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THE

HISTORY

NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE,

WITH

ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL AND WOOD.

TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II.

LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

MDCCCXXX.

rUlNTEI) BY C. KOWOniH, UELI- YAKU, TEMPLU BAR.

CONTENTS

VOL. ir.

CHAPTER XXII. British Expedition to Copenhagen— Coalition of Fiance, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, against English Commerce — Internal affairs of France— The Administration of Na- poleon— his Council of State — Court— Code— Public Works — Manufactures — Taxei — jNIilitary Organization — The Conscription I

CHAPTER XXIII.

Relations of Napoleon with Spain — Treaty of Fontainebleau — Junot marches to Portugal — Flight of the Braganzas to Brazil — French troops proceed into Spain — Dissensions in the Court — Both parties appeal to Napoleon — Murat oc- cupies Madrid— Charles and Ferdinand abdicate at Bay- onne — Joseph Buonaparte crowned King of Spain. ... I'i

CHAPTER XXIV.

Insurrection of the Spaniards and Portugueze— Their alHance with England — Battle of Riosecco — Joseph enters Madrid — First Siege of Zaragossa — Dupont's March into Anda-

a 2

IV CONTENTS.

lusia — The Battle of Baylen — Dupont surrenders — Joseph quits Madrid — Situation of Junot — Arrival of Sir Arthur Wellesley — Battle of Rori9a — Battle of Vimiero — Con- vention of Cintra 27

CHAPTER XXV. Napoleon at Erfuit — at Paris — arrives at Vittoria — Disposi- tion of the French and Spanish Armies — Successes of Soult — Passage of the Somosierra — Surrender of Madrid — Sir John Moore's Campaign — his Retreat — Battle of Corunna — Death of Moore— Napoleon leaves Spain 43

CHAPTER XXVI.

Austria declares War — Napoleon heads his army in Ger- many— Battles of Landshut and Eckmuhl — Ratisbonne taken — Napoleon in Vienna — Hostilities in Italy, Hun- gary, Poland, the North of Germany, and the Tyrol — Battle of Raab— Battle of Wagram— Armistice with Aus- tria Progress of the War in the Peninsula, Battle

of Talaveyra — Battle of Ocana — English Expedition to

Walcheren Seizure of Rome and arrest of the

Pope Treaty of Schoenbrunn 57

CHAPTER XXVII.

Napoleon divorces Josephine — Marries the Archduchess Maria Louisa — Deposes Louis Buonaparte — Annexes Hol- land and the whole Coast of Germany to France — Revo- lution in Sweden — Bernadotte elected Crown Prince of Sweden — Progress of the War in the Peninsula— Battle of Busaco — Lord Wellington retreats to the Lines of Torres Vedras 76

CONTENTS. V

CHAPTEU XXVIII. Events of the year 1811 — Birth of the King of Rome — Dis- grace of Fouche — Discontents in France — Relations with Russia — License System — Napoleon prepares for War with Russia — The Campaign in the Peninsula — ]Massena"s Retreat — Battle of Fuentes D'Onor — Lord Wellington blockades Ciudad Rodrigo — Retreats — Joseph wishes to abdicate 92

CHAPTER XXIX.

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

105 CHAPTER XXX.

Russia makes Peace with England, with Sweden, and with Turkey — Internal preparations — Napoleon leaves Wilna — The Dwina — Bagrathion's Movements — Battle of Smo- lensko — Battle of Borodino — Napoleon enters Moscow — Constancy and enthusiasm of the Russians — Conduct of Rostophchin— The burning of Moscow — KutusofF refuses to treat 125

CHAPTER XXXI.

Napoleon quits Moscow — Battles of Vincovo and Malo- Yaraslovetz — Retreat on Verreia — and Smolensko — Re- peated defeats and Sufferings of the French — Smolensko — Krasnoi — Passage of the Beresina — Smorgonie — Na-

VI CONTEXTS.

poleon quits the Army — his arrival at Warsaw — at Dres- den— in Paris 142

CHAPTER XXXII.

Conspiracy of JMallet — Napoleon's reception in Paris — his Military Preparations — Prussia declares War — Austria ne- gotiates with Napoleon — Bernadotte appears in Germany — The Russians advance into Silesia— Napoleon heads his Army in Saxony — Battle of Lutzen — Battle of Bautzen

167 CHAPTER XXXIII.

Napoleon's interview with Metternich — Advice of his Minis- ters and Generals — Intelligence from Spain — Battle of Vittoria — Congress of Prague dissolved — Austria declares War— Battle of Dresden — Death of Moreau — Battle of Culm — Surrender of Vandamme — Battles of Grossbeeren, Wahlstadt, and Dennewitz— Napoleon retires from the Elbe — The Battle of Leipsig — The Battle of Ilanau — The Allies on the Rhine 181

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Declaration of the Allies at Frankfort — Revolution of Hol- land— Liberation of the Pope and Ferdinand VII. — Ob- stinacy of Napoleon — His Military Preparations — Disso- lution of the Legislative Senate 202

CHAPTER XXXV.

The Campaign of France— Battles of Brienne and La Ro-

thiere— Expedition of the Marne— Battles of Nangis and

Montereau — Schwartzenberg retreats — Napoleon again

marches against Blucher — Attacks Soissons and is re-

CONTENTS. Vll

pulsed — Battles of Craonne and Laon — Napoleon at Kheims — his perplexities — he marches to St. Dizier 218

CHAPTER XXXVI.

The Allies approach Paris — Maria-Louisa retires to Blois — Marmont and Mortier occupy the Heights of iMontmartre — they are defeated — King Joseph escapes— ]Marinont capitulates — the Allies enter Paris — Napoleon at Fontaine- bleau— his Abdication 239

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Napoleon's Journey to Frejus— Voyage to Elba— his conduct and occupations there — Discontents in France— Return of Prisoners of War — Jealousy of the Army — Union of the Jacobins and Buonapartists — their intrigues — Napoleon escapes from Elba 265

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Napoleon lands at Cannes — his progress to Grenoble — Lyons — Fontainebleau — Treason of Labedoyere and Ney — Louis XVIII. retires to Ghent, and Napoleon arrives in Paris 278

CHAPTER XXXIX.

The Hundred Days — Declaration of the Congress at Vienna — Napoleon prepares for War — Capitulation of the Duke d'Angouleme — Insurrection of La Vendee — Murat ad- vances from Naples — is defeated — and takes refuge in France — The Champ-de-]Mai — Dissatisfaction of the Con- stitutionalists 291

Vll! COXTENTS.

CHAPTER XL,

Napoleon heads his army on the Belgian frontier — passes the Sambie at Charleroi — defeats Blucher at Ligny — Battle of [Quatre-bras — The English fall back on a posi- tion previously selected by Wellington — The Battle of Water LOO — Napoleon returns to Paris 305

CHx\PTER XLI.

Napoleon appeals in vain to the Chambers — abdicates for the second time— is sent to Malmaison — and then to Rochefort — negotiates with Capt. Maitland — embarks in the Bellerophon — arrives at Torbay — Decision of the Eng- lish Government — Interview with Lord Keith, &c. — Na- poleon on board the Northumberland — sails for St. Helena

322

CHAPTER XLll.

Napoleon at St. Helena — The Briars — Longwood — Charges against the English Government respecting his accommo- dations and treatment at St. Helena — Charges against the Governor, Sir Hudson Lowe — Napoleon's mode of life at Longwood— his health falls off — his death and funeral — Conclusion 341

( ix )

DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER.

ENGRAVINGS IN VOL. II.

No. I. — Return from Elba .... to face Title-page II. — Head of Napoleon . ... do. page 10

III. — Head of Maria-Louisa 81

IV.— The King of Rome 93

v.— Flight from Smorgoni 162

VI.— Fontainebleau 263

VII.— Waterloo 318

VIII.— Tomb of Napoleon 358

LIFE

NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE.

CHAPTER XXII.

British Expedition to Copenhagen — Coalition of France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, against English Com- merce— Internal affairs of France — The Administration of Napoleon — his Council of State — Court — Code — Public Wo7'ks — Manufactures — Taxes — Military Or- ganization— The Conscription.

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

The English government, being satisfied that

VOL. II. B

2 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1807.

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

The Emperor of Russia is said to have signified,

1807.] EXPEDITION TO COPENHAGEN. 3

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

That enemy was ere long, in consequence of a new and unforeseen explosion of guilty ambition, to possess the means of rekindling the continental war, of distracting the alliances of Napoleon, and ultimately of ruining the power which, for the pre- sent, appeared irresistible. But a short interval of tranquillity ensued : and we may avail ourselves of the opportunity to recur for a moment to the

b2

4 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1807.

internal administration of French affairs under the Imperial Government, as now finally organized.

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

His favourite saying during the continuance of his power was, " I am the State ;" and in the exile of St. Helena he constantly talked of himself as having been, from necessity, the Dictator of France. In effect no despotism within many degrees so com- plete and rigid was ever before established in a civilized and Christian coimtry. The whole terri- tory was divided into prefectures — each prefect being appointed by Naj)oleon- — carefully selected for a province with which he had no domestic rela-

1807.] GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE. 5

tions — largely paid — and entrusted with such a complete delegation of power that, in Napoleon's own language, each was in his department an E7n- percur d petit pied. Each of these officers had under his entire controul inferior local magistrates, holding power from him as he did from the Em- peror : each had his instructions direct from Paris ; each was bound by every motive of interest to serve, to the utmost of his ability, the government, from which all things were derived, to be hoped for, and to be dreaded. Wherever the Emperor was, in the midst of his hottest campaigns, he exa- mined the details of administration at home more closely than, perhaps, any other sovereign of half so great an empire did during the profoundest peace. It was said of him that his dearest amuse- ment, when he had nothing else to do, was to solve problems in algebra or geometry. He carried this passion into every department of affairs ; and hav- ing, with his own eye, detected some errors of im- portance in the public accounts, shortly after his administration begun, there prevailed thenceforth in all the financial records of the state such clear- ness and accuracy as are not often exemplified in those of a large private fortune. Nothing was below his attention, and he found time for every thing. The humblest functionary discharged his duty under a lively sense of the Emperor's per- sonal superintendence ; and the omnipresence of his police came in lieu, w^herever politics were not touclied upon, of the guarding powers of a free press, a free senate, and public opinion. Except in political cases the trial by jury was the right of every citizen. The Code Napoleon, that elaborate

O NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1807.

system of jurisprudence, in the formation of which the Emperor laboured personally along with the most eminent lawyers and enlightened men of the time, was a boon of inestimable value to France. " I shall go down to posterity (said he, with just pride) with the Code in my hand." It was the first uniform system of laws which the French Monar- chy had ever possessed : and being drawn up with consummate skill and wisdom, it at this day forms the code not only of France, but of a great portion of Europe besides. Justice, as between man and man, was administered on sound and fixed prin- ciples, and by unimpeached tribunals. The arbi- trary Commission Courts of Napoleon interfered with nothing but offences, real or alleged, against his authority.

The Clergy were, as we have seen, appointetl universally under the direction of Government : they were also its direct stipendiaries ; hence no- thing could be more complete than their subjection to its pleasure. Education became a part of the regular business of the state ; all the schools and colleges being placed under the immediate care of one of Napoleon's ministers— all prizes and bursa- ries bestowed by the government — and the whole system so arranged, tliat it was hardly possible for any youth who exhibited remarkable talents to avoid the temptations to a military career, which on every side surrounded him. Tiie chief distinc- tions and emoluments were everywhere reserved for those who excelled in accomplishments likely to be serviceable in war ; and the Lyceums^ or schools set expressly apart for military students, were invested with numberless attractions, scarcely

1807.] THE CONSCRIPTION. 7

to be resisted by a young imagination. Tbe army, as it was the sole basis of Napoleon's power, was also at all times the primary object of his thoughts. Every institution of the state was subservient and administered to it, and none more efficaciously than the imperial system of education.

The ranks of the army, however, were filled during the whole reign of Napoleon by compulsion. The conscription-law of 1798 acquired under him the character of a settled and regular part of the national system ; and its oppressive influence was such as never before exhausted, through a long term of years, the best energies of a great and civilized people. Every male in France, under the age of twenty-five, was liable to be called on to serve in the ranks ; and the regulations as to the procuring of substitutes were so narrow, that young men of the best families were continually forced to comply, in their own persons, with the stern re- quisition. The first conscription-list for the year included all under the age of twenty-one ; and the result of the ballot within this class amounted to nearly 80,000 names. These were first called on : but if the service of the Emperor demanded further supply, the lists of those aged twenty-two, twenty- three, twenty-four, and twenty-five, were succes- sively resorted to. There was no exemption for any one who seemed able to bear arms. The only child of his parents, the young husband and father, were forced, like any others, to abandon fire-side, profession, all the ties and all the hopes of life, on a moment's notice : and there is nothing in the history of modern Europe so remarkable, as that the French people should have submitted, during

8 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1807.

sixteen years, to the constant operation of a des- potic law, which thus sapped all the foundations of social happiness, and condemned the rising hopes of the nation to bleed and die by millions in distant wars, undertaken solely for the gratification of one man's insatiable ambition. On the other hand, it is not to be denied that the great majority of the conscripts, with whatever reluctance they might enter the ranks, were soon reconciled to their fate. The avenues to promotion, distinction, wealth, ho- nour, nobility, even royal dignity, were all open before the devoted and successful soldiers of Na- poleon ; and the presence of so many youths of good condition and education, among the ranks of the private soldiery, could not fail, first, to render the situation immeasurably less irksome than it otherwise could have been to each individual of the class, and secondly, to elevate the standard of manners and acquirements among the soldiery ge- nerally. There never was an army in whose ranks intelligence so largely abounded, nor in which so many officers of the highest rank had originally carried a musket.

The taxation rendered necessary by the constant wars of Napoleon was great ; and the utter destruc- tion of the foreign commerce and marine of France, which the naval supremacy of England effected, made the burden the more intolerable for various important classes of the community. On the other hand the taxes were levied fairly on the whole po- pulation, which presented a blessed contrast to the system of the old regime ; and tlie vast exten- sion and improvement of agriculture consequent on the division of the great estates at the Revolution,

1807.] GOVERN'MENT OF FRANCE. 9

enabled the nation at large to meet the calls of the government with much less difficulty than could have been anticipated at any former period of French history. Napoleon's great public works, too, though undertaken chiefly for the purpose of gratifying his own vanity and that of the nation, could not be executed without furnishing subsist- ence to vast bodies of the labouring poor, and were thus serviceable to more important ends. From his vain attempts to supply the want of English manufactured goods and colonial produce, by new- establishments and inventions (such especially as that of manufacturing a substitute for sugar out of beet root), partial good, in like manner, resulted.

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

10 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1807.

and that he thus attached to himself, throughout the whole of his empire as well as in his army, the hopes and the influence of those whose personal voices were most likely to controul the opinions of society.

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

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

'i'he manners of the Com-t were at least decent.

EStrirentulp.

hlhlUhed Feb. 282.": byJoJuvMurrM-.L^^nd.-n .

