of Sweden imposed conditions, and recommended peace. Napoleon flared up in anger. " The wretch ! He advise me ! Bernadotte im- pose conditions on me ! Does he suppose I want him ? " The negotiations were interrupted, and Sweden signed a treaty of neutrality with Russia. The Emperor exhibited the same irritation when his ministers offered advice. He thought of using Talleyrand to organise Poland, and prepare there a base of operations ; but this skilful diplomatist would not undertake the task without assurances given that he would re-establish the kingdom of the Jagellons. Napoleon rejected his counsels, and exclaimed disdainfully, " This fellow ! does he think himself necessary ? Does he think to teach me?" Early in May, Bonaparte departed for Dresden, taking his young Empress with him. Obedient to his summons, the kings of his manufacture, also the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia, together with the tributary princes, met him at the Saxon capital, where he treated them with rudeness. The representatives of the old royal families of Europe were shouldered at the door of his audience-chamber by marshals and generals, who the other day were coopers and blacksmiths — a strange democratic jumble, gratifying enough to men such as Junot and Ney, but which bred resentment in the hearts of the princes, keener even than that caused by their defeats and disasters. Napoleon remained at Dresden till the 29th May. The discouragement and hesitation which had for a moment overshadowed his mind, passed, and he became elated with confidence. The King of Prussia had been forced to place 20,000 men at the disposal of Bonaparte. The Emperor of Austria engaged to furnish 30,000 men to act against Russian Poland. The Kings of Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Westphalia, and Naples, the Viceroy of Italy, gave their contingents. The confidence of Napoleon was at its height. " Never," said he, *' was the success of an expedition more certain ; I see on all sides nothing but probabilities in my favour. Not only do I advance at the head of the immense forces of France, Italy, Germany, the Confederation of the Rhine, and Poland ; but the two Monarchies which have hitherto been the most powerful auxiliaries of Russia against me, have now ranged themselves on my side ; they espouse my quarrel with the zeal of my oldest friends. Why should I not reckon also on Turkey and Sweden ? The former at this moment is "probably arming against the Russians. Bernadotte hesitates, but he is a Frenchman ; he will rejoin his old associates at the first cannon-shot. Never again can such a favourable combination of circumstances be anticipated. I feel that it draws me on ; and if Alexander persists in refusing my proposals, I will cross the Niemen." 438 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE And France was carried away by the same blind infatuation. Believing as it did in Napoleon, dazzled by the vastness of his preparations, and seeing him at Dresden in the midst of an assembly of monarchs, all his humble servants, at the head of five hundred thousand men, " it appeared impossible," as Madame de Stael admits, " according to all human calculation, but that this expedition must succeed." Elated, certain of success, Napoleon allowed himself to treat the sovereigns who had assembled about him with galling disregard, and the smaller princes with insult. But this was the last time they were to endure such humiliation. NAPOLEON ADOPTING THE CHILD OF A SOLDIER WPO FELL IN THE CAMPAIGN. From a picture by Chasselat. None of them, nor the generals, nor the diplomatists, had any expectation of Alexander's success. Unless a miracle were to occur, with ' his incapable generals, his feeble army, and the distraction caused by the probability of the Turkish war breaking out again, he must be broken in pieces by the Emperor, as so many had . been before. But the common people had an indistinct, inarticulate presentiment that such a miracle would occur. This time the popular anticipation was realised. The Russians, whether purposely or not, were driven to follow the line of conduct recommended by Scharnhorst — to fall back before the invader, to lure him on into the interior of the empire, to create a waste before him, and to cut off his communications behind him. MOSCOW . 439 It is not the object of this book to detail the events of this or of any other campaign of Napoleon. It will suffice to summarise them. All could see that there was a great decline in the powers of the Emperor. He was more irritable, less active, and more callous than of old. At the moment that the Niemen was passed, his horse fell. " This is a bad omen," said he, "and a Roman would withdraw from the expedition." He was disappointed that the Russians would not meet him in pitched battle, but incessantly retired before him. He halted twenty days at Wilna, and sent forward Davoust and Murat to endeavour to force an engagement. This strange delay was due partly to his weariness, but mainly to his desire to receive the vast amount of corre- spondence, relative to the affairs of France, which followed him, and which he was determined to settle himself. In the meantime his Grand Army was becoming disorganised. It had already lost 50,000 men through desertion and dysentery. At length he gave orders for advance. Still the Russians retreated, to his great exasperation, for their tactics completely upset his calculations. He scolded and stormed, and called the Russian general a coward ; but, as Duroc said to his fellows after one of these explosions, "If Barclay had been wrong in refusing battle, the Emperor would not take so much pains to make us believe it." In order to save holy Smolensk, the Russians did, however, make a stand. After bloody battles lasting three days, the 17th to the 19th August, they were forced to abandon the field. Once again, to attempt the salvation of Moscow, the city of the Czars, the battle of Borodino was fought, and then Napoleon won the battle. This cost him more blood than any he had hitherto fought (/th Sept.). By this victory his way into the empty city was gained ; but his anticipation of resting there, and recruiting his exhausted host, was frustrated. The fanaticism of patriotism inspired the Governor with the thought of firing the city ; and, after the flames had raged for five days, the place was reduced to a heap of ashes, and the army of Napoleon was left without shelter at the approach of winter. Still the Emperor was unable to believe in his misfortune, and he wasted five precious weeks in useless negotiations, purposely protracted by Alexander, in whom Napoleon found his match in cunning. When, finally, he resolved on retreat, the first snows of winter had begun to fall. The weather had been unusually bright and warm, and Napoleon, in his bulletins, had declared that it was like that of Fontainebleau in summer. The Russians wondered, and feared that Heaven was on the side of the invader- But he was actually being lured to his destruction. There were two roads by which he might retreat. The northern road was by Smolensk ; but this had not only been devastated by the Russians as he advanced, but what little had been left had been swept up, and what little shelter remained had been burnt, on the advance of the invading army. The other road, to the south, was through Kaluga, and this he resolved to take. Murat was sent forward with the advanced guard, but was attacked and badly beaten, at Winkovo, on October i8th. On the following day Napoleon hastily marched 440 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE out of Moscow, along the same road, at the head of 105,000 combatants, and was at once met by the Russians at Jaroslawitz. A battle was fought, without dislodging the Russians, who remained astride the road, blocking his advance. Napoleon was constrained either to fight them again, or withdraw and retreat by the northern road. The former alternative was fraught with peril, the latter was a confession of defeat. The agitation of the mind of the Emperor became so excessive that his attendants dared not approach him. Upon returning to the squalid cottage he occupied, he sent for his generals — Berthier, Murat, and Bessieres. They sat round a table, on which was spread a map of the country, and discussed the THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. From a lithograph by Fabre du Paure. situation. The enemy occupied high ground, and so strong a position, that to dislodge them seemed a desperate venture. After some discussion. Napoleon became meditative, and, resting his face in his hands, with his elbows on the board, he remained for over an hour mute and motionless. The three generals, respecting his mental agony, preserved silence. Then, and then for the first time, did it seem that the idea had dawned on Napoleon's mind that Fortune was turning her back, that his star was in decline. Suddenly springing to his feet, Napoleon dismissed his generals without announcing to them his resolution. With rage and humiliation gnawing at his heart, he ordered the retreat by the northern road. The story of that retreat is familiar to everyone. The starving, diseased, MOSCOW 441 disorganised, and mutinous columns were followed by the Cossacks like a flock of vultures or a pack of wolves, and the Russian Grand Army was never far distant. The French|left Moscow 120,000 strong; but by the time they reached Viazma, on the Wop,^they were reduced to one-half On the 6th November, the Russian winter set in with severity. The men now died like rotten sheep. The survivors at length reached Smolensk, to which convoys of provisions had been sent. On the 14th of November, Bonaparte left Smolensk with about THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. After a lithograph by Willette. 40,000 men able to bear arms, but had to clear the way by fighting, and was incessantly harassed in rear. Frost and snow, the nipping blasts of night, which howled over the treeless houseless plains, killed more than the swords and spears of the Cossacks, who swarmed around. The retreating army owed its safety solely to dread of the Russians to drive a defeated foe to desperation, and to the awe still inspired by the name of Napoleon. On the 1 6th, 17th, and i8th, actions were fought, in which the French lost 116 cannon. They had abandoned nearly that number in Smolensk. They lost 26,000 prisoners, 10,000 killed, and 300 officers. 442 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Disorganisation ensued in the army. The horses had perished, or were reserved for the wounded. Napoleon himself walked, silent, discouraged wrathful, with a birch-rod in his hand, to save himself from falling on the icy roads. When he reached Oresa, in Lithuania, his Grand Army had dwindled to 12,000 men ; but, on approaching the river Berezina, he was joined by a rescue corps of nearly 50,000 men. One-half of the army thus reinforced was lost in effecting the passage of the river. The previous night had been spent by Napoleon in a miserable cabin, " great tears running slowly down his cheeks, which were paler than usual." * That any passed at all was due to the bungling of the Russian general. After this terrible passage, hardly the semblance of an army remained. Marshal Ney, with difficulty, was able to hold together three thousand men to form a rear-guard, to protect the demoralised and timorous rout from the lances of the Cossacks. The Emperor marched in the midst of a guard called "the Sacred Squadron," com- posed of officers combined for his protection. On the 5 th December Napoleon reached Smorgoni. He there collected his mar- shals round him, and dictated the famous 29th bulletin, in which, for the first and last time, he told the whole truth, frankly confessing that, except the Guards, the Grand Army was no more. At 10 o'clock on the night of the 6th of December he stole away from the wretched remnant, as he had stolen away from the typhus-stricken wreck of his army in Egypt, and in a sledge, well wrapped in furs, set out for the French capital, leaving the command of the army to Murat. " On the morrow, at break of day, the army knew all. The impression pro- duced by the news cannot be described. Discouragement was at its height, many soldiers blasphemed, and reproached the Emperor with abandoning * Constant, Memoirs^ v. 127. IHIHHRf^ V 0^; . ^H V i^€ ' '^tif * Jt'^^^Mf jffif ^. 4 ^^ *Wl^ 4^^^feM^^^^^^^^S^^^^B H NAPOLEON MUSING OVER HIS MAPS AT NIGHT. After a sketch by Germain Bapst. MOSCOW 443 them ; there rose a general cry of malediction. . . . That night the cold became more intense. It must have been very bitter, for birds were found frozen on the ground. Soldiers seated themselves, their heads in their hands, and their bodies bowed, so as the less to feel the void in their stomachs, fell asleep, and were found dead in this position. . . . The artillerymen held their hands to the nostrils of the horses, to find a little warmth in their breath. The flesh of these beasts became the ordinary food of the soldiers."* The Emperor reached Paris on the i8th December. As he stood in the luxurious and splendid apartment of the Tuileries, warming himself before a blazing fire, he said, " Gentlemen, it is much pleasanter here than in Moscow." He very soon shook off his despondency, and his self-reliance returned. Constant says : — " I found him absolutely the same as he was before entering on the cam- paign ; the same serenity was pictured on his face. One would have said that the past had been nothing to him, and that, already living in the future, he again saw victory ranged under his banners, and his enemies humbled and conquered. ... It was easy to see that he was mainly occupied with the adventure of the General Malet." f This was a conspiracy, nearly successful, that had occurred whilst he was in retreat ; and it was probably alarm for his throne which made him desert his army. The streets of Paris were full of women in mourning for husbands, brothers, and sons lost in the Russian campaign. Napoleon alone seemed insensible to the terrible sufferings and loss of life that had resulted from his mad scheme. " The great error of Napoleon," says Byron, in a note to the Third Canto of Childe Harold, " was a continued obtrusion on mankind of his want of all com- munity of feeling for or with them ; perhaps more offensive to human vanity than the active cruelty of more trembling and suspicious tyranny. Such were his speeches to public assemblies as well as to individuals, and the single ex- pression which he is said to have used, on returning to Paris after the Russian winter had destroyed his army, rubbing his hands over a fire, * This is pleasanter than Moscow,' would probably alienate more favour from his cause, than the destruction and reverses which led to the remark." * Constant, v. 138. t Ibid.^ 161. I XLVIII LEIPZIG (1813) N 18 1 2, before the Russian campaign, Marshal Rapp wrote to Napoleon :- " If your Majesty should experience reverses, you may depend upon it that both Russians and Germans will rise up in a mass to shake off the yoke. There will be a crusade, and all your allies will abandon you. Even the King of Bavaria, on whom you rely so confidently, will join the Coalition. I rely on the King of Saxony only. He, perhaps, may remain faithful to you ; but his sub- jects will force him to make common cause with your enemies." * What Rapp had foreseen, and not he alone, was now to take place. Napoleon, by decree on the loth December, 18 10, had united all the coast lands of the Baltic to the Empire ; Oldenburg, the north of Hanover, which had been given to the kingdom of Westphalia, were taken from it again ; all the Hanseatic Towns were also appropriated, and this new Baltic province was divided into five departments, which were united with the seven on the left bank of the Rhine. The Free Towns had been frightfully pillaged. Not only was their trade killed, but such enormous contributions had been levied on them as reduced the citizens to indigence. Prussia was burdened with a charge of 129 millions of francs, along with contributions in kind of a thousand millions, and then a further 154J millions was demanded. A united people had been trampled under foot, insulted, and their kingdom torn to shreds, and given as a prey to others. / In the Austrian Empire, Hungarian, German, Czech, Croat, were all of one mind, influenced by one burning rage against the conqueror. After the humiliating Treaty of Vienna, when Francis appeared in his capital, he was received with rapture of love and sympathy. When Napoleon heard of this, he was staggered. " What a people ! " he exclaimed. "If this had happened to me, would the French, the Parisians, have thus received me ? " Upon the arrival of the wreck of the Grand Army in Germany, no one out- side France doubted that the hour of the emancipation of the Fatherland had struck. Whilst Arndt, with his Catechism for the German Warrior arid Defender, braced his countrymen to the holy work of a crusade. Stein sought to move the Czar to carry the war beyond the confines of Russia. He found this easy. In * BOURRIENNE, iii. 30. 444 LEIPZIG 445 his fantastic vanity, Alexander thought to exhibit himself before an admiring world as its liberator, and to receive the crown of Poland as the reward of his work. But Prussia was in a desperate condition. In spite of the glowing hate that burnt in every heart, it was not possible to think of open defiance, because of the French troops lodged in her very marrow, holding her fortresses, ready to crush every uprising. Hardenberg, the Prussian minister, accordingly pressed on the arming of the nation, that the mask might be cast aside as soon as ever the alliance of Austria was secured. This cautious policy, so distasteful to all patriots, was followed, when suddenly the joyous news ran, like an electric shock, through the land, that a German creneral had dared to do what a German minister had shrunk from ordering. General Yorck von Wiirtemberg had, of his own accord, broken the tie which had bound the Prussian auxiliaries to France, and had gone over and joined hands with the Russians, whom he had been sent to resist. The Prussian contingent formed a portion of the army of Macdonald, and was planted on the extreme left wing, in the Baltic provinces, and their orders were to cover the retreating remnants of the Grand Army, and to defend the frontier against the Russians. Yorck might have abandoned the French alliance at any moment, and if he had done so earlier, might have annihilated the broken army of their oppressors. But he was too honourable and generous to do this. He waited till he received from the King of Prussia, his master, the vague permission "to act as circumstances advised." This counsel allowed the purpose of the King to transpire^ and when the Czar, on the i8th December, gave a written promise of alliance with Prussia, and an undertaking not to lay down his arms till that State had recovered its former extent before dismemberment in 1805, then Yorck took the decisive step, and on the 30th December, 18 12, he signed a Convention at Tauroggen, whereby he agreed to withdraw between Memel and Tilsit to await further orders from the King. He took the entire responsibility on himself " I swear to your Majesty," he wrote to the King of Prussia, "that I will await the fatal lead as calmly on the sand-heap as on the battle-field whereon I grew grey." The Chancellor, Hardenberg, was alarmed. But the die was cast : a quiver of joy, of impatience to be up and doing, thrilled through the German people. The King, alarmed, and dreading the results, fled to Breslau, which he reached on the 23rd January, 18 13. There was now no retreat possible, and on the 3rd February he called out the volunteers, and on the 28th, at Kalisch, signed an agreement of alliance with the Czar. This was kept secret from the French, but on the i6th March the King proclaimed war, and on the following day issued his " Appeal to my People " to fly to arms. " There is no other issue," he said therein, " than to achieve an honourable peace, or to perish gloriously." The response was unanimous, so much so as to move the King ; such devotion, such enthusiasm, he had not expected, and it was Scharnhorst's proudest day when he presented himself before his monarch, at the head of an army of young and old volunteers. Every class rivalled the others in its zeal to aid the State 446 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE in its poverty. Gold had long ago been drained away into France, but the last coins were cheerfully flung into the war chest. Brides gave up their very wedding-rings, and the girls cut off their abundant hair to sell it for money to assist in the defence of Fatherland. Signature at Erfurt, 13 October, 1813. A writer of the time, an eye-witness, in a letter, says, " It is impossible not to be electrified by beholding the ardour with which the people give vent to the national enthusiasm, so long stifled under the yoke of an ignominious policy, and overawed by the terrors of the French legions. The King's sister has sent all her ornaments to the public treasury ; and at this instant all women, sacri- ficing their most precious objects, are hastening to send theirs, down to the minutest articles, for the same patriotic purpose. When I say all women, I in no degree exaggerate ; for I do not believe you can find a single exception, save in the most indigent class, who do not possess a single golden ornament. All the marriage ornaments have been laid on the altar of their country, and the Government has given them in exchange others of iron, with the inscription, "/ gave gold for iron, 1813." These ornaments, so precious from the moral interest of their origin, have already acquired a certain intrinsic value from the beauty of their workmanship. The streets are filled with nothing but women, old men, and children ; not an unwounded man, capable of bearing arms, is to be seen. A barren land of sand, covered with pines, exhibits the astonishing spectacle of 200,000 men in arms."* While Goethe was incapable of understanding and appreciating the mighty movement, and sneered at it, saying, "■ Rattle your chains ; the man is still too great for you," Korner burst forth into glorious song, " The people rise, the tempest bursts ! " and Arndt bade all Germans clasp hands and swear, " The time of slavery is at an end." Max von Schenkendorf, in spite of his paralysed right arm, girded for the battle. Fouque sang, " Frisch auf zum frohlichen Jagen," which was caught up and thundered by the volunteers, as they marched against the enemy. From that moment " Prussia " and " Fatherland " became synonymous words. The disciplining of the Landwehr went on with extraordinary rapidity, but the * PiZARRO : 17th November, 1813, in Hardenberg, Mimoires, Paris, 1829-35, xii. 565. LEIPZIG 447 true military strength and experience were only to be acquired on the battle- field. The Landsturm consisted of all men from fifteen to sixty not already enrolled; they were called out on the 2ist April, not to be employed in the field, but for convoy of munitions, spying, guerilla warfare, and fortification work. Before a rising wave of a whole population in Germany, such as had been in Spain, but of very superior quality and menace, Napoleon said that it would be in vain for him to think of carrying the war into Russia. Denmark he could reckon on ; the Rhenish Confederacy was also as yet but little affected r i A 1 1 f 1 1 wmw.jt^ ^ \ [.T^^ ■ ^ wR ".^••\:^^K - ^^kmH^H ^s i' ' >«< K/'X ^ , s *"'<< mm SIRE, YOU MAY RECKON ON US AS ON YOUR OLD GUARD. From a lithograph by Raffet. by the movement. Not so Saxony, deeply committed to him. Frightened by the agitation among his people, and the threatening attitude of the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, Frederick Augustus of Saxony fled from his kingdom. Meanwhile, Napoleon left no stone unturned to form an army, with the object of shattering Prussia to atoms. One hundred and eighty thousand men were ordered to be raised by the senatus consultum of April, 1 8 1 3 ; among these were 10,000 guards of honour to surround the Emperor. In Prussia was a French army, consisting of 30,000 veteran troops, commanded by Prince Eugene ; Magdeburg, Wittenberg, Torgau, Danzig, the Hanseatic Towns, were in the hands of the French. 448 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE But now appeared a cloud that arose out of the sea, and threatened Napo- leon from another quarter. Louis XVIII. issued a proclamation to the French, which was extensively circulated. Bonaparte had come to think that the Bourbons were forgotten. "The reverses of the Russian campaign might have been repaired," says Madame Junot. " The affection of a great people would still have furnished their Sovereign with immense resources ; but before Napoleon could ask for proofs of that affection, an enemy suddenly started up before him on which he had never calculated. This enemy appeared like a man rising from the grave to many who had abandoned the white flag, sincerely believing its cause to be lost for ever. Napoleon, who for fifteen years had occupied the throne of France, his claim to which was legitimately acquired by his services and the voice of the people, now heard the appalling words, 'Uswper!' and 'Legitimacy !' That which he justly regarded as the rightful inheritance of his son was now about to be wrested from him in the name of the old cause, which he had every reason to believe was lost and forgotten. This new adversary was more fearful than all the rest." But it was not from any claim that the Bourbons had on the hearts of the people that danger was to be apprehended, but from weariness of incessant war, disgust at even the name of military glory, and resentment at unlimited con- scription. Already it was a hard matter to get the recruits together; they fled to the woods and rocks, they maimed themselves to escape military service ; and flying corps had to be sent round the Departments, armed with chains and instruments of torture, to bind the unwilling conscripts, and to force from their parents the secret of where their boys were concealed. The people panted for peace, and looked on Napoleon as a tyrant lusting for war, insatiable in his ambition, whom they were willing to exchange even for a Bourbon, if thereby they might retain their sons, and plough their fields in tranquillity. Nor was this all. In spite of respectful forms, still employed by the two Chambers, and the unanimity with which the budget was voted, it was evident that the Senators were becoming alarmed, and the Deputies inclined to assert their independence. The Senate, in an addresss to the Emperor, hinted that peace had been promised, and that it was time for the promise to be fulfilled. In the Legislative Body, it was protested that the budgets were not sufficiently clear, and but for the urgency of the case would not have been voted without further discussion ; and in this body, the old Girondin Laine, and Dumolard, led a veritable party of opposition. Pamphlets and leaflets appeared, were widely distributed and read, and were seized by the police. They proved to contain bitter invectives against Napo- leon, and resentment against the oppression to which France was subjected under his sceptre. Indications appeared everywhere that his popularity was gone. The generals were also discontented. They likewise were sick of warfare, and they foresaw disaster. But, greater than their craving for rest, were the disgust and resentment that filled the hearts of the marshals and generals at the insolence with which they LEIPZIG 449 were treated, at the manner in which their laurels were denied them, and plucked away for the adornment of their master's crown, and the obloquy that fell on them, the unjust condemnation to which they were subjected, not when they had committed errors, but when he had made a mistake that led to disaster. Bernadotte, Prince Regent of Sweden, had been so insulted that he entered into coalition against him. His brother-in-law, Murat, angry because Napoleon had abused him for deserting the wreck of the Grand Army at Posen — doing exactly what he himself had done — wrote, or rather dictated, violent letters, for the King of Naples was too illiterate to be able to write himself. Bonaparte had written to his sister Caroline, Murat's wife, a letter in which he told her in "attention ! THE EMPEROR's EYE IS ON US." From a lithograph by Raffet. plain terms that her husband was an ungrateful scoundrel, a liar, traitor, and (in politics) a fool, and that he was unworthy of the close family connection subsisting with himself. Murat's answer ran \— " The wound on my honour is inflicted. You have insulted an old com- panion in arms, faithful to you in dangers, not a small means of your victories, a supporter of your greatness, the reviver of your ebbing courage on the i8th Brumaire. Your Majesty says that, when one has the honour to belong to your illustrious family, one ought to do nothing to hazard its interests or obscure its splendour. But I, Sire, tell you in reply that your family has received quite as much honour as it gave me, by uniting me with Caroline. A thousand times, though a King, I sigh after the day when, as a plain officer, I had superiors, but not a master. Having become a King, but finding myself in this supreme rank tyrannised over by your Majesty, and domineered over in my own family, I have felt more than ever the need of independence, the thirst for liberty. You afflict, you sacrifice to your suspicion the men most faithful to you, the men who best served you in the stupendous road to your fortune. I can no longer 2 G 450 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE withhold from my people some restoration of commerce, some remedy for the terrible evils inflicted on them by the maritime war. Our mutual confidence and faith are gone." * One of his generals said, as far back as the campaign of 1809, which saw Marshal Lannes and many other officers of the highest rank numbered with the slain, " This little coquin will never stop until he gets us all killed — all." Massena, Augereau, Rapp, all were dissatisfied, and continued to serve him with inner resentment, and impatient to have done with incessant war. His ministers saw that he was hurrying to destruction, and began to scheme and correspond in secret how to save themselves, and pluck some spoil and advantage to themselves out of the debacle which was imminent. The conscripts, the veterans, all the mighty host, poured over the Rhine against the Prussians and Russians, marched without knowing for what they were to fight ; whereas, opposed to them, there was not a man, down to the smallest drummer-boy, who did not know that he stood in the ranks to defend his home and his country. In 1793 France fought for a principle, Prussia for a man. The position, and consequent result, now, in 181 3, was reversed. In his first campaigns Napoleon had seen many a rout. When he gained a day, the enemy broke up, and scattered in wild terror and utter confusion. All this was altered now. Routs of this nature he did see, but not in the enemy, though defeated, but among his own forces. The former, though driven back from a hard-contested field, drew away without leaving a standard, a gun, a prisoner, in his hands ; whereas, when he was beaten, his motley host dis- solved at once into a rabble of panic-stricken fugitives. " Every victory we gain," said one of his marshals, " serves only as a lesson to teach the Russians how to defeat us." At Llitzen Napoleon gained one of his fruitless victories. On the eve he lost his marshal, Bessieres. In none of his campaigns did Napoleon exhibit higher capacities as a tactician than in this campaign of 181 3. His handling of the troops at Llitzen was magnificent ; and his tactics at Bautzen, when he turned the right of the Allies in their entrenchments, was one of the finest achievements ever accom- plished. He had confidently expected, on resuming the offensive, to strike a grand blow, as at Jena, and, by a single battle, to recover Leipzig, Dresden, and Berlin. But the victories of Llitzen and of Bautzen led to no decisive result ; the Allies retired in good order. Two days after Llitzen, Bonaparte's favourite aide-de-camp, General Duroc^ was laid low by a spent cannon-ball. Duroc was his old and faithful com- panion, one of the few who were disinterestedly attached to Bonaparte ; and of the still smaller number who could inspire Napoleon with a reciprocal attach- ment. It was a superstition too, both at the French Court and with the French army, that there was a sympathy, or mysterious connection, between the fate of Duroc and the fortunes of his master. CoLLETTA, Storia di Napoli. I LEIPZIG 451 Napoleon sincerely felt the loss of Duroc. It unnerved him. Constant says : — " The Emperor gave mechanically some orders, and returned to the camp. When inside the square of the guard, he seated himself on a stool before his tent, his head bowed, his hands joined, and thus remained for nearly an hour, without uttering a single word. However, as measures essential for the morrow had to be taken. General Drouot approached him, and, with a voice broken by sobs, asked what was to be done. ' A demain tout ! ' replied the Emperor. Not another word did he say." * The allied forces, after the battle of Bautzen, retired to the Leignitz and the Oder, and province after province was over- run by the French. Nevertheless, Napoleon was far from easy. An entire population was in arms in his rear, and several disasters occurred to his communications. He needed reinforcements greatly, after the frightful losses at Liitzen and Bautzen. But if his position was not without its disadvantage and danger, the Allies required time far more than did he. They also were calling up fresh troops ; but, more than that, they were in correspondence with Austria and Sweden, and were confident, in a few weeks, of obtain- ing their assistance. Napoleon ought to have seen, from the line of retreat adopted by them, that they calculated on the support of Austria, but he was rocked in confidence, believing that his alliance with the Imperial Hapsburg House had secured him in that quarter. He knew, moreover, what jealousies existed between Austria and Prussia, and counted on them. Accordingly, he committed the fatal mistake of agreeing to an armistice. He had indeed proposed it, hoping by a stroke of cunning to detach Alexander from the Coalition, and engage him in separate negotiations with himself But the Czar was proof against these proposals, and he received them in a full council, in the presence of the Austrian minister. Finding that he could not succeed in a separate negotiation, Napoleon agreed to an armistice, which was signed on June 4th ; and almost directly after the signature, allowed a body of his men, under General Fournier, to surround the corps of Volunteers under Liitzow, five hundred strong, and cut them to pieces. Among those slaughtered was the poet Korner, whose patriotic songs had stirred the heart of Germany. When the Volunteers saw themselves surrounded, before the attack commenced, Korner advanced before the lines to parley with the French general, and remind him of the armistice. But Fournier exclaimed, NAPOLEON SEATED. From a contemporary engraving. Constant, v. 211. 