1807.] GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE. 11

Napoleon occasionally indulged himself in amours unworthy of his character and tormenting to his wife ; but he never suffered any other female to possess influence over his mind, nor insulted pub- lic opinion by any approach to that system of un- veiled debauchery which had, during whole ages, disgraced the Bourbon Court, and undermined their throne.

( 12 )

CHAPTER XXm.

Relations of Napoleon with Spain — Treaty of Fontaine - hleau — Junot marches to Portugal — Flight of the Bra- ganzas to Brazil — French troops proceed into Spain — Dissensions in the Court — Both parties appeal to Na- poleon— Murat occupies Madrid — Charles and Ferdi- 7iand abdicate at Bai/onne — Joseph Buonaparte crowned King of Spain.

After the ratification of the treaty of Tilsit, Na- poleon, returning as we have seen to Paris, devoted all his energies to the perfect establishment of" the continental system." Something has already been said as to the difficulties which this attempt in- volved: in truth it was a contest between the des- potic will of Buonaparte, and the interests and habits, not only of every sovereign in his alliance, but of every private individual on the continent ; and it was therefore actually impossible that the imperial policy shoidd not be baffled. The Rus- sian government was never, probably, friendly to a system which, from the nature of the national pro- duce and resources, must, if persisted in for any considerable time, have inflicted irreparable injury on the finances of the landholders, reduced the public establishments, and sunk the effective power of the state. In tliat (juarter, therefore, Napoleon soon found that, notwithstanding all the professions

1807.] SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. * 13

of personal devotion which the young Czar con- tinued, perhaps sincerely, to make, his favourite scheme was systematically violated : but the dis- tance and strength of Russia prevented him fron). for the present, pushing his complaints to extremity. The Spanish peninsula lay nearer him, and the vast extent to which the prohibited manufactures and colonial produce of England found their way into every district of that country, and especially of Portugal, and thence, through the hands of whole legions of audacious smugglers, into France itself, ere long fixed his attention and resentment. In truth, a proclamation, issued at ^ladrid shortly be- fore the battle of Jena, and suddenly recalled on the intelligence of that great victory, had prepared the Emperor to regard with keen suspicion the conduct of the Spanish Court, and to trace every violation of his system to its deliberate and hostile connivance.

The court presented in itself the lively image of a divided and degraded nation. The King, old and almost incredibly imbecile, was ruled absolutely by his Queen, a woman audaciously unprincipled, whose strong and wicked passions again were en- •fejrely under the influence of Manuel Godoy, " Prince of the Peace," raised, by her guilty love, from the station of a private guardsman, to prece- dence above all the grandees of Spain, a matrimo- nial connection with the royal house, and the su- preme conduct of affairs. She, her paramour, and the degraded King, were held in contempt and hatred by a powerful party, at the head of whom were the Canon Escoiquiz, the Duke del Infantado, and Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias, heir of the

14 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1807.

throne. The scenes of dissension which filled the palace and court were scandalous beyond all con- temporary example ; and, the strength of the two parties vibrating in the scale, according as corrupt calculators looked to the extent of Godoy's present power, or to the probability of Ferdinand's acces- sion, the eyes of both were turned to the hazardous facility of striking a balance by calling in support from the Tuilleries. Napoleon, on his part, re- garding the rival factions with equal scorn, flattered himself that, in their common fears and baseness, he shovdd find the means of ultimately reducing the whole Peninsula to complete submission under his own yoke.

The secret history of the intrigues of 1807, be- tween the French Court and the rival parties in Spain, has not yet been clearly exposed ; nor is it likely to be so while most of the chief agents sur- vive. According to Napoleon the first proposal for conquering Portugal by the united arms of France and Spain, and dividing that monarchy into three separate prizes, of which one shovdd fall to the disposition of France, a second to the Spanish King, and a third reward the personal exertions of Godoy, came not from him, but from the Spanish minister. It was unlikely that Napoleon should liave given any other account of the matter. The suggestion has been attributed, by every Spanish authority, to the Emperor ; and it is difficult to doubt that such was the fact. The treaty, in which tlie unprincipled design took complete form, was ratified at Fontainebleau on the 29th October, 1807, and accompained by a convention, which provided for the immediate invasion of Portugal

1807.J SPAIN. 15

})y a force of 28,000 French soldiers, under the orders of Junot, and of 27,000 Spaniards; while a reserve of 40,000 French troops were to be as- sembled at Bayonne, ready to take the field by the end of November, in case England should land an army for the defence of Portugal, or the people of that devoted country presume to meet Junot by a national insurrection.

Junot forthwith commenced his march through Spain, where the French soldiery were received everywhere with coldness and suspicion, but no- where by any hostile movement of the people. He would have halted at Salamanca to organize his army, which consisted mostly of young conscripts, but Napoleon's policy outmarched his General's schemes, and the troops were, in consequence of a peremptory order from Paris, poured into Portugal in the latter part of November. Godoy's contin- gent of Spaniards appeared there also, and placed tliemselves under Junot's command. Their num- ])ers overawed the population, and they advanced, unopposed, towards the capital — Junot's most eager desire being to secure the persons of the Prince Regent and the royal family. The feeble govern- ment, meantime, having made, one by one, every degrading submission which France dictated, hav- ing expelled the British factory and the British minister, confiscated all English property, and shut the ports against all English vessels, became con- vinced at length that no measures of subserviency could avert tlie doom which Napoleon had fulmi- nated. A Moniteur, proclaiming that " the House of Braganzahad ceased to reign," reached Lisbon. The Prince Pegent re-opened his communication

16 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1807.

with the English admiral off the Tagiis (Sir Syd- ney Smith) and the lately expelled ambassador (Lord Strangford), and being assured of their pro- tection, embarked on the 27th of November, and sailed for the Brazils on the 29th, only a few hours before Junot made his appearance at the gates of Lisbon. The disgust with which the Portugueze people regarded this flight, the cowardly termina- tion, as they might not unnaturally regard it, of a long course of meanness, was eminently useful to the invader. With the exception of one trivial in- surrection, when the insolent conqueror took down the Portugueze arms and set up those of Napoleon in their place, several months passed in apparent tranquillity ; and these were skilfully employed by the General in perfecting the discipline of his con- scripts, improving the fortifications of the coast, and making such a disposal of his force as might best guard the country from any military demon- stration on the part of England.

Napoleon thus saw Portugal in his grasp : but that he had all along considered as a point of minor importance, and he liad accordingly availed himself of the utmost concessions of the treaty of Fontain- bleau, without waiting for any insurrection of the Portugueze, or English debarkation on their terri- tory. His army of reserve, in number far exceed- ing the 40,000 men named in the treaty, had al- ready passed the Pyrenees, in two bodies, under Dupont and Moncey, and were advancing slowly, but steadily, into the heart of Spain. Nay, with- out even the pretext of being mentioned in the treaty, another French army of 12,000, under Du- hesme, had penetrated through the eastern Pyre-

1808.] SPAIN. 17

nees, and being received as friends among the un- suspecting garrisons, obtained possession of Barce- lona, Pampeluna, and St. Sebastian, and the other fortified places in the north of Spain, by a succes- sion of treacherous artifices, to which the history of civilized nations presents no parallel. The armies then pushed forwards, and the chief roads leading from the French frontiers to Madrid were entirely in their possession.

It seems impossible that such daring movements should not have awakened the darkest suspicions at Madrid ; yet the royal family, overlooking the common danger about to overwhelm them and their country, continued, during three eventful months, to waste what energies they possessed in petty con- spiracies, domestic broils, and, incredible as the tale will hereafter appear, in the meanest diplo- matic intrigues with the court of France. The Prince of Asturias solicited the honour of a wife from the House of Napoleon. The old king, or rather Godoy, invoked anew the assistance of the Emperor against the treasonable, nay (for to such extremities went their mutual accusations,) the parricidal plots of the heir apparent. Buonaparte listened to both parties, vouchsafed no direct answer to either, and continued to direct the onward move- ment of those stern arbiters, who were ere long to decide the question. A sudden panic at length seized the King or his minister, and the court, then at Aranjuez, prepared to retire to Seville, and, sailing from thence to America, seek safety, after the example of the House of Braganza, in the work of whose European ruin they had so lately been accomplices. The servants of the Prince of Astu-

VOL. II. c

18 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [March,

rias, on perceiving the preparations for this flight, commenced a tmnult, in which the populace of Aranjiiez readily joined, and which w^as only paci- fied (for the moment) hy a royal declaration that no flight was contemplated. On the 18th of March, 1808, the day following, a scene of like violence took place in the capital itself. The house of Godoy in Madrid was sacked. The favourite him- self was assaulted at Aranjuez, on the 19th ; with great difficulty saved his life by the intervention of the royal guards ; and was placed under arrest. Terrified by what he saw at Aranjuez, and heard from Madrid, Charles IV. abdicated the throne ; and on the 20th, Ferdinand, his son, was pro- claimed King at Madrid, amidst a tumult of popu- lar applause. Murat, Grand Duke of Berg, had before this assumed the chief command of all the French troops in Spain ; and hearing of the ex- tremities to which the court factions had gone, he now moved rapidly on Madrid, surrounded that capital with 30,000 men, and took possession of it in person, at the head of 10,000 more, on the 23d of March. Charles IV. meantime dispatched messengers both to Napoleon and Murat, asserting that his abdication had been involuntary, and in- voking their assistance against his son. Ferdinand, entering Madrid on the 2kh, found the French general in possession of the capital, and in vain claimed his recognition as king. Murat accepted the sword of Francis I., which, amidst other adula- tions, Ferdinand offered to him ; but pertinaciously declined taking any part in the decision of tlie great question, which demanded, as he said, the fiat of Napoleon.

1808.] MURAT AT MADRID. 19

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

Madrid occupied and begirt by forty thousand armed strangers, his title unrecognised by Murat, his weak understanding and tumultuous passions worked upon incessantly by the malicious craft of Savary, Ferdinand was at length persuaded, that his best chance of securing the aid and protection of Napoleon lay in advancing to meet him on his way to the capital, and striving to gain his ear before the emissaries of Godoy should be able to fill it with their reclamations. Savary eagerly offered to accompany him on this fatal journey, which began on the 10th of April. The infatuated Ferdinand had been taught to believe that he should find Buonaparte at Burgos ; not meeting him there, he was tempted to pursue his journey as far as Vittoria : and from thence, in spite of the populace, who, more sagacious than their prince,

c 2

20 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [April, May,

cut the traces of his carriage, he was, by a repeti- tion of the same treacherous arguments, induced to proceed stage by stage, and at length to pass the frontier and present himself at Bayonne, where the arbiter of his fate lay anxiously expecting this con- summation of his almost incredible folly. He arrived there on the 20th of April — was re- ceived by Napoleon with courtesy, entertained at dinner at the imperial table, and the same evening informed by Savary that his doom was sealed — that the Bourbon dynasty had ceased to reign in Spain, and that his personal safety must depend on the readiness with which he should resign all his pretensions into the hands of Buonaparte.

He, meanwhile, as soon as he was aware that Ferdinand had actually set out from Madrid, had ordered Murat to find the means of causing the old King, the Queen, and Godoy to repair also to Bayonne; nor does it appear that his lieutenant had any difficulty in persuading these personages, that such was the course of conduct most in ac- cordance with their interests. They reached Bay- onne on the 4th of May, and Napoleon, confront- ing the parents and the son on the 5 th, witnessed a scene in which the profligate rancour of their domestic feuds reached extremities hardly to have been contemplated by the wildest imagination. The flagitious Queen did not, it is said and be- lieved, hesitate to signify to her son that the king was not his father — and this in the presence of that King and of Napoleon. Could crime justify crime — could the fiendish lusts and hatreds of a degenerate race offer any excuse for the deliberate guilt of a masculine genius, the conduct of this

1808.] BAYONNE. 21

abject court might have apologized for the pohey which it perhaps tempted the pampered ambition of Napoleon to commence, and which it now en- couraged him to consummate by an act of suicidal violence.

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

Not that Napoleon had failed to measure from the beginning the mighty dangers which surrounded his audacious design. He had been warned of them in the strongest manner by Talleyrand, and even by Fouche ; nay, he had himself written to

22 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [May,

rebuke the headlong haste of Murat in occupying the Spanish capital — to urge on him the necessity of conciliating the people, by preserving the show of respect for their national authorities and insti- tutions— to represent the imminent hazard of per- mitting the Duke del Infantado to strengthen and extend his party in Madrid — and concluding with those ominous words: Remember, if war breaks out, all is lost.

Ferdinand, before he left Pvladrid, invested a council of regency with the sovereign power, his uncle, Don Antonio, being president, and Murat one of the members. Murat's assumption of the authority thus conferred, the departure of Ferdi- nand, the liberation and departure o^ the detested Godoy, the flight of the old Kin;: — these occur- rences produced their natural effects on the popular mind. A dark suspicion that France meditated the destruction of the national independence, began to spread ; and, on the 2d of May, when it trans- pired that preparations were making for the journey of Don Antonio also, the general rage at last burst out. A crowd collected round the carriage meant, as they concluded, to convey the last of the royal family out of Spain ; the traces were cut ; the imprecations against the French were furious. Co- lonel La Grange, Murat's aide-de-camp, happening to appear on the spot, was cruelly maltreated. In a moment the whole capital was in an uproar : the French soldiery were assaulted everywhere — about 700 were slain. The mob attacked the hospital — the sick and their attendants rushed out and de- fended it. The French cavalry, hearing the tumult, entered the city by the gate of Alcala — a column

1808.] MASSACRE OF MADRID. 23

of 3000 infantry from the other side by the street Ancha de Bernardo. Some Spanish officers headed the mob, and fired on the soldiery in the streets of Maravalles : a bloody massacre ensued : many hun- dreds were made prisoners : the troops, sweeping the streets from end to end, released their com- rades ; and, to all appearance, tranquillity was re- stored ere nightfall. During the darkness, however, the peasantry flocked in armed from the neigh- bouring country ; and, being met at the gates by the irritated soldiery, not a few more were killed, wounded, and made prisoners. oVIurat ordered all the prisoners to be tried by a military commission, whir]] doomed them to instant death. It is dis- puttcL whether the more deliberate guilt of carrying the sentence into execution lies with the com- mander-in-chief himself, or with Grouchy ; it is certain that a considerable number of Spaniards — the English authority most friendly to the French cause admits ninety-five* — were butchered in cold blood on the 3d of May.

This commotion had been preceded by a brief insurrection, easily suppressed and not milikely to be soon forgotten, on the 23d of April, at Toledo. The events in the capital were of a more decisive character, and the amount of the bloodshed, in itself great, was much exaggerated in the reports which flew, like wildfire, throughout the Peninsula — for the French were as eager to overawe the pro- vincial Spaniards, by conveying an overcharged impression of the consequences of resistance, as their enemies in Madrid were to rouse the general

* Colonel Napier, p. 25.

24 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [May,

indignation, by heightened details of the ferocity of the invaders, and the sternness of their own devo- tion. In ahiiost every town of Spain, and ahiiost simultaneously, the flame of patriotic resentment broke out in the terri])le form of assassination. The L'rench residents were slaughtered without mercy : the supposed partizans of Napoleon and Godoy (not a few men of worth being causelessly con- founded in their fate,) were sacrificed in the first tumult of popular rage. At Cadiz, Seville, Car- thagena, above all in Valencia, the streets ran red with blood. The dark and vindictive temper of the Spaniards covered the land with scenes, on the details of which it is shocking to dwell. The French soldiery, hemmed in, insulted, and wherever they could be found separately, sacrificed — often with every circumstance of savage torture — re- torted by equal barbarity whenever they had the means. Popular bodies (juntas) assumed the con- duct of affairs in most of the cities and provinces, renounced the yoke of France, reproclaimed Ferdi- nand king, and at the maritime stations of chief importance entered into commvmication with the English fleets, from whom they failed not to receive pecuniary supplies, and every encouragement to proceed in their measures. Deputies were sent to England without delay ; and welcomed there witli tlie utmost enthusiasm of sympathy and admira- tion. England could ])oth speak and act openly. 'J'hroughout tlie whole of tlie enslaved continent the news of tlie Spanish Insurrection was l)rooded over with a sullen joy.

Napoleon received the intelligence with alarm ; but he had already gone too far to retract without

1808.] IXSURRECTIOX OF SPAIN. 25

disturbing the magical influence of his reputation. He, moreover, was willing to flatter himself that the lower population of Spain alone took an active part in these transactions ; that the nobility, whose degradation he could hardly over-estimate, would abide by his voice ; in a word, that with 80,000 troops in Spain, besides Junot's army in Portugal, he possessed the means of suppressing the tumult after the first effervescence should have escaped. He proceeded, therefore, to act precisely as if no insurrection had occurred. Tranquillity being re- established in Madrid, the Council of Castile were convoked, and commanded to elect a new sove- reign : their choice had of course been settled be- forehand : it fell on Joseph Buonaparte, King of Naples ; and ere it was announced, that personage was already on his way to Bayonne. Ninety-five Notables of Spain met him in that town; and swore fealty to him and a new Constitution, the manufacture of course of Napoleon. Joseph, on entering Spain, was met by unequivocal symptoms of scorn and hatred : — nay, one great battle had already been fought between the French and the patriots : — but, the main road being strongly oc- cupied throughout with his brother's troops, he reached Madrid in safety.

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

26 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [July, 1808.

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

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

1808.] ( 27 )

CHAPTER XXIV.

Inmrrection of the Spaniards and Portugueze — Their alliance with England — Battle of Riosecco — Joseph enters Madrid — First Siege of Zaragossa — Dupont's March into Andalusia — The Battle of Bai/len — Dupont surrenders — Joseph quits Madrid — Situation of Juno t — Arrival of Sir Arthur Wellesley — Battle of Roriga — Battle of Vimiero — Convention of Cinira.

On the 4tli of July the King of England addressed his parliament on the subject which then fixed the universal enthusiasm of his people. " I view " (said he) " with the liveliest interest the loyal and de- termined spirit manifested in resisting the violence and perfidy with which the dearest rights of the Spanish nation have been assailed. The kingdom thus nobly struggling against the usurpation and tyranny of France, can no longer be considered as the enemy of Great Britain, but is recognised by me as a natural friend and ally." It has been al- ready mentioned that the British commanders in the neighbourhood of Spain did not wait for orders from home to espouse openly the cause of the in- surgent nation. The Spanish prisoners of war were forthwith released, clothed, equipped, and sent back to their country. Supplies of arms and money were liberally transmitted thither ; and, Portugal catching the flame and bursting into ge-

28

NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1808.

neral insurrection also, a formal treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, was soon concluded be- tween England and the two kingdoms of the Penin- sula.

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

Napoleon, from the extent and popvdation of his empire, under the operation of the Conscription Code was enabled to maintain an army 500,000 strong ; but his relations with those powers on the continent whom he had not entirely subdued were of the most unstable character, and even the states whicli he had formally united to France were, without exception, pregnant with the elements of disaffection. It was therefore impossible for him to concentrate the whole of his gigantic strength on the soil of Spain. His troops, moreover, being drawn from a multitude of different countries and

* Col. Napier, cliap. i.

1808.] FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 2d

tongues, could not be united in heart or in dis- cipline like the soldiers of a purely national army. On the other hand, the military genius at his com- mand has never been surpassed in any age or country : his officers were accustomed to victory, and his own reputation exerted a magical influence over both friends and foes. The pecuniary re- sources of the vast empire were great, and they were managed so skilfully by Buonaparte that the supplies were raised within the year, and in a me- tallic currency.

His ancient enemy was omnipotent at sea ; and if the character of her armies stood at the moment much lower both at home and abroad then it ever deserved to do, this was a mistake which one well- organized campaign was likely to extinguish. Eng- land possessed at this time a population of twenty millions, united in the spirit of loyalty and regard- ing the Spanish cause as just, noble and sacred : a standing army of 200,000 of the best troops in the world, an immense recruiting establishment, and a system of militia which enabled her to swell her muster to any limit. Her colonies occupied a large share of this army ; but there remained at her immediate command a force at least equal to that with which Buonaparte had conquered Austria and Prussia. Her credit was unbounded; and her commerce not only supplied means of infor- mation altogether unrivalled, but secured for her the secret goodwill of whole classes in every coun- try. England possessed Generals worthy to cope with the best of Buonaparte's Marshals, and in the hour of need discovered that she possessed one

30 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1803.

capable of confronting, and of conquering, the great Emperor himself. Finally, she possessed the in- calculable advantage of warring on the side of jus- tice and freedom, against an usurper, whose crimes were on the same gigantic scale with his genius. The remembrance of their leader's perfidy weighed heavily on the moral strength of the French army throughout the approaching contest ; while a proud conviction that their cause was the right sustained the hearts of the English.

Upon them, ultimately, the chief burden and the chief glory of the w^ar devolved : yet justice will ever be done to the virtuous exertions of their allies of the Peninsula. At the moment when the insurrection occurred, 20,000 Spanish troops were in Portugal under the orders of Junot ; 15,000 more, under the Marques de Romana, were serv- ing Napoleon in Holstein. There remained 40,000 Spanish regulars, 11,000 Swiss, and 30,000 militia; but of the best of these the discipline, when com- pared with French or English armies, was con- temptible. The nobility, to whose order the chief officers belonged, were divided in their sentiments — perhaps the greater n\unber inclined to the in- terests of Joseph. Above all, the troops were scattered, in small sections, over the face of the whole country, and there was no probability that any one regular army should be able to muster so strong as to withstand the efforts of a mere fragment of tlie French force already established within the kingdom. The fleets of Spain had been destroyed in tlie war with England : lier com- merce and revenues had been mortally wounded })y the alhance witli France and the maladminis-

1808.] SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 31

tration of Godoy. Ferdinand was detained a pri- soner in France. There was no natural leader or chief, around whom the whole energies of the nation might be expected to rally. It was amidst such adverse circumstances that the Spanish peo- ple rose everywhere, smarting under intolerable wrongs, against a French army, already 80,000 strong, in possession of half the fortresses of the country, and in perfect communication with the mighty resources of Napoleon.

There are authors who still delight to under- value the motives of this great national movement ; according to whom the commercial classes rose chiefly, if not solely, from their resentment of the pecuniary losses inflicted on them by Godoy's alliance with the author of the continental system ; the priesthood because Godoy had impoverished the church, and they feared that a Buonapartean government would pursue the same course to a much greater extent ; the peasantry because their priests commanded them. All these influences unquestionably operated, and all strongly ; but who can believe in the absence of others infinitely above these, and common to all the Spaniards who, during six years, fought and bled, and saw their towns ruined and their soil a waste, that they might vindicate their birthright, the independence of their nation? Nor can similar praise be re- fused to the great majority of the Portugueze. Napoleon summoned a body of the nobles of that kingdom also to meet him early in the year at Bayonne : they obeyed, and being addressed by the haughty usurper in person, resisted all his efforts to cajole them into an imitation of the

32 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1808.

Spanish Notables, who, at the same time and place accepted Joseph for their King. They were in consequence retained as prisoners in France during the war which followed ; but their fate operated as a new stimulus upon the general feeling of their countrymen at home, already well prepared for in- surrection by the brutal oppression of Junot.

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

But Joseph was not destined to remain long in Madrid : the fortune of war, after the great day of Riosecco, was everywhere on the side of the pa- triots. Duhesme, who had so treacherously pos- sessed himself of Barcelona and Figueras, found himself surrounded by the Catalonian mountaineers, who, after various affairs, in which much blood was shed on botli sides, compelled him to shut himself up in Barcelona. Marshal Moncey con-

1808.] RIOSECCO — BAYLEN. 33

ducted another large division of the French towards Valencia, and was to have been further reinforced by a detachment from Duhesme. The course of events in Catalonia prevented Duhesme from af- fording any such assistance ; and the inhabitants of Valencia, male and female, rising en masse, and headed by their clergy, manned their walls with such determined resolution, that the French mar- shal was at length compelled to retreat. He fell back upon the main body, under Bessieres, but did not effect a conjunction with them until his troops had suffered miserably in their march througli an extensive district, in which every inhabitant was a watchful enemy.

A far more signal catastrophe had befallen ano- ther powerful coiys cV armee., under General Dupont, which marched from Madrid towards the south, with the view of suppressing all symptoms of in- surrection in that quarter, and, especially, of se- curing the great naval station of Cadiz, where a French squadron lay, watched, as usual, by the English. Dupont's force was increased as he ad- vanced, till it amounted to 20,000 men ; and with these he took possession of Baylen and La Carolina, in Andalusia, and stormed Jaen. But before he could make these acquisitions, the citizens of Cadiz had universally taken the patriot side ; the com- mander of the French vessels had been forced to surrender them ; and the place, having opened a communication with the English fleet, assumed a posture of determined defence. General Castaiios, the Spanish commander in that province, meanwhile, having held back from battle until his raw troops should have had time to be disciplined, began at

VOL, II. D

34 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1808.

length to threaten the position of the French. Jaen was attacked by liim with such vigour, that Dupont was fain to evacuate it, and fall back to Baylen, where his troops soon suffered severe pri- vations, the peasantry being in arms all around them, and the supply of food becoming from day to day more difficult. On the 16th of July, Du- pont was attacked at Baylen by Castaiios, who knew from an intercepted dispatch the extent of his enemy's distress : the French were beaten, and driven as far as Menjibar. They returned on the 18th, and attempted to recover Baylen; but, after a long and desperate battle, in whicli 3000 of the French were killed, Dupont, perceiving that the Spaniards were gathering all around in numbers not to be resisted, proposed to capitulate. In effect, he and 20,000 soldiers laid down their arms at Baylen, on condition that they should be trans- ported in safety into France. The Spaniards broke this convention, and detained them as prisoners — thus, foolishly as well as wickedly, imitating the perfidy of Napoleon's own conduct to Spain. This battle and capitulation of Baylen were termed by the Emperor himself ^/?<? Caudinc forks of the French army. He attributed the disaster to treachery on the part of Dupont: it was the residt of the rash- ness of the expedition, and the incompetency of the conductor. The richest part of Spain was freed wholly of the invaders : the light troops of Castaiios pushed on, and swept the country before them; and within ten days. King Joseph perceived the necessity of quitting Madrid, and removed his head-quarters to Vittoria.

In the meantime Lefebre Desnouettes, whose

1808.] FIRST SIEGE OF ZARAGOSSA. 35

early success in Arragon has been alluded to, was occupied with the siege of Zaragossa — the inhabit- ants of which city had risen in the first out-break, and prepared to defend their walls to the last ex- tremity. Don Jose Palafox, a young nobleman of no great talents, who had made his escape from Bayonne, was invested with the command ; but the real leaders were the priests and some of the private citizens, who selected him for the promi- nent place as belonging to a family of eminent dis- tinction in their kingdom, but in effect considered and used him as their tool. Some Spanish and Walloon regiments, who had formed the garrisons of strong places treacherously seized by the enem.y before the war commenced, had united with Pala- fox, and various bloody skirmishes had occurred — ere the French general was enabled to shut them up in Zaragossa and form the siege. The importance of success in this enterprize was momentous, es- pecially after the failure of Moncey at Valencia. Napoleon himself early saw, that if the Valencians should be able to form an union with the Arrago- nese at Zaragossa, the situation of the Catalonian insurgents on the one side would be prodigiously strengthened ; while, on the other hand, the armies of Leon and Galicia (whose coasts offered the means of continual communication with England,) would conduct their operations in the immediate vicinity of the only great road left open between Madrid and Bayonne — the route by Burgos. He therefore had instructed Savary to consider Zara- gossa as an object of the very highest importance ; but the corps of Lefebre was not strengthened as the Emperor would have wished it to be, ere he

d2

36 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1808.

sat down before Zaragossa. The siege was pressed with the utmost vigour ; but the immortal heroism of the citizens baffled all the valour of the French. There were no regular works worthy of notice : but the old Moorish walls, not above eight or ten feet in height, and some extensive monastic build- ings in the outskirts of the city, being manned by crowds of determined men, whose wives and daughters looked on, nay, mingled boldly in their defence — the besiegers were held at bay week after week, and saw their ranks thinned in con- tinual assaults without being able to secure any adequate advantage. Famine came and disease in its train, to aggravate the sufferings of the townspeople ; but they would listen to no sugges- tions but those of the same proud spirit in which they had begun. The French at length gained possession of the great convent of St. Engracia, and thus established themselves within the town itself: their general then sent to Palafox tliis brief summons : " Head-quarters, Santa Engracia — Capitulation ;" but he received for answer, " Head- quarters, Zaragossa — War to the knife." The battle was maintained literally from street to street, from house to house, and from chamber to cham- ber. Men and women fought side by side, amidst flames and carnage; until Lefebrc received the news of Baylen, and having wasted two months in his enterprise, abandoned it abruptly, lest lie sliould find liimself insulated amidst the general retreat of the French armies. Sucli was the first of the two famous sieges of Zaragossa.

The English govenmient meanwhile liad begun tlieir preparations for interfering eftectually in the

1808.] SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY. 37

affiiirs of the Peninsula. They had despatclied one body of troops to the support of Castanos in Andakisia ; but these did not reacli the south of Spain until their assistance was rendered unneces- sary by the surrender of Dupont at Baylen. A more considerable force, amounting to 10,000, sailed early in June, from Cork, for Coruna, under the command of the Honourable Sir Arthur Wel- lesley. This armament, originally designed to co- operate with another from India in a great attack on Mexico, had its destination altered the moment the Spanish Insurrection was announced. Sir Arthur, being permitted to land at what point of the Peninsula he should judge most advantageous for the general cause, was soon satisfied that Por- tugal ought to be the first scene of his operations, and accordingly lost no time in opening a com- munication with the patriots, who had taken pos- session of Oporto. Here the troops which had been designed to aid Castanos joined him. Thus strengthened, and well informed of the state of the French armies in Spain, Sir Arthur resolved to ef- fect a landing and attack Junot while circumstances seemed to indicate no chance of his being rein- forced by Bessieres.