452 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE " The armistice is for all the world except you ! " and cut him down. This out- rage on the laws of war among civilised people roused the Germans to fury, and especially exasperated the Saxons, who were allies of the French, for Korner was a Saxon by birth. The armistice was to last from the 5th June to the 22nd of July; and Bonaparte entered Dresden and surrounded himself there with a Court. Austria offered her mediation, and Metternich was sent to Dresden, as plenipotentiary of Austria, to negotiate a peace. He proposed, in a Conference that lasted seven hours : — 1. That the limits of France should be restrained to the west bank of the Rhine. 2. That Italy should be constituted a kingdom, inde- pendent of France. 3. That the Protectorate over the Confederacy of the Rhine, and over the Helvetian Republic, should be abandoned. These proposals produced an explosion of rage in Na- poleon ; they revealed to him plainly that the Court of Vienna had resolved on enter- ing the Coalition. Metternich in his Memoirs^ gives us an account of the scene. " You want war ! " ex- claimed Napoleon ; " you shall have it. I give you a rendez- vous at Vienna." Then he poured forth a torrent of technical details on the forces at the disposal of Austria. " I married the daughter of Francis," cried he; "I said to myself at the time, 'You are making; a mistake.' But the thing is done ; and I regret it now that it is too late." Then he wandered off to the Prussian campaign. " That was a rough experi- ence," he said ; " but I got out of it in admirable style." Metternich listened coldly to this stream of words, and only ventured to- remark that France was exhausted and had an army of lads only. Napoleons answered, " You are not a soldier. You do not understand what passes in the mind of a soldier. I grew up on battle-fields, and I don't care a for the lives of a million men." So saying, he threw his cap across the room. As Metternich prepared to leave. Napoleon could not refrain from flinging an insult in the face of the plenipotentiary. " Ah ! Metternich," he asked, in his- NAPOLEON. From a lithograph by Raffet. THE STANDARD OF THE CHASSEURS OF THE GUARD. On a green silk ground leaves of oak and laurel, embroidered in gold and silver. In the centre a hunting-horn in silver, with " E. F." in the centre in gold. LEIPZIG 455 harshest tones, " How much has England paid you to make war upon me ? " At the door, the minister of the Court of Austria turned and cast a Parthian arrow at the Emperor. " Sire," said he, " you are lost. I had the presentiment as I came here ; now, in leaving, I know it." Napoleon had committed a grievous error in granting an armistice, giving Austria time to assemble her forces. He aggravated his error now by extending it twenty days, just the time desired by Schwarzenberg for completing his armaments. On the 30th June, the tidings reached Napoleon at Dresden that Wellington had won the battle of Vittoria, by which the French were swept as by a whirlwind from the north and west of Spain ; and everyone saw that nothing could arrest the entry of the British forces into France through the valleys of the Pyrenees. Fully impressed with the magnitude of the disaster. Napoleon took vigorous steps to remedy it, by despatching Soult to assume supreme command over the troops still at his disposal in the south; but the Emperor Francis, if he had hesitated hitherto, was nerved to throw his weight into the scale against France. From the moment of this news reaching the Allies, hesitation was abandoned. Napoleon commenced a series of fortifications around Dresden, which he pur- posed converting into an enormous entrenched camp. But now that the resolve of Austria to join hands with Russia and Prussia against him became clear, he was forced to abandon this project, for if he remained in Dresden, the Austrian hosts pouring over the Bohemian mountains would take the whole line of the Elbe in rear. On the 1 2th August, Austria declared war. But her adhesion to the Coalition was not without disadvantage. Francis entered into the compact in half-hearted mood. He disliked the popular movement which had manifested itself; he was a stranger to all feeling for Germany as a nation. After having surrendered the crown of Charlemagne at Frankfort, he was indifferent to the fate of Fatherland. He by no means desired the power of Napoleon to be broken. What he really desired was the restoration of Trieste. Had the French Emperor agreed to that, he would have united with him against the Allies. And now that his force joined those of the Coalition, the Prussian and Russian armies were subjected to the disadvantage of being placed under the command-in-chief of Prince Schwarzenberg. On the other hand, hitherto the Allies had been inferior in number to the host invading Prussia and Saxony ; now, the accession of 1 50,000 men from Austria altered the balance. Napoleon was led to a fatal mistake. In his elaborate plan of campaign, he failed to perceive that he had passed the limit of what machine-like discipline and organisation can do with agglomerations of men, just as, ten years before, he had expected impossibilities of combination from agglomerations of ships. Moreover, he still reckoned on having with him those moral forces which no longer existed, or had gone over to the enemy. Napoleon knew very well that Prussia was the soul of the opposition, and in accordance with his custom, and agreeably to the decision with which he acted, he at once resolved on striking a bold and crushing blow at Berlin. What a 456 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE tremendous effect would be produced on the Allies by the tidings that the capital of Prussia was taken, and given over to the flames ! From Berlin to the Oder and the Vistula was not far. Bernadotte, indeed, at the head of 150,000 men, occupied the marches of the lower Elbe; but Napoleon could hardly believe that his old marshal, the brother-in-law of Joseph, would fight him. He knew that he would command the Northern Army, indeed, but hoped that he would paralyse its action. As for the Prussian Landwehr, Napoleon despised it. He did not take the insulted, down-trodden peasants into con- sideration at all, and yet it was they who wrought his ruin, in that they pur- posely deceived him and his staff with false reports as to the position and numbers of the enemy. On the 26th of August, the Allies were defeated by Napoleon with great loss, before Dresden ; but this was the last victory obtained by him on German soil, though he supposed it to be the prelude to another series of triumphs. But on the 23rd of August, a murderous conflict had taken place at Gross- Beeren, between a Prussian division of the North Army and the French. The almost untrained peasantry that composed it rushed upon the enemy, and beat down entire battalions with the butt-ends of their muskets, while the Crown Prince of Sweden (Bernadotte) and his Swedes looked on without taking any part. The French lost 2,400 prisoners. If this disaster showed Napoleon that the peasantry had become a power, it confirmed him in his belief that Berna- dotte would not draw his sword against his countrymen and himself A few days later, Bliicher in Silesia won success. Having drawn the French across the river Neisse, he drove them, after a desperate engagement, into the river, swollen with heavy rains. The muskets of the soldiers had been rendered unserviceable by the wet ; and Bliicher, drawing his sabre from beneath his cloak, dashed ahead, exclaiming, " Forwards ! " Several thousand French were drowned or bayoneted. They lost 103 guns^ 18,000 prisoners, and a great number were killed. Macdonald, the general in command, one of the ablest of the marshals, escaped almost alone to Napoleon, at Dresden. " Sire," said the defeated general, *•' your army no longer exists." His generals had been thrown back from every side, with great loss, on the Saxon capital ; and now, as he prepared to check the advance of the xA^llies, by getting between them and Berlin,* a fresh disappointment befell him. The Bavarian army refused to fight for him ; it went over to the Allies, and marched to the Main, to stand across his path if he attempted to retreat. His con- tingents from the Rhine and the Saxons became restive, and broke out into mutiny, or slipped away and joined the ranks of the Allies. A Westphalian regiment, with arms and baggage, deserted on the eve of the evacuation of Dresden. Orders had been given for a general concentration at Diiben, and the im- pression throughout the army was that Napoleon was intending to effect a retreat to the Rhine, thence through Leipzig. It was not till he arrived at Duben that he announced his intention of making a rapid march on Berlin. * He carried out the same plan the following year on French soil, with the result to be expected. LEIPZIG 457 *' The time," says Constant, " was unhappily passed when the expression of the intentions of the Emperor alone sufficed, and was regarded as a signal of victory. The chiefs of the army, hitherto so submissive, began to reflect, and permitted themselves to disapprove of projects, the execution of which frightened them. When the intention of the Emperor was made known, that he purposed marching on Berlin, there was an almost general outbreak of dis- content ; the generals who had escaped the disasters of Moscow, and the dangers of the double campaign in Germany, were fatigued, and perhaps eager to enjoy their fortunes, and repose in the bosoms of their families. Some went so far as to accuse the Emperor of purposely protracting the war. * Have not enough been killed ? ' they asked. ' Do you want us all to lay our bones here ? ' And these complaints were not limited to secret confidences, but were spoken loud enough to reach the Emperor's ears. "It was while this was dis- cussed, that the news of the defection of Bavaria reached the chiefs of the army. This defection added. new force to the uneasiness and discontent produced by the resolution of the Emperor. Now was seen what had never been witnessed before — his entire staff unite to entreat him to abandon his project of marching on Berlin, and to retire in the direction of Leipzig. I could see how the soul of the Emperor suffered from the necessity of even listening to such remon- strances. " In spite of the respectful form in which these remon- strances were made, his Majesty was hurt, and for two days remained in indecision. Oh, how long those forty-eight hours were ! Never was bivouac or abandoned cabin so dismal as the dismal castle of Diiben. In this lamentable residence I saw the Emperor for the first time wholly broken down. The indecision to which he was a prey had so absorbed him, that he was hardly recognisable. To an activity which thrust him on, and devoured him incessantly, succeeded an apparent indifference, of which I could hardly have conceived an idea. I saw him, during almost the entire day, lying on a sofa, having before him a table covered with maps and papers, which he did not look at, without other occupation than scrawling slowly great letters on blank pieces of paper, for hours together. His mind was then floating between his own purpose and that urged on him by his generals. After two days of the most painful anxiety, he gave way. Then all was lost. How often have I heard him after- wards repeat with grief, * I would have avoided many disasters, if I had NAPOLEON TAKING A PINCH OF SNUFF. From a lithograph of 1838. 458 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE followed my first impulse. I failed only because I yielded to the opinions of others.' " * Thus did his galled pride still attribute disaster to others rather than to himself Yet who can doubt for an instant that the prosecution of the march on Berlin would have resulted in a disaster far greater than that of Leipzig? The order for retreat was given. All faces lighted up when it was heard. " We are going back to France," cried the soldiers. " We shall kiss our children and our wives again." /On the 1 6th of October, began the great battle of Leipzig, which the Germans call " The Battle of the Nations," because of the various nationalities represented in it, and the number of troops engaged. It was fought on the 1 6th, 17th, 1 8th, and 19th of October, and was one of the longest, sternest, and bloodiest actions of the war, and one of the greatest battles recorded in history. Napoleon was led to engage in it by false representations. He believed that he was opposed by the Bohemian army only, which was not larger than his own. That Bernadotte would take no part in it, and keep at a distance, with the Northern Army, was certain. Bliicher, he believed, was too distant to cause him any alarm, whereas he was actually at Mochern, on the Halle road, await- ing the arrival of Bernadotte. On the evening of the i6th, for a moment victory seemed to declare for the French, and Napoleon shouted exultingly : "The tide is turning!" But when darkness settled in, he felt that he was a beaten man ; yet his spirit was not broken. Next day only desultory fighting ensued ; the Emperor saw that at all costs he must keep clear a line of retreat, and he ordered the road to Weissenfels to be held open. He sent to the Allies to propose a truce, but was refused. On the 1 8th, the battle began again with renewed fury. But now at length the Swedes and the Northern Army came up from Halle, and another Austrian division and a Russian reinforcement appeared as well on the field. Napoleon resolved on immediate retreat, and concentrated his army on the south. Then the Saxons went over to the enemy, followed by the Wurtemberg cavalry. Night settled down once more on the bloody field, and Napoleon spent it in the town, into which he had withdrawn all but the outposts of his army, and prepared to break away for France on the morrow. The 19th dawned, and with the gathering light the Allies advanced. The cannon-balls fell in showers in the streets. Napoleon finding that all was lost, quitted the town as the Allies entered it on the other side. As the Emperor crossed the bridge, he ordered it to be blown up. This was done regardless of his flying army which was crossing it; and 25,000 men were left behind. The retreat was conducted in tolerable order, harassed, indeed, and obstructed by the Bavarians at Hanau. On the 9th November, Napoleon, having brought the shattered remains of his army to Mayence, left for Paris, and bade a final adieu to the German plains. * Constant, v. 268. XLIX THE ABDICATION (9th November, 181 3— 6th April, 18 14) /^N the return of Napoleon to Paris, the Senate approached him with ^^ renewed professions of devotion to his person and dynasty, and affected to regard the disaster of Leipzig and the retreat as reparable disasters, and as attributable to anything rather than to any fault in Napoleon the Great. On Sunday, the 14th of November, five days after his arrival in Paris, they appeared before him in the Tuileries, with an address of felicitation on his happy return, un wounded. But the Legislative Body, though it had for long been reduced to a condition of servility almost as base as that of the Senate, did nevertheless contain in it men of better stuff; and a committee having drawn up and presented a report on the condition of the nation, those engaged thereon had not shrunk from pointing out the exhausted state of the country, and the practical abrogation of the laws which guaranteed to French citizens the rights of liberty, property, and security, and the free exercise of their Constitutional privileges. The Legislative Body, by a large majority, ordered the report to be printed. This token of independence exasperated the Emperor to the highest degree, and he immediately ordered the suppression of the report, and the closing of the doors of the Assembly, which he declared to be adjourned. This was on the last day of 181 3. On the following day, there was, as usual, for the new year, a grand Court levee, and among those who repaired to the Tuileries in their embroidered coats, to salute the Emperor, was a deputation of the Legislative Body. Napoleon at once attacked them in a coarse speech, accompanied by menacing gestures, in the midst of an awestruck circle of courtiers : — " Gentlemen," said he, " you might have done a great deal of good, but you have done nothing but mischief. I have suppressed your address ; it was incendiary. Eleven-twelfths of you are well-intentioned, the others, and above all M. Laine, are factious intriguers, devoted to England, to all my enemies, and corresponding with the Bourbons. You make remonstrances. Is this a time, when the stranger invades our provinces ? There may have been petty abuses ; I never connived at them. You, M. Raynouard, said that Prince Massena robbed a man at Marseilles of his house. You lie ! Why did you not make your complaints in private to me ? We should wash our dirty linen at home, and not drag it out before the world. You call yourselves the Representatives of the 459 I 46o THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Nation. It is not true ; you are only Deputies of Departments. I alone am the Representative of the People. Twice have 27,000,000 French called me to the throne. It had already crushed your Assemblies, and your Conventions, your Jacobins, and your Girondins. They are all dead ! What, who are you ? Nothing. All authority is in the Throne. What is it? This wooden frame covered with velvet ? No ! I am the Throne. You advise ! how dare you debate on matters of such grave import? You have put me forward as the cause of war — it is an outrage. M. Laine is a traitor ; he is a wicked man, the rest are mere intriguers. Go back to your Departments. If any one of you dare to print your address, I shall publish it in the Mofiiteur with my own notes. Go : France stands more in need of me, than I of France." There are various versions of this furious speech. It circulated through Paris, it was commented on, it produced general indignation. It spread beyond France, it was published throughout Europe, though not printed in the official Moniteur, and the expressions in it were perhaps aggravated by interested persons. But the Legislative Body was the organ of the nation, and it spoke for the people. Napoleon's defiance of it was accepted as a manifesto of his arbitrary will against the nation, and the nation resented it. The Senate had voted a new conscription of 300,000 men, including all who had escaped the conscriptions of former years, and the taxes were doubled. But the land was drained of blood and money. Everywhere the women were in mourning ; their husbands and sons had been sacrificed on the snowy plains of Russia, on the burning plateaus of New Castille, or in the butchery of Leipzig. P'ormerly they had said, " Our children died on the fields of victory for the glory of France." Now they moaned, " Our brothers, our children, our substance, are sacrificed to the ambition of a tyrant ! " It was not till the 8th January, 1814, that the desperate Emperor could be induced to think of reorganising the National Guard of Paris ; and even then he took precautions to exclude the men of the faubourgs, and all the poorer classes. According to the imperial purpose, it was to be 30,000 strong, but was formed only of such men as were believed to be the friends of order, that is to say, of the Empire ; and yet, to complete that number, many were taken in who were doubtful adherents, and officers were nominated who were suspected Royalists. Of his old army. Napoleon had upon the Rhine no more than seventy or eighty thousand men to oppose to the Allies advancing upon the frontier with 160,000 men, and with reinforcements hurrying up from Austria, Russia, and every part of Germany. From Italy not a man nor a musket could be drawn, for Murat had joined the Allies, and, supported by an Austrian army, was over- powering Eugene Beauharnais. No assistance was to be reckoned on from any other part of Europe. Bernadotte had overthrown the Danes, the last ally on whom Napoleon could count. In the south, Wellington was driving Soult before him. Bonaparte had said that, rather than give up Holland, he would sink it under the sea. But Holland had risen, shaken off the yoke of the detested French, and had summoned the Prince of Orange to the crown. THE ABDICATION 461 Switzerland was powerless to rise, but it readily allowed the Allies to traverse its territory on their way into France. The defection of Murat overthrew one of Bonaparte's splendid conceptions. He had planned that, whilst he occupied the invaders, disputing every inch of French soil, Eugene Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy, and Murat, King of Naples, should combine their forces, and strike over the Alps at Vienna, and thus paralyse Austria by a blow at the heart. Amidst the difficulties which assailed him, the Emperor turned his eyes on Talleyrand. Madame Junot gives an amusing account of an interview between Na- poleon, grown irritable and half mad with disappoint- ment, and the adroit, passion- less minister. Joseph had abandoned Spain, and re- signed the crown ; now, when too late, Napoleon entered into a convention with Ferdi- nand for his restoration. " It would appear that, the Emperor was not at the time very well acquainted with the style of conversation which was maintained in the coterie of M. de Talleyrand, when the affairs of Spain came under discussion. 'Well, Monsieur,' said the Emperor walking straight up to him, ' I think it somewhat strange that you should allege I made you the gaoler of Ferdinand, when you yourself made the proposition to me.' Talleyrand assumed one of his inflexible looks — half closing his little eyes, and screwing up his lips, he stood with one hand resting on the back of a chair, and the other in his waistcoat -pocket. Nothing increases anger so much as coolness. The Emperor was violently irritated at Talleyrand's immovability of countenance and coolness of manner, and he exclaimed, in a voice of thunder, stamping his foot, 'Why do you not answer me?' The same silence was maintained. Napoleon's eyes flashed fire. Talleyrand became alarmed, not without reason, and then he stammered out the following words, which were certainly anything but satisfactory : ' I am at a loss to understand what your Majesty means.' Napoleon attempted to speak,, but rage choked his utterance. He advanced, first one step, then a second, then a third, until he came close up to the Prince of Benevento. He then NAPOLEON AT THE TIME OF THE INVASION BY THE ALLIES. From a lithograph by Raffet. 46^2 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE raised his hand to the height of the Prince's chin, and, continuing to advance, he forced Talleyrand to recede, which was no easy matter, owing to the defect in one of his feet. However, it was more advisable to recede than advance, for the Emperor's little ha'nd was still raised, and was clenched in the form necessary for giving what is vulgarly called a coup de poing. However, it was not given. The Emperor merely drove the Prince of Benevento, half walking, half hobbling, along the whole length of the large cabinet of the Pavilion of Flora. At length the Prince reached the wall of the apartment, and Napoleon repeated, * So you presume to say that you did not advise the captivity of the princes?' Here the scene ended. On the evening of the day on which this scene was acted the Prince of Benevento had company. The chamberlain on duty at the Tuileries had overheard everything, and had repeated it, with the addition that the Prince had received a coup de poing from the Emperor. At a party that same evening, one of his visitors, who was on familiar terms with the Prince, stepped up to him, saying, 'Ah! Monseigneur, what have I heard?' 'What?' inquired Talleyrand, with one of his cool, impenetrable looks. ' I have been informed that the Emperor treated you to ' ' Oh ! ' interrupted the Prince, ^ that is a thing that happens every day — every day.' The Prince had heard no mention of the coup de poing, and flattered himself that nobody knew ; and when he said ' every day,' he merely meant that the Emperor was every day out of temper and unreasonable." "^ The Allies, having learned of the immense levies of troops which Napoleon was making, and being well aware of the impatience of the nation at the burdens imposed on it, issued a proclamation addressed to the French people, assuring them that it was their desire to see France great, strong, and happy, and that they had no intention of interfering with what form of government they chose to adopt, but that they were firmly resolved to repress the ambition of Napoleon, which was covering Europe with ruins, and converting it into a charnel-house. The proclamation was widely circulated, and produced a great effect, for it led the people to regard the Emperor as the sole obstacle to that peace which they so ardently desired, and to attain which he had assured them he had engaged in all his wars. To gain time was Napoleon's great desire. He was fully aware of the half- heartedness with which his father-in-law had entered into the alliance. The Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, together with England, which furnished the sinews of war, were intent on making Napoleon powerless to do more mischief; but the Emperor of Austria had no desire to see Napoleon dethroned, nor France humiliated. He aimed at recovering his losses in Italy ; and if he could obtain these from Napoleon, he was prepared to dissolve his alliance with the other Sovereigns. Unhappily, the Grand Army which invaded France was placed under the command of Prince Schwarzenberg, with gout in his feet, and stupidity in his brain, and further hampered by the instructions of his master not to press Napoleon too hard. Bonaparte was fully alive to the stupidity, timidity, and hesitation of the Austrian generals. The Czar Alexander was driven almost frantic by their hesitation and inertness, and more than once threatened to detach his Russians from them, and carry on the war alone with Bliicher and the Prussians. * Memoirs J iii. 376. THE ABDICATION 463 Bliicher, who commanded the Army of Silesia, which crossed the Rhine below Mayence, and made for the valley of the Maine, was as incautious and precipi- tate as Schwarzenberg was provident and slow. He ran like a hare, whilst the Austrian crawled like a snail. A Congress was appointed to meet at Chatillon, to which Napoleon sent Caulaincourt, with private instructions to sign no agreement, to create difficulties, and to sow dissension among the members of the Coalition. " Only detach Austria," said Bonaparte, " and all will yet be saved." I tt wWgK^^K^gg^mg^^^^^J f '' %^:M'19p '^^P^^ 1 1 1- . NAPOLEON IN A COTTAGE. From a lithograph by Bellang^. He endeavoured to obtain an armistice whilst the Convention was sitting but this was refused. Caulaincourt could not fail to see that the incessant evasion to which he was driven was producing a bad effect, and that in the meantime the chances of gaining favourable terms were lessening. But nothing could induce Napoleon to yield. Maret, Duke of Bassano, was with him, and he also saw that the mad- ness of the Emperor was menacing France with ruin. After Leipzig, terms of peace had been offered Napoleon, giving him as frontiers the Pyrenees, Switzerland, and the Rhine to the sea, also Nice and Savoy; and this had been haughtily rejected. Very different terms were now offered ; and the 464 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE alteration is a good gauge of the steady decline of Napoleon's star from 1812 — a decline often lost sight of, owing to his brilliant campaign in 18 14, and his comet-like reappearance in 18 15. Schwarzenberg, at the head of the Grand Army, entered France by passing over the Rhine at Basel, and traversing the Jura, with intention to effect a junc- tion with the army of Silesia, under Bliicher, on the plateau of Langres, about the 26th January, 18 14. On the 23rd January— not before — did the Emperor take leave of the National Guard, previous to his departure to place himself at the head of the army. At three o'clock in the morning of January 25th, Napoleon embraced his wife and son for the last time, and set out for the army. He never saw either again. The headquarters of the army were at Chalons-sur-Marne. The Grand Army, under Schwarzenberg, had already crept through Burgundy into Cham- pagne, and was threatening Troyes. Bliicher had traversed Lorraine, leaving 20,000 men on the Meuse at S. Michel, and had pushed forward with 26,000 men to Brienne, without any communication between them. Napoleon at once saw the folly committed by the Prussians, and by a rapid march established himself at S. Dizier, between Bliicher and the Meuse. He accordingly had it in his power to fling himself on the body commanded by Yorck at S. Michel,, and annihilate it, or to grapple with Bliicher at Brienne, and drive him back on the Grand Army. He resolved to attack Bliicher, who was wholly unaware of the presence of the enemy, and that his Silesian army was cut in two. Bliicher, taken by surprise at Brienne, was defeated on January 29th. Brienne^ where Napoleon had been a pupil in the military college, w,as taken, set on fire, and his old school was consumed in the flames. But this first surprise led to the concentration of the Army of Silesia and the Grand Army, under Schwarzen- berg, and again the battle raged at La Rothiere, near Brienne, and on this occasion (February ist) Napoleon was defeated, and forced to retreat. Had the dull and dawdling Austrian general at once pursued his success, the result to Napoleon would have been disastrous in the extreme. The war would have been terminated at one stroke. But his incapacity, or perhaps the reluctance of Francis to allow advantage to be taken of this victory, led to a prolongation of the struggle, and to the shedding of more blood. Not only did the Allies not do what ought to have been done, but they ingeniously did precisely what they ought not to have done. On February 2nd,, they dislocated the Allied Armies, and the order was given that the Army of Silesia should move on Chalons, and thence follow the course of the Marne to- Paris, whereas the Grand Army was to descend the valley of the Seine by Montereau, to the same capital. Napoleon immediately saw his advantage. Disdaining Schwarzenberg, whom- he could knock to pieces at his leisure, he determined to measure swords with an adversary more worthy of his regard ; and he at once, by a brilliant cross- march, fell upon the Army of Silesia, when, with Bliicher's characteristic THE ABDICATION 465 carelessness, that army was resolved into three detachments at Champaubert, Montmirail, and Vauchamps. Bonaparte succeeded in defeating the enemy on the loth, nth, and 14th of February ; and he would have annihilated the Army of Silesi^, but for the great coolness of the Russian and Prussian soldiers, their admirable discipline, and their orderly method of retreat. Having now defeated one host, and that under the only general with ability, Napoleon, having the interior position, swung round as on a pivot, and hastened to strike at the lumbering Grand Army under Schwarzenberg. The encounter took place at Montereau, on February i8th, and resulted in the defeat of the Allies, and their retreat to Sens. The exultation of Napoleon was now at its height. He had executed movements of extraordinary brilliancy, unsurpassed in any of his previous campaigns ; he had defeated and driven back two large armies ; and he- was confident that again his star was in the ascendant. Meanwhile, at Chatillon, Caulaincourt was evading every proposal made for a termination of the war, and presenting counter suggestions to protract the negotiations. In vain did he appeal to the Emperor to give him full powers to conclude terms. These Napoleon would not grant. On the eve of the battle of Champaubert, Maret had drawn out instructions, empowering Caulaincourt to accept the terms of the Allies, and conclude peace, and these he presented to Napoleon to sign ; but the Emperor could not be induced to do this. " I will sign to-morrow," said Napoleon. "If I be killed, they will not be wanted ; if I conquer, we shall be able to treat with better advantage." After the victory, Maret went to him, and again presented the powers for Caulaincourt, but the Emperor refused even to look at them. That day he was even more successful at Montmirail, and in the evening Maret aeain ursfed the Emperor to sign. But visions of success had filled Napoleon's brain. He smiled, and, looking at the maps of France and Europe which lay before him, answered, " I now stand in such a situation, that I need not yield an inch of ground. I will sign nothing." * Bliicher was in retreat on Soissons and Laon, to meet reinforcements detached from the army of the Crown Prince of Sweden (Bernadotte), sent to his aid, for Bernadotte himself shrank from invading his native land. Napoleon pursued him, and caught him up as he was in a most precarious condition on the Aisne, where he would have cut him to pieces, but for the opportune and unexpected surrender of the French garrison in Soissons. Bliicher was thus enabled to cross the river, and make good his retreat to Laon, but not without having first fought and lost a hardly-contested battle at Craon. There was some reason for exultation in Napoleon, when he saw the Grand Army, numbering 140,000 men, retreating ignominiously before his 60,000, and even falling back beyond Troyes, which was reoccupied on February 23rd. Despondency had come on the Allies. The hesitation of Francis was at its height, when Lord Castlereagh, the representative of England, interfered, and * BOURRIENNE, iii. 380. 