It is, perhaps, an evil unavoidable in the institu- tions of an old and settled government, that men rarely, very rarely, unless they possess the advan- tages of illustrious birth and connection, can hope to be placed in situations of the highest import- ance until they have passed the prime vigour of their days. Sir x\rthur Wellesley, fortunately for England and for Europe, commenced life under circumstances eminently favourable for the early

38 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [August,

developement and recognition of his great talents. To his brother, the Marquis Wellesley's rank as Governor-General of India, he owed the opportu- nity of conducting our armies in the East at a time of life when, if of inferior birth, he could hardly have commanded a battalion ; and the magnificent campaign of Assaye so established his reputation, that shortly after his return to Europe he was entrusted without hesitation with the armament assembled at Cork.

It was on the Sth of August, 1808 — a day ever memorable in the history of Britain — that Sir Arthur Wellesley effected his debarkation in the bay of Mondego. He immediately commenced his march towards Lisbon, and on the 17th came up with the enemy under General Laborde, strongly posted on an eminence near Rori^a. The French contested their ground gallantly, but were driven from it at the point of the bayonet, and compelled to retreat. The British Genera], having hardly any cavalry, was unable to pursue them so closely as he otlierwise would have done : and Laborde succeeded in joining his shattered division to the rest of the French forces in Portugal. Junot (re- cently created Duke of Abrantes) now took the command in person ; and finding himself at the head of full 24,000 troops, while the English army were greatly inferior in numbers, and miserably suj)plied with cavalry and artillery, lie did not hesitate to assume the offensive. On the 21st of August lie attacked Sir Arthur at Vimiero. In the language of the English General's despatch, *' a most desperate contest ensued ;" and the result was "a signal defeat.*' Junot, having lost thirteen can-

1808.] RORICA VIMIERO — CIXTRA. 39

non and more than two thousand men, immediately fell back upon Lisbon, where his position was pro- tected by the strong defile of the Torres Vedras.

This retreat would not have been accomplished without much more fighting, had Sir Arthur Wel- lesley been permitted to follow up his victory, ac- cording to the dictates of his own understanding, and the enthusiastic wishes of his army. But just as the battle was about to beghi. Sir Harry Bur- rard, an old officer of superior rank, unfortunately entitled to assume the chief command, arrived on the field. Finding that Sir Arthur had made all his dispositions. General Burrard handsomely de- clined interfering until the fortune of the day should be decided ; but he took the command as soon as the victory was won, and more cautiously than wisely, prevented the army from instantly ad- vancing, as Sir Arthur Wellesley proposed, upon the coast road towards Mafra, and thus endea- vouring to intercept the retreat of Junot upon Lisbon. Sir Harry, having made this unhappy use of his command, was, the very next day, super- seded in his turn by Sir Hew Dalrymple, the Go- vernor of Gibraltar ; another veteran more dis- posed to imitate the prudence of Burrard than the daring of Wellesley.

Shortly after the third general had taken the command, Junot sent Kellerman to demand a truce, and propose a convention for the evacuation of Portugal by the troops under his orders. Dal- rymple received Kellerman with more eagerness of civility than became the chief of a victorious army, and forthwith granted the desired armistice.

40 . NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1808.

Junot offered to surrender his magazines, stores, and armed vessels, provided the British would dis- embark his soldiers, with their arms, at any French port between Rochefort and L'Orient, and permit them to take with them their private property ; and Dalrymple did not hesitate to agree to these terms, although Sir John Moore arrived off the coast with a reinforcement of 10,000 men during the progress of the negotiation. The famous " Convention of Cintra' (most absurdly so named, as it was in fact concluded thirty miles from Cin- tra) was signed accordingly on the 30th of August ; and the French army wholly evacuated Portugal in the manner provided for. The English people heard with indignation that the spoilers of Por- tugal had been suffered to escape on such terms ; and the article concerning private property gave especial offence, as under that cover the French removed with them a large share of the plunder which they had amassed by merciless violence and rapacity during their occupation of the Por- tuguese territories. A parliamentary investigation was followed by a court-martial, which acquitted Dalrymple. In truth it seems now to be admitted, by competent judges, that after Burrard had in- terfered so as to prevent Wellesley from instantly following up the success of Vimiero, and so ena- bled Junot to re-occupy Lisbon and secure the pass of tlie Torres Vedras, it would have been imprudent to decline the terms proffered by a re- pelled, but still powerful, enemy — who, if driven to extremities, could hardly fail to prolong the war, until Napoleon should be able to send him

i808.] MISCONDUCT OF THE PENINSULARS. 41

additional forces from Spain. Meanwhile Por- tugal was free from the presence of her enemies ; England had obtained a permanent footing within the Peninsula ; what was of still higher moment, the character of the British army was raised not only abroad, but at home ; and had the two insur- gent nations availed themselves, as they ought to have done, of the resources which their great ally placed at their command, and conducted their own affairs with unity and strength of purpose, the de- liverance of the whole peninsula might have been achieved years before that consummation actually took place.

The Portuguese, however, split into factions — under leaders whose primary objects were selfish, who rivalled each other in their absurd jealousy of England, afforded to her troops no such supplies and facilities as they had the best title to demand and expect, and wasted their time in petty political intrigues, instead of devoting every energy to the organization of an efficient army, and improving the defences of their naturally strong frontier. The Spaniards conducted themselves with even more signal imprudence. For months each pro- vincial junta seemed to prefer the continuance of its own authority to the obvious necessity of merging all their powers in some central body, capable of controuling and directing the whole force of the nation ; and after a supreme junta was at last established in Madrid, its orders were con- tinually disputed and disobeyed — so that in effect there was no national government. Equally dis- graceful jealousies among the generals prevented the armies from being placed under one supreme

42 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1808.

chief, responsible for the combination of all their movements. In place of this it was with difficulty that the various independent generals could be prevailed on even to meet at Madrid, and agree to the outline of a joint campaign ; and that out- line seemed to have no recommendation except that its gross military defects held out to each member of the Council the prospect of being able to act without communication, for good or for evil, with any of the others. The consequences of these shameful follies were calamitous : and but for events which could not have been foreseen, must have proved fatal : for the gigantic resources of the com- mon enemy were about to be set in motion by Na- poleon himself; who, on hearing of the reverses of Dupont, Lefebre, and Junot, perceived too clearly that the affairs of the Peninsula demanded a keener eye and a firmer hand than his brother's.

1808.] ( 43 )

CHAPTER XXV.

Napoleon at Erfurt — at Paris — arrives at Vittoria — Disposition of the French and Spanish Armies — Suc- cesses qfSoult — Passage of the Somosierra — Surrender of Madrid — Sir John Moore's Campaign — his retreat — Battle of Coruria — Death of Moore — Napoleon leaves Spain.

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

Blake, who commanded on the west, extended his line from Burgos to Bilboa ; Palafox, on the east, lay between Zaragossa and Sanguessa ; Cas- tanos, general of the central army, had his head- quarters at Soria. The three armies thus lay in a long and feeble crescent, of which the horns were pushed towards the French frontier ; while the

41 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1808.

enemy, resting on three strong fortresses, remained on the defensive until the Emperor should pour new forces through the passes of the Pyrenees. It was expected that the English army in Portugal would forthwith advance, and put themselves in communication either with Blake or with Castaiios ; and had this junction occurred soon after the battle of Vimiero, the result might have been decisive : but Wellesley was recalled to London to bear wit- ness on the trial of Dalrymple ; and Sir John Moore, who then assumed the command, received neither such supplies as were necessary for any great movement, nor any clear and authentic in- telligence from the authorities of Madrid, nor finally any distinct orders from his own government — un- til the favourable moment had gone by. In effect, Napoleon's gigantic reinforcements had begun to show themselves within the Spanish frontier, a week before the English general was in a condition to commence his march.

The Emperor, enraged at the first positive dis- graces which had ever befallen his arms, and foreseeing that unless the Spanish insurrection were crushed ere the Patriots had time to form a regular government and to organize their armies, the succours of England, and the growing discon- tents of Germany, might invest the task with in- surmoimtable difficulties, determined to cross the Pyrenees in person, at tlie head of a force capable of sweeping the whole Peninsula clear before him " at one fell swoop." Hitherto no mention of the imfortunate occurrences in Spain had been made in any public act of his government, or suffered to transpire in any of the French journals. It was

1808.] THE PENINSULA. 45

now necessary to break this haughty silence. Tlie Emperor announced accordingly that the peasants of Spain had rebelled atJ-ainst their King; that treachery had caused the ruin of one corps of his army ; and that another had been forced, by the English, to evacuate Portugal: demanding two new conscriptions, each of 80,000 men — which were of course granted without hesitation. Re- cruiting his camps on the German side, and in Italy, with these new levies, he now ordered his veteran troops, to the amount of 200,000, including a vast and brilliant cavalry, and a large body of the Imperial Guards, to be drafted from those frontiers, and marched through France towards Spain. As these warlike columns passed through Paris, Napoleon addressed to them one of those orations which never failed to swell the resolution and pride of his soldiery on the eve of some great enterprise. " Comrades," said he, " after triumph- ing on the banks of the Danube and the Vistula, with rapid steps you have passed through Germany. This day, without a moment of repose, I command you to traverse France. Soldiers, I have need of you. The hideous presence of the leopard conta- minates the peninsula of Spain and Portugal. In terror he must fly before you. Let us bear our triumphant eagles to the Pillars of Hercules : there also we have injuries to avenge. Soldiers! you have surpassed the renown of modern armies ; but have you yet equalled the glory of those Romans who, in one and the same campaign, were victorious on the Rhine and the Euphrates, in Illyria and on the Tagus ? A long peace, a lasting prosperity, shall be the reward of vour labours. A real

46 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [Sept. Oct.

Frenchman could not, should not, rest, until the seas are free and open to all. Soldiers, what you have done, and what you are about to do, for the happiness of the French people and for my glory, shall be eternal in my heart!"

Having thus dismissed his troops on their way, Buonaparte himself travelled rapidly to Erfurt, where he had invited the Emperor Alexander to confer with him. It was most needful that before he went to Spain himself, he should ascertain the safety of his empire on the other side ; and there was much in the state of Germany that might well give rise to serious apprehensions. Austria was strengthening her military establishment to a vast extent, and had, by a recent law, acquired the means of drawing on her population unlimitedly, after the method of Napoleon's own conscription- code. She professed pacific intentions towards France, and intimated that her preparations were designed for the protection of her Turkish frontier ; but the Emperor Francis positively declined to ac- knowledge Joseph Buonaparte as King of Spain ; and this refusal was quite sufficient for Napoleon. In Prussia, meantime, and indeed all over Ger- many, a spirit of deep and settled enmity was manifesting itself in the shape of patriotic clubs, (the chief being called the Tugend-bimdy or Alliance of Virtue,) which included the young and the daring of every class, and threatened, at no distant l^eriod, to convulse the whole fabric of society with the one purpose of clearing the national soil of its foreign oppressors. Napoleon affected to deride, but secretly estimated at its true importance, the danger of such associations, if permitted to take

1808.] CONFERENCE OF ERFURT. 47

firm root among a people so numerous, so enthu- siastic, and so gallant. Lastly, there is every reason to believe that, cordial as the Czar's friend- ship had seemed to be at Tilsit, Buonaparte ap- preciated the unpopularity of his *' Continental System" in Russia, and the power of the aristo- cracy there, far too accurately, not to entertain some suspicion that Alexander himself might be compelled to take the field against him, should England succeed in persuading Austria and Ger- many to rise in arms during his own absence in Spain. For these reasons he had requested the Czar's presence at Erfurt ; and this conference was apparently as satisfactory to either as that of Tilsit had been. They addressed a joint letter to the King of England, proposing once more a ge- neral peace ; but as they both refused to acknow- ledge any authority in Spain save that of King Joseph, the answer was of course in the negative. Buonaparte, however, had obtained his object when he tlius exhibited the Czar and himself as firmly allied. He perceived clearly that Austria was de- termined on another campaign ; gave orders for concentrating and increasing his own armies ac- cordingly, both in Germany and Italy ; and — trust- ing to the decision and rapidity of his own move- ments, and the comparative slowness of his ancient enemy — dared to judge that he might still bring matters to an issue in Spain, before his presence should be absolutely necessary beyond the Rhine. On the 14th of October the conferences of Er- furt terminated ; on the 24th Napoleon was present at the opening of the Legislative Session in Paris ; two days after he left that capital, and reached

48 NAPOLEON BUONArARTE, [9th Nov.

Bayonne on the 3d of November, where he re- mained, directing the movements of the last columns of his advancing army, until the morninoof the 8th. He arrived at Vittoria the same evening : the civil and military authorities met him at the gates of the town, and would have conducted him to a house prepared for his reception, but he leapt from his horse, entered the first inn that he ob- served, and calling for maps and a detailed report of the position of all the armies, French and Spa- nish, proceeded instantly to draw up his plan for the prosecution of the war. Within two hours he had completed his task. Soult, who had accom- panied him from Paris, and whom he ordered to take the command of Bessieres' corps, set off on the instant, reached Briviesca, where its head- quarters were, at daybreak on the 9th, and within a few hours the whole machinery was once more in motion.

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

Soult now poured down his columns on the plains of Burgos. Belvedere was defeated by him at Gomenal even more easily tlian Blake had been

1808.] TAKES THE COMMAND IN SPAIN. 49

at Espinosa. The latter, again defeated by the in- defatigable Soult, at Reynosa, was obliged to take refuge, with what hardly could be called even the skeleton of an army, in the seaport of St. Ander. Thus the whole of the Spanish left was dissipated ; and the French right remained at liberty to march onwards at their pleasure.

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

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

Napoleon, with his guards and the first division,

VOL. II E

50 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [Dec.

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

During eight days the inhabitants had been pre-

1808.] SIEGE OF MADRID. Ol

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

The town was summoned at noon; and the officer employed would have been massacred by the mob but for the interference of the Spanish regulars. Napoleon waited until his infantry and artillery came up in the evening, and then the place was invested on one side. " The night was clear and bright," (says Napier ;) " the French camp was silent and watchful ; but the noise of tumult was heard from every quarter of the city, as if some mighty beast was struggling and howl- ing in the toils." At midnight the city was again summoned ; and the answer being still defiance, the batteries began to open. In the course of the day the Retiro was stormed, and the immense pa- lace of the Dukes of Medina Cell, which commands one side of the town, seized also. Terror now began to prevail within ; and shortly after the city

E 2

52 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [4th DeC.

was summoned, for the third time, Don Thomas Morla, the governor, came out to demand a sus- pension of arms. Napoleon received him with anger, and rebuked him for the violation of the capitulation at Baylen. " Injustice and bad faith," said he, " always recoil on those who are guilty of them." Many an honester Spaniard was obliged to listen in silence to such words from the nego- tiator of Fontainebleau and Bayonne.

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

Napoleon now exercised all the rights of a con- queror. He issued edicts abolishing the Inquisi- tion, all feudal rights, and all ])articular jurisdic- tions ; regulating the number of monks ; increasing, at the expense of the monastic establishments, the stipends of the parochial clergy ; and proclaiming

1808.] MADRID SURRENDERS. 53

a general amnesty, with only ten exceptions. He received a deputation of the chief inhabitants, who came to signify their desire to see Joseph among them again. His answer was, that Spain was his own by right of conquest ; that he could easily rule it by viceroys ; but that if they chose to as- semble in their churches, priests and people, and swear allegiance to Joseph, he was not indisposed to listen to their request.

This was a secondary matter : meantime the Em- peror was making his dispositions for the completion of his conquest. His plan was to invade forthwith Andalusia, Valencia and Galicia, by his lieutenants, and to march in person to Lisbon. Nor was this vast plan beyond his means ; for he had at that moment 255,000 men, 50,000 horses, and 100 pieces of field artillery, actually ready for imme- diate service in Spain: while 80,000 men and 100 cannon, besides, were in reserve, all on the south side of the Pyrenees. To oppose this gigantic force there were a few poor defeated corps of Spaniards, widely separated from each other, and flying already before mere detachments : Seville, whose local junta had once more assumed the nominal sovereignty, and guarded in front by a feeble corps in the Sierra Morena ; Valencia, with- out a regular garrison ; Zaragossa, closely invested, and resisting once more with heroic determination ; and the British army under Sir John Moore . The moment Napoleon was informed that Moore had advanced into Spain, he abandoned every other consideration, and resolved in person to march and overwhelm him.

The English general had, as we have already

54 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [Dec.

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

The news of the decisive defeat of Castanos, at Tudela, satisfied Moore that the original purpose of his march was now out of the question ; but, having at length effected a junction with Baird, he felt extreme unwillingness to retreat without attempting something. He continued to receive from Madrid the most solemn assurances that the resistance of the capital would be desperate : and, with more generosity than prudence, resolved to attack Soult, then posted behind the Carrion. In doing so lie fancied it possible that he should defeat an im}X)rtant brancli of the enemy's force, intercept the comnumications of the Emperor's left flank, give Romana time to re-organize an army in Gallicia, create a formidable diversion in favour of the south of Spain, if not of Madrid — and, at worst, secure for himself a safe retreat

.1808.] MARCHES AGAINST SIR JOHN MOORE. 55

upon Corufia; from which port his troops might be sent romid without difficulty to Seville, to take part in the defence of that part of the Peninsula which was yet unbroken, and the seat of the actual government.

But Buonaparte, hearing on the 20th of Decem- ber of the advance of Moore, instantly put himself at the head of 50,000 men, and marched with in- credible rapidity, with the view of intercepting his communications with Portugal, and in short hem- ming him in between himself and Soult. Moore no sooner heard that Napoleon was approaching, than he perceived the necessity of an immediate retreat ; and he commenced accordingly a most calamitous one through the naked mountains of Gallicia, in which his troops maintained their cha- racter for bravery, rallying with zeal whenever the French threatened their rear, but displayed a lamentable want of discipline in all other parts of their conduct. The w eather was tempestuous ; the roads miserable ; the commissariat utterly de- fective ; and the very notion of retreat broke the high spirits of the soldiery. They ill-treated the inhabitants, Jrank whatever strong liquors they could obtain, straggled from their ranks, and in short lost the appearance of an army except when the trumpet warned them that they might expect the French charge. Soult hung close on their rear until they reached Coruna ; and Moore per- ceived that it would be impossible to embark without either a convention or a battle. He chose the braver alternative. The French were repelled gallantly ; and the British were permitted to em- bark without further molestation. In the moment

56 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [Jan.

of victory [January 16th, 1809] Sir John Moore fell, mortally wounded by a cannon-shot : his men buried him in his cloak ; and the French, in testi- mony of their admiration of his gallantry, erected a monument over his remains.

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

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

1809.] ( 57 )

CHAPTER XXVI.

Austria declares War — Napoleon heads his army in Ger- many— Battles of Landshut and Eckmuhl — Ratisbonne taken — Napoleon in Vienna — Hostilities in Italy, Hungary, Poland, the North of Germany, and the Tyrol — Battle of Raab — Battle of Wagram — Armis- tice with Austria Progress of the War in the

Peninsula, Battle of Talaveyra —Battle of Ocana —

English Expedition to Walcheren Seizure of

Rome and arrest of the Pope Treaty ofSchoen-

hrunn.

Napoleon had foreseen that Austria, hardly dis- sembhng her aversion to the "continental system," and openly refusing to acknowledge Joseph as King of Spain, would avail herself of the insurrection of that country, necessarily followed by the march of a great French army across the Pyrenees, as affording a favourable opportunity for once more taking arms, in the hope of recovering what she had lost in the campaign of Austerlitz. His minis- ter, Talleyrand, had, during his absence, made every effort to conciliate the emperor Francis ; but the warlike preparations throughout the Aus- trian dominions proceeded with increasing vigour — and Napoleon received such intelligence ere he witnessed the retreat of Moore, that he immedi- ately countermanded the march of such of his troops as had not yet reached the Pyrenees, —

58 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [Jan. Apr.

wrote (from Valladolid) to the princes of the Rhe- nish league, ordering them to hold their contin- gents in readiness — and travelled to Paris with extraordinary haste. He reached his capital on the 22d of January; renewed the negotiations with Vienna ; and, in the meantime, recruited and con- centrated his armies on the German side — thus ad- journing, and as it turned out for ever, the com- pletion of the Spanish conquest.

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

He found the two wings of his army, the one under Massena, the other under Davoust, at such

1809.] BATTLE OF ECKMUIIL. 59

a distance from the centre that, if the Aiistrians had seized the opportunity, the consequences might have been fatal. On the 17th of April, he com- manded Davoust and Massena to march simul- taneously towards a position in front, and then pushed forward the centre, in person, to the same point. The Archduke Lewis, who commanded two Austrian divisions in advance, was thus hemmed in unexpectedly by three armies, moving at once from three different points ; defeated and driven back, at Abensberg, on the 20th ; and ut- terly routed, at Landshut, on the 21st. Here the Archduke lost 9,000 men, thirty guns, and all his stores.

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

60 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [May,

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

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

He reviewed his army on the 24th, distributing rewards of all sorts with a lavish hand, and, among others bestowing the title of Duke of Eckmiihl on Davoust; and forthwith commenced his march upon Vienna. The corps defeated at Landshut had retreated in that direction, and being consider- ably recruited, made some show of obstructing his progress; but they were defeated again and to- tally broken at Ehrensberg, on the 3d of May, by Massena, and on the 9th Napoleon appeared before the walls of the capital. The Emperor had already quitted it, with all his family, except his daughter, the Archduchess Maria Louisa, who was confined to her chamber by illness. The Arch- duke Maximilian, with the regular garrison of 10,000 men, evacuated it on Napoleon's approach ; and though the inhabitants had prepared for a vigorous resistance, the bombardment soon con- vinced them that it was hopeless. It perhaps de- serves to be mentioned, that on learning the situa- tion of the sick princess, liuonaparte instantly commanded that no fire should be directed towards that part of tlie town. On the 10th a capitulation

1309.] VIENNA. 61

was signed, the French troops took possession of the city, and Napoleon once more established his head quarters in the imperial palace of Schoen- brunn.

In the meantime, the Archduke Ferdinand had commenced the war in Poland, and obtaining the advantage in several affairs, taken possession of Warsaw ; but the news of Eckmuhl recalled this division to the support of the main army, under the Archduke Charles ; and the Russian troops not only retook Warsaw, but occupied the whole of the Austro-Polish provinces. Alexander, how- ever, showed no disposition to push the war with vigour, or to advance into Germany for the sup- port of Napoleon. In Italy, in like manner, the Archduke John had at first been successful. But after defeating Eugene Beauharnois, Napoleon's viceroy, and taking possession of Padua and Vi- cenza, this prince also was summoned to retrace his steps, in consequence of the catastrophe at Eckmuhl. Eugene pursued him into Hungary, and defeated him in a great battle at Raab. Co- lonel Schill, the Prussian partizan already men- tioned, had availed himself of the concentration of Napoleon's troops for the Austrian campaign, to take up arms, though without any authority from his sovereign, in the hope that the national resent- ment would burst out in an universal insurrection ; and the Duke of Brunswick, son to him who was mortally wounded at Jena, had also appeared in Lusatia, and invited all true Germans to imitate the heroic conduct of the Spaniards. These oc- currences threatened a general burst of war wher- ever the Tugenbund and other patriotic associations

6-^ NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1809.

had for some time been strongly influencing the popular mind. The battle of Eckmuhl, however, diffused new awe all over the north of Germany. The troops of Saxony checked the Duke of Bruns- wick's progress, and Schill's heroic band were at last shut up in Stralsund, where their leader pe- rished in a sortie ; thus, and only thus, escaping the vengeance of Napoleon.

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

I

1809.] THE TYROLESE. 63

of Bavaria ; but the general issue of the campaign left them at the mercy of Napoleon, who sup- pressed the insurrection, finally, by overwhelming numbers, and avenged it by massacring Hofer and all who had taken a prominent part in the cause of freedom.

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

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

Napoleon determined to pass it ; and after an unsuccessful attempt at Nussdorff, met with better fortune at Ebersdorff, where the river is broad and intersected by a number of low and woody islands, the largest of which bears the name of Lobau. On these islands Napoleon established tlie greater part of his army, on the 19 th of May, and on the following day made good his passage, by means of a bridge of boats, to the left bank of the Danube ; where he took possession of the vil-

64 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1809.

lages of Asperne and Essling, with so little show of opposition, that it became evident the Arcliduke wished the inevitable battle to take place with the river between his enemy and Vienna.

On the 21st, at day break, the Archduke ap- peared on a rising ground, separated from the French position by an extensive plain ; his whole force divided into five heavy columns, and pro- tected by not less than 200 pieces of artillery. The battle began at four, P. M. with a furious as- sault on the village of Asperne ; which was taken and retaken several times, and remained at night- fall in the occupation, partly of the French, and partly of the assailants, who had established them- selves in the church and churchyard. Essling sustained three attacks also ; but there the French remained in complete possession. Night inter- rupted the action ; the Austrians exulting in their partial success ; Napoleon surprised that he should not have been wholly victorious. On either side the carnage had been terrible, and the pathways of the villages were literally choked with the dead.

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

At tliis critical moment, by means of Austrian

May, 1809.] BATTLES of asperne and essling. 65

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

Napoleon availed himself of this pause with his

66 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [6th July,

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

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

In this fierce campaign none more distinguished

1809.] BATTLE OF WAGRAM. 67

liimself than Lasnes, Duke of Montebello. At Hatisbonne he headed in person the storming party, exclaiming, "■ Soldiers, your general has not forgotten that he was once a grenadier." At the battle of Asperne his exertions were extraordinary. He was struck, towards the close of the day, by a cannon-shot, which carried off' both his legs. The surgeons, on examining the wound, declared it mortal. He answered them with angry impreca- tions, and called with frantic vehemence for the Emperor. Napoleon came up, and witnessed the agonies of the dying marshal, who blasphemed heaven and earth that he should be denied to see the end of the campaign. Thus fell Lasnes, whom, for his romantic valour, the French soldiery de- lighted to call the Roland of the camp.

The war, meanwhile, had been pursued with mixed fortune in the Peninsula. Zaragossa, after sustaining another siege with fortitude not un- worthy of the first, was at length compelled to surrender in the month of February. Sir iVrthur Wellesley, being restored to the command of the British army in Portugal, landed at Lisbon on the 22d of April, and immediately marched upon Oporto, which Soult had occupied early in the year. Soult was defeated under the walls of the town, and forthwith began his retreat towards Ga- licia, which he effected under circumstances as mi- serable as had attended Sir John Moore's march on Coruiia in the preceding campaign. Sir Arthur was prevented from urging the pursuit of Soult by the intelligence that Marshal Victor was laying Anda- lusia waste, being opposed only by Cuesta, a bigoted old general, and an army which had lost

68 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1809.

heart by repeated disasters. The English leader perceived that if he marched into Galicia, Victor must possess the means of instantly re-occupying Portugal ; and resolved, in place of following Soult, to advance towards this more formidable enemy. He effected a junction with Cuesta at Oropesa, on the 20th of July, and marched along the Tagus towards the position of Victor. He, however, having a force at least double that of Wellesley, assumed the offensive, and attacked the allies, on the 28th, at Talaveyra de la Reyna. The battle ended in the total defeat and repulsion of Victor; but Wellesley found it impossible to ad- vance further into Spain, because Ney, Soult and Mortier were assembling their divisions, with the view of coming between him and Portugal. The English retired therefore, to Badajos, and thence to the Portuguese frontier.

On the eastern side of the Peninsula, Blake, advancing with the view of recovering Zaragossa, was met on the 1 9th of June, by Marshal Suchet, Duke of Albufera, and totally routed. The cen- tral S})anish army, under Ariezaga, attempted, with equal ill-fortune, to relieve Madrid. King Joseph, accompanied by Soult, Victor, and Mortier, met them at Ocana on the 19th November, and broke them utterly. In December Girona surrendered to Augereau; and tlie intrusive King appeared to be in possession of far the greater part of Spain. But his command extended no further than the actual presence of his brother's legions. Wherever they were posted, all was submission ; beyond their lines the country remained as hostile as ever. The soldiery of the defeated armies dispersed

1809.] TALAVEYRA WALCIIEREN. 69

themselves in small bands, watching every oppor- tmiity to surprise detachments and cut oft' sup- plies ; and, in spite of all their victories, the situa- tion of the invaders became every hour more em- barrassing. In Portugal, meanwhile, the English general (created Lord Wellington after the battle of Talaveyra) was gradually organizing a native force not unworthy of acting under his banners ; and on that side it was obvious that, unless Na- poleon made some extraordinary exertions, the French cause was wholly undone.

Portugal was safe ; and the character of the British army had been raised by another splendid victory in Spain ; but these were trivial advan- tages compared with what Lord Wellington might have achieved, had his government placed him, as they could easily have done, at the head of an army of 80 or 100,000 men, while Napoleon was occupied with the campaign of Essling and Wa- gram. Instead of strengthening Wellington's hands in an efficient manner, the English cabinet sent 40,000 troops, under the command of the Earl of Chatham, an indolent or incompetent general, to seize the isle of Walcheren, and destroy the ship- ping and works at the mouth of the Scheld ; nor was this ill-judged expedition dispatched from Britain until the first of August, three weeks after the decisive battle of Wagram had been fought and w^on. Lord Chatham took Flushing, and fixed his head-quarters at Middleburg ; but Bernadotte (Prince of Ponte Corvo) put Antwerp into such a state of defence that the plan of besieging that city w^as, ere long, abandoned. A pestilence, mean- time, raged among the marches of Walcheren ; the

iO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1809.

English soldiers were dying by thousands. The news of the armistice of Znaim arrived ; and Lord Chatham abandoned his conquests. A mere ske- leton of his army returned to their own country, from the most disastrous expedition which England had undertaken since that of Carthagena, seventy years before.