2 H 466 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE by his firmness succeeded in infusing a little energy into the timorous minds of the Kaiser and his advisers. Alexander of Russia had all along been an advocate for bold measures ; but, without the support of the English represen- tative, the invasion would probably have ended in a fiasco, or in the complete separation of the Austrians from the other Allies, and their retirement from the conflict. On March ist, a treaty was drawn up and signed at Chaumont, by which it was stipulated that, in the event of Napoleon refusing the terms offered him — the reduction of France to the limits of the old Monarchy, as they stood prior to the Revolution — the four Allied Powers would each maintain a hundred and fifty thousand men in the field, and that, to provide for their maintenance. Great Britain would furnish an annual subsidy of five millions sterling. The Congress of Chatillon continued to sit ; but, flushed with successes, Napoleon would not listen to any terms that were offered. The Grand Army again began to creep forward. It met with some successes at Bar-sur-Aube and La Guillotiere, driving the French before them ; and then, resting from its exertions, allowed the enemy to recover himself. On March 4th, Troyes was retaken — but at this time Napoleon was pursuing Bliicher. On March i8th, as it was impossible to induce the Emperor to accept the terms decided on by the Allies, the negotiations at Chatillon were brought to an end. On the 20th, a hardly-contested fight took place at Arcis-sur-Aube, which was a drawn action ; and, according to all precedent, the Allies should have retreated after it. .But a change had come over the Austrians with the con- viction that negotiation with Napoleon was impracticable ; and on the morning after the fight, the Emperor, to his dismay, saw the Allied troops still in position. It was now that Napoleon played his last card, in attempting to throw himself on the rear of the Allied Army, with resolve to abandon Paris to its fate. He calculated on the incompetence and timidity of the Austrian generals, and he hoped, by cutting their communications, to reduce them to great straits. No sooner, however, was his .plan understood by his generals and the army, than consternation became rife. The idea of abandoning Paris to its fate was to them a sacrilege ; it was a counsel of despair, and all they saw before them was a plunge into protracted, aimless warfare. A mutiny was threatened, even at headquarters ; the obstinacy with which he had refused the terms offered by the Allies was universally condemned, and many doubted the sanity of the Emperor. The Allies soon became aware of the position of Napoleon, and of his in- tentions. They resolved to detach a body of cavalry to mask their movements, and observe him ; and to prosecute the march with all rapidity on Paris. Napoleon had sent General Maison, whose talents inspired him with confidence, into the north, to collect an army out of the garrisons there stationed ; then, having misled the enemy, he had reached S. Dizier, and there he purposed THE ABDICATION 469 turning to the right, picking up the reinforcements sent him by Maison, caUing forth a levy of all the people, bringing up Augereau from Lyons, and all the garrisons from Alsace and Lorraine. Then, with this great army, his purpose was to fall on the rear of the Allies, whilst they were engaged with Marmont and Mortier, who were defending Paris. The result of the movement, if carried out, would have been the destruction or capture of the entire army of the Allies with the Sovereigns at its head. But for the success of this daring scheme it was essential that Paris should hold out a sufficient time, and be * C EST LUI ! NAPOLEON IN A PEASANTS HOUSE ASLEEP. From a painting by F. Flameng. covered by an army large enough to stay the march of the enemy. Neither of these conditions existed. Marmont and Mortier made faint attempts to maintain the heights in front of Paris, but they had only 20,000 men at their command. The Empress Regent fled to Blois, and on the 30th March Joseph Bonaparte, ex-King of Spain, who was the Emperor's lieutenant, and Commander-in-Chief of. the National Guard, was nowhere to be found. He had been accustomed to use his legs in Spain, and he had. fled after the Empress Regent. Marshals Mortier and Marmont now asked for an armistice, and this led to the capitulation of Paris. On the 31st, the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia entered the capital of France, amidst the acclama- tions of the Parisians, a waving of white handkerchiefs, and a shouting of " Vivent les A Hies ! Vivent les Bourbons !'' 470 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE When Napoleon heard of the rapid march on Paris, he came flying back to the rehef of the capital. But he came too late ; Paris was already in the un- disturbed possession of the Allies. At Fontainebleau he met the columns of the garrison which had evacuated Paris. He affected great indignation against Marmont ; but no man in his senses thought that Marmont, with his diminu- tive force, and with no popular support, could have done more than he had done. Several of his marshals now came to him, and told him the unpalatable AN INCIDENT OF THE CAMPAIGN. napoleon's silhouette, when asleep, sketched on the wall by a post-boy. From a lithograph by Bellang^. truth, that he ought to abdicate. He hurried into the gloomy old palace of Fontainebleau, and shut himself up to his maddening reflections. " I can hardly paint the gloomy sadness and silence that reigned at Fontainebleau during the next two days," says Constant. '' Bowed under so many blows, the Emperor went very little into his study, where he usually passed so many hours at work. He was so absorbed in his thoughts, that often he did not perceive there were any persons near him. He looked at them without seeing them, and remained for half an hour without saying a word to them. Then, as one awaking out of a state of stupefaction, he addressed them a question, and seemed not to listen for an answer. The presence of the Duke THE ABDICATION 471 of Bassano (Maret) and of the Duke of Vicenza (Caulaincourt), whom he repeatedly asked for, did not break this preoccupation, which was, so to speak, lethargic. Meal-times passed in the same manner : no sound interrupted the silence save that inevitably attached to the service. At the Emperor's toilette, the same silence : not a word escaped his lips, and if I proposed to him in the morning one of his usual potions, I not only received no answer, but nothing in his face betokened that he had heard me. This situation was literally horrible to all who were attached to his Majesty. Was the Emperor really conquered by his misfortunes? Was his genius as stupefied as his body? I DRIVEN DESPERATE. From a lithograph by Raffel. must say frankly that seeing him now so different from what he was after the disasters of Moscow, and even as he had been a few days before at Troyes, I believed it was so. But it was not. His mind was occupied with one fixed idea, the idea of resuming the offensive, and of marching on Paris. Indeed, although he seemed dumbfoundered in the intimacy of his most faithful ministers and most skilful generals, he nerved at once when he saw his soldiers, believing that the former would urge counsels of prudence, whereas the others would answer only with cries of ' Vive I'Empereur !' to whatever he commanded them, however reckless his orders might be. And already, on the 2nd April, he began to shake off this depression whilst passing in review the Guard in the court of the palace. He spoke then in firm tones to them : — " ' Soldiers ! the enemy has forestalled us by three marches, and has got 472 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE possession of Paris. We must drive them thence. Unworthy Frenchmen, emigrants that I had pardoned, have put on the white cockade, and have joined the enemy. Cowards ! They shall be repaid their treachery. Let us swear to conquer or to die, and to make the tricolor cockade respected, which for twenty years has led along the road of glory and honour.' " The enthusiasm of the troops was extreme at the voice of their chief. All cried out, ' Paris ! Paris ! ' But the Emperor fell back into depression on passing the threshold of the palace. This was caused by the well-founded fear that his immense longing to march on Paris would be combated by his lieutenants. However, affairs became more and more opposed to his projects. The Duke of Vicenza, whom he had sent to Paris, where was formed the Provisional Govern- ment under the Presidency of the Prince of Benevento, retm-ned without having THE ABDICATION. A caricature by G. Cruikshank. succeeded with his mission to the Emperor Alexander, and every day brought in news of fresh defections among his marshals and a great number of his generals. That of the Prince of Neufchatel (Berthier) was what touched him most keenly."* Napoleon had round him at Fontainebleau about seven thousand men. Macdonald with the rest of his army, about 25,000 strong, was at Montereau. The Emperor sent orders that they should be pushed forward for the march against Paris. On receiving this order, Macdonald hastened to Fontainebleau. When he arrived there, he heard that the Emperor had already announced his intention to the generals in command of the corps there assembled. Macdonald at once entered the palace ; 'what ensued is told by Bourrienne, who received the particulars from the Marshal himself: — As soon as Macdonald entered the apartment, Napoleon stepped up to him ' ' Very badly, Sire.' 'How, badly? Constant, vi. 71. and said, ' Well, how are things going on ? THE ABDICATION 473 What are the feelings of your army ? ' ' My army, Sire, is entirely discouraged, appalled by the fate of Paris.' ' Will not your troops join me in an advance on Paris ? ' ' Sire, do not think of such a thing. If I were to give such an order, I should run the risk of being disobeyed.' ' But what is to be done? I cannot remain as I am. I have yet resources and partisans. I will march on Paris. I will be avenged on the inconstancy of the Parisians and the baseness of the Senate. Woe to the members of the Government, that have schemed for the return of the Bourbons. To-morrow I shall place myself at the head of my Guards, and the day after we shall be in the Tuileries.' " The Marshal listened in silence ; and when at length Napoleon became somewhat calm, he observed, ' Sire, it appears, then, that you are not aware of what has taken place in Paris — of the establishment of a Provisional Govern- ment, and ' ' I know it all ; and what then ? ' ' Sire,' added the Marshal, presenting a paper to Napoleon, ' here is something which will tell you more than I can.' Macdonald then presented to him a letter from General Beuron- ville, announcing the forfeiture of the Emperor pronounced by the Senate, and the determination of the Allied Powers not to treat with Napoleon, or any member of his family. When the reading of Beuronville's letter was ended, the Emperor affected to persist in his intention of marching on Paris. ' Sire,' exclaimed Macdonald, ' that plan must be renounced. Not a sword would be unsheathed to second you in such an enterprise.'"* Berthier had been with the Emperor at Fontainebleau ; but seeing how things were marching, he invented some excuse for leaving him. He pretended that his presence was required in Paris, for the purpose of securing some com- promising papers. Whilst he spoke, Napoleon looked at him steadily, and with a shade of melancholy in his face. " Berthier," said he, taking his hand, "you see that I have need of consola- tion, and how much I require at this moment to be surrounded by my true friends." Berthier made no reply. Napoleon continued : " You will be back to- morrow?" " Certainly, Sire," replied the Prince of Neufchatel, and left the room. After his departure, Napoleon remained for some time silent. He followed him with his eyes, and when Berthier was out of sight, he cast them on the ground and sighed. At length he advanced to Maret, and laying his hand on his arm, pressed it and said, " He will not come back." He then threw himself dejectedly into a chair. He was right. Berthier had deserted him. His marshals now pointed out to him the necessity for signing an abdication. " The Emperor," says Constant, " became daily more anxious and sad, and I observed the lively agitation caused in him by the reading of despatches received from Paris. This agitation was several times so great, that I saw how he tore his thigh with his nails so that the blood came, without his perceiv- ing it. Several times the Emperor asked Roustan (his Mameluke) to bring him his pistols ; but I had taken the precaution to tell him not to give them to him, however much he might insist." f At length, reluctantly, he drew up the act of abdication in the following terms : — " The Allied Powers having declared that the Emperor Napoleon is the only obstacle to the re-establishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, * BOURRIENNE, iii. I43. t CONSTANT, vi. 76. 474 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE faithful to his oath, declares that he is ready to descend from the throne, to leave France, and even lay down his life for the welfare of the country, which is inseparable from the rights of his son, from those of the Regency of the Empress, and the maintenance of the laws of the Empire. "Given at our palace of Fontainebleau, 6th April, 1814. (Signed) " NAPOLEON." Signature on the 4TH April, 1814. It may be observed that his natural duplicity did not even then leave him. He did not declare that he abdicated, but only that he was "prepared" to do so. Shortly after, having been told of the arrival of an Austrian officer, who declared that what had taken place in Paris had been contrary to the wish of the Emperor Francis, he bade Caulaincourt send at once after the marshals, and desire them to return to him his act of abdication. The marshals, however, absolutely refused to surrender the document. Napoleon was highly incensed ; he threw himself on a little yellow sofa near the w^indow, and exclaimed, " With my Guards and Marmont's corps, I shall be in Paris to-morrow ! " Nothing remained now but to conclude the formal treaty between Napoleon and the Allied Powers, and it was signed on the nth April. By it. Napoleon renounced the Empire of France and the Kingdom of Italy for himself and his descendants. The island of Elba was selected by him as his place of residence, and it was erected into a principality in his favour. Two millions five hundred thousand francs a year were promised for his annual income. These disastrously favourable terms he owed to the good-hearted weakness of the Czar. To Bausset he said, " I abdicate, but I cede nothing." Pacing up and down the terrace in the evening, after long silence, he burst forth in the words, " A live gudgeon is worth more than a dead Emperor." That same night, on taking leave of Caulaincourt, he said, " My resolution is taken ; we must finish, I feel it." Caulaincourt had not been long in bed, before he was roused by Constant, to tell him that the Emperor was in convulsions, and was dying. He instantly ran in. Napoleon had attempted to poison himself v/ith some prussic acid he always carried about with him. But the poison had been so long kept that it had lost its virulence, and after violent vomiting, he recovered. " The dose was not strong enough ; God did not will it," he said. ELBA (6 April, 1814—27 February, 181 5) ^VTO sooner had Napoleon signed his abdication, and despatched it, than his •^ ^ restless mind formed schemes for defeating it. He drew up a plan, which he signed, and which was countersigned by the Duke of Bassano, by virtue of which he was to hasten, with 20,000 men, to unite with the Army of Italy, under Eugene, the Viceroy. This done. Napoleon sent for Oudinot, Duke of Reggio, and asked him if his troops could be relied on. " No, Sire," answered Oudinot ; "you have abdicated." " Yes, but only on certain conditions." " The soldiers, Sire," answered the Duke, " do not understand these shades. They believe that you have no longer the right to command them." " Then all is over in that direction," said Bonaparte ; " we will wait for news from Paris." The marshals who had been despatched to the capital with his abdication returned about midnight. Marshal Ney (Prince of Moskowa) was the first to enter. " Well, have you succeeded ? " asked Napoleon. " In part, Sire ; but not in obtaining acknowledgment of a regency on behalf of your son. Revolutions never go backwards. This one has taken its course. The Senate will to-morrow acknowledge the Bourbons." " And where am I and my family to live ? " "Where would your Majesty wish? In the Isle of Elba, with a revenue of six millions?" " Six millions. Well, I must resign myself to it." * The Treaty of Fontainebleau was finally ratified on the 13th April. Accord- ing to his own request, he was to be attended to the place of embarkation for Elba by a Commissioner from each of the Allied Powers. Though he received these Commissioners with coldness, he thawed towards some of them. The * Tableau de VHist. de la France^ Paris, 181 5, p. 464. This book, as published before the return from Elba, contains some interesting particulars. 475 476 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE English officer appointed to be with him was Colonel Campbell, and to him Napoleon said : — " I have cordially hated the English. I have made war against you by every possible means, but I esteem your nation. I am convinced that there is more generosity in your Government than in any other. I should like to be conveyed from Toulon to Elba by an English frigate." The Prussian Commissioner was Count Waldburg. To him said the fallen Emperor dryly : — " Are there any Prussian soldiers in my escort ? " '' No, Sire." " Then why do you take the trouble to accompany me ?" " Sire, it is not a trouble, but an honour." " These are mere words ; you are not wanted here ! " And Napoleon turned his back on the Count. The Commissioners expected that Napoleon would be ready to set out without delay ; but they were mistaken. It was not till the 20th that he professed himself ready to depart, and then only at his own time. When the grand marshal, Bertrand, sent to announce to him that all was ready for departure, Napoleon peevishly answered, " Am I to regulate my actions by the grand marshal's watch? I will go when I please. Perhaps I may not go at all." However, he descended into the courtyard, and saw his Old Guard ranged before him. Then ensued a moving scene — Napoleon's farewell to his soldiers. He walked along the rank, visibly moved, and the tears ran down the cheeks of the men, several of whom had grown grey under arms. He addressed them : — " Soldiers of the Old Guard, I bid you farewell. For twenty years I have constantly led you along the road to honour and glory. In these later times, as in prosperity, you have been models of courage and fidelity. With men such as you our cause would not be lost, but the war would have been interminable. I have sacrificed all my interests to those of the country. Her happiness is my only thought. It will still be the object of my wishes. Do not regret my fate. If I have consented to survive, it is in order to serve your glory. Adieu, my friends ! Would I could press you all to my heart ! " He then ordered the eagles to be brought to him, and, having kissed them, he added, " I embrace you all in the person of your general. Adieu, soldiers ! Be always gallant and good ! " He then stepped into his carriage, accompanied by Bertrand. During the first day cries of " Vive I'Empereur ! " resounded along the road. On the night of the 21st he slept at Nevers, where he was received by the acclamations of the people. He left Nevers at six on the morning of the 22nd ; and there the Guards left him, and an escort of Cossacks took their place. i ELBA 477 FAREWELL TO THE OLD GUARD. The Emperor, General Baron Petit. Duke of Bassano. Baron Fain. General Bertrand. General Drouot. General Belliard. General Ornano. @ Colonel Gourgaud. Chief of Battalion Athalin. Lieutenant Forti. Officers of the Foot Grenadiers. General Koller (Austrian Com- missioner). General Kosakovvski. Colonel Campbell (English Com- missioner). General Schouwaloff (Russian Commissioner). Officers of the Light Horse and the Old Guard. The First Regiment of Foot Grenadiers, and officers and non-commissioned officers of the Old Guard. A little north of Lyons, at La Tour, after supper, the Emperor went out, and walked along the road. He sang, in his harsh, unmusical tones, " O Richard ! O mon Roi ! " — Gretry's air — and, leaning against a poplar, looked up into the starry sky. A priest came up, and Napoleon, seeing him, asked who he was. "Sire, I am the cure of this commune." ''Have you been here long?" "Since its formation — since your Majesty restored religion to France." Napoleon walked on for some time in silence. " Then he asked. Has this village suffered much ? " " Greatly, Sire ; its burdens were over-heavy." 478 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE The Emperor pursued his way ; at length, stopping suddenly, he looked up to the sky, and inquired the name of a certain star. The priest was unable to inform him. "Ah!" said Napoleon, "once I knew the names of all the stars — and of my own ; but now " He was silent for a short space, and then resumed : " Yes ; now I forget everything." They were approaching the house; the Emperor took some gold from his pocket, and giving it to the priest, said, " I can do no more ; but the humble are great in the eyes of God. Pray for me, and my alms may bring forth some fruit." " Sire ! " The pronunciation of this single word had probably something peculiar in the intonation, for the Emperor started as he heard it, and replied : " Yes ; perhaps you are right — perhaps I was too fond of war ; but it is too serious a question to be discussed on the highway. Once more, adieu. Pray for me." * For once, he was speaking naturally. There was no object now for acting a part. As Napoleon arrived in the south of France, he perceived that he was no longer in favour, that, indeed, the heart of the people was bitter against him. Near Valence he encountered Augereau, whom he had created Duke of Castig- lione, and who was an underbred fellow, with strong Republican, if not Jacobin, leanings. Napoleon and his marshal met on the 24th ; Napoleon took off his hat, but Augereau, with vulgar insolence, kept his on. " Where are you going.? " asked the Emperor, "to Court?" ."No; I am on my way to Lyons." "You have behaved badly to me." " Of what do you complain ? " asked the marshal, " has not your insatiable ambition brought us to this ? Have you not sacrificed everything to that ambition, even the happiness of PVance? I care no more for the Bourbons than for you. All I care for is my country." Upon this, Napoleon turned his back on him, and re-entered his carriage. Augereau would not even then remove his hat and bow, but saluted his former master with a contemptuous wave of the hand. At Valence, the fallen Emperor for the first time saw French soldiers with the white cockade in their caps. At Orange, the air resounded with cries of " Vive le Roi ! " At Lyons, Napoleon had bought up all the pamphlets and fly-leaves he could get, and had read them in the carriage. Their tone was not compli- mentary. At Avignon, his carriage was surrounded by a furious mob, that would have torn him in pieces, but for the presence of the Commissioners. On arrival at Orgon, the populace yelled, " Down with the Corsican ! Down with the brigand ! Death to the tyrant ! Vive le Roi ! " Portraits of Bona- parte were produced and burnt before his eyes ; a figure of himself was fluttered before his carriage window, with the breast pierced, and dripping with blood. A number of furious women screamed, "Wild beast! What have you done with our children ? " The Commissioners were obliged to stand about the carriage to protect him ; and it was with difficulty that a way could be made through the crowd for the carriages to advance. At Saint Cannat, the mob * Madame JUNOT, Memoirs^ iii. 464. ELBA 479 smashed the windows of the coach. Then, for his protection, he assumed a cap and great-coat of Austrian uniform, and instead of pursuing his journey in the coach, entered a cabriolet. The carriages did not overtake the Emperor until they came to La Calade. The escort found him standing by the fire in the kitchen of the inn talking with the landlady. She had asked him whether the tyrant was soon to pass that way. "Ah ! sir! " she said, "it is all nonsense to say we are rid of him. I have always said that we shall never be sure of being done with him till he is at the bottom of a well, piled over with stones. I wish we had him safe in the well in our yard. The Directory sent him to Egypt to get rid of him, but he returned. And he will come back again, you may be sure of that, sir, unless " Here the woman, having finished skimming her pot, looked up, and perceived that all the party were standing uncovered except the individual whom she was addressing. She was confounded, and her em- barrassment amused the Emperor, and banished his anger. After that she lavished every mark of attention on him. The sous-pi'efet of Aix closed the gates of the town, to prevent the people from issuing forth, and the horses were changed outside the walls. At a chateau near, Napoleon met his sister Pauline, who was ill, or who fancied herself ill, and was staying there. When he entered to embrace her, she started back. " Oh, Napoleon, why this uniform ? " " Pauline," replied he, "do you wish me dead?" The Princess, looking at him steadfastly, replied, " I cannot kiss you in that Austrian dress. Oh, Napoleon ! what have you done ? " The Emperor at once retired, and having substituted a great-coat of his Old Guard for the Austrian one, entered the chamber of his sister, who ran to him and embraced him with tenderness. Then, going to the window, he saw a crowd in the court, in a very uncertain temper. He descended at once, and noticing in the crowd an old man with a gash across his nose, and a red ribbon in his button-hole, he went up to him at once, and asked, "Are you not Jacques Dumont?"* "Yes, yes, Sire!" and the old soldier drew himself up and saluted. " You were wounded, but it seems to me a very long time ago." " Sire, at the battle of Trebia, with the brave General Suchet ; I was unable to serve longer. But even now, whenever the drum beats, I feel like a deserter. Under your ensign, Sire, I could still serve wherever your Majesty would command." The old man shed tears, as he said, " My name ! to recollect that after fifteen years." All hesitation among the crowd as to how they would receive Napoleon was at once at an end. He had won every heart. The English frigate, the Undaunted, was lying off Frejus. Here the old Roman port, with its lighthouse, is now inland, and two miles from the sea. Notwithstanding the wish he had expressed to be conveyed to his destination in an English vessel, the fallen Emperor manifested considerable reluctance to go on board. However, on the 28th of April, he sailed from S. Raphael, and encountered rough weather. On the 3rd May, the frigate arrived off Porto Ferrajo, the capital of his * As Napoleon had a bad memory for names, this anecdote is probably ** improved." 48o THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE miniature empire of Elba. One of his officers at once landed, and announced to the Commander of the port the arrival of the Emperor ; whereupon prepara- tions were immediately made for his reception. On the morning of the 4th, a detachment of troops brought into the town the flag which the ex-Emperor sent, and it was at once hoisted on the fort, to salvoes of artillery. It consisted of a white field, strewn with bees, in the centre the arms of Bonaparte impaled with those of the island.