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

Napoleon, a few days after he returned from Moravia to Schoenbrunn, escaped narrowly the dagger of a young man, who rushed upon him in the midst of all liis staff, at a grand review of the Imperial Guard. Berthier and Ra})p threw them- selves u))on him, and disarmed him at the moment when his knife was about to enter the Emperor's body. Napoleon demanded wliat motive had ac- tuated the assassin, " What injury," said he,

1809.] ARREST OF THE POPE. 71

" have I done to you?" " To me, personally, none," answered the youth, " but you are the oppressor of my country, the tyrant of the world ; and to have put you to death would have been the highest glory of a man of honour." This enthu- siastic, youth, by name Stabbs, son of a clergyman of Erfurt, was, justly — no doubt — condemned to death, and he suffered with the calmness of a martyr.

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

It was during his residence at Schoenbrunn that a quarrel, of no short standing, with the Pope reached its crisis. The very language of the Con- sular Concordat sufficiently indicated the reluct- ance and pain with which the head of the Romish church acquiesced in the arrangements devised by Buonaparte, for the ecclesiastical settlement of France ; and the subsequent course of events, but especially in Italy and in Spain, could hardly fail to aggravate those unpleasant feelings. In Spain and in Portugal, the resistance to French treachery and violence was mainly conducted by the priest- hood ; and the Pope could not contemplate their exertions without sympathy and favour. In Italy, meantime, the French Emperor had made himself master of Naples, and of all the territories lying to

72 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1809.

the north of the papal states ; in a word, the whole of that peninsula was his, excepting only that narrow central stripe which still acknowledged the temporal sovereignty of the Roman Pontiff. This state of things was necessarily followed by incessant efforts on the part of Napoleon to pro- cure from the Pope a hearty acquiescence in the system of the Berlin and Milan decrees ; and thus far he at length prevailed. But when he went on to demand that his holiness should take an active part in the war against England, he was met by a steady refusal. Irritated by this opposition, and, perhaps, still more by his suspicion that the pa- triots of the Spanish Peninsula received secret support from the Vatican, Buonaparte did not hesitate to issue a decree in the following words : " Whereas the temporal sovereign of Rome has refused to make war against England, and the interests of the two kingdoms of Italy and Naples ought not to be intercepted by a hostile power ; and wliereas the donation of Charlemagne, our illustrious predecessor, of the countries which form the Holy See, was for the good of Christianity, and not for that of the enemies of our holy religion, we, therefore, decree that the duchies of Urbino, An- cona, Maceratii, and Camarino, be for ever united to the kingdom of Italy."

The sea-])orts of the papal territory were forth- with occupied by French troops, but Pius re- mained for some time in undisturbed possession of Rome itself. On his return from Spain, however. Napoleon determined to com])lcte his work in Italy, ere he should begin the inevitable campaign with Austria. General Miollis, therefore, took

1809. J ARREST OF THE POPE. 73

military possession of Rome in February, 1809; the Pope, however, still remaining in the Vatican, and attended there as nsual by his own guards.

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

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

This business would, in any other period, have been sufficient to set all Catholic Europe in a flame ; and even nov>' Buonaparte well knew that his conduct could not fail to nourish and support

74 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [14th Oct.

the feelings arrayed against him openly in Spain and in Southern Germany, and suppressed, not extinguislied, in the breasts of a great party of the French clergy at home. He made, therefore, many efforts to procure from the Pope some formal relinquishment of his temporal claims — but Pius VII. remained unshaken ; and the negotiation at length terminated in the removal of His Holi- ness to Fontainebleau, where he continued a pri- soner, though treated personally with respect, and even magnificence, during more than three years : — until, in the general darkening of his own for- tunes, the imperial jailer was compelled to adopt another line of conduct.

The treaty with Austria was at last signed at Schoenbrunn on the 1 1th of October. The Em- peror Francis purchased peace by the cession of Salzburg, and apart of Upper Austria, to the Con- federation of the Rhine ; of part of Bohemia to the King of Saxony, and of Cracow and western Galicia to the same prince, as Grand Duke of Warsaw ; of part of eastern Galicia to the Czar ; and, to France herself, of Trieste, Carniola, Friuli, Villach, and some part of Croatia and Dalmatia. By this act, Austria gave up in all territory to the amount of 4.5,000 square miles, with a population of nearly four millions ; and Napoleon, besides gratifying his vassals and allies, had completed the conp.ection of the kingdom of Italy with his Illy- rian possessions, obtained the whole coasts of the Adriatic, and deprived Austria of her last seaport. Yet, when compared with the signal triumphs of the cani])aign of Wagram, the terms on which the con(jueror signed the peace were universally looked

1809.] TREATY OF SCHOENBRUNN. 75

upon as remarkable for moderation ; and lie claimed merit with the Emperor of Russia on the score of having spared Austria in deference to his personal intercession.

Buonaparte quitted Vienna on the 16th of Oc- tober ; was congratulated by the public bodies of Paris, on the 14th of November, as " the greatest of heroes, who never achieved victories but for the happiness of the world ;" and soon after, by one of the most extraordinary steps of his personal history, furnished al)undant explanation of the motives which had guided his diplomacy at vSchoen- In-unn,

{ 76 ) [1809.

CHAPTER XXVII.

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

The treacherous invasion of Spain, and the im- prisonment of the Pope, were but the first of a series of grand pohtical errors, destined to sap the foundations of this apparently irresistible power. On his return to Paris, Napoleon proudly pro- claimed to his senate, that no enemy opposed him throughout the continent of Europe — except only a few fugitive bands of Spanish rebels, and " the English leopard"* in Portugal, whom ere long he would cause to be chased into the sea. In the meantime, the Peninsula was too insignificant an object to demand either his own presence, or much of their concern : the general welfare of the em- pire called on them to fix their attention on a sub- ject of a very different nature; namely, the situa- tion of the imperial family. " I and my house,"

* The leopards had been clianged into lions in the English shield five hundred years before this ! To such small matters could Buonaparte's rancour stoop.

Dec. 1809.] DIVORCE of Josephine. 77

said Napoleon, " will ever be found ready to sa- crifice everything, even our own dearest ties and feelings, to the welfare of the French people."

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

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

Long before Napoleon assumed the imperial title, his hopes of offspring from this union were at

78 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [Dec. 1809.

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

There is now no doubt that, as early as the conferences of Tilsit, the scheme of such a con- nection with the imperial family of Russia was broached; and as little that Alexander treated the proposal with coldness, in consequence of the in- superable aversion with which the empress-mother (a princess whose influence was always command- ing) persisted in regarding the character of Buona- parte. At Erfurt tliis matter was once more touched upon ; and a second rejection of his personal al- liance was ])robably the cliief of not a few incidents at that meeting, which satisfied Napoleon as to the uncertain condition of his relations with the Russian

Dec. 1809.] DIVORCE of Josephine. 79

court. Then, however, he had abundant reasons for dissembhng his displeasure: and the pretext of difficulties arising from difference of religion was permitted to pass.

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

The apartments of Napoleon and those of his wife, which were immediately over them, at the Tuilleries, had communication by means of a private staircase ; and it was the custom of the Emperor himself to signify, by a tap on the door of Josephine's

80 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [15th Dec.

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

This was on the 5th of December. On the 15th the Emperor summoned his council, and announced to them, that at the expense of all his personal feelings, he, devoted wholly to the welfare of the state, had resolved to separate himself from his most dear consort. Josephine then appeared among them, and, not without tears, expressed her ac- quiescence in the decree. The council, after ha- ranguing the imperial spouses on the nobleness of their mutual sacrifice, accepted and ratified the dissolution of the marriage. The title of Empress was to continue with Josephine for life, and a pen- sion of two millions of francs, (^to which Napoleon afterwards added a third million from his privy purse,) was allotted to her. She retired from the Tuilleries, residing thenceforth mostly at the villa of Malmaison ; and in the course of a few weeks

' h„ ./;'//* Uiirniy. {.ami.-

1809. J DIVORCE OF JOSEPHINE. 81

it was signified that Napoleon had demanded the hand of the Arcliduchess Maria Louisa, daughter to the Emperor Francis, the same youthful princess who has been mentioned as remaining in Vienna, on account of illness, during the second occupation of that capital.

Having given her hand, at Vienna, to Berthier, who had the honour to represent the person of his master, the young archduchess came into France in March, 1810. On the 28th, as her carriage was proceeding towards Soissons, Napoleon rode up to it, in a plain dress, altogether unattended ; and, at once breaking through all the etiquettes of such occasions, introduced himself to his bride. She had never seen his person till then, and it is said that her first exclamation was, " Your ma- jesty's pictures have not done you justice." Buo- naparte was at this time forty years of age ; his countenance had acquired a certain fulness, and that statue-like calmness of expression with which posterity will always be familiar ; but his figure betrayed as yet nothing more than a tendency to- wards corpulence. He was considered as a hand- somer man at this period than he had been in his earlier days. They spent the evening at the chateau of Compiegne, and were re-married, on the 2d of April, at Paris, amidst every circumstance of splendour. Among other imperial gallantries, Napoleon had provided a set of apartments at the Tuilleries in which, down to the minutest article of furniture, Maria-Louisa found a fac- simile of those which she had been accustomed to occupy in her father's palace of Schoenbrunn. For some time beseemed to devote himself, hke a mere

VOL. II. G

S2 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [2d April,

lover, to the society of his new partner ; and was reallvj according to his own account at St. Helena, enchanted with the contrast which her youthful simplicity of character and manners presented to the finished and elaborate graces of Josephine. Of the uniform attachment and affection of both his wives, he spoke afterwards with equal praises. But he in vain endeavoured to prevail on Maria- Louisa to make a personal acquaintance with her predecessor ; and, at length, found it necessary to give up his own visits to Malmaison, which for a time were not unfrequent.

Napoleon, in his exile, said that " the Spanish ulcer" and the Austrian match were the two main causes of his ruin ; — and they both contributed to it largely, though by no means equally. His alliance with the haughtiest of the old sovereign houses gave deep offence indeed to that great party in France, who, though willing to submit to a Dictator, still loathed the name of hereditary monarchy. Nothing, perhaps, could have shocked those men more grievously than to see the victorious heir and representative of their revolution seeking to mix his blood with that of its inveterate enemies, and making himself free, as it were, of wliat they had been accustomed to call the old established " cor- poration of tyrants." Another, and, it is to be hoped, as htrge a class of his subjects, were dis- gusted with his abandonment of the wife of his youth, for the sake of gratifying his vanity and am- bition. There were also, we may easily believe, not a few royalists of the old school who had hitherto acquiesced in his sway the more easily, because he seemed destined to die childless, and in a contest

1810.] MARRIES MARIA-LOUISA. 83

for the throne of France, they flattered themselves the legitimate heir of the monarchy might outweigh any of his remoter kindred. And, lastly, it is not improbable that some of Napoleon's marshals had accustomed themselves to dream of events such as occurred on the death of x\lexander the Great. But making all allowance for these exceptions, it is hardly possible to doubt that a vast proportion of the upper classes of society in France must have been disposed to hail the Emperor's alliance with the house of Austria, as a pledge of his desire to adopt, henceforth, a more moderate line of policy as to his foreign relations ; or that his throne must have been strengthened in the eyes of the nation at large by the prospect — soon realized — of a son of his own blood to fill it after him. Napoleon's own opinion was, that the error lay, not in seeking a bride of imperial birth, but in choosing her at Vienna. Had he persisted in his demands, the Czar, he doubted not, would have granted him his sister ; the proud dreams of Tilsit would have been realized, and Paris and St. Petersburg become the only two capitals of Europe.

The Emperor's new marriage was speedily fol- lowed by another event, which showed how little the ordinary ties and feelings of domestic life now weighed with him in the scale against ambition." His brother Louis, a weak, but benevolent man, had in vain been cautioned by Napoleon, on his promotion to the Dutch throne, that, in his admi- nistration of this subaltern monarchy, " the first object of his care must ever be the Emperor, the second France, and the third Holland.''' Louis, surrounded by native ministers, men of great ta-

G 2

84 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1810.

lents and experience, and enlightened lovers of their country, had his sympathies ere long enlisted on the side of those whom he might be pardoned for wishing to consider as really his subjects. His queen, on the other hand, the daughter of Jose- phine, and the favourite of Napoleon, made her court, as far as she could, a French one, and was popularly regarded as heading the party who looked in all things to the Tuilleries. The meek-spirited Louis, thwarted by this intriguing woman, and grossly insulted by his brother, struggled for some time with the difficulties of his situation ; but his patience availed nothing : his supposed connivance at the violations of the Berlin and Milan decrees, in the same proportion as it tended to raise him more and more in the affections of the Dutch, fixed and heightened the displeasure of Napoleon. He was at length summoned to Paris, and without a moment's hesitation obeyed. On arriving there he took up his residence in the house of his mo- ther, and next morning found himself a prisoner. Having abdicated his throne, Louis retired to Gratz, in Styria, and to that private mode of life for which his character fitted him : his name con- tinues to be affectionately remembered in Holland. His beautiful wife, despite tlie fall of her mother, chose to fix lier residence in Paris, where she once more shone the brightest ornament of the court. On the 9th of July, 1810, the kingdom of Holland was formally annexed to the French empire ; Am- sterdam taking rank among tlie cities next after Rome.

In pursuance of tlie same stern resolution to allow no consideration to interfere with tlie com-

1810.] AFFAIRS OF HOLLAND AND SWEDEN. 85

plete and effectual establishment of the Continental System, Buonaparte shortly afterwards annexed the Hanse towns, Oldenburg, and the whole sea coast of Germany, from the frontier of Holland to that of Denmark, to the French empire. The king of Prussia was as yet in no condition to re- monstrate against this new act of rapacity : oppo- sition from any other German state was wholly out of the question.

In truth there had been, for several years, but one power in the North of Europe at once de- cidedly adverse in spirit, and in any degree inde- pendent; and now, to all appearance, this last exception also was removed. Gustavus IV., King of Sweden, had persisted in his original hatred of the French Revolution, and of Buonaparte, in op- position to a powerful party in that country, who considered the conduct of their sovereign, in stand- ing out against so gigantic an enemy, as mere ob- stinacy— in fact as insane. In consequence of his pertinacious refusal to submit to the supreme will of Napoleon, the Pomeranian provinces and Fin- land had been lost to the kingdom. The monarch's personal behaviour unfortunately was so extrava- gant as to furnish some grounds for suspecting him of mental aberration. He was arrested in his pa- lace, and, an act of abdication for himself and his children being extorted, deposed: his uncle, the Duke of Sudermania, was called to the throne in his room, as Charles XIII. ; and, amicable rela- tions being soon established between the Courts of Stockholm and the Tuilleries, Pomerania was restored, and the English flag and commerce ba-

86 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [AugUSt,

nished from the ports of Sweden in December, 1809.

In May, 1810, the Prmce of Augustenburg, who had been recognized as heir to Charles XIII., died suddenly : and the choice of a successor was, ac- cording to the Constitution of Sweden, to depend on the vote of the Diet, which assembled accord- ingly at Orebro, in the month of August following.