* Soon after, Napoleon landed with all his suite. He was saluted by the artillery of the fortress and of the forts with a hundred rounds, as Emperor of the little realm. The English frigate responded with only twenty-four. Napoleon was dressed in a blue great-coat over a dress embroidered in silver, and on his head a round hat with a white cockade in it. On entering the town he was met by the authorities, civil and ecclesiastical ; after some harangues, he entered the cathedral, where a Te Deum was sung. On leaving the church, he was conducted to the Mayor's palazzo, which was provisionally prepared for his reception. He seemed to be in good spirits, and spoke familiarly with all. In one of his addresses. Napoleon said, " When I was certified that the war was no more being waged against France, but against myself, then I was too much attached to that State, not to do that which was most advantageous for it. The abdication of a throne is to me a slight sacrifice, if useful to France. I abdicated willingly.'' After a slight repose, he mounted his horse, and rode to visit Mariana, Campo, Capo-Liveri, and Rio. "My faith!" he exclaimed, "they have given me a very small realm." The population at that time was 13,380 souls. The evening concluded with a dinner party, given to all the authorities. During the first months of his residence in Elba, Napoleon's life was one of activity and almost garrulous frankness. He gave dinners, went to balls, rode all day about his island, planned fortifications, harbours, and palaces. The second day after he landed, he fitted out an expedition of a dozen soldiers, to take possession of a small uninhabited island called Pianosa, that lies a few miles from Elba ; and on this occasion he said laughingly, " Toute I'Europe dira que j'ai deja fait une conquete." Elba from olden times was famous for its iron mines. Soon after his arrival, Napoleon visited the mines in company with Colonel Campbell ; and on being informed that they produced annually about 500,000 francs, he joyfully exclaimed, " These, then, are my own." But one of his followers remarked to him that he had already disposed of that revenue, having given it to the Order of the Legion of Honour. "Where was my head when 1 made that grant?" said he ; " but I have made many foolish decrees of that sort." f The household of Napoleon, though reduced to thirty-five persons, still represented an Imperial Court. He had a body-guard of 700 infantry and 80 cavalry, and to this handful of men he paid almost as much attention as he had * The Bonaparte arms are in very bad heraldry— Gules, three bars between three stars azure. Those devised for Elba by Napoleon were — Ar^. , on a bend gules, three bees or. t BOURRIENNE, iii. I95. ELBA 481 formerly given to the Grand Army. Colonel Sir Neil Campbell was left in Elba as English representative, but without any soldiers to support him, though a brig of eighteen guns was ordered to cruise off the island. It was true that Napoleon was bound by the Treaty of Fontainebleau to accept his position ; but long experience had taught the Powers that his treaties were torn up by him at the earliest moment convenient. Lord Castlereagh had fully appreciated the danger, and had warned the Allies against sending a man so ambitious, so full of resources, and with so many friends, to an island within sight of Italy, and a few days' sail of France, of placing him in a situation, of all others, the most favourable for carrying on intrigues with both countries. That was not all. From the fortresses in Germany 70,000 veterans, who had served as garrison, were now returned to France ; and the Army of Spain, inured to warfare, was now at home. The whole of France was filled with old soldiers, to whom the Bour- bons were nothing, but whose pulses leaped at the mention of the " Petit Caporal," or "Pere la Violette"; and al- ready the whisper began to pass through the army that, with the first violets of the coming spring. Napoleon would reappear on the soil of France. In order, as it were, to furnish Napoleon with a justi- fication for leaving Elba, the King, Louis XVIII., with the stupidity " which is the badge of all " the Bourbon " tribe," failed to pay him the allowance that was cove- nanted to him by the Treaty of Fontainebleau ; although Alexander of Russia, Francis of Austria, and Lord Castlereagh, as the representative of England, remonstrated, alleging that the honour of the Allies was at stake. This non- fulfilment of the stipulation, as well as the dread of deportation to some unhealthy West Indian island, were the excuses which Napoleon made for his breach of the contract. What made Napoleon particularly uneasy was the rumour that he would not be left at Elba, but be removed further from France. This would have upset all his plans. One day, when walking with Bertrand, Drouot, and Sir Neil Camp- bell, after long silence he burst out, " I am a soldier. Let them assassinate me if they will. I will not be deported." On another occasion he said to the English Commissioner, " Let it be well understood, I will never allow myself to be carried off. To do that, you must make a breach in my fortifications." 21 SAN MARTI NO. The ex-Emperor's residence on Elba. 482 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE tmmTjrfffff imit if f#i It was certainly a cruelty not to suffer his wife and son to be sent to him, and he complained of this bitterly to Campbell : — " My wife no longer writes to me," he exclaimed, in a voice trembling with agitation ; " my son has been taken from me, as of old they were wont to carry off the children of the vanquished to adorn the triumphs of the victors. No such an example of barbarity is to be cited in modern times." But he was not left without consolation. The Countess Walewska, with the son she had by him during the Polish campaign, visited him in Elba, but only remained there two days. Other ladies with whom he had carried on intrigues came to the island, and were useful to him as means of conveying secret despatches, and preparing his party in France to expect his return. He held a Court, and received ladies twice a week. Bonaparte paid great attention to those who were pretty, and asked them who they were, whether they were married, and who their husbands were. To this last question he received one general reply. It happened that every lady was married to a merchant ; but when it came to be further explained that they were merchant-butchers, mer- chant - grocers, merchant - chandlers, his Majesty allowed an expression of dissatisfaction to escape him, and he hastily retired, nor did he further seek their society. Whilst Napoleon was in Elba, he was visited by Lord Ebrington, with whom he was very frank in his de- scription of the characters of the Allied Sovereigns. The Emperor Alexander, he said, was unreliable, but intelligent ; he possessed some liberal ideas, but was fickle and vain. At the very same time, the Czar, in conversation with Madame Junot, told her : " How I loved that man ! I do assure you that I loved him as much — perhaps I may say more than any one of my brothers, and when he betrayed me, I suffered more by his treachery than by the war he brought upon me." And to General Regnier, the Czar said the same : " For my part, I can no longer place any confidence in him. He has deceived me too often. We can have no more dealings with him." It was, indeed, the falsity of Napoleon, the absolute worthlessness of his word, which lost him the love and trust not of Alexander only, but also of his own generals. Of the Emperor Francis, Napoleon said to Lord Ebrington : " I would rely upon him sooner than on the other. If he gave me his word to do such or MAP-HOLDER, USED BY NAPOLEON ON ELBA. ELBA 483 such a thing, I should be persuaded that at the moment of giving it he meant to keep it ; but his mind is very limited — no energy — no character." The King of Prussia he called " un caporal" without an idea beyond the dress of a soldier, and " infinitely the greatest fool of the three." In order to completely hoodwink Sir Neil Campbell, Bonaparte affected a great 'friendship for him. He became very communicative and confidential with him ; invited him almost daily to his breakfast-table, strolled with him about the island, and not infrequently went with him fishing in a little boat on the sea. On such occasions he would say, " Now we are out of their hearing, ask me anything, and I will tell you." By these means the ex-Emperor so duped Sir Neil, that though this officer suspected that an escape was meditated, he by no means supposed it was near of accomplishment. It is said that long before the close of the year 18 14, the initiated named the month and almost the day on which the Emperor would return. Some of the old Republican party, including men who had conspired against him, disgusted with the imbecility and reactionciry measures of the Bourbons, invited Napoleon to return. The brothers, sisters, and other relatives of Bonaparte, all rich, and one of them, Murat, still powerful, promoted the widely-spread plot, for they all felt that by his fall they were dropping into their original insignificance.* Murat's wife, Caroline, a violent-tempered, ambitious woman, who hen-pecked her husband, was incessantly telling him that Austria would never abide by her treaty with him, and that his throne would inevitably be taken from him, and restored to King Ferdinand. At the proper moment, when the mind of Joachim was oscillating like the pendulum of a clock. Napoleon himself wrote to tell him that the lion was not dead, but only sleeping ! Murat at once prepared for the awakening. About the middle of summer. Napoleon was visited by his mother and his sister Pauline. Both these ladies had considerable talents for political intrigue, and their natural faculties had not become rusty from want of practice. Pauline was still beautiful, graceful, had the Bonaparte faculty of fascination, and also the Bonaparte powers of dissimulation. Everyone knew she was a fool, and therefore no one suspected her. She went to and fro between Naples and Elba, and contributed largely to strengthen her sister Caroline's influence in determining the irresolution of Murat. Everything being in readiness, on the 26th February, 181 5, Napoleon gave a brilliant ball at Porto Ferrajo, to the principal persons of the island. It was presided over by Madame Mere and his sister Pauline. Sir Neil Campbell was absent ; he had gone to Leghorn in the single English cruiser, the Partridge, of 18 guns. Whilst the ball was at its height, Napoleon slipped away, and joined his Guard and Volunteers who had arrived, to the number of eleven hundred, and by seven o'clock in the morning of the 27th, the Emperor stepped on board the Inconstant, brig. His air was calm and serene ; he turned, smiled on those around, and said, " The die is now cast." * We must except Bernadotte. LI THE HUNDRED DAYS (i March— 14 June, 18 15) ^VJAPOLEON was in the highest spirits as he sailed over the Ligurian Sea ■*- ^ from Elba to the French coast. He laughed, joked, broke open packages containing choice wines, and distributed them among the officers, sailors, and soldiers on board. A French brig hove in sight. He ordered his Guards to remove their bear- skin caps, and lie flat on deck, to avoid discovery ; and, when hailed by the captain, who asked if they came from Elba, and if so, how was Napoleon, the Emperor himself shouted in reply, " II se porte a merveille." Suspecting nothing, the brig continued her course, and on the evening of the 29th the towers of Antibes were descried, and on the ist March the little fleet cast anchor in the Gulf of S. Juan. No opposition to the landing was offered ; but when he despatched twenty-five of the Old Guard to Antibes, to endeavour to seduce the garrison, they were arrested, and detained by the commander. General Corsin. Next morning he started for Grenoble, by Gap, and almost at once ran against the Prince Honore, of Monaco, who was coming in his carriage, with a livery servant on the box who had formerly been in the service of the Empress, to take possession of his principality, from which he had been dispossessed by Bonaparte. Both descended from their carriages, and a dialogue ensued that will not admit of translation : — " Ou allez vous, Monaco ? " asked Napoleon bluntly. " Sire," replied Honore, " je vais a la decouverte de mon royaume." The Emperor smiled, 'i Voila une singuliere rencontre, monsieur," said he, "Deux Majestes sans place; mais ce n'est peut-etre pas la peine de vous; deranger. Avant huit jours je serai a Paris, et je me verrai force de vous renverser du trone, mon cousin. Revenez plutot avec moi, je vous nommerai sous-prefet de Monaco, si vous y tenez beaucoup." " Merci de vos bontes. Sire," replied the Prince in some confusion ; " mais je tiendrais encore plus a faire une restauration, ne dut-elle durer que trois jours." " Allons ! faites la durer trois mois, mon cousin, je vous garderai votre place de chancellier, et vous viendriez me rejoindre aux Tuileries." 484 THE HUNDRED DAYS 485 The Provencals neither welcomed Napoleon nor attempted to oppose him. There were no royal troops in the neighbourhood. He hurried through Provence into Dauphine, "the cradle of the Revolution," and there the people began to flock round his standard. Still no troops joined him, and he felt uneasy. On the 5th of March he issued two proclamations, which had been written on board ship, but which he could not get printed till he reached Gap. RECEPTION BY THE SOLDIERS. From a picture by Steuben. The proclamation to the soldiers was in Napoleon's wonted style — nervous, pointed, inspiring like a trumpet-blast : — " Soldiers ! we have not been conquered ! . . . In my exile I have heard your voice ; I have come back, in spite of all obstacles and every danger. Your General, called to the throne by the choice of the people, and raised on your shields, is restored to you : come and join him. Mount the tricolored cockade : you wore it in the days of our greatness. We must not forget that we have been the masters of nations ; and we must not suffer any to intermeddle in our affairs. . . . Resume those eagles which you had at Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, at Eylau, Wagram, Smolensk, Moscow, Liitzen, and Montmirail. . . . Soldiers ! come and range yourselves under the banners of your Chief; his existence is only made up of yours ; his rights are only those of the people, and yours ; his interest, honour, glory, are no other than your interest, honour, and glory. Victory shall advance at the charge. The Eagle, bearing the national colours, 486 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE shall wing from steeple to steeple, till it reaches the towers of Notre-Dame. Then you will be able to show your scars with honour ; then you will be the liberators of your country ! In your old age, surrounded and looked up to by your fellow-citizens, they will listen with respect as you recount your high deeds — * I was a part of that Grand Army which entered twice within the walls of Vienna, within those of Rome, Berlin, Madrid, and Moscow, and which delivered Paris from the stain which treason and the presence of the enemy had imprinted on it' Honour to those brave soldiers, the glory of their country." This proclamation was rapidly diffused through the country, and thrilled the hearts of his soldiers, whether disbanded and dispersed, or still held under the colours, and these colours that they despised. Within six leagues of Grenoble, on the fifth day after his landing, Napoleon first met a battalion. The commanding officer refused to hold a parley. The Emperor, without hesitation, advanced alone, and a hundred grenadiers followed at some distance in the rear. The sight of the old familiar grey coat and cocked hat, the firm little figure, with the sharp-cut features, produced a magical effect on the soldiers, and they stood motionless. Napoleon went straight up to them, and, baring his breast, said, " Let him that has the heart kill his Emperor ! " The soldiers threw down their arms, their eyes filled with tears, and cries of "Vive I'Empereur!" resounded on every side. Napoleon ordered the battalion to wheel round to the right, and all marched on together. Just outside the walls of Grenoble, Colonel Labedoyere, commanding the seventh regiment of the line, an officer of gentle birth, who had been promoted by Louis XVIII., and had taken the oath to him, on seeing him, rushed before the ranks, and invited the soldiers to follow him. A drum was opened, and found to be stuffed with tricolor cockades. Instantly all the soldiers plucked off their white favours, and trampled them under foot ; they mounted the national colours, and went over to their comrades. General Marchand, who commanded the garrison within the walls of Grenoble, shut the gates, and would fain have done his duty ; but his men joined in the cry of " Vive I'Empereur ! " and, when Bonaparte blew open one of the gates with a howitzer, all the soldiers did what the seventh regiment had done just before them. Next morning the civil authorities of Grenoble renewed their allegiance. Bonaparte was now at the head of an enthusiastic veteran army of nearly seven thousand men. With this force he descended from the mountains of Dauphine, and appeared before the walls of Lyons on the loth of March. The King's brother, the Comte d'Artois, was in that city, and was ably and honestly assisted by Marshal Macdonald, who would not throw his oath to the winds ; but the troops and the populace of Lyons followed the example of Grenoble ; the prince and marshal were obliged to fly for their lives, and Bonaparte entered that second city of France in triumph. One man, and one man only, of the National Mounted Guard, that had been commanded and led by the Comte d'Artois, followed him in his flight, with a chivalrous devotion worthy of being recorded. Napoleon sent the man the decoration of the Legion of Honour, in recognition of his fidelity. THE HUNDRED DAYS 489 The rest of the march to Paris was one of triumph. All along the road the Emperor was joined by soldiers, in detachments, battalions, or entire divisions, who tore the white cockade from their caps, and mounted the tricolor. The Bourbons were abandoned by the entire army ; nevertheless, except at Grenoble and Lyons, the people gave few or no signs of enthusiasm. Many fled out of the way, and the majority of those who remained on the line of march gazed in stupid bewilderment, and with doubt of heart as to whither this new Revolution would lead. In Paris, all was still. The blunders of the Royalists, the outrageous conduct of the returned emigres, the uninteresting appearance of the King — a stout, dull old man, with black velvet boots, and incapacity written large on his face — the scurrility of the Royalist press, the irritating measures adopted by the Government, had all contributed to make the restored Bourbons disliked. France could hardly endure to be made ridiculous, after having been humbled. Accustomed to have at her head and as her representative a man before whom all Europe trembled, of vast genius, and of Greek beauty, she could ill brook to have him replaced by an amiable, gouty nonentity. Lavallette, who was at the time in Paris, says, " Our consternation aug- mented from day to day. I took walks in the suburbs, and found everywhere the appearance of complete apathy. . . . The position of the Court inspired no interest ; the jests to which it was exposed gained rapid applause ; but still, the too recent presence of the enemy caused great anxiety, and in a sort of stupe- faction it awaited the arrival of the Emperor. Nevertheless, with the excep- tion of a few young men enlisted at Vincennes as Royalists, nobody appeared willing to fight. The Comte dArtois returned in despair, unable to place any confidence in the army. All the regiments he had met with, all the troops he had assembled, had refused to obey his orders." * The King, bewildered, frightened, appealed to Marmont, who advised him to surround himself with picked men in the Tuileries, and stand a siege ; but it would have required a man of resolute soul to take so bold a measure. Louis XVIII. packed up his portmanteau, and ran away. It was late in the evening of the 20th, that Bonaparte entered Paris in an open carriage, which was driven straight to the gilded gates of the Tuileries. He received the acclamations of the military, and of the lower classes of the suburbs ; but most of the respectable citizens looked on in chill wonderment. A number of generals and officers at once took Napoleon out of the mud- bespattered carriage, lifted the little man on their shoulders, and carried him up to the state apartments, while through the foggy air sounded cries, not the most enthusiastic, of " Vive I'Empereur ! " Thus far, all seemed to go well ; but the triumph was soon damped. It was impossible not to see that, with the exception of some of the faubourg mobs, which Napoleon hated and feared, the people of Paris were silent, lukewarm, cautious, or averse. Then came brother Lucien, with his tail of Liberals, including Carnot and * Memoirs, ii. 171. 490 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Fouche, protesting that promises of a Constitutional Government that should be frankly representative, of liberty of the Press, and control over the expenditure must be given in good earnest, and that this restoration must inaugurate a new system of rule. Bonaparte replied, dissembling his irritation, that there would be time for making a good Constitution hereafter, when he had dissolved the European Confederacy ; every thought must be turned to raising money and troops, the casting of cannon, and the manufacture of ammunition. But the Liberals- stuck to their point. The Constitution must come first, their exertions in his cause afterwards. Napoleon saw how great his difficulties were, and understood that he must accept the terms offered him. But this new attitude did not suit him. He became aware that the moment for despotic govern- ment was at an end, when one so devoted as Labedoyere exclaimed, the moment some- thing was said about pro- scriptions, " Oh ! if there is going to be a renewal of perse- cutions, this won't last long." The Emperor yielded sullenly. He summoned Benjamin Constant, and bade him draw up the necessary Constitution. But every time that Napoleon heard the terms read, " Liberty of the press, liberty of opinions, electoral liberty, the inviolability of the Chamber," he uttered a cry as of pain. It seemed to him that his arbitrary powers were undergoing amputation, and he exclaimed, "You have bound my arms. I shall be no longer recognised." The Bonapartists were indignant at the demands of the Constitutionals ; even that strutting democrat, Lucien, who had been the first to claim his right to be a Prince of the Empire, growled that this was limiting the Imperial power too greatly. Napoleon announced that the new Constitution would be submitted to the Electoral Colleges, and be ratified by a plebiscite. The plebiscite took place in the midst of general indifference. Among five million electors, there were three million abstentions. Directly Napoleon attempted to fill places in his Government, he was obliged to face the fact that confidence in the stability of his Empire was at an end. Offers of places were made, and refused. Cambaceres declined the situa- tion of Minister of Justice ; Caulaincourt refused the portfolio of Minister of SIR' I AM A RELIC OF AUSTERLITZ !" From a lithograph by Charlet. THE HUNDRED DAYS 491 Foreign Affairs ; Mole declined the same office, and frankly informed the Emperor that, in his belief, the drama was at an end, the dead could not be resuscitated. He was thus driven on the old Republicans. He called Carnot to the Ministry of the Interior. To satisfy the military, he confided the Ministry of War to Davoust, whose talents, energy, and favour with the soldiery were displeasing to him. Finally, he was forced to endure Fouche, master of all the Imperial secrets, who he knew to be negotiating with the enemy to betray him. A disinclination to take office was manifest even in the inferior departments of Government. The situation of prefet^ once an object of ambition, was now shrunk from as entailing risk ; and the Emperor was forced to bestow it on men who were incompetent, and who had actually been disgraced under the Empire. At the beginning of the year 1815^ the Congress of Vienna had assembled to regulate the affairs of Europe, the boundaries of the several States, and various matters that necessitated immediate settlement. Eight Powers were represented. The Congress had done little more than fall out on every possible question, and the plenipotentiaries had been rather engrossed in amusing them- selves than in settling anything, provoking the remark of the Prince de Eigne, " Parbleu ! if the Congress takes few steps, at least it dances well." The news of the landing of Napoleon in France arrived in Vienna at the moment when most of the plenipotentiaries and all the elite of Vienna were present at a tableau vivant, representing the entry of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy into Brussels. When the tidings began to be whispered, general in- attention ensued, then the ambassadors and other statesmen stole out, and a thrill of stupefaction and fear passed through the entire audience. This was on the 13th March, and the re-establishment of concord among the ministers of the eight Powers was the first result of a disaster largely due to their dissensions. They at once signed an agreement whereby Napoleon Bonaparte was declared an outlaw, a violator of treaties, and a disturber of the peace of the world, and delivered him over to public vengeance. Great Britain agreed to maintain 125,000 men, Austria to furnish 300,000 men, Russia 225,000, Prussia 236,000, the various States of Germany 150,000, and Holland afterwards agreed to supply 50,000, and not to dissolve the bond till Napoleon was again crushed. This declaration of the Congress 6f Vienna came as a thunderbolt, that frightened the entire population of France. The eastern pro- vinces had felt what invasion meant, and were unwilling to undergo again the same experience, and the rest of France was well aware that to resist such a coalition was to court destruction. The soldiers alone were sanguine. The peasants were frightened, the citizens stupefied. Napoleon realised the situation, and he appealed to the army and to the rabble, who had nothing to lose. The first evening of his return, as he walked round the glittering circle met to welcome him in the state apartments of the Tuileries, he kept repeating, '* Gentlemen, it is to the poor and disinterested mass of the people that I owe everything ; it is they who have brought me back to the capital. It is the poor non-commissioned officers and common soldiers 492 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE who have done all this. Remember that ! I owe everything to the army and the people ! " But when on the 14th of May a grand parade of the Jacobins and the rabble of the faubourgs was held, and marched along the boulevards to the Tuileries, shouting the songs of the Revolution — the " Marseillaise," the *' Carmagnol," the " Jour du depart," the execrable ditty, the burden of which is, " With the entrails of the last priest let us strangle the last king " — then his disgust and abhorrence could not be concealed. He received • them with his Guards drawn up under arms, and with his cannon charged ; and he dismissed them with few words, some coin and drink. Poor Josephine did not live to see the return of Napoleon from Elba. She had caught cold, which settled in her throat, and she died at Malmaison on the 29th May, 1 8 14. The utmost courtesy and respect had been shown her by the Allies on their entry into Paris ; indeed, the Czar Alexander spent with her nearly the whole day on which she died. It was perhaps as well ; had she lived till Napoleon's return, she would have committed some act of folly that would have compromised him. Bourrienne records a conversation relative to Josephine that the Emperor had with Horan, one of the physicians who attended her during her last illness. He sent for Honan a few days after his return : — " So, Monsieur Horan," said he, "you did not leave the Empress during her malady ? " " No, Sire." " What was the cause of her malady ? " " Uneasiness of mind, grief" " You think so ? Was she long ill ? Did she suffer much ? " " She was ill a week. Sire ; her Majesty suffered little bodily pain." " Did she see that she was dying ? Did she show courage ? " " A sign her Majesty made when she could no longer express herself, leaves me no doubt that she felt her end approaching. She seemed to contemplate it without fear." " Well, well ! " and then Napoleon, much affected, drew close to M. Horan, and added, " You say that she was in grief ; from what did that arise ? " " From passing events, Sire ; from your Majesty's position last year." " Ah ! she used to speak of me, then ? " " Very often." Here Napoleon drew his hand across his eyes, which seemed filled with tears. He then went on : " Good woman ! Excellent Josephine ! She loved me truly — she — did she not ? Oh, she was a French- woman ! " " Yes, Sire, she loved you, and she had conceived an idea of displaying it." *' How ? " " She one day said that as Empress of the French she would drive through Paris with eight horses to her coach, and all her household in gala livery, and go and rejoin you at Fontainebleau, and never quit you more." " She would have done it. She was capable of doing it." There was bitterness in his heart as he contrasted Josephine, the deserted, with Marie Louise, who had deserted him. " She loved me ! She was a Frenchwoman ! " When he spoke these words, he was thinking of his second Empress. Marie Louise did not love him, and never had ; she feared and disliked him. It was not all her father's doing that she did not go to him in Elba. It was due to her own repugnance. She had been given Parma as a residence, and she feared to go there, because it was near enough to Elba to make her fear that the proximity might lead to reunion. And now letters from Meneval arrived to tell Napoleon that she had no intention of returning to him. She had, in fact, formed an attachment for her one-eyed chamberlain ; THE HUNDRED DAYS 493 and this shortly became an infatuation. She was a feeble-minded, little-hearted, characterless person. The situation of Napoleon is admirably drawn by Lavallette,^his friend, and one who was sentenced to be shot by the Bourbons, after their second return, because he had been faithful to the Emperor : — " Fallen from the throne, erased from the list of Sovereigns, banished to the rock of Elba, he was a thing of the past ; now he returned almost alone. Scarcely had he set his foot on the French shore, when the people everywhere rose. All France repeated enthusiastically : 'No more royalty ! No more Bourbons ! It is Napoleon alone that France desires ! ' And indeed peasants, soldiers, citizens, all hastened to meet him ; all hailed him with their wishes and gratitude, like a good genius, like a Providence. The royalty of the Bourbons was no longer anything but a dream. It was as though royalists, nobles, emigres, had never existed. This was not the result of a conspiracy; it was a great national movement Hke that of 1789 for Liberty, of the 9th Thermidor against Tyranny, of the i8th Brumaire against Incapacity. What other instances in history are there of defections so abrupt, so remarkable, and in some respects so sincere? Patriotism, love of glory, and an enlightened conviction that the recently-imported dynasty could do nothing for the happi- ness and independence of the kingdom — these were the motives. But within eight days I became aware that a deep gulf was yawning under our feet. The great fault of Napoleon's reign had now to be paid for — I mean the want of ensemble, the absence of all such laws as were desired by the friends of Liberty. It was the want of this which had weakened his former position, and which fatally affected his present position. . . . The eleven months of the King's reign had thrown us back on 1792, and the Emperor soon perceived this ; for he no longer found the submission, the deep respect, and the Imperial etiquette to which he had been accustomed. He used to send for me twice or thrice a day, and talk with me for hours together. It happened sometimes that the conversation flagged. One day, after we had walked up and down the room two or three times in silence, tired of this sort of thing, and my business pressing me, I made my obeisance, and was about to retire. ' How ! ' said he, surprised, ' do you leave me thus ? ' I would certainly have done so a year before ; but I had forgotten my former pace, and I felt I could not get back into it again. In one of our conversations, the subject was the Spirit of Liberty that was abroad and energetic. He said to me in a tone of interrogation : 'All this will last two or three years ? ' ' That your Majesty does not believe. It will last for ever ! ' " He was soon convinced of the fact himself, and he more than once acknowledged it. The Allies made a great mistake in not leaving him alone. I do not know what concessions he might have made, but I am well acquainted with what the nation would have demanded ; and I sincerely think, had he granted them, he would have become utterly disgusted with having to reign as a constitutional king. Nevertheless, he submitted admirably to his situation — at least, in appearance. At no period of his life had I seen him enjoy more unruffled tranquillity. Not a harsh word to anyone ; no impatience ; he listened to everything, and discussed matters with the wonderful sagacity and power of reasoning that were so conspicuous in him. He acknowledged his faults with most touching ingenuousness, and examined into his own position with a penetration to which even his enemies were strangers," Although obliged to accept the aid of the Liberals, when with his intimates he did not conceal his aversion for them. " The empty fools, the babblers," said 494 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE he, "they talk when we ought to be fighting. They want to fetter my strong arm. Will their weak ones avail the nation ? One thing is clear to me, France does not possess the elements of Representative Government; she wants a Dictator, like me." He was galled to find that those whom he had raised to wealth and title deserted him. To Benjamin Constant he said, "In the situation in- which I stand, my only nobility is the rabble of the faubourgs, and I know no rabble save the nobility I created." I WATERLOO, i8tH JUNE, 1815. From a lithograph by Raffet. LII WATERLOO (15-18 June, 1815) ON leaving Elba, Napoleon had already formed his plans for meeting the Coalition. He had no doubt whatever that the soldiers would everywhere flock to his standard, and that his marshals would revert to him from the Bourbons, making as light of their oaths as he did himself when bound by a solemn engagement. He then intended to plant an Army of the North across the roads from Belgium into France, pivoted on the triple line of fortresses that gird the north and east. Where the forces of the Allies were he did not know, nor the course they were likely to take to invade France. He aimed at striking at the weakest and most irresolute of the members of the Alliance. Murat was ordered to stir up insurrections in Italy. The Po being crossed, Murat was to advance on the capital of Lombardy. Napoleon purposed joining him with an Army of Italy ; and then, in combination with Murat, intended to cross the Julian Alps, at the head of 100,000 men, and take Vienna for the third time. But the plan was frustrated by the premature action of Murat, and his failure, and also by the rapidity with which the Prussians and English con- centrated in Belgium ; so that it became obvious to him that the scene of the conflict would not be in the plains of Lombardy, nor on the Marchfeld, near the Danube, but on the confines of Flanders. 495 496 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE He prepared for this great struggle with his usual energy. The Imperial factories were stimulated to activity; contractors provided 20,000 cavalry horses before the ist June, and 10,000" horses for the dismounted gendarmerie, 12,000 horses for the artillery, in addition to 6,000 which the army already had. The King had taken to his heels with such precipitation, that he had left behind him the treasury-chests well filled with cash, on which Napoleon at once laid his hands. " But the chief resource which Napoleon found on his return was in the goodwill of the people, and in the confidence of the great French and Dutch capitalists arising oiit of it. Voluntary donations were also numerous, and in some departments exceeded a million francs. At the military parades he was often presented with bundles of bank-bills, and, on his return to the palace, had to give the Minister of the Treasury 80,000 or 100,000 francs which he had received in this manner." * Napoleon left Paris on the 12th June to join the army he had collected at Lille, Laon, and Valenciennes. On the 14th, he issued one of his vigorous proclamations to the soldiers : — " This day is the anniversary of Marengo and Friedland, which twice de- cided the destiny of Europe. After Austerlitz and Wagram we were too generous. We believed in the protestations and oaths of princes, to whom we left their thrones. Now, leagued together, they strike at the independence and sacred rights of France. Let us march forward and meet them. Are we not the same men ? Soldiers ! at Jena these Prussians were three to our one, at Montmirail six to our one. . . . The Saxons, Belgians, Hanoverians, and soldiers of the Confederation of the Rhine, lament to have to use their arms on behalf of princes who are the enemies of justice, and destroyers of the rights of nations. . . . Madness ! one moment of prosperity has bewildered these Allies. . . . Soldiers ! forced marches are before us, battles to be fought, dangers to be encountered ; but, firm in resolution, victory must be ours. The honour and happiness of our country are at stake ! and, in short, Frenchmen, the moment has arrived when we must conquer or die." * It has been ascertained that Napoleon was ill at the time of the great battles that were to decide his fate, and that therefore genius failed him, and that his energy and versatility were lacking. He was already feeling the first intimations of the disorder of which he died. Lavallette says, " He suffered a great deal from a pain in his breast " ; but he adds, " He stepped into his coach, however, with a cheerfulness that seemed to show* he was conscious of victory." f There was no lack of resolution and of thought in his plans for the cam- paign. He proposed doing what he had done in Italy, where he had driven his army, as a wedge, between the Sardinians and the Austrians, and then had attacked and beaten each in detail. He had done the same the year before, when the Allies marched into France. He had now, as then, opposed to him the brave and blundering Bliicher in command of the Prussians ; but he could not now calculate on having a Schwarzenberg at the head of the allied force. Brussels was the headquarters of the army under the Duke of Wellington, * BOURRIENNE, Hi. 287. f Memoirs, ii. 223. ] WATERLOO 497 and he had to maintain his communications with England. His army was composed of 106,000 men, of whom not one-third were British. The Belgian contingent was useless, made up of timid little men, on whom small reliance could be placed.* The base of Bliicher was at Namur, and he had to preserve his communications with Germany. Knowing that his adversary would bring with him a powerful artillery, Wellington had applied for 150 British field- pieces ; but so miserably had he been supplied by our Government, and by those who kept the keys at Woolwich, where were guns enough to cannonade the world, that, when he united all his English guns with those of the Dutch and Germans under him, he found he had only 84 pieces. Four great paved roads converged at Brussels, all leading from France ; and by which of these Napoleon would advance, could not be told. Accordingly the Duke was obliged to guard all four; and thus it was that 18,000 men were at Hall, and were not engaged ; and he himself remained at Brussels till he should receive information as to the route by which the French intended to advance. Napoleon marched from Avesnes to Charleroi, with the object of separating the Prussians from the Allies under Wellington ; he entrusted to Ney the attack on the position of the latter at Quatre Bras, whilst he fell with overwhelming weight on Bliicher at Ligny. The Prussians were defeated after an heroic resistance, and fell back on Wavre. The English held their own, and defeated Ney at Quatre Bras ; but when Wellington found that the Prussians had fallen back, he was obliged to withdraw as well, in the direction of Brussels, and take up his position at Waterloo. The two battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras were fought on the i6th June. The campaign was thus almost won at the outset, and Napoleon had been able to separate the Allies. This was owing partly to Wellington's undue strengthening of his communications with the sea, and weakening his left, which was covered by Bliicher. • The night of the 17th, during which Wellington's men lay on the wet earth, or in the dripping corn-fields, was a dreary night, with heavy rain, thunder and lightning, and violent gusts of wind. They longed for the morrow. It came at last; but Sunday, the i8th of June, was dull, with a drizzling rain, and heavy clouds that cut off every ray of sun. Wellington's force numbered 72,720 men ; of this number, including the King's German Legion, which deserved to be classed with English troops, 36,273 were British, 7,447 were Hanoverians, 8,000 were Brunswickers, and 21,000 were Belgian and Nassau troops; those from Holland and Nassau alone of good quality, but almost paralysed by the cowardice of their Belgian associates. Napoleon had now resolved on throw- ing himself with immense force on the English and their Allies, as he had beaten and driven back the Prussians. He left Grouchy with 32,000 men to watch and annoy the latter, and he collected in front of Waterloo about 78,000 men, veterans almost to a man ; and there were at least 100,000 soldiers of the same quality behind, coming up as reinforcements. On the other side, of British * " Much great coat and very little man," as Bismarck descriLei a Belgian soldier in 1871. 2 K 498 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE soldiers, though Wellington had some of his well-approved troops from the Peninsula, the rest was composed of men who had never smelt powder. When, early in the morning, Napoleon mounted his horse to survey- Wellington's position, he could see comparatively few troops. This induced him to suppose that the English were in retreat ; but General Foy, who had served in Spain, shook his head, and answered, " Wellington never shows his troops ; but if he be yonder, I must warn your Majesty that the English infantry, in close fighting, is the very devil!" The Emperor did not un- derstand the fighting power of an Englishman, nor the ability of Wellington. Ac- customed to hold all his marshals cheap, he had at- tributed the defeats they had endured in the Peninsula to their incapacity, and not to the superiority of their op- ponents ; and it was not till the infantry had begun their work, that it began to lighten on him that he had now to do with men of very different stuff from what he had ex- pected. " I could never have believed," he said, "that the English had such fine troops.'"^ Throughout the battle,. Napoleon occupied the height of La Belle Alliance, where he sat at a table strewn with maps, with his telescope in his hand, Soult at his side, and his orderlies behind him. His eagle eye at once perceived the importance of Hougomont on the left,. a rising piece of ground, occupied by a chateau and an orchard within walls, which commanded the right of the Allies ; and the most desperate efforts were made throughout the day to secure it. Had he gained Ithat, from it he could have pounded the right wing of the English and their allies, and have turned the flank of the army opposed to him. The only other position that served as a key was La Haye Sainte, and this was taken after a gallant defence, but only through the supply of ammunition failing its defenders. That secured, it became of sovereign importance to the French as base for an attempt to break the centre ; and on this Napoleon con- centrated all his efforts. NAPOLEON. After Philippoteaux. WATERLOO 499 The brilliant manner in which the English resisted every attack, by pouring grape and canister against the cavalry that advanced against them, then leaving their battery and retiring into the midst of squares which immediately formed, and allowed the cavalry of the enemy to pass them, and to be exposed to galling fire as they did so, and to face a bristling hedge of bayonets which they could not break — this was a novelty to Napoleon. He had seen nothing like it. He could not believe that it would succeed in the long run, and again and again he alternately flung cavalry against the lines of the English centre, and poured shot into their squares, but only to see the unshaken line contract NAl'OLIiON AT THE CLOSE OF THE BATTLE. From a painting by Steuben. into squares, and then the unbroken squares resolve again into line. For an hour Ney continued to direct a succession of attacks against the Allies in their centre, but still without succeeding in dislodging or dismaying the indomitable squares. It was now nearly seven o'clock p.m., and the victory on which the French had reckoned so confidently in the morning, was unachieved. Meanwhile, Bliicher was approaching from Wavre ; and Napoleon, now at last aware that the Prussians were advancing against his right wing, was obliged to direct his reserves to protect himself from being out-flanked. Blucher found the roads deep in mud. The patience of the weary troops was well-nigh ex- hausted. " We cannot go further," they said. " We must, ' was Blucher's reply ; " I have passed my word to Wellington, and you cannot make me break it." By six o'clock the Prussian advanced body, under Bulow, had forty-eight guns in action, and a furious assault was made on Planchenois, to the French right. 500 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE The Imperial Army, which at the beginning of the battle had been in concave position, now became convex. Not a point of the British position had been carried, save the outpost of La Haye Sainte, and not a single square had been broken. Hougomont, though blazing, was maintained with unshaken stubbornness. Napoleon's cavalry had been almost totally destroyed in the desperate assaults on the centre, and his infantry columns had been frightfully reduced. Every portion of the French army but the Old Guard had been engaged, repulsed, and thinned. Bonaparte, sitting at his table, saw the smoke rise from Planchenois, and heard thence the booming of the Prussian guns. There was for him but one chance left, and at this he desperately caught. It was to send his Guards against the British centre ; that broken, he would re-form along the Brussels road, and make front against the Prussian advance. With this view, the Emperor recalled several of the battalions and batteries of the Young Guard which had been sent to Planchenois, and eight battalions of the Old Guard were arranged on the paved road beside La Belle Alliance. It was a quarter past seven when the first column of the Old Guard advanced to the attack ; there was a temporary lull in the French cannonade. It was evident to both armies that within half an hour the fate of the day, nay, that of Europe, would be decided. As soon as the Old Guard had descended from the heights of La Belle Alliance, shouting " Vive I'Empereur ! " the French batteries recommenced their roar, but were compelled to desist as soon as the infantry began to mount the rise held by the English. The British gunners, however, continued pouring shot on the advancing columns, making innumerable gaps in the ranks of their assailants. Ney's horse was shot under him, but the gallant marshal continued to advance on foot. The Guard gained the summit of the hill, and advanced towards that part of the line where Maitland's brigade had been ordered to lie down behind the ridge, in rear of the battery that crowned it. The Duke commanded here in person at this critical juncture. Whether he gave the command in those memorable words, ' Up, Guards, and at them ! " or in others to the same effect, matters little : the British leaped to their feet, moved forward a few paces, and poured in a volley so close and well-directed, that nearly all of the first two ranks of the French fell. Bonaparte was not with the Guard ; he had led it in person only to the foot of the Allied position, and then took up a position whence he could watch the result. It has been unreasonably charged against him that he did not advance with the Guard, but it was more important that he should occupy a central position, whence he could direct the movements in every part of the field, especially as his flank was menaced by the Prussians. He sat on his horse rigid and fixed like a stone, watching the result. At the first volley, and the fall of the front ranks, the Guard staggered some fell back, their flanks were enveloped by the dragoons on one side, and infantry on the other ; they were mown down, and retired in irretrievable con- fusion. There was no more fighting ; the army of Napoleon — the last of all, WATERLOO 503 and the most desperate of all— made no further stand, or attempt to rally ; all the rest of the work was headlong, unresisted pursuit, slaughter of fugitives, and .capture of artillery, prisoners, spoils. The army was destroyed, as an army, before the pursuit began ; its last semblance of cohesion was lost with the defeat of the Guard. As the broken Imperial Guard reeled down the hill, inter- mingled with the British dragoons and infantry, who were cutting, bayoneting, trampling them down, Bonaparte became livid as death, and turning to the man who stood by him, said, " lis sont meles ensemble." There was not a moment to be lost, for the English horsemen, sweeping up the side of the hill, threatened to envelop and capture the Emperor. He had ascended a small elevation, with the Sacred Guard surrounding him, and with four pieces of cannon, which were worked to the last. The rapid approach of the English and Prussians, however, soon ren- dered this last post untenable. Turning to Bertrand, he said, " Tout a present est fini ! Sauvons nous." What must have been the feelings of Napoleon as he fled? One of his aides- de-camp, Raoul, has described his attitude, the last time he was seen on the field, and the fascination he still exercised over all who were about his person : — # 0^ NAPOLEON S REDINGOTi: KED HAT. From the collection of Prince Victor. " He has ruined us — he has destroyed France and himself— yet I love him still ; it is impossible to be near him and not love him. He bewitches all minds ; ap- proach him with a thousand prejudices, and you quit him filled with admiration. But then, his mad ambition, his ruinous infatua- tion, his obstinacy without bounds ! Besides, he was wont to set everything upon a cast — his game was all or nothing. Even the battle of Waterloo might have been retrieved had he not charged with the Guard. This was the reserve of the army, and should have been employed in covering his retreat instead of attack- ing ; but with him, whenever matters looked desperate, he became like a mad dog. He harangued the Guard, he put himself at its head ; it debouched rapidly, and rushed upon the enemy. We were mown down like grape — we wavered — turned our backs, and the rout was complete. A general disorgani- sation of the army ensued, and Napoleon, relapsing into the stupor which 504 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE he had shaken off, was cold as a stone. The last time I saw him was in returning from the charge, when all was lost. My thigh had been broken by a musket-shot in advancing, and I had been left in the. rear, lying on the ground. Napoleon passed close by me ; his nose was buried in his snuff-box, and his bridle fell loosely on the neck of his horse, which was pacing leisurely along. A Scotch regiment was advancing at the charge in the distance. The Emperor was almost alone. Lallemand only was with him. The latter still exclaimed, 'AH is not lost, Sire; all is not lost! Rally, soldiers, rally!' The Emperor replied not a word. Lallemand recognised me in passing. ' What THE LITTLE COCKED HAT. Sketched from the original. has happened to you, Raoul ? ' ' My thigh is shattered with a musket-ball.' ' Poor devil, how I pity you ! Adieu ! adieu I ' The Emperor uttered not a word." In his flight, Napoleon hurried into an orchard adjoining the farm of La Belle Alliance. He was there met by two French cuirassiers, who had lost their way, and who undertook to protect him. As he rode away, he was recognised, in spite of the darkness, but no cries of " Vive I'Empereur ! " gave token of love, of confidence, of courage. One said to another in a low tone, " There goes the Emperor ! " These words appeared to him to compromise his safety, and each time he heard it he spurred his horse, and galloped along the road as swiftly as the encumbered condition of the way would permit. Turning in the direction of Philippeville, he abandoned his army without making an effort to rally it. He had, in fact, no corps that held together to serve as WATERLOO 505 a nucleus ; and he knew that the French soldiers, bold and impetuous when they have hope of victory, and are advancing against the enemy, are at once demoralised by defeat, and that to attempt to re-form them on the spot, and in the night, would inevitably have failed. On reaching Philippeville, Napoleon entered the place with a very humble retinue, and after a few hours' rest, took the road to Paris by Rocroi and Mezieres. Was there a defect of mental power and activity in Napoleon in the conduct of this campaign ? This has been put forward, to account for the complete collapse ; because men have been so dazzled with the genius of Napoleon, that they have thought that only so could his failure be explained. That his physical powers were becoming exhausted, that he had lost his activity, and faculty of doing without sleep, and snatching a mouthful of food at any time, may be conceded. But when did he exhibit more splendid military abilities than in the preceding year ? And now his plans of campaign were admirable, and his conduct of the battle would have ensured victory, but for one fatal error into which he had fallen. After Ligny, he had made sure that Bliicher would fall back on Namur. He knew enough of Bliicher to be aware that, with a man of his moderate calibre, that would be his first thought. So confident was he that Bliicher and the Prussians had retired in that direction, that he did not take the necessary precautions to verify his conviction. He threw out no reconnoitring parties along the roads to Tilly and Gembloux. General Pajol was sent in pursuit of the Prussians, and followed a body of 10,000 deserters, and some stragglers and wounded men from Ligny, who took the Namur road, in the belief that this was the wreck of Bliicher's army; and his report confirmed Napoleon in his error. Meanwhile the Prussian army, defeated indeed, but not in disorder, was retiring northwards to effect a junction with Wellington, according to an arrangement already made. Napoleon, to the last believing that Bliicher and the main army were at Namur, despatched Grouchy, with something like 40,000 men, to throw himself between the English and the Prussians, and prevent the latter from issuing from Namur, whilst he fell on the English. Thus it was that Napoleon failed ; less as a tactician at Waterloo, than as a strategist in mistaking the whereabouts of the Prussians. The arrival of the latter at Planchenois in his rear, under Biilow, was a complete surprise. When first perceived, he supposed they were the troops under Grouchy, coming to his aid ; and it was not till a Prussian hussar was brought in as a prisoner^ and despatches were found on him from Biilow announcing his arrival on the field, 30,000 strong, and asking Wellington's instruction as to the disposition of his men, that the Emperor's eyes were opened. But for this error, which vitiated all his calculations, can it be doubted that he would have won Waterloo ? But then, unless Wellington had relied on the assistance of the Prussians^ he would not have made a stand on Mont S. Jean. 5o6 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Napoleon made mistakes; but he made them because he was possessed with the idea that he need not concern himself about the Prussians. He began the battle late, but the long summer day, and the twilight of June, when there is practically no night, made this unimportant. The afternoon had sufficed at Ligny, it would suffice at Waterloo; and the fog and wet of the morning would have embarrassed his troops in attack more than the enemy in defence. He wasted his infantry in the assault on Hougomont, when he might have dislodged the English with his artillery ; but he had no conception of the toughness of the English soldiery, and thought to have captured the position with a rush ; and, in his absence, Ney threw away the cavalry in charges on the English centre. Napoleon had left the field at this time, with the Young Guard, and was fighting a brilliant little battle at Planchenois, which for a time effectually checked the Prussian advance. Unquestionably, Napoleon calculated, and all past experience justified him in calculating, on want of unanimity in the plans of the two generals opposed to him. Hitherto such combinations had told only in his favour — at Jena, and in the fields of Champagne. But in this instance rare unanimity prevailed between the impetuous Bliicher and the cold Wellington ; and the former was quite willing to co-operate with the plans of the English Commander-in-Chief. Napoleon knew that the prime of the English army which had fought in Spain was not before him, but had been shipped to America. He knew that the host opposed to him was heterogeneous in composition, and like the image in the vision of Nebuchadnezzar, was made up of iron, brass, and clay. He had every reason to believe that the impact of his seasoned warriors on such a body would dissolve its cohesion, and bring it to ruin. Before the tre- mendous power of his indomitable will, all opposition had hitherto given way, as soon as he had rammed into the centre of an army drawn up before him, and had split it into halves. He had no idea that the commonest English soldier before him, each atom that made up the mass, was endowed with almost as stubborn a will as his own. He had reckoned on the assistance of Grouchy; and had this marshal come up, he would have greatly assisted him, but hardly have changed the complexion of the battle. The utmost Grouchy could have done would have been to have arrested the pursuit. Hitherto Napoleon had never met a general better than second rate. At Leipzig he was defeated, not by superior generalship, but by superior numbers. At Waterloo, for the first time, he encountered a man intel- lectually his match, and one leading the core of an army accustomed, not to defeat, but to victory ; a man of peculiarly cold temperament. When a duel is fought between two opponents — one short of temper, the other impassibly cool — the first is invariably worsted after the first round, when he has felt the first smart ; and in the battle-field, the same rule holds good respecting generals. DRAWING TO THE END. From a picture by Flameng. LIII THE SECOND ABDICATION (21 June— 23 July, 181 5) THE huge black arms of the telegraph, writhing on the tops of church towers against the grey morning sky, had informed the Parisians of the victory of Ligny, on the morning of the 16th June. The Prussians had been shattered, and were flying. All Paris held its breath, waiting to hear of the destruction of the English host. The great arms hung limp ; but yet on the 19th, in the morning, sinister rumours, springing up none knew whence circulated in the capital that a great battle had been fought near Mont S. Jean and that the Army of the Empire had been annihilated. These reports flew about, were believed one moment, disbelieved the next, and the funds went up and down like waves in a storm. At four o'clock in the jnorning of the 21st, Napoleon arrived in Paris, and alighted at the Elysee Bourbon. He sent immediately for Caulaincourt, and, whilst admitting the disaster, characteristically — on this occasion, not without some justification — cast all the blame for it on another. " The army," he said, " has performed wonders; but a sudden panic seized it, and all has been lost. Ney ■conducted himself like a madman ; he caused my cavalry to be massacred. I 507 5o8 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE can do no more. I must have two hours of repose and a warm bath before I can attend to business." One of the first pubHc men to see him on his return was Lavallette. " I flew/' says he, " to the Elysee to see the Emperor. He summoned me into his closet, and, as soon as he saw me, he came to meet me with a frightful epileptic laugh. ' O my God !' he said, raising his eyes to heaven, and walking two or three times up and down the room. This appearance of despair was,. however, of short duration. He soon recovered his coolness, and asked me what was going forward in the Chamber of Representatives. I could not attempt to hide that party spirit was there carried^ to a high pitch, and that the majority seemed determined to require his abdication, and to pronounce it themselves, if he did not concede willingly. 'How is that?' he said. 'If proper measures are not taken, the enemy will be before the gates of Paris in eight days. Alas ! ' he added, ' have I accustomed them to such great victories, that they know not how to bear one day's misfortune ? What will become of poor France ? I have done all I could for her.' He then heaved a deep sigh. Somebody asked to speak to him, and I left him, with a direction from him to return at a later hour." During the day numerous fugitives from Waterloo arrived in Paris, and the agitation, the alarm, became general. The officers who had escaped, and returned, entered the Chamber of Deputies, and declared that the rout was sa complete that no thought of a rally could be entertained. Then Carnot and Lucien Bonaparte proposed that a Dictatorship should be conferred on Napoleon ; but Fouche, Lafayette, and others of the Constitutional Party^ entered into a coalition, the object of which was to invest the National Assembly with absolute sovereignty, and to demand the abdication of the Emperor. " The House of Representatives," said Lafayette, " declares that the inde- pendence of the nation is menaced. The Chamber declares its sitting perma- nent. Every attempt to dissolve it is declared high treason." This resolution, which at once destroyed the Emperor's authority, was carried by acclamation. Lucien started up, and denounced Lafayette for his ingratitude to Napoleon. "You accuse me of lack of gratitude towards him ! " exclaimed Lafayette. " Have you forgotten that the bones of our children, of our brothers, everywhere- attest our fidelity — in the sands of Africa, on the banks of the Guadalquivir and the Tagus, on those of the Vistula, and on the frozen deserts of Muscovy? During more than ten years, three millions of Frenchmen have perished for a man who wishes still to fight all Europe. We have done enough for him. Now our duty is to save the country." Cries of " Let him abdicate ! let him abdicate ! " rang from the benches, and the National Guards ranged themselves round the Hall of Assembly, on the side of the Deputies, against any armed attempt on the part of Napoleon to disperse them and close the doors. The House of Peers lagged a little behind that of the Representatives,- but not for long. The Peers, though all Bonapartists, concurred with the Deputies THE SECOND ABDICATION 509 in believing that one man alone stood between France and peace, that further resistance would but prolong the death-agony of the Empire, and that ^the "vivE l'empereur !" From a crayon drawing by Willette. surest method of preventing further disaster was to dethrone Napoleon ; but many of them, as well as a party among the Representatives, were in favour of declaring the little King of Rome Emperor of the French, with his mother 5IO THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE as Regent. Lucien, Labedoyere, Carnot, Davoust, strongly supported this project. Davoust, as War Minister, protested that the military power of the nation had received a rude shock, but was by no means fatally stricken^ But here Ney, who had just arrived, full of rage and despair, interrupted Carnot, who was arguing that France could maint in h truggle against Wellington, crippled at Waterloo, and Bliicher, defeated at Ligny. Ney violently interposed, " It is false ! you are deceiving the Peers and the people. Wellington is advancing, Bliicher is not defeated. There is nothing left but the corps of Grouchy. In six or seven days the enemy will be here ! " Meanwhile Napoleon had sent for Benjamin Constant, who found the Emperor calm. In reply to some words on the disaster of Waterloo, Napoleon said, " The question no longer concerns me, but France. They wish me to abdicate. Have they calculated upon the inevitable consequences of an abdica- tion? It is round me, round my name, that the army rallies. To separate me from it is to disband it. If I abdicate to-day, in two days' time you will no longer have an army. These poor fellows do not understand your subtleties. Is it supposed that axioms in metaphysics, declarations of rights, and harangues from the Tribune, will put a stop to the disbanding of the army ? It is not when the enemy is at twenty-five leagues' distance that a Government can be overturned with impunity." Then he began to threaten that he would dissolve the Assembly, and he denied its competence to demand his abdication. But he had no force at his back to execute his threats. Whilst thus talking, he heard shouts of "Vive I'Empereur ! " and going to the window saw a crowd of men of the labouring class, pressing forward along the Avenue, trying to escalade the walls, that they might offer their services. He looked attentively at the rabble for a while, and then said, "You see, these are not the men whom I loaded with honours and wealth. What do these people owe me ? The instinct of necessity enlightens them. The voice of the country speaks through their mouths. If I choose, in another hour the re- fractory Chambers would cease to exist. But the life of a man is not worth purchasing at such a price." He did not relish the idea of flight from Paris. " Why should I not remain here ? " he asked of Constant. " What do you suppose they would do to an un- armed man like me ? I will go to Malmaison ; I can live there in retirement with some friends." He next rambled away into a description of the country life he would enjoy; planting cabbages ; and then reverted suddenly to the thought of flight. " If they do not like me to remain in France, whither am I to go ? To England ? My abode there would be irksome and absurd. I would be tranquil, but no one would give me credit for that. Every fog would be suspected of favouring an attempt at disembarkation on the French coast . . . America would be more suitable ; I could live there with dignity. But once more. What is there to fear?" What sovereign can