The royal house (except the immediate line of the deposed king) being extinct, many candidates were proposed ; and among others the King of Denmark and Norway, upon whom, in true po- licy, the choice should have fallen, as in that case a state capable of balancing the power of Russia on the Baltic might have been consolidated. But the eyes of men were turned almost exclusively at this time to Napoleon; and in the hope of securing his friendship and protection, the succession was at last proposed to Marshal Bernadotte, Prince of Ponte Corvo, and brother-in-law to Joseph Buo- naparte, as married to that Mademoiselle Clery, who in early days had received Napoleon's own addresses. The Marshal had gained good-will by his moderation and justice, when entrusted with the government of Hanover and Swedish Pomerania, after these countries fell into the hands of the French in consequence of the campaign of 180G-7. His military reputation was high; there was no stain on his private character : and there was one circumstance especially in his favour, that he had been bred a Protestant, and might there- fore be expected to conform, without scruple, to the established church of Sweden. But the chief

1810.] BERNADOTTE, CROWN PRINCE OF SWEDEN. 87

recommendation was, without doubt, the belief of the Swedish Diet that Bernadotte stood in the first rank of Napoleon's favour.

Napoleon, however, had never forgiven Berna- dotte for his refusal to act on his side on the 1 8th Brumaire. He thenceforth considered this great soldier of the Republic as one who might serve the Emperor well, because in doing so he served France, but who looked to himself with none of those feelings of personal devotion which could alone entitle a subject to his fiivour. Bernadotte had been distinguished in the army before Napo- leon himself appeared on the great theatre of events ; he could never be classed with those who had earned all their distinction and pre-eminence under the banners of the Emperor; he had an existence separate and his own ; he had stood aloof at the great and decisive crisis of Napoleon's fate ; he might be entrusted and employed after- wards— he could never be loved. The proposal of the Diet, therefore, was the reverse of agreeable to him whose favour it was expressly designed to conciliate. Bernadotte, however, was powerful in the esteem of a great party in the French army, as well as among the old republicans of the state : to have interfered against him would have been to kindle high wrath and hatred among all those officers who belonged to the ante-Buonapartean period ; and, on the other hand, to oppose the free-will of the Swedes would have appeared ex- traordinary conduct indeed on the part of a sove- reign who studiously represented himself as owing everything to the free-will of the French. Sweden, finally, was still an independent state; and the

88 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1810.

events of the Peninsula were likely to impress the Emperor with a lively sense of the dangers of exciting a spirit of national aversion at the other extremity of Europe. Napoleon consented to the acceptance of the proferred dignity by Bernadotte. The Marshal was called on to sign a declaration, before he left Paris, that he would never bear arms against France. He rejected this condition as incompatible with the connexion which Napoleon himself had just sanctioned him in forming with another state, and said he was sure the suggestion came not from the Emperor, who knew what were the duties of a sovereign, but from some lawyer. Napoleon frowned darkly, and answered with an air of embarrassment, '' Go ; our destinies are about to be fulfilled." Bernadotte said he had not heard his words distinctly : Napoleon repeated them ; and they parted. Bernadotte was received with an enthusiastic welcome in Stockholm ; and, notwithstanding the unpleasant circumstances under which Napoleon had dismissed him, the French alliance continued to be maintained. The private history of the transaction was not likely to be divulged at the time ; and the natural as well as universal notion was, that Sweden, governed in effect by Marshal Bernadotte as crown-prince, had become almost as mere a dependence of France, as Naples imder King Joachim Murat, or West- phalia under King Jerome Buonaparte.

'J'hc war, meanwhile, continued without inter- ru})tion in the Peninsula ; wliithcr, but for his marriage, Napoleon would certainly have repaired in person after the peace of Sclioenbrunn left him at ease on his (xerman frontier. Although the

1810.] STATE OF THE PENINSULA. 89

new alliance had charms enough to detain him in France, it by no means withdrew his attention from the state of that fair kingdom which still mocked Joseph with the shadow of a crown. In the open field, indeed, the French appeared every- where triumphant, except only where the British force from Portugal interfered, and in almost every district of Spain the fortresses were in their hands ; yet the spirit of the people remained wholly un- subdued. The invaders could not count an inch of soil their own beyond their outposts. Their troops continued to be harassed and thinned by the indomitable guerillas or partisan companies ; and, even in the immediate neighbourhood of their strongest garrisons, the people assembled to vote for representatives in the Cortes, which had at last been summoned to meet in Cadiz, there to settle the national government, during the King's absence, on a regular footing.

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

90 . NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1810.

access to the sea and Gibraltar, rendered all his efforts vain.

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

It was on the Portuguese side, however, that the events of most importance occurred. It was there that the disgraces of Vimiero and Talaveyra must be avenged ; and there accordingly Napoleon had directed his chief force to be set in motion. Massena (Prince of Essling), second only to him- self in reputation, took the command, early in the season, of " the army of Portugal," at least 100,000 strong, and wliose commission it was to drive the English leopards, and the Seapoy General, (as, ignorant of the future, Buonaparte at this time called Wellington,) into the sea. To this gigantic army that leader could oppose at most 20,000 British troops ; but 30,000 Portuguese had by this time been so well trained by General Beres- ford, that they were hehl not unworthy of fighting by the side of Englislnncn. Still Lord Welling- ton's whole force was barely lialf that of Massena: and his operations were necessarily confined to the defensive. lie luul no means to prevent the French Marshal from taking Oviedo and Ciudad Rodrigo — almost in his sight; but commenced his retreat, and conducted it with a coolness and precision whicli not a little disconcerted the jnirsuers. They at length ventured to attack the English on their

1810,] Wellington's retreat on torres vedras. 91

march. On the 27th September, 1810, they charged in five columns, on the heights of Busaco, and were driven back with such terrible carnage that no further assault was threatened. Massena kept advancing, step by step, as Wellington with- drew, not doubting that his enemy would embark as soon as he reached Lisbon, and leave him in quiet possession of that capital and the rich coun- try around. His surprise was great when Lord Wellington at last halted on the lines of the Torres Vedras, which had by this time been so strength- ened, that even in inferior hands they might have been considered impregnable.

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

92 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [20th April,

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Events of the year 1811 — Birth of the King of Rome — Disgrace of Fouchc — Discontents in France — Rela- tions with Russia — License System — Napoleon pre- pares for War with Russia — The Campaign in the Peninsula — Massenas Retreat — Battle of Fuentes UOnor — Lord Wellington blockades Ciudad Rodrigo — Retreats — Joseph wishes to abdicate.

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

The birtli of the lieir of Napoleon was received with as many demonstrations of loyal enthusiasm as l»ad ever attended that of a Dauphin ; yet, from

/'ubli.thfd Feb. lti'19, bv Ji'h(i.'Murf,7v. l.mii. •

1811.] BIRTH OF THE KING OF ROME. 9.'3

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

He, thus called on to review with new serious- ness the whole condition and prospects of his em- pire, appears to have felt very distinctly that nei- ther could be secure, unless an end were, by some means, put to the war with England. However he might permit himself to sneer at his great ene- my in his public addresses from the throne, and in his bulletins, Napoleon had too much strength of

94 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1811.

mind not to despise those who, in any of their private communications, had the meanness to affect acquiescence in such views. When Denon brought him, after the battle of Wagram, the design of a medal representing an eagle strangling a leopard, Buonaparte rebuked and dismissed the flatterer. " What," said he, " strangling the leopard! There is not a spot of the sea on which the eagle dares show himself. This is base adulation. It would have been nearer the truth to represent the eagle as choked by the leopard."

He sent a private messenger to London to as- certain from personal communication with the Marquess Wellesley, then minister for foreign affairs, on what terms the English government would consent to open a formal negotiation ; but this attempt was baffled by a singular circumstance. Fouche, having derived new audacity from the results of his extraordinary conversation with •Fosephine, on the subject of the divorce, had ven- tured to send a dependent of his own to London, for the purpose of sounding Lord Wellesley on the (juestion of preliminaries ; not doubting that could he give distinct information on this head to his master, without having in any degree compromised the imperial dignity, the service would be con- sidered as most valuable. But Lord Wellesley, beset, at the same time, and on the same very deli- cate topic, by two different persons, neither of whom produced any proper credentials, and who denied all knowledge of each other, conceived, very naturnlly, tluit they were mere adventurers if not spies, and at once broke off his communica- tions with both. Nnpoleon, on discovering this

1811.] DISCONTENTS STATE-PRISONS. 9o

intrigue, summoned Fouche to his presence. " So, sir," said he, ' ' I find you make peace and war without consulting me." He was dismissed from the ministry of poHce, and sent into an honourable banishment, as Governor of Rome. Fouche's presumption had been great: but long ere now Napoleon was weary, not of him only, but of Tal- leyrand, and indeed of all those ministers who, having reached eminent stations before he himself acquired the supreme power, preserved, in their manner of transacting business, and especially of offering advice, any traces of that period in which Frenchmen flattered themselves they were free. The warnings which he had received, w'hen about to commence his atrocious proceedings against Spain, were remembered with the higher resent- ment, as the course of events in that country, month after month, and year after year, confirmed the accuracy of the foresight which he had con- temned. This haughty spirit could not endure the presence of the man who could be supposed to fancy that even on one point, he had the better of his master.

The disgrace of Fouche w^as certainly a very unpopular measure. The immediate cause of it could not be divulged, and the minister was con- sidered as having fallen a sacrifice to the honesty of his remonstrances on the Spanish invasion, and the increased rigour of the Emperor's domestic administration. It was about this time that, in addition to the castle of Vincennes, nine new state- prisons w ere established in France ; and the num- ber of persons confined in these receptacles, on warrants signed by the Emperor and his slavish

96 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1811.

privy council, far exceeded those condemned to similar usage in any recent period of the Bourbon monarchy, under the lettres de cachet of the sove- reign. These were proofs, not to be mistaken, of the growth of political disaffection. In truth the continental system, the terrible waste of life occa- sioned by the late campaigns in Poland and Aus- tria, and the constant demands, both on the trea- sure and the blood of France, rendered necessary by the apparently interminable war in the Penin- sula— these were evils which could not exist with- out alienating the hearts of the people. The police filled the ears of the Emperor with reports of men's private conversation. Citizens were daily removed from their families, and buried in remote and inaccessible dungeons, for no reason but that they had dared to speak what the immense majo- rity of their neighbours thought. His quarrels with Lucicn, who had contracted a marriage unsuitable, in the Emperor's opinion, to his rank, were so in- decently violent, that that ablest of his brothers at length sought a refuge in England, where he re- mained during several years. The total slavery of tlie press, its audacious lies, and more audacious silence, insulted the common sense of all men. Dis- affection was secretly, but rapidly, eating into the heart of his power ; and yet, as if blinded to all conse- quences by some angry infliction of heaven, the insatiable ambition of Napoleon was already tempt- ing another great foreign enemy into the field.

Wlien the Emjx^ror of Russia was informed of Buonaparte's a])])roac]iing nuptials with the Aus- trian princess, his first exclamation was, " Then the next thing will be to drive us back into our forests." In truth the conferences of Erfurt had

1811.] RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA. 97

but skinned over a wound, which nothing could have cured but a total alteration of Napoleon's policy. The Russian nation suffered so much from the continental system, that the sovereign soon found himself compelled to relax the decrees drawn up at Tilsit in the spirit of those of Berlin and Milan. Certain harbours were opened par- tially for the admission of colonial produce, and the export of native productions ; and there en- sued a series of indignant reclamations on the part of Napoleon, and haughty evasions on that of the Czar, which, ere long, satisfied all near observers that Russia would not be slow to avail herself of any favourable opportunity of once more appealing to arms. The Spanish insurrection, backed by the victories of Lord Wellington, must have roused alike the hope and the pride of a young and ambi- tious prince, placed at the head of so great a na- tion ; the inference naturally drawn from Napo- leon's marriage into the house of Austria was, that the whole povv'er of that monarchy would, hence- forth, act in unison with his views — in other words, that were the Peninsula once thoroughly subdued, the whole of Western Europe would be at his com- mand, for any service he might please to dictate. It would have been astonishing if, under such cir- cumstances, the ministers of Alexander had not desired to bring their disputes with Paris to a close, before Napoleon should have leisure to con- summate the conquest of Spain.

During the summer of 1811, then, the relations of these two governments were becoming every day more dubious ; and when, towards the close of it, the Emperor of Austria published a rescript,

VOL. II. H

98 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1811.

granting a free passage through his territories to the troops of his son-in-law, England, ever watch- ful of the movements of her great enemy, per- ceived clearly that she was about to have an ally.

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

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

Second, tlie annexation of the Duchy of Olden- burg to the French empire, by that edict of Napo- leon wliicli proclaimed his seizure of the whole sea- coast of Germany, between Holland and the Baltic. Oldenburg, the hereditary territory of the Emperor Alexander's brother-in-law, had been expressly guaranteed to that prince by the treaty of Tilsit. Napoleon was asked to indemnify the ejected duke by the cession of Dantzick, or some other territory in the neighbourliood of the Grand Duchy

1811.] DISPUTES WITH RUSSIA. 99

of Warsaw ; but this he dedined, though he pro- fessed his wilhngness to give some compensation elsewhere :

Thirdly, the Czar alleged, and most truly, that the state of his country made it altogether neces- sary that the regulations of the continental system should be dispensed with in his instance, and de- clared that he could no longer submit to see the commerce of an independent empire trammelled for the purpose of serving the policy ora foreign power. Buonaparte admitted that it might be ne- cessary to modify the system complained of, and expressed his belief that it would be found pos- sible to devise some middle course, by which the commercial interests of France and Russia might be reconciled. His meaning probably was, that, if their other differences could be arranged, this part of the dispute might be settled by admitting the Czar to adopt, to a certain extent, in the north of Europe, a device which he himself had already had recourse to on a large scale, for counteracting the baneful effects of his own favourite system, in his own immediate territories. Napoleon had soon discovered that, to exclude English goods and colonial produce entirely, was actually im- possible ; and seeing that, either with or without his assent, the decrees of Berlin and Milan would, in one way or other, continue to be violated, it oc- curred to him that he might at least engross the greater part of the profits of the forbidden traffic himself. This he accomplished by the establish- ment of a system of custom-house regulations, under which persons desirous to import English produce into France might purchase the imperial

h2

100 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1811.

license for so doing. A very considerable relaxa- tion in the pernicious influence of the Berlin code was the result of this device ; and a proportional increase of the Emperor's revenue attended it. In after-days, however, he always spoke of this license-system as one of the few great mistakes of his administration. Some petty riots among the manufacturing population of the county of Derby were magnified in his eyes into symptoms of an approaching revolution in England ; the conse- quence, as he flattered himself, of the misery in- flicted on his great enemy by the " continental system ;" and to the end he continued to think that, had he resisted the temptation to enrich his own exchequer by the produce of licenses, stich must have been the ultimate issue of his original scheme. It was, however, by admitting Alexan- der to a share in the pecuniary advantages of the license-system, that he seems to have thought the commercial part of his dispute with Russia might be accommodated.