persecute me without injury to himself? To one I have restored half his dominions ; how often has a] second pressed my hand, and " mo\sip:ur carnot, je vous ai connu tkop tard. From a sketch by Forraln. On the eve of his departure for Rochefort, Carnot visited Napoleon at Malmaison. The tears rose in his eyes. The fallen Emperor advanced towards him with extended hand and the words as given above. or S^^ THe ^NlVERs,^ OF ^FORNJ^ THE SECOND ABDICATION 513 called me a great man. As to the third, can he find gratification in the humiliation of his son-in-law ? " Lucien arrived with a deputation from the Chambers. He found his brother in an unsettled condition of mind, at one moment threatening to dissolve the Chambers by military force, at others to blow out his brains. Lucien openly told him that there was no alternative but to dismiss the Assembly and seize the supreme power or to abdicate. " The Chamber," said Napoleon, " is composed of Jacobins, of madmen, who EMBARKATION ON BOARD THE BELLEROPHON. From a contemporary engraving. wish for power and disorder ; I should have denounced them to the nation, and chased them from their seats. Dethrone me ! They would not dare." "In an hour," replied Regnaud de S. Angely, "your dethronement, on the motion of Lafayette, will be irrevocably pronounced. They have given you an hour's grace — do you hear? Only an hour." Napoleon turned with a bitter smile to Fouche, and said, " Write to these Messieurs to keep them- selves quiet — they shall be satisfied." He then drew up a declaration of abdica- tion in favour of his son. "Frenchmen! In commencing war for the maintenance of national inde- pendence, I relied on the union of all efforts, all wills, and the concurrence of all the national authorities. I had reason to hope for success, and I braved the declarations of the Powers against me. Circumstances appear to be 2 L 514 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE changed. I offer myself as a sacrifice to the hatred of the foes of France. . . . My poHtical Hfe is ended. I proclaim my son under the title of NAPOLEON II., Emperor of the French. The present ministers will provisionally form the Council of the Government. The interest I take in my son induces me to NAPOLEON ON THE " BELLEROPHON. From a drawing by J. Eastlake, engraved by C. Turner. invite the Chambers to form the Regency without delay. Unite for the public safety, that you may continue an independent people." This declaration was conveyed to both the Chambers, which accepted the abdication, but eluded acceptance of the nomination of his son. THE SECOND ABDICATION 515 Lucien and Davoust had urged on Napoleon to continue the struggle, but the Emperor saw that this was impossible. In Paris he had no troops at the head of which he could place himself, silence the Deputies, and send them flying out of the windows, as on the i8th Brumaire. He had a much livelier sense than Lucien could have of the extent of the recent disaster on the field of Waterloo, and he knew that, though he could collect another army, all the power of Europe was focussed against him. Whilst Wellington and Blucher were approaching from the north-east, the Austrian general, Frimont, was marching through Switzerland and Savoy to attack on that frontier, Schwarzen- berg was now ready to pour enormous forces across the Rhine, and the Czar was not far off with 200,000 Russians. The Allies could put 800,000 men into France before the end of July. Next day, Lavallette was with the fallen Emperor, and gave him full and impartial particulars relative to the state of feeling in the metropolis. He says : — Napoleon " listened to me with a sombre air, and though he was in some measure master of himself, the agitation of his mind and the sense of his posi- tion betrayed themselves in his face and all his motions. . . . The great act of abdication accomplished, he remained calm during the whole day, giving his advice on the position the army should take, and on the manner in which the negotiations with the enemy ought to be conducted. He insisted especially on the necessity of proclaiming his son Emperor, not so much for the advantage of the child, as with a view. of concentrating on one head the national sentiment and affection. Unfortunately, nobody would listen to him." On the 23rd, Napoleon went to Malmaison, where poor Josephine had died; and there he made preparations for flight. On the 29th, General Becker, sent by the Provisional Government, arrived to attend and watch Napoleon. The fallen Emperor sent him back at once, with a message to the Provisional Government, offering to march as a private citizen against BlUcher. Upon the refusal of the Ministry to entertain such a suggestion, he quitted Malmaison, and hastened to Rochefort with the intention of escaping to America. But the whole west coast of France was watched by a blockading fleet ; and finding it impossible to leave France unobserved, and learning that orders for his arrest had been issued, and their execution delayed only to allow him to throw himself on the mercy of the English, nothing remained for him but to surrender to Captain Maitland, of the Bellerophon, anchored in the Basque Roads; and this he did on the 15th July. " I am come," said Napoleon, ^' to cast myself on the protection of the laws of England." But already he had been informed by Captain Maitland " that he could enter into no promise as to the reception he might meet with in England, as he was in total ignorance of the intentions of the British Government as to his future disposal." And Admiral Keith, in command of the fleet, would give him no assurances. On the 23rd July, for the last time the eyes of the fallen Emperor saw the <:oast of France, as the Bellerophon, with all sail set, stood out to sea, for England. NAPOLEON ON S. HELENA. From a contemporary body-colour painting. LIV S. HELENA '^/TAPOLEON, whose imagination never failed to present flattering images "*- ^ to his soul, had formed the idea that, on going to England, he would receive an ovation. In 1814, Lord Castlereagh had sent a communication to him through the Duke of Vicenza, during the negotiations at Fontainebleau, in which he asked : — " Why does not Napoleon, instead of going to Elba, come to England ? He will be received in London with the greatest consideration, and he will obtain there a treatment infinitely preferable to exile on a wretched rock in the Mediterranean. He should not, however, make his retirement into England the object of a negotiation, for that would entail too many delays, and provoke difficulties. But let him surrender himself without conditions ; let him render this homage of esteem to an enemy which has bravely fought against him during ten years. He will be received in England with the profoundest respect, and he will learn that it is better worth his while to rely on English honour than on a treaty signed in the midst of circumstances such as at present exist." 516 S. HELENA 517 But what might have happened in 18 14 was impossible in 181 5. Europe had seen him break his engagement to remain in Elba, and his return to France had revealed that he still had the power to rouse the nation, and to collect around him an army which was a menace to every nation composing Europe. He had played a desperate game, and had lost. But Napoleon could never be brought to understand that he must take the consequences of his acts ; that having been the scourge of Europe, cost it untold misery, brought bereavement and ruin into tens of thousands of families, and soaked the soil with blood — that he must be kept under control like a wild beast, and suffer an infinitesimal part of the misery he had caused to others. On the 26th July, in the evening, the Bellerophon entered the bay of Ply- mouth. After remaining a fortnight there, during which he was the object of the most flattering curiosity from all who could obtain a glimpse of him, he was removed on board the Northumberland, with orders to be conveyed to S. Helena, the place of all others he most dreaded. It was specified that he would be allowed to take with him three officers, his surgeon, and twelve servants. Suspicion seems to have arisen that he would commit suicide, or that Generals Montholon and Gourgaud would kill him at his request, as he was heard repeatedly to declare, " I will not go to S. Helena" ; and he was accord- ingly closely watched, and the generals warned that they would be tried for murder, if they assisted or connived at his death. Angry, disappointed wretched. Napoleon indited a protest, which he ordered should be sent to the British Ministry. " I hereby solemnly protest, before God and man, against the injustice offered me, and the violation of my most sacred rights, in forcibly disposing of my person and liberty. I came freely on board the Bellerophon ; I am not a prisoner, I am the guest of England. 1 was, indeed, instigated to come on board by the captain, who told me that he had been directed by his Government to receive me and my suite, and conduct me to England, if agreeable to my wishes.* 1 presented myself in good faith, with the view of claiming the pro- tection of the English laws. As soon as I had reached the Bellerophon, I considered myself in the home and on the hearth of the British people. If it was the intention of the Government, in giving orders to the captain of the Bellerophon, to receive me and my suite merely to entrap me, it has forfeited its honour and sullied its flag. " If this act be consummated, it will be useless for the English to talk to Europe of their integrity, their laws, and their liberty. British good faith will have been lost in the hospitality of the Bellerophon. " I appeal to history ; it will say that an enemy, who made war for twenty years upon the English people, came voluntarily (!) in his misfortune to seek an asylum under their laws. What more striking proof could he give of his esteem and his confidence ? But what return did England make for so magnani- mous (!) an act? They pretended to hold out a friendly hand to this enemy ; and when he delivered himself up in good faith, they sacrificed him. (Signed) " NAPOLEON. "On board the Bellerophon, 4th August, 181 5." * An untruth. He was in no way instigated to do this by Captain Maitland. 5i8 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE This was a misrepresentation from beginning to end. The order for his arrest and imprisonment had arrived in Rochefort, and he was obliged to surrender to Captain Maitland. What he had dealt to others, it was right that he should, in a measure, himself endure. He had treated Toussaint I'Ouverture NAPOLEON AT LONGWOOD. From a sketch by General Gourgaud. with barbarity ; this brave man had been lured to surrender with promises of generous treatment, and then had been sent to perish in the cold of an Alpine prison. Hofer had been shot for fighting for his country ; the Due d'Enghien taken from neutral ground to be assassinated. The English Government was forced to deal in an exceptional manner with a man who did not value his word. If he had to be banished far from Europe, U S. HELENA 519 he had but himself to blame for it. Proximity to Europe would have been a continual menace. By the restoration of the Bourbons, the Allied Powers put a fool's cap on France, and that proud nation could not, and would not, long endure the insult. It would enter into correspondence with the man who, if he had tyrannised over her, had made her respected. His name was still one to conjure with, his person still one that would be a rallying-point. England was responsible to her Allies to place him where he could no longer be dangerous. Generosity had been shown him when allowed to retire to Elba. It was true that the Bourbons had not at once paid him what was stipulated ; perhaps he gave them no time; he was back before they had the money in their hands wherewith to discharge their debts. As generosity had failed, severity must be employed. A great man, a noble charac- ter, bears his fall with dignity, wraps his mantle about his face, and suffers in silence. But this was not what Napoleon could do. The rest of his story is one of peevish discontent, of grumbling because he had a bottle too few, or because his wine was not to his taste, or because he was not addressed as " Sire," and was not allowed to ride wherever he liked. It was absurd for him to contend that he was a guest. A soldier in war who delivers up his sword becomes a prisoner, and not a guest. He obtains the right to live, but not to be allowed to go where he likes. The story of Napoleon begins with fretfulness, and with fretfulness it ends. In his private life there was no greatness, no dignity ; and when the Imperial ermine and the wreath of gilded laurel leaves were removed, — nay, when he lost his cocked hat and grey overcoat — then there remained behind nothing but the mean egoist. After a voyage of seventy days. Napoleon disembarked at Jamestown, in S. Helena, attended by Count Las Cases and his son. General Gourgaud, the Count and Countess Bertrand, the Count and Countess Montholon, and ten servants. " All the descriptions of S. Helena that I had ever read," says the author of the Captivite de Sainte-Helene, " before reaching the place, had given me but an imperfect idea of the island. It is the most isolated spot in the world, the most inaccessible, the most difficult to attack, the poorest, the most unsociable, and the most expensive. Its appearance is frightening, and I do not conceal the fact that when, on the 17th, in the morning, they came into my cabin to announce to me that we had reached S. Helena, the first sight of it made me sick at heart." * * This book was written by G. F. Didot, from the reports of the Baron de Montchenu, Commissary for Louis XVIII. in the island. - ■■/Jlj^J Wk^ %k'^^'\f ^**'^M W^ ' , S^^?"^ !!^^: R\ti '^'iS ^S^ ! ■i^JBilii.. ^^^^^ M'- -"s^ &t IHH^hl. ' ' '.tilS^ W'^^r t^S^^ ■■^" ^^^B mlp: HH|^^^^^^ \ NAPOLEON GARDENING. From an anonymous engraving. 520 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE " The island of S. Helena," says Montholon, " is 2,000 leagues from Europe, and 900 from every continent, and 1,200 leagues from the Cape of Good Hope. It is a volcanic eruption in the midst of the Atlantic. . . . The soil of the island is composed of chilled lava, which was in various conditions of fusion when erupted, and is traversed by profound ravines. The vegetable earth is found only where it has been carried by the hands of man. . . . Everywhere lava dykes descend from the central plateau to the bottom of the sea, and this gives to S. Helena, seen from afar, the aspect of a shapeless mass of black rocks, surmounted by a cone with blunted top. The nearer one approaches, the more repulsive it seems. From whatever side, wherever the eye turns, nothing is to be seen but bastion and black walls, constructed as by the hands of demons to link together the rocky peaks. No- where a trace of vegetation. . . . A wall, an arched gate, hide the town. At the time of our entry into S. Helena the popu- lation consisted of about 500 whites, including a battalion of infantry of 160 men, and a company of artillery in the service of the East India Company. There were about 300 blacks. The population in 1 82 1 consisted of 800 whites, 308 negroes, 1,800 Chinese, or Lascars." English officers' wives, deli- cate ladies, lived there because it was their duty ; but the fallen Emperor complained because he was sent there to an exile which he had richly deserved. " Dying on this hideous rock," said he, *' separated from my family, lacking everything, I bequeath the opprobrium and the horror of my death to the English." On first arriving at S. Helena, nothing was ready for the illustrious exile, and he was lodged at a house near the town, called " The Briars." The place was not one in which luxurious furniture and delicacies for the table were to be called up by enchantment. Six weeks elapsed before Longwood, the residence that was constructed for him, was complete, but all the furniture had to be brought from England. Napoleon moved to Longwood on the loth of December, 18 15. Las Cases thus described the situation : — r i ^ m.*> ' ' i^B ' „fBi . ''>':< ^^^P 1 ■/' / ^•■ 1 S^^"^^nrzzni:nj^lg g^ ■'^'•^w^^^H 1 Ijmm liliiriHl iHi' 1 ■jF i MJ ■ ■ IHbi mA Hi 1 THE EXILE. From a water-colour sketch made by an English officer at Longwood, 24th July, 1820. S. HELENA 21 " Longwood, originally a farm belonging to the East India Company, and afterwards given as a country residence to the Deputy-Governor, is situated on one of the highest parts of the island. The difference between the tempera- ture of the place and the valley below is very great. It stands on a plateau of some extent, and near the eastern coast. Continual, and often violent, winds blow regularly from the same quarter. The sun, though rarely seen, nevertheless exercises its influence on the atmosphere, which is apt to produce disorders of the liver. Heavy and sudden falls of rain inundate the ground, and there is no settled course of the seasons. The sun passes overhead twice a year. Notwithstanding the abundant rains, the grass is either nipped by the wind or parched by the heat. The water, which is conveyed to Longwood by pipes, is so un- wholesome as to be unfit for use till it has been boiled. The trees, which at a distance impart a smiling aspect to the country, are merely gum trees, a wretched kind of shrub, affording no shade. On one hand the horizon is bounded by the ocean, but the rest of the scene presents only a mass of huge barren rocks, deep gulfs, and desolate valleys ; and in the distance appears the green and misty chain of mountains, above which towers Diana's Peak. In short. Long- wood can be agreeable only to the traveller after the fatigues of a long voyage, to whom the sight of any country is a relief" The entrance to the house was through a room which had just been added, to serve the double purpose of an ante- chamber and a dining-room. apartment, and was divided into a cabinet and a sleeping-room, room was added. Riding-horses were at the command of the ex-Emperor ; he had his little Court, which was organised into petty state. Champagne and Burgundy were provided as his daily beverage. The furniture was not at first excellent, as none of superior quality existed on the island, but by degrees he was supplied with articles that were handsome. Vessels to India and the Cape, or returning from thence, arrived continually at S. Helena, and Napoleon was somewhat annoyed by the curiosity of visitors ; NAPOLEON ON S. HELENA. From a lithograph by Horace Vernet. The Emperor's chamber opened into this A little bath- 522 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE but sentinels were provided, and posted under his windows and before the door, to prevent vulgar intrusion. On the 14th of April, 1816, Sir Hudson Lowe, the new Governor, arrived at S. Helena. The selection was an unhappy one, owing'jto the manner of the Governor being harsh and wanting in courtesy. But, on first introduction, Bonaparte insulted the gallant officer by calling him a commander of Brigands, because he had held the command of the Corsican Rangers in the British service. The great cause of irritation was that neither Sir Hudson Lowe nor his predecessor. Sir George Cockburn, would address Napoleon as " His Imperial Majesty," because the Home Government had given] orders that he should re- ceive the honours of a general only. It is possible enough that Napoleon would have got on with the Governor, if left to himself, but he was surrounded by the Las Cases, the Montholons, and the Bertrands, and the women, who were the most provoking set of babblers, quarrel-makers, and tale-bearers, that it ever fell to the lot of man to encounter. These Frenchmen, and, above all, their wives, fretted at being detained on an island in the Atlantic, where there were no theatres, and no bals masques. Away from the amusements and gossip of Paris, they were incessantly on the look-out for grievances, and nothing was too trivial for them to take up. They identified themselves with what could now be only the empty, if not absurd for- malities of a little Court ; and whenever Sir Hudson Lowe styled Napoleon " General,',' they pursed their lips, muttered insolent remarks, and turned their backs on him. They called him spy, inquisitor, police-agent, gaoler, and worse. They denied that he had ever been a soldier (he had been a good and brave one), and they sneered at his services as those of a robber. All these contemptible creatures poured forth their spleen in memoirs or letters, exaggerating every dis- comfort, magnifying the martyrdom of the illustrious exile, who, in self-com- placency at his sufferings, compared himself with Christ. Napoleon could not refrain from making remarks on the face of Sir Hudson Lowe as *' hideous and most ugly." The Governor, in answer to the torrent of complaint that poured from the exile, expressed his regrets that Longwood did not furnish all the accommodation and comforts Napoleon might desire, and which the British Government wished to afford him, and added that a suitable house of wood, fitted up with every possible accommodation, and luxuriously furnished, was then on its way from England for his use. Napoleon refused it at once, and exclaimed that it was not a house that he wanted, but an executioner and a coffin. Then the ex-Emperor took up some reports of the campaign of 1 8 14, and asked if they had been written by Sir Hudson Lowe, and proceeded to say that they were as full of lies as they were of folly. The Governor, without losing his temper, retired with a cold acknowledgment ; whereupon Napoleon stormed against him like a fishwife, and bade a servant throw a cup of coffee out of the window, because it had stood on a table near the Governor. A legend, relative to the last days of Napoleon at S. Helena, has been manu- factured out of the rancorous reports of those who were condemned to be his companions, and of those in France whose imagination played over his place of S. HELENA 523 exile. Savary was not permitted to go to S. Helena ; but this choice specimen of a director of spies thought it seemly to charge Sir Hudson Lowe with being a police-agent ; and this man, who directed and presided over the murder of the Due d'Enghien, lifted up his hands in holy horror at the wickedness of the English in sending the exile to so unhealthy an island, and for selecting as his gaoler a man who possessed the execrable art of making him die by inches — " Lui faire mourir a coup d'epingles." It was not in human nature to endure the incessant insults and provocation offered, without some resentment ; and the Governor had duties imposed on him which could not be executed in a manner agreeable to the feelings of Bonaparte ; but Sir Hudson Lowe never insisted on any act which could need- lessly annoy his captive or even one of his noisy and contemptible attendants. The Irish doctor, who was predisposed against him, never for a moment con- sidered Sir Hudson as capable of a dishonourable or inhuman act, and, as he came to know him better, his first prejudice vanished. He says : — " If, notwithstanding this prepossession, my testimony should incline to the other side, I can truly state that the change took place from the weight of evidence, and in consequence of what came under my own observation in S. Helena. Poor man, he has since that time encountered a storm of obloquy and reproach enough to bow any person to the earth. Yet I firmly believe that the talent he exerted in unravelling the intricate plotting constantly going on at Longwood, and the firmness in tearing it to pieces, with the increasing vigilance he displayed in the discharge of his arduous duties, made him more enemies than any hastiness of temper, uncourteousness of demeanour, and severity in his measures, of which the world believed him guilty." Napoleon's plot to escape, to place himself again at the head of the dis- contented in France, was not abandoned, and there were in the island those but too ready to unite in it. Sir Hudson was responsible for the prisoner, and was obliged to be watchful, lest he should slip between his fingers. As to the charge against the salubrity of Longwood, it was untrue. The house was planted 2,000 feet above the sea, in a cool and pleasant atmosphere. If the Emperor had been left below, what outcries would have been raised ! A large sum of money was spent in enlarging and ameliorating the residence, and every wish Napoleon expressed for its further improvement was promptly attended to. The sum of ;^ 12,000 per annum was allowed for his domestic expenditure, and the Governor was authorised to draw on the Treasury for more money if this allowance proved insufficient. Napoleon was allowed a space measuring eight, and eventually twelve, miles in circumference round Longwood, through which he might ride or walk at his pleasure; but beyond these limits he was to be accompanied by a British officer. This was an occasion for petulance, and he shut himself up in the house and garden, and represented that Sir Hudson was killing him. The real fact was, that the disease of which his father had died, cancer of the stomach, had begun to make violent motion unpleasant ; and he took up the grievance that he was watched, as an excuse for abandoning his rides, and to magnify his martyrdom. 524 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE For the same reason, Napoleon refused to take the drugs prescribed for him, pretending that they had been tampered with by the Governor. But he was perfectly aware of the nature of his disorder, for it had manifested itself as far back as during the Russian campaign, and his sister, the Princess Borghese, was also menaced with it. The ill-humour of the followers of Napoleon was not vented on Sir Hudson Lowe and the English alone. Napoleon himself had often to contend against their ill-temper. As often happens with men and women in such circumstances, they quarrelled with one another, and part of their ill-humour overflowed upon THE DEATH-BED OF NAPOLEON. From a contemporary engraving. their chief. He took these little incidents deeply to heart. On one occasion he said bitterly, " I know that I am fallen ; but to feel this among you ! I am aware that a man is frequently unreasonable, and susceptible to offence. Thus, when I am mistrustful of myself, I ask, Would I have been treated in this way at the Tuileries?" Captain Basil Hall, in August, 1817, when in command of the Lyra, had an interview with the Emperor, and he thus describes him : — " Bonaparte struck me as differing considerably from the pictures and busts I had seen of him. His face and figure looked much broader and more square — larger, indeed, in every way than any representation I had met with. His corpulency, at this time universally reported to be excessive, was by no mean;; S. HELENA 525 remarkable. His flesh looked, on the contrary, firm and muscular. There was not the least trace of colour in his cheeks ; in fact, his skin was more like marble than ordinary flesh. Not the smallest trace of a wrinkle was dis- cernible on his brow, nor an approach to a furrow on any part of his coun- tenance. His health and spirits, judging from appearances, were excellent, though at this period it was generally believed in England that he was fast sinking under a complication of diseases, and that his spirits were entirely gone. His manner of speaking was rather slow than otherwise, and perfectly distinct ; he waited with great patience and kindness for my answers to his questions, and a reference to Count Bertrand was necessary only once during the whole conversation. The brilliant and sometimes dazzling expression of his eye could not be overlooked. It was not, however, a permanent lustre, for it was ^- d ■ ^ "•' '^^^,-<^S ^^^^ ■ ^ nafoleon's last sleep. From a sketch made at Longwood, by W. Crockatt, May 6, 1821. only remarkable when he was excited by some point of particular interest. It is impossible to imagine an expression of more entire mildness, I may almost call it of benignity and kindness, than that which plaj^ed over his features during the whole interview. If, therefore, he was at this time out of health and in low spirits, his power of self-command must have been even more extra- ordinary than is generally supposed, for his whole deportment, his conversa- tion, and the expression of his countenance, indicated a frame in perfect health, and a mind at ease." During his residence on the island, Napoleon was engaged on his Memoirs, which he dictated to Las Cases, and which were published under the title of Memorial de Sainte-Helene. The conversation engaged in by Napoleon with Las Cases, O'Meara, Antommarchi, exhibits him exercising the same dissimulation that marked his 526 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE ON HIS DEATH-BED. From a sketch made by Captain Marryat, by the order of Sir Hudson Lowe. political life. He now laboured to manufacture the pedestal on which his glorified image was to stand for the adoration of posterity. His Meinoires teem with false statements, which it is now possible to expose. An instance or two will suffice. He indignantly protested that he had not been protected by Barras at Toulon, nor on the 13th Vendemiaire. But his own correspondence, preserved in the archives of the Ministry of War, has placed beyond all doubt that to the intervention of Barras he largely owed his opportunities of starting on the road that led to success. He took vast pains at S. Helena to justify the murder of the Due d'Enghien ; and he chose Talleyrand as his scape- goat. He pretended that the •'ne le craignez plus." latter had suppressed a letter From an engraving by Romhild. from the Dukc tO him, in which S. HELENA 527 the young Prince appealed to his mercy. But Talleyrand had objected to the murder, which he saw was a mistake. Napoleon laboured to vilify Moreau, and to make him out to be incapable as a general. He reproached him for lack of ability in conducting the celebrated retreat in 1797. He suppressed the facts that he had himself weakened the army of Moreau, and had forbidden him to advance. NAPOLEON DEAD. After a painting by Horace Vernet. He went further, and poured forth ;his bile on all his generals. Davoust, he declared, was nothing Jbut a machine — a mere soldier; Massena was rash and favoured by his good luck ; Soult was not fit to be more than a major-general ; Oudinot was dull ; Kleber incapable ; Ney was brave, but nothing beyond that ; Berthier was an idiot ; and Murat a fool. Then Napoleon turned to his family, and depicted Joseph as a 'commonplace, good-natured man, and that was all ; he pelted Lucien with bad epithets, turned Jerome into ridicule, poured forth his contempt on Louis. None were spared ; just as of old in the Tuileries he 528 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE delighted in throwing in the faces of his company all the scandals and faults he had detected in their private lives through the agency of his secret police. In the Memorial de Sainte-Helene, he reveals a miserable spite, a thoroughly ignoble mind, that revels in all kinds of odious revelations, in which the truth is just so far mingled with the false as to give them an appearance of verity. And the unhappy effect of this production is that the unravelling of the falsehood is difficult to perform, and in weariness of spirit the whole preposterous mass is accepted. The reading of the Memorial inspires nothing but disgust. All those who played any part at the time of the Empire are represented as rogues or fools. Happily the work of verification has been taken in hand, and many of the calumnies refuted. Nevertheless, one cannot regret the production of the Memorial, for in it Napoleon has revealed himself unmistakably in his perfidious- ness, want of generosity, and his jealousy of merit in others.* In judging of Napoleon at S. Helena, we must bear in mind that, though intellectually a giant, his moral nature had been stunted, and if it did not die early, was throughout his life a negligible quantity. In all situations that required force of intellect Napoleon was great ; in situations requiring moral force he was contemptible. But, since intellect without moral feeling is force without guidance, Napoleon's action in the world was as blind as that of an earthquake ; it lacked everything that makes man's action among his fellow-men valuable and beneficial. Napoleon was the ablest man since Caesar. Where there is no shadow, there is also no light, and the darker the shade the more brilliant is the light illumining one side of man. At S. Helena there was no possibility of the luminous side of Napoleon showing : all that could possibly appear was the shadow. And all that was ignoble in him was subject to microscopic examina- tion, and was aggravated by the suspicion of Sir Hudson Lowe, who had the mind of a martinet. Haute politique was the atmosphere in which the glorious genius of Napoleon could alone live. In such conditions as surrounded him at S. Helena, he existed * Jung, Bonaparte et son Temps, i88i. CHAIR OF NAPOLEON AT S. HELENA. S. HELENA 529 as an eagle in a cage, pecking at the bars, ruffling his plumes at every finger that^ approached. Behind bars the golden eagle is a sorry fowl. He was not made for captivity, but to soar in the open firmament of heaven. Again, in judging Napoleon we must consider that he was brought up under the worst possible influences, moral, social, and religious, and that he had to create a law for himself, and that under such circumstances any other man but he would have been entirely despicable. The one thing he lacked to make him really great, was an appreciation of moral force. ' • Napoleoii resolutely shut . his eyes to all the wanton bloodshed and misery he had caused, and looked only at the good his rule had done France! That must not be overlooked. When France was in anarchy, he had established order, repressed crime and folly, repaired the evils alike of the ancien regime and of the Revolution ; had enriched Paris with magnificent struc- tures, crossed . France with superb highways, and done much for the harbours on the coast. His signature of the Concordat did, indeed, an ostensible good to the Church, but vitally sapped its life just when springing to vigorous, national regeneration. In December, 18 16, Las Cases was compelled to leave S. Helena. He had been detected carrying on communication with Lucien Bonaparte. About the middle of 1818, Napoleon's health began to fail ; and he was well aware that the hereditary malady which had carried off his father was making rapid inroads on his constitution. His doctor, the Irishman O'Meara, reported the failure of his health to the Governor. Even now Napoleon seized the oppor- tunity for renewing his claim to the title of Emperor. This Sir -Hudson Lowe could not concede, but there was surely pettiness in the British Ministry in not allowing to the fallen Emperor a .title, the retention of which was of small 2 M CAST OF THE FACE AFTER DEATH. Taken by Antommarchi. 530 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE political significance, but of great personal importance to Napoleon. After some difficulty, it was agreed that the term " patient " should be substituted for the title of " General," which caused so much offence. O'Meara proposed that Dr. Baxter, the principal medical officer in the island, should be summoned, but Napoleon refused to receive him, alleging that, although " it was true he looked like an honest man, he was too much attached to that hangman" (Lowe), and he refused all medicine, pretending that an attempt would be made through it to poison him. O'Meara, having fallen under suspicion of managing a secret correspondence between the Emperor and his adherents in France, was removed ; and a Dr. Antommarchi, a young Italian surgeon, and two Roman Catholic abbes, were sent to S. Helena, and landed on the lOth September, 1819. " I have grown fat, my energy is gone, the bow is unstrung," said Napoleon to his new medical attendant. Towards the end of the year 1820 he walked with difficulty, and remained in a weak state until the following April, when the disease assumed an alarming character. He then consented to be attended by Dr. Arnott. The news of the death of his sister, Elise Bacciochi, affected him deeply. After a struggle with his feelings, which had almost overpowered him, he rose, supported himself on Antommarchi's arm, and said, " Doctor, Elise, you see, has just shown me the way. Death, which seemed to have forgotten my family, has begun to strike it ; my turn cannot be far off" Presently he lay down on his bed. " Leave me to myself," he said. " What a delicious thing rest is ! I would not exchange it for all the thrones in the world. How am I fallen ! I, whose activity was boundless, whose mind never slumbered, am now plunged in lethargic stupor, so that it is only by an effort that I can raise my eyelids. . . . Once I was Napoleon, now I am no longer anything. My strength, my faculties, forsake me. I do not live ; I merely exist." His last airing was on the 17th of March. The disease increased, and Antommarchi consulted with Dr. Arnott. Napoleon still refused to take medicine. " Everything," said he, " that must happen is written down ; our hour is marked, and it is not in our power to take from time a portion which Nature refuses us." It was reported to him that a comet had been seen. " Ah ! a comet ! " he exclaimed excitedly, " that was the precursor of the death of Caesar." On the 3rd of April he was advised to make his will, but this he did not execute till the 15th; and on the 24th, with some of his characteristic im- placability, he bequeathed '' ten thousand francs to the subaltern officer Cantillon, who has undergone trial upon the charge of having endeavoured to assassinate Lord Wellington, of which he was pronounced innocent. Cantillon had as much right to assassinate that oligarchist as the latter had to send me to perish on the rock of S. Helena."* This was saying, as plainly as any words could express it, that he, the dying * Marie Andre Cantillon, there can be no reasonable doubt, did intend to shoot the Duke, but missed his aim. This was at Paris ; a French jury acquitted him. napoleon's last day. By Vela. S. 'HELENA 533 Bonaparte, believed Cantillon to have been guilty; of an at roCimi 5; attempt, Snci that it was for that very deed that he left him a legacy.',^ This [is t^he most painful instance of the malignity of the second man in Napoleonj and it shows how ill-prepared he was to go before the throne of Him who bade us pray, " Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trepass against us." . , ' ^ ; Napoleon's ideas of the future state were rather heathen than Christian. He said, as he lay on his d^ath-bed, " I shall behold my brave companions in arms in the Elysian fields — Kleber, Dessaix, Bessieres, Duroc, Ney, Murat, THE TOMB OF NAPOLEON. From an anonymous lithograph. Massena, Berthier, all will come to greet me : they will talk to me of what we have done together. On seeing me, they will become once more intoxicated with enthusiasm and glory. We will discourse of our wars with the Scipios, Hannibal, Caesar, and Frederick. There will be satisfaction in that, unless," he added, laughing bitterly, " they above should be alarmed to see so many warriors assembled together." He, however, declared that he would die, as he was- born, a Catholic, and proceeded to give instructions relative to his funeral. To Antommarchi, who was an atheist, he said, " I am neither a philosopher nor a metaphysician. I believe in God ; I am of the religion of my fathers ; everyone cannot be an atheist who pleases. . . . Can you disbelieve in God ? Everything proclaims His existence, and, besides, the greatest minds have thought so." Then he added, 534 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE half to himself, " These fellows are conversant only with matter ; they will believe in nothing beyond." * During the first two days of May he was delirious, and imagined himself on the field of battle, and cried out at intervals, " Dessaix ! Massena ! Victory is declaring for us ! F^orwards ! press the charge ! They are ours ! " On the 3rd, he recovered consciousness, and said to Dr. Arnott, " I am going to die. You have shared my exile, and will be faithful to my memory. I have sanctioned all proper principles, and infused them into my laws and acts. I have not omitted a single one. Undoubtedly, the circumstances in which I was placed were arduous, and I was obliged to act with severity, and postpone the carrying out of my plans. Reverses occurred ; I could not unbend the bow. France has been deprived of the liberal institutions I intended to give her. She judges me with indulgence. She is grateful for my intentions. She cherishes my name, and the recollection of my victories." Not a word of penitence for faults committed, for the blood he had poured forth like water, for fields devastated, for homes made deeolate. The day before his death, which occurred in the evening of May 6th, 1821, a tempest burst over Longwood, tearing up the plantations by the roots, and prostrating a willow under which Napoleon usually seated himself. "It seemed," says Antom- marchi, " as if none of the things the Emperor valued were to survive him." He gradually became insensible ; he scarcely spoke for two days, and on the morning of his death, articulated a few broken sentences, among which the only words distinguishable were, " Tete dArniee, France^' the last that ever left his lips, and indicated the direction of his dying thoughts. At six o'clock in the evening, a gun from the fort announced the setting of the sun ; and at the same moment the soul of Napoleon sped to its last account. * Antommarchi, ii. 121. NAPOLEON S STRAW HAT, WORN AT S. HELENA. From the collection of Prince Victor. LV APOTHEOSIS THE account of the funeral of Napoleon shall be quoted from Colonel Phipps' admirable edition of the Memoirs of Bourrienne. It took place on the 8th of May. According to his own wish, the heart and intestines of Napoleon had been examined after death, and were preserved in two vessels, filled with spirits of wine, and hermetically sealed. These were placed in the corners of the coffin. " This was a shell of zinc, lined with white satin, in which was a mattress furnished with a pillow. There not being room for the hat to remain on the head, it was placed at his feet, with some eagles, pieces of French money coined during his reign, a plate engraved with his arms, etc. The coffin was closed, carefully soldered up, and then fixed in another case of mahogany, which was enclosed in a third, made of lead, which last was fastened in a fourth of mahogany, which was sealed up, and fastened with screws. The coffin was exhibited, and was covered with the cloak that Napoleon had worn at the battle of Marengo. The funeral was ordered for the morrow, 8th of May, and the troops were to attend in the morning by break of day. " This took place accordingly; the Governor arrived first, the Rear-Admiral soon after, and shortly all the authorities, civil and military, were assembled at Longwood. The day was fine, the people crowded the roads, music resounded from the heights ; never had spectacle so sad and solemn been witnessed in these remote regions. At half-past twelve, the grenadiers took hold of the coffin, lifted it with difficulty, and succeeded in removing it into the great walk in the garden, where the hearse awaited them. It was placed on the carriage, covered with a pall of violet velvet, and with the cloak which the hero wore at Marengo. The Emperor's household were in mourning. The cavalcade was arranged by order of the Governor in the following manner : — The Abbe Vignale, in his sacerdotal robes, with young Henri Eertrand at his side, bearing an aspersorium ; Doctors Arnott and Antommarchi, the persons entrusted with the superintendence of the hearse, drawn by four horses, led by grooms, and escorted by twelve grenadiers, without arms, on each side ; these last were to carry the coffin on their shoulders, as soon as the ruggedness of the road pre- vented the hearse from advancing ; young Napoleon Bertrand and Marchand, both on foot, and by the side of the hearse ; Counts Bertrand and Montholon, on horseback, close behind the hearse ; a part of the household of the Emperor ; Countess Bertrand, with her daughter Hortense, in a calash drawn by two horses, led by hand by her domestics, who walked by the side of the precipice ; the Emperor's horse, led by his piqueur, Archambaud ; the officers of marine on 535 53^ THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE horseback and on foot ; the officers of the staff on horseback ; the members of the Council of the island in like manner ; General Coffin and the Marquis Montchenu on horseback ; the Rear-Admiral and the Governor on horseback ; the inhabitants of the island. " The train set out in this order from Longwood, passed by the barracks, and was met by the garrison, about 2,500 in number, drawn up on the left of the THE FUNERAL. From a sketch by Captain Marryat. i-bad as far as Hut's Gate. Military bands, placed at different distances, added still more, by the mournful airs which they played, to the striking solemnity of the occasion. When the train had passed, the troops followed and accompanied it to the burying-place. The dragoons marched first. Then came the 20th Regiment of Infantry, the Marines, the 66th, the Volunteers of S. Helena, and lastly, the company of Royal Artillery, with fifteen pieces of cannon. Lady THE FUNERAL. From a sketch by Captain Marryat. Lowe and her daughter were at the roadside at Hut's Gate, in an open carriage drawn by two horses. They were attended by some domestics in mourning, and followed the procession at a distance. The fifteen pieces of artillery were ranged along the road, and the gunners were at their posts, ready to fire. Having advanced about a quarter of a mile beyond Hut's Gate, the hearse stopped, the troops halted and drew up in line of battle by the roadside. The grenadiers then raised the coffin on their shoulders, and bore it thus to the place of interment, by the new route which had been made on purpose on the declivity of the mountain. All the attendants alighted, the ladies descended APOTHEOSIS 537 from their carriages, and the procession followed, the corpse without^obseryihg any regular order. " Counts Bertrand and Montholon, Marchand and young Napoleon Bertrand, carried the fouf corners of the pall. The coffin was laid down at the side of the tomb, which was hung with black. Near was seen the cords and pulleys which were to lower it into, the earth. The coffin was then uncovered, the Abbe Vignale repeated the usual prayers, and the body was let down into the grave with the feet to the east. . The artillery then fired three salutes in succession of fifteen discharges each. The Admiral s vessel had fired during the procession twenty-five guns from time to time. A huge stone, which was to have been employed in the. building of the new house for the Emperor, was now used to close his grave, and was lowered till it rested on a strong stone wall, so as not to touch the coffin. While the grave was closed, the crowd seized upon the willows, which the former presence of Napoleon had already rendered objects of veneration. Everyone was am- bitious to possess a branch or some leaves of these trees, which were henceforth to shadow the tomb of this great man, and to preserve them as a precious relic of so memor- able a scene. The Governor and Admiral endeavoured to prevent this outrage, but in vain. The Governor, however, surrounded the spot afterwards with a barricade, where he placed a guard to keep off all intruders. The tonib of the Emperor was about a league from Longwood. . . . The com- panions of Napoleon returned to France, and the island gradually resumed its former quiet state, while the willows weeping over the grave guarded the ashes of the man for whom Europe had been all too small." * The report of the death of Napoleon plunged all France in a painful stupor; the infinite littleness of the Bourbon regime brought home to its conscience the greatness of the man who had passed away. All minds turned to S. Helena, to the tomb by Hut's Gate, where, to many an ardent imagination, the honour of France lay buried. Then the Napoleonic myth grew up out of that lonely grave under the weeping willows, and took possession of the hearts, and filled the horizon to which the hopes of France turned. The explosions of venomous hate favoured by the Bourbon Government were listened to with contempt, and remained * BOURRIENNE, ed. Phipps, iii. 527, APOTHEOSE. From a lithograph of [832. 538 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE without effect. Caricatures were produced to ridicule the dead hero, and no one laughed at them ; but a thousand little symbols of the great Emperor, allegorical pictures, canonizations appeared, and were suppressed by the police whenever they could lay their vulgar hands on them. It was hoped that Napoleon would revive in his son, and that with this son the colouredjcockade would again reappear. The Napoleonic myth, as well as the Napoleonic scare, has passed away. We are now able to distinguish Bonaparte as he really was, no longer sur- rounded by the thunder-clouds of war, nor the apreole of apotheosis. We see RECEPTION OF THE BODY AT THE INVALIDES. From a drawing by Ferrogio and Gdrard. that he was of composite character, that he had a genius of the highest order ; but that, on account of defective education, not only was he incapable of spell- ing and writing, but also was a blunderer in the very alphabet of morality, of truth, and honour. He who did not blush to peep into letters and listen at keyholes, was yet capable of imposing trust on -those he loved, and of acting with generosity. He hated and scorned what was false and unworthy in his enemies, in his familiar associates, but allowed himself to be guilty of every baseness. At one moment in his life, when everything was possible, he took the wrong turn. He might have reigned, and established his dynasty on im- perishable foundations, if he had been able to see that there were principles as well as passions in the Revolution ; and if he had resolutely curbed the passions, and set himself to the carrying out of the principles, instead of tread- ing them into the bloodstained earth. Had he set himself to be a great INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF THE INVALIDES DURING THE FUNERAL. From a lithograph by Dumouza. APOTHEOSIS 541 constitutional monarch, he would be looked back on, not only as the greatest, but as the best of men. Is there any prospect of another great Napoleon arising out of the same family ? Of the dynasty reascending to the throne in France ? There was no second great Csesar after Julius. Charlemagne's family died out in insignifi- cance. " Les revolutions ne se repetent pas." CAST OF THE FACE OF THE DUKE OF REICHSTADT, napoleon's son, TAKEN AFTER DEATH. APPENDICES APPENDIX A WILL OF THE EX-EMPEROR NAPOLEON NAPOLEON, AUJOURD'HUI, le 15 avril 182 1, a Longwood, ile de Sainte-Helene. Ceci est mon testament, ou acte de ma derniere volonte. I. 1° Je meurs dans la religion apostolique et romaine, dans le sein de laquelle je suis ne, il y a plus de cinquante ans. 2° Je desire que mes cendres reposent sur les bords de la Seine, au mili^ de ce peuple frangais que j'ai tant aime. \ ^ 3® J'ai toujours eu a me louer de ma tres chere epouse Marie-Louise ; je lui conserve jusqu'au dernier moment les plus tendres sentiments ; je la prie de veiller pour garantir mon fils des embiiches qui environnent encore son enfance. 4° Je recommande a mon fils de ne jamais oublier qu'il est ne prince fran^ais, et de ne jamais se preter a etre un instrument entre les mains des triumvirs qui oppriment les peuples de I'Europe. II ne doit jamais combattre, ni nuire en aucune autre maniere a la France ; il doit adopter ma devise : Tout pour le peuple /ran fats. 5*^ Je meurs prematurement, assassine par I'oligarchie anglaise et son sicaire ; le peuple anglais ne tardera pas a me venger. 6^ Les deux issues si malheureuses des invasions de la France, lorsqu'elle avait encore tant de ressources, sont dues aux trahisons de Marmont, Augereau, Talleyrand et La Fayette. Je leur pardonne ; puisse la posterite frangaise leur pardonner comme moi ! 7^ Je remercie ma bonne et tres excellente mere, le cardinal, mes freres Joseph, Lucien, Jerome, Pauline, Caroline, Julie, Hortense, Catarine, Eugene, de I'interet qu'ils m'ont conserve; je pardonne a Louis le libelle qu'il a public en 1820 ; il est plein d'assertions fausses et de pieces falsifiees. 8° Je desavoue le Manuscrit de Saitite-Helene et autres ouvrages, sous le titre de Maximes, Sentences, etc., que Ton s'est plu a publier depuis six ans : ce ne sont pas la les regies qui ont dirige ma vie. J'ai fait arreter et juger le due d'Enghien^, parce que €ela etait necessaire a la silrete, a I'interet et a I'honneur du peuple frangais, lorsque le comte d'Artois entretenait, de son aveu, soixante assassins a Paris. Dans une semblable circonstance, j'agirais encore de meme. 2 N 545 546 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE II. i^ Je legue a mon fils les boites, ordres, et autres objets, tels qu'argenterie, lit de camp, armes, selles, eperons, vases de ma chapelle, livres, linge qui a servi a mon corps et a mon usage, conformement a I'etat annexe, cote A. Je desire que ce faible legs lui soit cher, comme lui retragant le souvenir d'un pere dont I'univers I'entretiendra. 2*^ Je legue a Lady Holland le camee antique que le'pape Pie VI. m'a donne k Tolentino. 3° Je legue au comte Montholon deux millions de francs, comme une preuve de ma satisfaction des soins filiaux qu'il m'a rendus depuis six ans, et pour I'indemniser des pertes que son sejour a Sainte-Helene lui a occasionnees. 4*' Je legue a comte Bertrand cinq cent mille francs. 5° Je legue a Marchand, mon premier valet de chambre, quatre cent mille francs. Les services qu'il m'a rendus sont ceux d'un ami. Je desire qu'il epouse une veuve, soeur ou fille d'un officier ou soldat de ma vieille garde. 6^ Idem^ a Saint-Denis, cent mille francs. 7^ Idem, a Navarre (Noverraz), cent mille francs. 8° Idetn, a Pieron, cent mille francs. (f Idem, a Archambaud, cinquante mille francs. lo^ Idem, a Coursot, vingt-cinq mille francs. ii<* Idem, a Chandellier, vingt-cinq mille francs. 1 2° Idem, a I'abbe Vignali, cent mille francs. Je desire qu'il batisse sa maison pres de Ponte Nuevo di Rostino. 13*^ Idem, au comte Las Cases, cent mille francs. 14^ Idem, au comte Lavalette, cent mille francs. 15° Idem, au chirurgien en chef Larrey, cent mille francs. C'est I'homme le plus vertueux que j'aie connu. 1 6*^ Idem, au general Brayer, cent mille francs. 17° Idem, au general Lefevre-Desnouettes, cent mille francs. 18^ Idem, au general Drouot, cent mille francs. 19° Idem, au general Cambronne, cent mille francs. 20*^ IdeT?t, aux enfants du general Mouton-Duvernet, cent mille francs. 2 1*^ Idem, aux enfants du brave Labedoyere, cent mille francs. 22° Idem, aux enfants du general Giraud, tue' a Ligni, cent mille francs. 23^ Idem, aux enfants du general Chartraud, cent mille francs. 24*^ Idem, aux enfants du vertueux general Travot, cent mille francs. 25^^ Idem, au general Lallemant I'aine cent mille francs. 26° Idem, au comte Real, cent mille francs. 27*^ Idem, a Costa de Bastelica, en Corse, cent mille francs. 28^ Idem, au general Clausel, cent mille francs. 29° Idem, au baron Menneval, cent mille francs. 30*^ Idem, a Arnault, auteur de Marius, cent mille francs. 31*^ Idem, au colonel Marbot, cent mille francs. Je I'engage a continuer a ecrire pour la defense de la gloire des armees frangaises, et a en confondre les calomniateurs et les apostats. 32° Idem, au baron Bignon, cent mille francs. Je I'engage a ecrire I'histoire de la diplomatic frangaise de 1792 a 181 5. 33*^ Idem, a Poggi di Talavo, cent mille francs. APPENDIX A 547 34^ Idem, au chimrgien Emmery, cent mille francs. 35** Ces sommes seront prises sur les six millions que j'ai places en partant de Paris en 1 815, en sur les interets a raison de cinq pour cent depuis juillet 1815. Les comptes en seront arretes avec le banquier pas les comtes Montholon, Bertrand et Marchand. 36"* Tout ce que ce placement produira au dela de la somme de cinq millions six cent mille francs, dont il a ete dispose ci-dessus, sera distribue en gratifications aux blesses de Waterloo, et aux officiers et soldats du bataillon de I'ile d'Elbe, sur un etat arrete par Montholon, Bertrand, Drouot, Cambronne et le chirurgien Larrey. 37** Ces legs, en cas de mort, seront payes aux veuves et enfants, et, au defaut de ceux-ci, rentreront a la masse. III. T^ Mon domaine prive etant ma propriete, dont aucune loi fran9aise ne m'a prive, . que je sache, le compte en sera demande au baron de la Bouillerie, qui en est le tresorier ; il doit se monter a plus de deux cents millions de francs ; savoir : i** le porte- feuille contenant les economies que j'ai, pendant quatorze ans, faites sur ma liste civile, les-quelles se sont elevees a plus de douze millions par an, si j'ai bonne memoire ; 2^ ie produit de ce portefeuille ; 3** les meubles de mes palais, tels qu'ils etaient en 18 14; les palais de Rome, Florence, Turin compris. Tous ces meubles ont ete achetes des deniers des revenus de la liste civile ; 4^ la liquidation de mes maisons du royaume d'ltalie, tels qu'argent, argenterie, bijoux, meubles, ecuries ; les comptes en seront donnes par le prince Eugene et I'intendant de la couronne Compagnoni. NAPOLEON. Deuxihne feuille. 2^ Je legue mon domaine prive, moitie aux officiers et soldats qui restent de I'armee fran^aise qui ont combattu depuis 1792 3,1815 pour la gloire et I'independance de la nation ; la repartition en sera faite au prorata des appointements d'activite ; moitie aux villes et campagnes d' Alsace, de Lorraine, de Franche-Comte, de Bourgogne, de I'lle-de- France, de Champagne, Forez, Dauphine, qui auraient souffert par I'une ou I'autre inva- sion. II sera de cette somme preleve un million pour la ville de Brienne et un million pour celle de Meri. J'institue les comtes Montholon, Bertrand et Marchand mes executeurs testamen- taires. Ce present testament, tout ecrit de ma propre main, est signe' et scelle de mes armes. {Sceau.) NAPOLEON. ETAT A joint a mon testament. Longwood, lie de Sainte-Helene, ce 15 avril 182 1. I. I** Les vases sacres qui ont servi a ma chapelle a Longwood.* 2** Je charge I'abbe Vignali de les garder et de les remettre a mon fils quand il aura seize ans. * The story of these sacred vessels is curious. Shortly after his return to Corsica, the Abbe Vignali was assassinated in a vendetta, and his heirs sold these articles without scruple. The Duke of Padua, in 1832, recovered them, and sent them as a present to Prince Napoleon. 548 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE 11. 1^ Mes armes; savoir : mon epee, celle que je portals a Austerlitz, le sabre de Sobieski, mon poignard, mon glaive, mon couteau de chasse, mes deux paires de plstolets de Versailles. 2° Mon necessaire d'or, celui qui m'a servi le matin d'Ulm, d'Austerlitz, d'lena, d'Eylau, de Friedland, de Tile de Lobau, de la Moskowa et de Mont-Mirail; sous ce point de vue, je desire qu'il soit precieux a mon fils. (Le comte Bertrand en est depositaire depuis 1814.) 3*^ Je charge le comte Bertrand de soigner et conserver ces objets, et de les remettre a mon fils lorsqu'il aura seize ans. III. i^ Trois petites caisses d'acajou, contenant ; la premiere, trente-trois tabatieres ou bonbonnieres ; la deuxieme, douze boites aux armes imperiales, deux petites lunettes et quatre boites trouvees sur la table de Louis XVIII, aux Tuileries, le 20 mars 181 5 ; la troisieme, trois tabatieres ornees de medailles d'argent, a I'usage de I'Empereur, et divers effets de toilette, conformement aux etats numerotes I, II, III. 2*^ Mes lits de camp dont j'ai fait usage dans toutes mes campagnes. 3^ Ma lunette de guerre. 4^ Mon necessaire de toilette, un de chacun de mes uniformes, une douzaine de chemises, et un objet complet de chacun de mes habillements, et generalement de tout ce qui sert a ma toilette. 5" Mon lavabo. 6^ Une petite pendule qui est dans ma chambre a coucher de Longvvood. 7*^ Mes deux montres et la chaine de cheveux de I'lmperatrice. 8° Je charge Marchand, mon premier valet de chambre, de garder ces objets, et de les remettre a mon fils lorsqu'il aura seize ans. IV 1° Mon medailher. 2*^ Mon argenterie et ma porcelaine de Sevres dont j'ai fait usage a Sainte-Helene. 3° Je charge le comte Montholon de garder ces objets, et de les remettre a mon fils quand il aura seize ans. V. i^ Mes trois selles et brides, mes eperons qui m'ont servi a Saint-Helene. 2^ Mes fusils de chasse, au nombre de cinq. 3** Je charge mon chasseur Noverraz de garder ces objets, et de les remettre a mon fils quand il aura seize ans. VI. 1° Quatre cents volumes choisis dans ma bibliotheque, parmi ceux qui ont le plus servi a mon usage. 2" Je charge Saint-Denis de les garder, et de les remettre a mon fils quand il aura seize ans. NAPOLEON. ETAT (A). I'* II ne sera vendu aucun des effets qui m'ont servi; le surplus sera partage entre mes executeurs testamentaires et mes freres. APPENDIX A 549 2° Marchand conservera mes cheveux, et en fera faire un bracelet avec un petit cadenas en or, pour etre envoye a I'lmperatrice Marie-Louise, a ma mere, et a chacun de mes freres, soeurs, neveux, nieces, au cardinal, et un plus considerable pour mon fils. 3'' Marchand enverra une de mes paires de boucles a souliers, en or, au prince Joseph. 4° Une petite paire de boucles, en or, a jarretieres, au prince Lucien. 5*^ Une boucle de col, en or, au prince Jerome. ETAT (A). Inventaire de mes effets^ que Marchand gardera pour remettre a mon fils. i^ Mon necessaire d'argent, celui qui est sur ma table, garni de tous ses ustensiles, rasoirs, etc. 2" Mon reveille-matin : c'est le reveille-matin de Frederic II, que j'ai pris a Potsdam (dans la boite n^ III). 3° Mes deux montres, avec la chaine des cheveux de I'lmperatrice, et une chaine de mes cheveux pour I'autre montre. Marchand la fera faire a Paris. 4^ Mes deux sceaux (un de France, enferme dans la boite n^ III). 5^ La petite pendule doree qui est actuellement dans ma chambre a coucher. 6*^ Mon lavabo, son pot a eau et son pied. 7^ Mes tables de nuit, celles qui me servaient en France, et mon bidet de vermeil. 8'' Mes deux lits de fer, mes matelas et mes couvertures, s'ils se peuvent conserver. 9^ Mes trois flacons d'argent ou Ton mettait mon eau-de-vie que portaient mes chasseurs en campagne. lo*' Ma lunette de France. 1 1" Mes eperons (deux paires). 12** Trois boites d'acajou, n*^^ I, II, III, renfermant mes tabatieres et autres objets. 13° Une cassolette en vermeil. Lifige de toilette. 6 chemises. — 6 mouchoirs. — 6 cravates. — 6 serviettes. — 6 paires de bas de sole. — 4 cols noirs. — 6 paires de chaussettes. — 2 paires de draps de batiste.* — 2 tales d'oreiller. — 2 robes de chambre. — 2 pantalons de nuit. — i paire de bretelles. — 4 culottes-veste de casimir blanc. — 6 madras. — 6 gilets de flanelle. — 4 cale^ons. — 6 paires de guetres. — I petite boite pleine de mon tabac. — i boucle de col en or. — ^^i paire de boucles a jarretieres en or. — i paire de boucles en or a souliers, renfermees dans la petite boite n« III. * En verifiant I'etat de la paire de draps qui enveloppaient I'Empereur sur son lit de mort, S. A. I. le prince Victor remarqua qu'au centre de chacun des draps un B majuscule, surmonte d'une couronne royale, etait legerement brode. Cette paire de draps ayant ete prise aux Tuileries au moment du depart precipite pour Rochefort, il etait de toute evidence que Napoleon s'etait involontairement approprie les draps de Louis XVIII, qui, dans son depart egalement precipite pour Lille, sous I'escorte des compagnies rouges de Marmont, avait forcement cru devoir se preoccuper du soin de son auguste personne plutot que de celui de sa garde-robe. Aussi, et le fait ne manque certes pas d'originalite, pendant les Cent-Jours^ I'Empereur des Fran^ais, lors de son court sejour aux Tuileries, coucha dans les draps de lit du roi de France, et ce furent aussi ces draps de lit, marques de la couronne des Bourbons, qui servirent, pour ainsi dire, de linceul a Napoleon. (A. Dayot.) 550 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Habillement. I uniforme de chasseur. — i uniforme de grenadier. — i uniforme de garde national. — 2 chapeaux."^ — i capote gris et verte. — i manteau bleu (celui que j'avais a Marengo). — 1 zibeline, pelisse verte. — 2 paires de souliers. — 2 paires de bottes. — i paire de pantoufles. — 6 cein- turons. NAPOLEON. ETAT (B). Inventaire des effets que fat laisses chez M. le comte de Turemie. I sabre de Sobieski. (C'est par erreur qu'il est porte sur I'etat A ; c'est le sabre que I'Empereur portait a Aboukir, qui est entre les mains de M. le comte Bertrand). — i grand collier de la Legion d'honneur. — i epee en vermeil. — i glaive de consul. — I epee en fer. — i ceinturon de velours. — i collier de la Toison d'or. — i petit necessaire en acier. — i veilleuse en argent. — i poignee de sabre antique. — i chapeau a la Henri IV et une toque, les dentelles de I'Empereur. — i petit medaillier. — 2 tapis turcs. — 2 manteaux de velours cramoisi brodes, avec vestes et culottes. 1° Je donne a mon fils le sabre de Sobieski. — Idem J le collier de la Legion d'honneur. — Ide?n, I'epee en vermeil. — Idem, le glaive de consul. — Idein, I'epee en fer. — Idem, le collier de la Toison d'or. — Idem, le chapeau a la Henri IV et la toque. — Ide7tt, le necessaire d'or pour les dents, reste chez le dentiste. 2^ A I'imperatrice Marie- Louise, mes dentelles. — A Madame, la veilleuse en argent. — Au cardinal, le petit necessaire en acier. — Au prince Eugene, le bougeoir en vermeil. — A la princesse Pauline, le petit medaillier. — A la reine de Naples, un petit tapis turc. — A la reine Hortense, un petit tapis Hat of Napoleon, and Uniform of the Emperor, with the Epau- lettes of a General Officer and the Star of the Legion of Honour. (From the Museum of Sens.) * II nous a ete permis de voir tout dernierement un des chapeaux que Napoleon portait a la campagne de Russie. Le parchemin documentaire qui I'accompagne explique ainsi sa singuliere destinee : "Voici de quelle sorte ce chapeau parvint dans mes mains. A I'epoque de cette desastreuse campagne de Russie, mon epouse etait employee dans la buanderie de la maison de I'Empereur. Elle s'adressa par hasard a M. Gervais, conservateur de la garde-robe de I'Empereur, et lui demanda quelques vieux chapeaux pour faire des poignees dont les repasseuses se servaient alors pour tenir leur fer. II lui donna deux chapeaux de I'Empereur, dont I'un, celui-ci, que j'ai conserve, avait servi pendant cette campagne. Elle donna I'autre a une personne qui avait desire I'avoir. Telle est la verite. " Signe J. DULUD." Ce chapeau est en ce moment la propriete de M. Georges Thierry. (A. Dayot.) APPENDIX A 551 turc. — Au prince Jerome, la poignee de sabre antique. — Au prince Joseph, un manteau brode, veste et culotte. — Au prince Lucien, un manteau brode, veste et ^^^^"^•* NAPOLEON. Ce 23 avril 1821. Longwood. Ceci est mon codicille oic acte de ma derniere volonte. Sur les fonds remis en or a I'lmperatrice Marie-Louise, ma tres chere et bien-aimee epouse, a Orleans, en 18 14, elle reste me devoir deux millions, dont je dispose par le present codicille, afin de recompenser mes plus fideles serviteurs, que je recommande du reste a la protection de ma chere Marie-Louise. 1° Je recommande a I'lmperatrice de faire restituer au comte Bertrand les trente mille francs de rente qu'il possede dans le duche de Parme et sur le mont Napoleon de Milan, ainsi que les arrerages echus. 2^ Je lui fais la meme recommandation pour le due d'Istrie, la fille de Duroc, et autres de mes serviteurs qui me sont restes fideles et qui me sont toujours chers ; elle les connait. 3° Je legue, sur les deux millions ci-dessus mentionnes, trois cent mille francs au comte Bertrand, sur lesquels il versera cent mille francs dans la caisse du tre'sorier, pour etre employes, selon mes dispositions, a des legs de conscience. 4° Je legue deux cent mille francs au comte Montholon, sur lesquels il versera cent mille francs dans la caisse du tresorier, pour le meme usage que ci-dessus. 5^ Idem^ deux cent mille francs au comte Las Cases, sur lesquels il versera cent mille francs dans la caisse du tresorier, pour le meme usage que ci-dessus. 6^ Idem^ a Marchand, cent mille francs, sur lesquels il versera cinquante mille francs dans la caisse, pour le meme usage que ci-dessus. 7^ Au maire d'Ajaccio, au commencement de la Revolution, Jean-Jerome Levi, ou a sa veuve, enfants ou petits-enfants, cent mille francs. S'^ A la fille de Duroc, cent mille francs. 9^ Au fils de Bessieres, due d'Istrie, cent mille francs. 10** Au general Drouot, cent mille francs. 1 1" Au comte Lavalette, cent mille francs. 1 2^ Idem^ cent mille francs, savoir : vingt-cinq mille francs a Pieron, mon maitre d'hotel ; vingt-cinq mille francs a Noverray, mon chasseur ; vingt-cinq mille francs a Saint-Denis, le garde de mes livres; vingt-cinq mille francs a Santini, mon ancien huissier. 1 3^ Idem^ cent mille francs ; savoir : quarante mille francs a Planat, mon officier d'ordonnance ; vingt mille francs a Hebert, dernierement concierge a Rambouillet, et qui etait de ma chambre en Egypte ; vingt mille francs a Lavigne, que etait derniere- ment concierge d'une de mes ecuries, et qui etait mon piqueur en Egypte; vingt mille francs a Jeannet-Dervieux, qui etait mon piqueur des ecuries, et me servait en Egypte. * II s'agit ici des deux manteaux du Sacre, en velours cramoisi. Dans I'inventaire de la garde-robe de I'Empereur qui sert d'appendice au Napoleon chez lui de M. Frederic Masson, nous lisons que I'un de ces manteaux, celui du grand habillement, est brode d'or et seme d'abeilles. Le manteau du petit habillement est brode d'or et d'argent. Dans les broderies sont enlacees des branches d'olivier, de laurier et de chene qui entourent la lettre N. Une plaque de la Legion d'honneur est posee sur le cote. (A. Dayot.) 552 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE 14" Deux cent mille francs seront distribues en aumones aux habitants de Brienne-le- Chateau qui ont le plus souffert. Les trois cent mille francs restants seront distribues aux officiers et soldats du bataillon de ma garde de I'ile d'Elbe actuellement vivants, ou a leurs veuves ou enfants, au prorata des appointements, et selon I'etat que sera arrete par mes executeurs testamentaires ; les amputes ou blesses grievement auront le double. L'etat en sera arrete par Larrey et Emmery. Ce codicille est ecrit tout de ma propre main, signe et scelle de mes armes. NAPOLEON. Ce 24 avril 1821. Longwood. Ceci est mon codicille^ ou acte de ma derniere volonte. Sur la liquidation de ma liste civile d'ltalie, telle qu'argent, bijoux, argenterie, linge, meubles, ecuries, dont le vice-roi est depositaire, et qui m'appartiennent, je dispose de deux millions que je legue a mes plus fideles serviteurs. J'espere que, sans s'autoriser d'aucune raison, mon fils Eugene Napoleon les acquittera fidelement ; il ne peut oublier les quarante millions de francs que je lui ai donnes, soit en Italic, soit par le partage de la succession de sa mere. 1° Sur ces deux millions, je legue au comte Bertrand trois cent mille francs, dont il versera cent mille francs dans la caisse du tresorier pour etre employes, selon mes dispo- sitions, a I'acquit de legs de conscience. 2° Au comte Montholon, deux cent mille francs, dont il versera cent mille francs a la caisse, pour le meme usage que ci-dessus. 3^ Au comte Las Cases, deux cent mille francs, dont il versera cent mille francs a la caisse, pour le meme usage que ci-dessus. 4^ A Marchand, cent mille francs, dont il versera cinquante mille francs a la caisse, pour le meme usage que ci-dessus. 5'' Au comte Lavalette, cent mille francs. 6° Au general Hogendorf, Hollandais, mon aide de camp refugie au Bresil, cent mille francs. 7^ A mon aide de camp Corbineau, cinquante mille francs. 8*^ A mon aide de camp Caffarelli, cinquante mille francs. 9^ A mon aide de camp Dejean, cinquante mille francs, lo*' A Percy, chirurgien en chef a Waterloo, cinquante mille francs. 11" Cinquante mille francs; savoir: dix mille francs a Pieron, mon maitre d'hotel ; dix mille francs a Saint-Denis, mon premier chasseur ; dix mille francs a Noverraz ; dix mille francs a Cursot, mon maitre d'office; dix mille francs a Archambaud, mon piqueur. 12° Au baron Menneval, cinquante mille francs. 13" Au due d'Istrie, fils de Bessieres, cinquante mille francs. 14° A la fiUe de Duroc, cinquante mille francs. 15^ Aux enfants de Labedoyere, cinquante mille francs. . 1 6^ Aux enfants de Mouton-Duvernet, cinquante mille francs. 1 7** Aux enfants du brave et vertueux general Travot, cinquante mille francs. i8*> Aux enfants de Chartraud, cinquante mille francs. 19^ Au general Crambronne, cinquante mille francs. 20*^ Au general Lefevre-Desnouettes, cinquante mille francs. APPENDIX A 553 2i". Pour etre repartis entre les proscrits qui errent en pays etrangers, Frangais, ou Italiens, ou Beiges, ou Hollandais, ou Espagnols, ou des departements du Rhin, sur ordonnances de mes executeurs testamentaires, cent mille francs. 2 2° Pour etre repartis entre les amputes ou blesses grievement de Ligny, Waterloo, encore vivants, sur des etats dresses par mes executeurs testamentaires, auxquels seront adjoints Cambronne, Larrey, Percy et Emmery ; il sera donne double a la garde, quad- ruple a ceux de I'ile d'Elbe, deux cent mille francs. Ce codicille est ecrit entierement de ma propre main, signe et scelle de mes armes. NAPOLEON. Ce 24 avril 1821. Longwood. Ceci est un troisihne codicille a mon testament du 75 avril. i^ Parmi les diamants de la couronne qui furent remis en 1814, il s'en trouvait pour cinq a six cent mille francs qui n'en etaient pas, et faisaient partie de mon avoir particu- lier ; on les fera rentrer pour acquitter mes legs. 2^ J'avais chez le banquier Torlonia de Rome deux a trois cent mille francs en lettres de change, produits de mes revenus de File d'Elbe depuis 181 5 ; le sieur de la Perruse, quoiqu'il ne fCit plus mon tresorier et n'eut pas de caractere, a tire a lui cette somme ; on la lui fera restiteur. 3^ Je legue au due d'Istrie trois cent mille francs, dont seulement cent mille francs reversibles a la veuve, si le due etait mort lors de T execution du legs. Je desire, si cela n'a aucun inconvenient, que le due epouse la fille de Duroc. 4" Je legue a la duchesse de Frioul, fille de Duroc, deux cent mille francs ; si elle etait morte avant I'execution du legs, il ne sera rien donne a la mere. 5^ Je legue au g6n6ral Rigaud, celui qui a ete proscrit, cent mille francs. 6*^ Je legue a Boisnod, commissaire ordonnateur, cent mille francs. 7^^ Je legue aux enfants du general Letort, tue dans la campagne de 18 15, cent mille francs. 8^ Ces huit cent mille francs de legs seront comme s'ils etaient portes a la suite de I'article 36 de mon testament, ce qui porterait a six millions quatre cent mille francs la somme des legs dont je dispose par mon testament, sans comprendre les donations faites par mon second codicille. Ceci est ecrit de ma propre main, signe et scelle des mes armes. {Sceau.) NAPOLEON. Au dos : Ceci est mon troisieme codicille a mon testament, tout entier ecrit de ma main, signe et scelle de mes armes. Sera ouvert le meme jour et immediatement apres I'ouverture de mon testament. NAPOLEON. Ce 24 avril 1821. Longwood. Ceci est un qiiatrieme codicille a mon testament. Par les dispositions que nous avons faites precedemment, nous n'avons pas rempli toutes nos obligations, ce qui nous a decide a faire ce quatrieme codicille. 1° Nous le'guons au fils ou petit-fils du baron Dutheil, lieutenant general d'artillerie, ancien seigneur de Saint-Andre, qui a commande I'ecole d'Auxonne avant la Revolution, 554 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE la somme de 100,000 (cent mille francs), comme souvenir de reconnaissance pour les soins que ce brave general a pris de nous, lorsque nous etions comme lieutenant et capi- taine sous ses ordres. 2° Idem^ au fils ou petit-fils du general Dugommier, qui a commande en chef I'armee de Toulon, la somme de cent mille francs (100,000) ; nous avons, sous ses ordres, dirige ce siege et commande I'artillerie ; c'est un temoignage de souvenir pour les marques d'estime, d'affection et d'amitie que nous a donnees ce brave et intrepide general. 3*^ Idem^ nous leguons cent mille francs (100,000) au fils ou petit-fils du depute a la Convention Gasparin, representant du peuple a I'armee de Toulon, pour avoir protege et sanctionne de son autorite le plan que nous avons donne, qui a valu la prise de cette ville, et qui etait contraire a celui envoye par le Comite de salut public. Gasparin nous a mis, par sa protection, a I'abri des persecutions de I'ignorance des etats-majors qui com- mandaient I'armee avant I'arrivee de mon ami Dugommier. 4° Idem^ nous leguons cent mille francs (100,000) a la veuve, fils ou petit-fils de notre aide de camp Muiron, tue a cotes a Arcole, nous couvrant de son corps. 5° Idefn, (10,000) dix mille francs au sous-officier Cantillon, qui a essuye un proces comme prevenu d'avoir voulu assassiner lord Wellington, ce dont il a e'te declare innocent. Cantillon avait autant de droit d'assassiner cet oligarque que celui-ci de m'envoyer pour perir sur le rocher de Sainte-Helene. Wellington, qui a propose cet attentat, cherchait alejustifier sur I'interet de la Grande- Bretagne. Cantillon, si vraiment il eut assassine le lord, se serait couvert et aurait ete justifie par les memes motifs, I'interet de la France, de se defaire d'un general qui d'ailleurs avait viole la capitulation de Paris, et par la s'etait rendu responsable du sang des martyrs Ney, Labedoyere, etc., et du crime d'avoir depouille les musees, contre ie texte des traites. 6° Ces 400,000 francs (quatre cent mille francs) seront ajoutes aux six millions quatre cent mille francs dont nous avons dispose, et porteront nos legs a six millions huit cent mille francs ; ces quatre cent mille francs doivent etre consideres comme faisant partie de notre testament, article 35, et suivre en tout le meme sort que les autres legs. 7" Les neuf mille livres sterling que nous avons donnees au comte et a la comtesse Montholon doivent, si elles ont ete soldees ; etre deduites et portees en compte sur les legs que nous leur faisons par notre testament ; si elles n'ont pas ete acquittees, nos billets seront annules. 8° Moyennant le legs fait par notre testament au comte Montholon, la pension de vingt mille francs accordee a sa femme est annulee ; le comte Montholon est charge de la lui payer. 9° L'administration d'une pareille succession, jusqu'a son entiere liquidation, exigeant des frais de bureau, de courses, de missions, de consultations, de plaidoiries, nous enten- dons que nos executeurs testamentaires retiendront trois pour cent sur tous les legs, soit sur les sommes portees dans les codicilles, soit sur les deux cents millions de francs du domaine prive. 10" Les sommes provenant de ces retenues seront deposees dans les mains d'un tresorier, et depensees sur mandat de nos executeurs testamentaires. 11° Si les sommes provenant desdites retenues n'etaient pas sufiisantes pour pourvoir aux frais, il y sera pourvu aux depens des trois executeurs testamentaires et du tresorier, chacun dans la proportion du legs que nous leur avons fait par notre testament et codicille. APPENDIX A 555 1 2° Si les sommes provenant des susdites retenues sont au-dessus des besoins, le restant sera partage entre nos trois executeurs testamentaires et le tresorier, dans le rapport de leurs legs respectifs. 13° Nous nommons le comte Las Cases, et a son defaut, son fils, et a son defaut, le general Drouot, tresorier. 14° Ce present codicille est entierement ecrit de notre main, signe et scelle de nos armes. NAPOLEON. THE PROFILE OF NAPOLEON ON HIS DEATH-BED. APPENDIX B SOME SPECIMENS OF NAPOLEON'S WRITING A CONSIDERABLE number of autographs and examples of the writing of -^ ^ Napoleon at different periods of his career have already been included in the body of this volume, but a few additional samples may be added to make the collection more complete. He certainly, at an early period, purposely wrote illegibly so as to disguise his incorrect spelling ; and so his handwriting was formed : he devoted little care to make it legible, even after he was more confident than at first how to spell his words. His signature he varied very considerably, and he seems to have thought that any scrawl would suffice. His writing became exceptionally hard to be read, and it must have taxed his corre- spondents' ingenuity to decipher his letters. He wrote hastily, his thoughts outrunning the execution of the characters which were designed to give expression to them. 556 APPENDIX B 557 Here is a curious specimen, terribly illegible, of the 14th July, 1797 : — i^^.^^^,,.-^^ &^ ^ /J^'t^ r A -ia:^:^^^^^^:^^^^-^^^ >c^ APPENDIX B 559 ^i^^^^-xH^ -^^"^y^-^. pj;^^^,^^,^j^'^/^^^— ^^.wZ^/^y^^ ^/Ur-^^^^ 1^ ^-^^^^^-^^ ^ >v^^X.A-e>cyfx5a^ — • 56o THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE a>o^< -i^^i/^^^.^ yUu-^/^^ APPENDIX B 561 Here is the date "29 Nivose," in the fourth year of the RepubUc {i.e. January 19, 1796), to a letter addressed to General Clarke, then the Minister of War, in which he proposed his scheme for the invasion of Italy. Soon after he received his commission to execute it, and the result was the memorable campaign of 1796, which established his military reputation and supremacy. ^$'/!^itm The black N. is from Madrid, written December 7th, i8c8: — The next bold scribble is of the i8th April, 1809, appended to a letter written at Donauwerth, to Massena : — This scrawl is from the camp at Ratisbon, on the 24th April, 1809, and is the signature to his proclamation to the army. It ends thus, " Avanl qu'un mois soit ecoule', je serai a Vienne " : — 2 o 562 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE His signature a fortnight later, at Vienna, in the palace of Schonbrunn, May 13th, is here given : — Signature to an order at Moscow, 12th September, 18 12 :- The Emperor's signature, at three o'clock in the morning, on September 21st, 1812:— A German graphologist, Adolf Hense, has been pleased to publish a critique upon the signatures of Napoleon at various periods in his career. Of that given below Hense says — " The hasty and laconic signature of one like a Spartan " ; and of the next, " The daring conqueror throws back his head, and escalades the mountain." For my APPENDIX B 563 own part I do not attribute much value to these estimates. The bias of acquaintance with the history of the writer must affect the decision as to the character of the writing. If he had not known that it was Napoleon's handwriting, he would no doubt have given entirely opposite estimates. Finally, this is Napoleon's writing on S. Helena, 1818 : — JSJ'ME MES i'jfAEJl^S £r ylAf/S DE CRCIRE TOUT C£ QUE LE DOCTEl/It O'M^Ji^ JLEl/X DTRyi TtSL^TfVEMENr A ZA PO^IT/O^f aV yjT 2a ntom^ Er ai/x ssntzmsits que jz cojvsekvs " ^ X^i\uH^<^oC^ INDEX Abdication of Francis II., 322. — Napoleon(first),473,475,48o; (second), 513-14. Aboukir, Battle of (first), 179-80 ; (second), 195. Abrantes, Duke of. See Junot. Acre, 189-90. Addington, Ministry of Mr., 261. Affection inspired by Napoleon, 236-7, 503. Aix, 479. Ajaccio, 2, 30, 35-8, 56, 58, 62, 64, 65. — Emperor of Russia, 332, 347-51, 376, 392, 4CO-1, 418, 433-4, 437, 451, 462, 482. Alexandria, 178, 197. Alvinzi, General, 135, 147. Amiens, Peace of, 258. Antibes, 94, 484. Antommarchi, Doctor, 525, 530-4, 535. Apocryphal letters, 358, 389. Apotheosis of Napoleon, 537, 538. Ar9is, S. Aube, 466. Areola, 136. Arena, 62, 85, 249. Arezzo, 355. Arms of Buonaparte, 480. Army, Reorganisation of, 123. — Proclamations to, 126, 129, 158, 176, 191, 338, 340, 485, 496. Arndt, 323, 444. Arnott, Doctor, 530, 534, 535. Artois, Comte d', 486. Aspern, Battle of, 301-5. Assassination, Fear of, in Napoleon, 247. Aubry, 96-7. Auerstadt, Battle of, 327-8, Augereau, 124, 134, 160-1, 164, 167, 311, 393, 450, 469, 478. Austerlitz, Battle of, 301-5. Austrian Generals— their incompetence, 124, 139. Autun, 12, 14. Auxonne, 32-4, 39-43. Avignon, 69, 478. 202 Bacciochi, 172, 220. See Elise Bonaparte. Baden, Elector created Grand Duke, 306, 322, m. Barclay de Tholy, 439. Barras, 78, 80, 83, 88, 96, 105, 107-10, 112, 115, 156, 159-61, 166, 207, 214-15, 526. Bassano, Duke of, 310. See Maret. Bastia, 35-8, 45, 49, 65, 66. Bathurst, Mr., Death of, 268. Bautzen, Battle of, 450-1. Bavaria, Elector created King, 306, 322, 373. Bayonne, 361-5, Z^l- Beaucaire, Souper de, 6S. Beauharnais, Eugene de, 119, 171, 187, 211,299, 307, 356, 401, 405, 429, 460. — Plortense, 116, 401, 427. — Josephine de. See Josephine. — Marquis de, 115. Beaulieu, .128. Bellerophon, 272, 515, 517. Belluno, Duke of, 310. .9^^ Victor. Benevento, Prince of, 310. See Talleyrand. Bennigsen, General, 339-40, 347, 372. Beresina, Passage of the, 442. Berg and Cleves, Grand Duke of, 310, 322. See Murat. Berlin, 328, 332, 336, 455-6. Bernadotte, General, 124, 169, 235, 299, 310, 393, 434-5, 449, 456, 45^, 465- Berthier, General, 124, 194, 310, 361, 392, 409, 440, 473, 527. Bertrand, Comte de, 519, 535, 537. Bessieres, 370, 393, 440. Blame cast by Napoleon on others, 182, 217, 234, 527- BlUcher, Marshal, 456, 458, 463-6, 497, 499, 505, 510, 515. Borodino, Battle of, 439. Bou, Mile., 24, 41. Bourrienne, 14, 18, 50, 79, 96, 100, 153, 182, 187, 190-2, 194, 216, 218, 226,235, 239-40, 246, 250, 290, 321, 334, 402, 423. 565 566 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Brienne, 12, 14, 18, 26, 464. Brueys, Admiral, 176, 180, 182, Brussels, 496. Buonaparte, Arms of, 480. — Origin of the family, T-2, 5-6. — Caroline, 8, 29, 66-7, 82, 223, 280, 318, 449, 483- — Charles, 6, 12, 20. — Elise, 8, 29, 32, 53-4, 82, 172, 219, 220, 280, 298, 310, 318, 530. — Jerome, 8, 307, 314-5, 318, 393. — Joseph, 7-8, 12, 13, 29, 30, 40, 61, 64, 73, 100, no, 129, 165, 171, 218-9, 286, 309-10, 316-7, 375-6, 429, 469. — Laetitia, 7-8,29-30, 172, 218-19, 313-14, 483. — Louis, 8, 29, 32, 39, 43, 82, 94-6, no, 124, 172, 289, 313-17, 333, 382-90. — Lucien, 8, 29, 32, 58, 61-2, 67, 73, 82, 96, 171, 207-9, 212, 220, 251, 312-13, 318, 490, 508, 510, 513, 515. — Marianne, 8, 67. — Napoleon. For Life, sc^e Contents of Chapters. — Callousness of, 80, 197. — Coarseness, 251, 271-2, 427, 429. — Cruelty, 183, 187-8, 191, 197, 378. — Disbelief in principles, 246. — Hypocrisy, 145, 244, 371. — Jealousy, 322-3. — Kindliness, 17-18. — Peevishness, 15, 16, 18, 21-3, 31, 412. — Religious ideas, 253, 257, 533, — Timidity, 247-8, 264. — Vulgarity, 280. — Pauline, 8, 30, 67, 82, loi, 172, 221, 2S0, 310, 318, 479, 483. Buttafuoco, 38, 40, 56. Cadore, Duke of, 310. See Champagny. Cadoudal, George, 224, 262, 267. Caesar's Commentaries, 26, 112. Cagliari, 58. Cairo, 180, 182-3, I94- Callousness of Napoleon, 80, 197. Calvi, 66, 85. Cambaceres, 224, 248, 264, 311, 400, 436, 490. Campbell, Sir Neil, 476, 481, 483. Campo-Formio, Treaty of, 154, 163-4. Candles, Blessed, 412. Canino, Prince of, 313, 318. See Lucien Bona- parte. Canova, 221, 410. Cant, Liberal, 133, 371. Cantillon, 530, Caps of Liberty removed, 240, Caracolli, 249-50. Carbone, Camilla, 8. Cardinals, 414. Carnot, 18, 109, 159, 165, 489, 491, 508, 510, 5". Carteaux, 74, 76, 107. Caricatures, 263, 271, 375, 472, 538. Casablanca, 57. Castiglione, Duke of, 311, See Augereau. Castlereagh, Lord, 465, 481, 516. Catechisme Imperial, 377. Caulaincourt, 310, 401, 436, 463, 474, 490, Ceracchi and Arena, 236. Certificates, False, 6, 7, 38, I73, 94, loi, 172, 219. Champagny, 310, 377, 391. Chardon, Abbe, 12. Charles, Archduke, 136, 147-8, 299, 305, 391, 394-6. — IV. of Spain, 355-66. Chevalier, 249-50. Church in France, 202, 243-4, 253-5, 278. Clarke, General, 141, 152, 154, 310. Clary, Desiree, 74, 100, n2, 171. — Julie, 74, 100. Cleves, Grand Duke of, 322. See Murat. Clichy, Club of, 155, 158. Coalitions, European, 195, 308, 491. Coarseness of Napoleon, 251, 271-2, 427, 429, Colonna, 35. Compiegne, 409. Concordat, 244, 255, 257, 270, 278. Conegliano, Duke of, 310. See Moncey. Confederacy of the Rhine, 321-2, 323-4, Congress of Vienna, 491. Consalvi, Cardinal, 255. Conscriptions, 347. Consecration, 279-93. Constant, Benjamin, 490, 510. — Valet, 503, 457, 470, 473- Constitution of the Year III., 107, 160. — of the Year VIII., 224-6. — of 1815, 490. Constitutional Church, 253-5, 278. Continental System, 320, 334, 352, 367, 383, 385, 399, 417-25, 433-4. Contractors, Army, 144. Copenhagen, 352. Corsica, 2-5. — Napoleon's love of, 15, 17, 29, 34. — Attempt on, 93-4. Corte, 3, 85. Corunna, 377. Courcelles, 409. Craon, 465. Croisier, 187. Cromwell, 169. Cruelty of Napoleon, 183, 187-8, 191, 197, 378. Cruikshank, 426, 472. INDEX 567 Dalmatia, Duke of, 310. See Soult. David, Louis, 285, 289, 295. Davoust, 327-8, 334, 340, 393-4, 439, 510, 515, 527 Denis, Saint, 313. Desert, Army crossing, 191. Dessaix, 174, 231, 233. Destiny, Napoleon's belief in, 381. Directory, 109. Disbelief in men by Napoleon, 217-18. Divorce of Napoleon, 400-6. Doulcet, 101-2. Drake, 248. Dresden, 437-8,^55. Dube'n7"455".' ^ Dubois, Crance, 123. Duchesne, 355. Dugommier, 76. Dumerbion, 86, 102. Dumolard, 157. Duplicity of Napoleon, 140, 145, 157, 196, 203, 230, 299, 323, 348, 356, 429. Dupont, 355. Duroc, 310, 361, 436, 439, 450. East, Bonaparte's mind turned to, 102-3, 165, 181, 185. Eckmlihl, 395. Egypt, 168, 1 74-85 > 194-7, 269. El Arish, 187 Elba, 474, 475-83, 484, 519- Enghien, Duke of, 264-6, 277, 518, 526. England, Hatred of, 168, 248-9, 269, 272, 476. — Threatened invasion of, 165, 272, 294, 297, 321, 332, 352. English, Arrest of, in France, 263-4. Erfurt, Meeting at, 392-3. Escoiquiz, 359, 361-2. Etiquette of the Court, 277, 279. Etruria, Kingdom of, 251. Eylau, Battle of, 343-4. Faubourg S. Germain, 248. Feltri, Duke of, 310. See Clarke. Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias, 356-62. Fesch, Joseph, 6, 20, 29, 67, 82, no, 317, 354. Finances, Reorganisation of, 229. Flachat, Campagnie, 144. Fontainebleau, Chateau, 279, 400-2, 470. — Treaty of, 352, 357, 376. Fontaines, 239, 251. Forged notes, 399. Fouche, 78, 248, 250, 264, 267, 290, 299, 311, 376, 491. 508. Foures, Pauline, 216. Fox, 320, 347. Francis II., Emperor, 301, 302, 305, 322, 373, 392-3, 455» 482. Frederick Augustus of Saxony, 447. — William III., 324, 331, 344, 348-51. Frejus, 197, 479. Freron, 83, 96, 105, 172, 221. , Fi-iedland, Battle of, 3^7. Friuli, Duke of, 310, .S>£ Duroc. Fructidor, i8th of, 160. Gap, 484. Gaza, 187. Genoa, 2, 86-9, 130, 132, 226, 231-3. Gerard, 256, 285, 301, 538. Gillray, 263, 271, 426. Godoy, 355-6. Gohier, 200, 203. Great S. Bernard, 231. . Grenoble, 484, 486, 489. Gretry, 428. Gros, 306. Grouchy, 497, 505-6. Gustavus Adolphus, 374. Hal, 497. Hall, Capt. Basil, 524. Haller, 88, 145, 176. Hamburg, 229, 321, 333-4. Hanover, 270, 311, 320-3, 444. Hanse Towns, 321, 323, 444. Hatzfeld, Prince, 328, 331. Hawkesbury, Lord, 262, 268. Hedonville, General, 242. Helena, S., 516-34. Hoche, General, 147-51, 156, 159. Hofer, 518. Holland, 226, 270, 316, 382-90. Idealisation of Napoleon, 381. Insolence of Napoleon, 263, 272, 280, Ionian Islands, 382. Isabey, 279, 281, 283. Istria, Duke of, 310. See Bessieres. Italy, Army of, 122, 14T, 145. — Pillage of, 133, 143. Jacobins, 62, 105, 109, 203, 224, 230, 248, 266, 319- Jaffa, 187, 189, 192-3. Jena, Battle of, 327-8, 392. Jews, 343. John, Archduke, 305, 396. Josephine, 1 12-21, 153, 169, 172, 212, 214-18, 240-2, 265, 279, 280, 281-9, 492. Joubert, 200. Jouberton, Mme., 312-13. 568 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Jourdan, 128, 131, 136, 147. Jung, Colonel, 95. Junot, General, 81, 90, 93, 95, loi, 124, 129, 215, 235-6, 263, 301, 352-3, 426. — Madame, 20, 101, 199, 216, 221-2, 236-7, 263, 282-6, 332. Kellermann, General, 130-1, 144, 231, 233. Kleber, General, 139, 196-7, 217, 235, 527. Koerner, 451. Kosciuszko, 236. Labedoyere, Colonel, 486, 490, 510. Lacombe, 63-6, 85, 95, 112. Lafayette, 245, 508, 513. Laforest, 323. Lanfrey, 70, 133. 234, 277. Lannes, General, 176, 231, 278, 311, 340, 393, 396, 428, 450. Lareveillere, Lepeaux, 109. Las Cases, 522, 525, 520. Lavallette, 159, 160, 194, 274, 493, 508, 515. La Vendee, 242, 244. Le Brun, General, 310. Leclerc, 221. Lefebvre, General, 393. Legations, 278. Leghorn, 133, 152. Legion of Honour, 257, 294-5. Leipzig, Battle of, 458. Leoben, Treaty of, 152-4. Letourneur, 109. Lichtenstein, Prince, 305. Ligny, Battle of, 497, 505, 510. Lobau, Isle of, 396. Lodi, Battle of, 130. Longwood, 520-1, 523, 534, 52^. Loretto, 143. Louis XVIIL, 277, 448, 481, 486, 493. Louise, Queen, 331-2, 349. Lowe, Sir Hudson, 522-4, 528-9. Lucca Piombino, Duchy of, 310. See Elise Bona- parte. Lucchesini, 323. Liitzen, Battle of, 450. Lying Habits of Napoleon, 188, 191, 327-31, 371, 376, 430, 525-7. Lyons, 28, 478, 486. Macdonald, Marshal, 234, 445, 472-3, 486. Mack, General, 300-1, Madrid, 358-9, 377. Maitland, Captain, 515, 518. Malmaison, 229, 405, 492, 510, 515. Malta, 164, 177, 261-2, 270. Mamelukes, 179, 181. Manege Club, 200. Mantua, 132, 134-6, 147, 231. Marbeuf, Comte de, 4, 6, 11, .16, 17, 23, 28. Marbot, General, 201, 365. Marchand, Valet, 537. Marengo, Battle of, 231, 233-4. Maret, General, 310, 465, 471, 473. Marie Louise, 400-1, 409-10, 414, 417, 419, 469, 482, 492. Marmont, 90, 95, 124, 300, 469, 489. Marriage of Joseph Bonaparte, 6, 74. — Napoleon, 6, 120, 279, 406. Marseillais, The, 58. Marseilles, 58, 6^, 74, 82-3, 95. Massena, 86, 124, 135, 196, 230-2, 311, 393, 450, 527. Masson, Frederic, 6, 17, 33, 381. Max Joseph of Bavaria, 273- Melas, 231, 233, 372. Memorial de S. Heli'ne, 525, 528. Metternich, Prince, 391, 452. Milan, 130, 231-2, 244, 298. Military School, Brienne. See Brienne. — Paris, 19, 23. Military system reorganised, 123. Mission, Napoleon's belief in his, 377-81, Modena, 142, 163. Monaco, Prince of, 484. Moncey, 310, 355, Monopolies, 414, 424. Montebello, 152, — Duke of, 311. See Lannes, Montereau, Battle of, 465. Montholon, Baron de, 255, 522, 535, 537. Montmirail, Battle of, 465. Moral forces not understood by Napoleon, 367. Moreau, General, 128, 131, 136, 147-8, 158, 203-4, 221, 230, 234, 236, 237, 267-8, 527. Mortier, General, 311, 469. Moscow, 439-41, 443- Murat, General, 124, 130, 132, 210, 289, 322, 324, 334, 337, 357-9, 377, 439-40, 442, 449, 460, 483, 495, 527. Mussulman, Napoleon postures as, 179, 195. Myths fabricated relative to Napoleon, 192-3, 211-12, 331, 522, 538. Naples, 132, 136, 270, 309, 316-17, 334, 2,77. — Queen of, 141, 331, 356, 374. Nasica, 47. National feeling roused, 369-70, 415. National Guard, 36, 108, 460. Nelson, Lord, 180. Neufchatel, Prince of, 310. See Berthier. Nevers, 476, Ney, Marshal, 221, 442, 475, 510, 527. INDEX 569 Nice, 86, 89, 122. Niemen, Passage of, 439. North German Bund, 324. Old Guard, Farewell to, 476-7- Oldenburg, 434, 444- O'Meara, Doctor, 525, 529-30. Orgon, 478. Otranto, Duke of, 331. See Fouche. Oudinot, General, 475, 527. Palm, Execution of, 323. Paoli, General, 3-4, n, 26, 29, 32-8, 40, 56, 60-7. Paris, Distress in, 100. — Napoleon enters, 19, 50, 95, 165, 203, 308, 309, 391, 459, 489, 507. Parma, 130. — Duke of, 310. See Cambaceres. Patriotism evoked, 369-71, 415, 445-6. Patterson, Elizabeth, 314-15. Peraldi, 46, 47. Permits, 333. Permon, Albert, 21, 91, 1 15, 167. — family, 20-3, 98-100. — Mme., loi, 115, 199, 215. Petulance of Napoleon, 21-2, 286, 412. PhiHppeaux, 22. Piacenza, Duke of, 310. See Le Brun. Pichegru, General, 155, 267. Pitt, 320, 347. Pius VI., 243, 254. — VII., 243, 277-9, 290, 315, 355, 412, 415. Plague, 189, 192-4. Poland, 336-51, 417. Poles, Proclamation to, 337. Police, Secret, 242. Politeness, Lack of, in Napoleon, 251. Pontecorvo, Prince of, 310. See Bernadotte. Portugal, 229, 271, 352-3, 355, 366, 374, 418. Pozzo di Borgo, 35, 47. Presburg, Treaty of, 306, 324. Press Laws, 261. Priest, Interview with, 477-8. Prince of the Peace, 356-8, 360-1. Proclamations, Manufacture of, 338. — to Army. See Army. Prussia, 320-35, 347-8, 352, 373, 435, 437, 445- 50, 455-6. Pultusk, 339. Quasdanovich, 134. Quatre Bras, Battle of, 497. Quenza, 46-8, 53. Rapp, General, 444, 450. Ratisbon, 395. .« ..r^vgns ■.::_ Religion in France, 142. - "^ — of Napoleon, 253, 257, i^'i>Z''^^\^^^^^^^^ ^3"^ Remusat, Mme. de, 116, 247. — ' -_^ - V3fla Republics founded and unmade, 382. Reviews, 237. Rhenish Confederacy, 321, 323. Ricord, 88. Rivoli, Battle of, 134, 147. — Duke of, 311. 6"^.? Massena. Robespierre, 83, 87-90, 96. Rochefort, 515. Roger-Ducos, 200, 224. Rome, 142-3, 171, 354, 412-16. Rousseau, 4, 28. Roustan, 27. Rovigo, Duke of, 310. See Savary. Russia, 374. — Invasion of, 433-43. Saint-Elma, Ida, 221. Salicetti, 35-6, 38, 56, 60, 63-4, 68, 73, 82, 85-6, 88-92, 98-100, lOI. Sardinia, 56-60. Savary, 193, 266, 310, 359-60, 523. Saveria, 8. Scherer, General, 95, 102, 122, 124. Schwarzenberg, Prince, 455, 462, 464, 515. Serurier, General, 135, 389. Seurre, Statue by, 312. Sieyes, 155, 164, 200-1, 209, 224. Simon, Abbe, 13. Smith, Sir Sidney, 189, 193. Smolensk, 439, 441. Soissons, 465. Souk, Marshal, 310, 455, 527. Spain, 271, 352, 355-68, 370-1, 374. Spies employed, 264, 323. Star of Napoleon, 478. Stein, Baron, 324. Stendhal, 103. Suicide, Attempted, 474. Sweden, 352, 374, 424, 434- Switzerland, 176, 196, 229, 270, 382. Syria, 186-95. Talleyrand, 164-5, 266-7, 277, 279, 348, 365-6, 376, 461-2, 526-7. Tallien, 105, 116, 120. — Mme., 105, 115-16. Temporal power abolished, 413. — restored, 415-16. Tilsit, Peace of, 316, 348-51. Timidity of Napoleon, 247-8, 265. 570 THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE Toulon, 68, 73-83. Toussaint, I'Ouverture, 518. Trafalgar, 309. Treviso, Duke of, 310. See Mortier. Trieste, 455. Tuileries, 50-2, 239-40, 280, 489, 491. Tuscany, 133, 141. Ungenerous conduct of Napoleon, 328-31. Valence, 24-8, 41-3, 478. Vendemiaire, 13th of, 105-11. Vendetta, 3. Vendome column, 309. Venetia, 163. Venice, 15 1-2. Vernet, Horace, 328. Verona, 132, 134. Vicenza, Duke of, 310. See Caulaincourt. Victor, Marshal, 310. Vienna, Treaty of, 400, 418. Vienna, entered by Napoleon, 301, 395. Villeneuve, Admiral, 268, 297. Violet, Symbol of, 481. Volney, 44. Wagram, Battle of, 396, 400. — Prince of, 409. See Berthier. Walewska, Countess, 344,482. Warsaw, 337, 339, 344. — Grand Duchy of, 351, 417-18. Washington, General, 239, Wellesley, Sir Arthur, 366. Wellington, Duke of, 417-18, 496-506, 510, 515. Whitworth, Lord, 263. Women, Napoleon's rudeness to, 331-2. / Wright, Captain, 267-8. Wiirtemberg, Duke created King, 306, 373. Wiirmser, 134-5. Yorck, General, 445. Znaim, Treaty of, 396. WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH •xc "Rroi # s» THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN ^H^S loOK ON THE DATE DUE. 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