And, indeed, had there been no cause of quarrel between these powers, except what appeared on the face of their negotiations, it is hardly to be doubted that an accommodation might have been effected. The simple truth was, tliat the Czar, from the hour of Maria Louisa's marriage, felt a perfect conviction that the diminution of the Rus- sian power in the north of Europe would form the next great object of Napoleon's ambition. His subsequent proceedings, in regard to Holland, Oldenburg, and other territories, and the distribu- tion of his troops in Pomorania and Poland, could not fail to strengthen Alexander in this view of

1811.] AFFAIRS OF SPAIN. 101

the case ; and if war must come, there could be no question as to the policy of bringing it on before Austria had entirely recovered from the effects of the campaign of Wagram, and, above all, while the Peninsula continued to occupy 200,000 of Buonaparte's troops.

Before we return to the war in Portugal (the details of which belong to the history of Wellington, rather than of Napoleon), we may here notice very briefly one or two circumstances connected with the exiled family of Spain. It affords a melan- choly picture of the degradation of the old king and queen, that these personages voluntarily tra- velled to Paris for the purpose of mingling in the crowd of courtiers congratulating their deceiver and spoiler on the birth of the king of Rome. Their daughter, the queen of Etruria, appears to have been the least degenerate of the race ; and she accordingly met with the cruellest treatment from the hand which her parents were thus mean enough to kiss. She had been deprived of her kingdom at the period of the shameful scenes of Bayonne in 1807, on pretext that that kingdom would afford the most suitable indemnification for her brother Ferdinand on his cession to Buonaparte of his rights in Spain, and with the promise of being provided for elsewhere. This promise to the sister was no more thought of afterwards than the original scheme for the indemnification of the brother. Tuscany became a French department. Ferdinand was sent a prisoner to the castle of Valenfay — a seat of Talleyrand — and she, after remaining for some time with her parents, took up her residence, as a private person, under surveillance^ at Nice.

102 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1811.

Alarmed by the severity with which the police watched her, the queen at length made an attempt to escape to England. Her agents were discovered, tried by a mihtary commission, and shot ; and the unfortimate lady herself confined in a Roman mo- nastery. A plan for the liberation of Ferdinand was about the same time detected by the emissaries of the French police : the real agent being arrested, a pretender, assuming his name and credentials, made his way into Valen^ay, but Ferdinand was either too cunning, or too timid to incur this dan- ger ; revealing to his jailers the proposals of the stranger, he escaped the snare laid for him, and thus cheated Napoleon of a pretext for removing him also to some Italian cell.

During four months after Wellington's famous retreat terminated in his occupation of the lines of Torres Vedras, Massena lay encamped be- fore that position, in vain practising every artifice which consummate skill could suggest for the pur- pose of drawing the British army back into the field. He attempted to turn first the one Hank of the position and then the other ; but at either point he found his antagonist's preparations perfect. Meantime his communication with Spain was be- coming every day more and more difficult, and the enmity of the peasantry was so inveterate that his troops began to suffer much from the want of provisions. Massena at length found himself compelled to retreat; and, if he executed the military movement with masterly ability, he for ever disgraced his name by the horrible license wliich he ])crmitted to his soldiery. Every crime of which man is capable — every brutality which

1811.] MASSENA QUITS PORTUGAL. 103

can dishonour rational beings — must be recorded in the narrative of that fearful march. Age, rank, sex, character, were alike contemned; it seemed as if, maddened with a devilish rage, these ferocious bands were resolved to ruin the country which they could not possess, and to exterminate, as far as was in their power, the population which they could neither conciliate nor subdue.

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

Soult meanwhile had advanced on the southern frontier of Portugal from Estremadura, and ob-

104 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1811.

tained possession of Badajos, under circumstances which Lord Welhngton considered as highly dis- graceful to the Spanish garrison of that important place, and the armies which ought to have been ready to cover it. On the other hand, an English corps, under General Graham, sallied out of Cadiz, and were victorious in a brilliant affair on the heights of Barossa, in front of that besieged city.

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

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

1812.] AFFAIRS OF SPAIN. 105

CHAPTER XXIX.

Capture of Ciudad Rodrigo — and of Badajos — Battle of Salamanca — State of Napoleon s Foreign Relations — His militajy Resources — Napoleon at Dresden — Rup- ture xoith Russia — Napoleon s conduct to the Poles — Distribution of the Armies — Passage of the Niemen — Napoleon at Wilna.

Lord Wellington had now complete possession of Portugal ; and lay on the frontiers of that king- dom, ready to act on the offensive within Spain, whenever the distribution of the French armies should seem to offer a fit opportunity. Learning that Marmont had sent considerable reinforce- ments to Suchet, in Valencia, he resolved to ad- vance and once more besieo-e Ciudad Rodrigo. He re-appeared before that strong fortress on the 8th of January, 1812, and carried it by storm on the 19th, four days before Marmont could collect a force adequate for its relief. He instantly repaired the fortifications, entrusted the place to a Spanish garrison, and repaired in person to the southern part of the Portugueze frontier, which required his attention in consequence of that miserable mis- conduct of the Spaniards which had enabled the French to make themselves masters of Badajos in the preceding year. He appeared before that city on the 16th March, and in twenty days took

106 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [July 22d,

it also. The loss of life on both sides, in these rapid sieges, was very great ; but they were gained by a general at the head of at most .50,000 men, in despite of an enemy mustering full 80,000; and the resuhs were of the first importance to the Enghsh cause. Marmont, on hearing of the fall of the second fortress, immediately retreated from the neighbourhod of Ciudad Rodrigo, which he had made a vain attempt to regain ; and Soult, who had arrived from before Cadiz just in time to see the British flag mounted on the towers of Badajos, retired in like manner. The English general hastened to make the best use of his ad- vantage, by breaking up the only bridge by which Marmont and Soult could now communicate ; and having effected this object early in May, marched in June to Salamanca, took the forts there, and 800 prisoners, and — Marmont retiring as he advanced — hung on his rear until he reached the Douro.

Marmont was now joined by Bonnet's army from Asturias, and thus once more recovered a decided superiority in numbers. Wellington accordingly retired in his turn ; and for some days the two hostile armies moved in parallel lines, often within half cannon shot, each waiting for some mistake of which advantage might be taken. The weather was all the while intensely hot ; numbers fainted on the march ; and when any rivulet was in view, it was difficult to keep the men in their ranks. On the evening of the 21st of July, Wellington and Marmont lay in fidl view of each other, on two opposite rising grounds near Salamanca; a great storm of thunder and rain came on, and during the whole night the sky was bright with light-

1812.] BATTLE OF SALAMANCA. 107

ning. Wellington was at table when he received intelligence that his adversary was extending his left, — with the purpose of coming between him and Ciudad Rodrigo. He rose in haste, exclaim- ing " Marmont's good genius has forsaken him," and was instantly on horseback. The great battle of Salamanca was fought on the 22d of July. The French were attacked on the point which Mar- mont's movement leftwards had weakened, and sustained a signal defeat. The commander-in- chief himself lost an arm: 7,000 prisoners, eleven guns, and two eagles were taken ; and it was only the coming on of night that saved the army from utter destruction. Wellington pursued the flying enemy as far as Valladolid, and then, re-crossing the Douro, marched upon Madrid. King Joseph fled once more at his approach, and the English were received with enthusiasm in the capital of Spain.

Lord Wellington had thus ventured to place him- self in the heart of Spain, with, at most, 60,000 men, well-knowing that the French armies in the Peninsula still mustered at the least 150,000, in the expectation that so spirited a movement, coming after the glorious successes of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajos, and Salamanca, would effectually stimu- late the Spanish generals. Ballasteros in particular, he doubted not, would at least take care to occupy all the attention of Soult, and prevent that able leader from advancing out of the south. But the Spaniard's egregious pride took fire at the notion of being directed by an Englishm.an, and he suf- fered Soult to break up the siege of Cadiz, and retire with all his army undisturbed towards the

108 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812.

Sierra Morena. Lord Wellington, incensed at this folly, was constrained to divide his army. Leaving half at Madrid under Sir. R. Hill, to check Soult, he himself marched with the other for Burgos, by taking which great city he judged he should have it in his power to overawe effectually the remains of the army of Marmont. He invested Burgos accordingly on the 19th of September, and con- tinued the siege during five weeks, until Soult, with a superior force, began to threaten Hill, and (Marmont's successor) Clausel, having also re- ceived great reinforcements, appeared ready to resume the offensive. Lord Wellington then aban- doned the siege of Burgos, and commenced his retreat. He was joined in the course of it by Hill, and Soult and Clausel then effected their junction also, in his rear — their troops being nearly double his numbers. He retired leisurely and deliberately as far as Ciudad Rodrigo — and thus closed the Peninsular campaign of 1812. But in sketching its progress we have lost sight for a moment of the still mightier movements in which Napoleon was personally engaged upon another scene of action.

It has already been mentioned, that before the year 1811 reached its close, the approach of a rupture with Russia was sufficiently indicated in an edict of the Emperor of Austria, granting a free passage through his territories to the armies of his son-in-law. However, during several months following, the negotiations between the Czar and Napoleon continued ; and more than once there appeared considerable likelihood of their finding au amicable termination. The tidings of Lord

1812.] AFFAIRS OF THE NORTH. 109

Wellington's successes at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos were calculated to temper the ardour of Buonaparte's presumption ; and for a moment he seems to have felt the necessity of bringing the affairs of the Peninsula to a point, ere he should venture to involve himself in another warfare. He, in effect, opened a communication with the English government, when the fall of Badajos was announced to him ; but before the negotiation had proceeded many steps, his pride returned on him in its original obstinacy, and the renewed demand, that Joseph should be recognized as King of Spain, abruptly closed the intercourse of the di- plomatists.

Such being the state of the Peninsula, and all hope of an accommodation with England at an end, it might have been expected that Napoleon would have spared no effort to accommodate his differences with Russia, or, if a struggle must come, to prepare for it, by placing his relations with the other powers, capable of interfering on one side or the other, on a footing favourable to himself But here also the haughty temper, which adversity it- self could never bend, formed an insurmountable and fatal obstacle. To gain the cordial friendship of Sweden was obviously, from the geographical position of that country, and the high military talents of Bernadotte, an object of the most urgent importance ; yet the Crown Prince, instead of being treated with as the head of an independent state, was personally insulted by the French resident at Stockholm, who, in Bernadotte's own language, " demeaned himself on every occasion as if he had been a Roman proconsul, dictating absolutely in a

110 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812.

province." In his anxiety to avoid a rupture, Bernadotte at length agreed to enforce the " con- tinental system," and to proclann war aganist England. But these concessions, instead of pro- ducing hearty good-will, had a directly contrary effect. England, considering Sweden as an in- voluntary enemy, disdained to make any attempt against her ; and the adoption of the anti-com- mercial edicts of Napoleon was followed by a mul- tiplicity of collisions between the Swedish coasters and the Imperial douaniers, out of which arose legal questions without number. These, in most cases, were terminated at Paris v»'ith summary in- justice, and the provocations and reclamations of Bernadotte multiplied daily. Amazed that one who had served under his banners should dare to dispute his will. Napoleon suffered himself to speak openly of causing Bernadotte to finish his Swedish studies in Vincennes. Nay, he conde- scended to organize a conspiracy for the purpose of putting this threat into execution. The Crown Prince escaped, through the zeal of a private friend at Paris, the imminent danger of being carried off after the iashion of the D'Enghiens and the Rum- bolds : and thenceforth his part was fixed.

Qx\ the other flank of the Czar's dominion — his hereditary enemy, the Grand Signior, was at this time actually at war with him. Napoleon had neglected his relations with Constantinople for some years past ; but he now perceived the im- portance of keeping this quarrel alive, and em- ])loyed his agents to stimulate the Grand Signior to take the field in person at the head of 100,000 men, for the purpose of co-operating with himself

1812.] AFFAIRS OF THE NORTH. Ill

in a general invasion of the Russian empire. But here he encountered a new and an unforeseen dif- ficulty. Lord Castlereagh, the English minister for foreign affairs, succeeded in convincing the Porte, that, if Russia were once subdued, there would remain no power in Europe capable of shielding her against the universal ambition of Napoleon. And wisely considering this prospec- tive danger as immeasurably more important than any immediate advantage which she could possibly reap from the humiliation of her old rival, the Porte commenced a negotiation, which, exactly at the most critical moment, (as we shall see here- after,) ended in a peace with Russia.

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

Austria was bound by treaty to assist Napo- leon with 30,000 men, whenever he chose to de-

112 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812.

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

But if Napoleon, in the fulness of his presump- tion, thus neglected or scorned the timely concilia- tion of foreign powers — some of whom he might have arrayed heartily on his side, and others at least retained neutral — he certainly omitted no- thing as to the preparation of tlie military forces of his own empire. Before yet all hopes of an ac- commodation with St. Petersburg were at an end, lie demanded and obtained two new conscriptions in France; and moreover established a law by which he was enabled to call out 100,000 men at a time, of those whom the conscriptions had spared,

1812.] MILITARY PREPARATIONS. 113

for service at home. This limitation of their ser- vice he soon disregarded ; and in effect the new system — that of the Ban, as he affected to call it — became a mere extension of the old scheme. The amount of the French army at the period in ques- tion (exclusive oi the Ban) is calculated at 850,000 men ; the army of the kingdom of Italy mustered 50,000 ; that of Naples, 30,000 ; that of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, 60,000; the Bavarian, 40,000; the Westphalian, 30,000; the Saxon, 30,000; Wir- temberg, 15,000; Baden, 9000; and the minor powers of the Rhenish League, 23,000. Of these armies Napoleon had the entire controul. In ad- dition, Austria was bound to furnish him with 30,000, and Prussia with 20,000 auxiliaries. The sum total is 1,187,000. Deducting 387,000— a large allowance for hospitals, furloughs, and in- complete regiments — there remained 800,000 ef- ective men at his immediate command. The Spanish peninsula might perhaps occupy, even now, 150,000 ; but still Napoleon could bring into the field against Russia, in case all negotia- tion failed, an army of 650,000 men ; numbers such as Alexander could have no chance of equal- ling ; numbers such as had never before followed an European banner.

Notwithstanding all this display of military strength, the French statesmen who had in former days possessed the highest place in the Emperor's confidence, and who had been shaken in his fa- vour by their bold prophecies of the result of his attempts on Spain and Portugal, did not hesitate to come forward on this new occasion, and offer warnings, for which the course of events in the

114 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812.

Peninsula might have been expected to procure a patient hearing. Talleyrand, still in office, ex- hausted all his efforts in vain. Fouche, who on pretence of ill health had thrown up his Roman government, and was now resident at his country seat near Paris, drew up a memorial, in which the probable consequences of a march into Russia were detailed with masterly skill and eloquence ; and demanded an audience of the Emperor, that he might present it in person. Napoleon, whose police now watched no one so closely as their former chief, was prepared for this. He received Fouche with an air of cool indifference. " I am no stranger to your errand," said he. " The war with Russia pleases you as little as that of Spain." Fouche answered, that he hoped to be pardoned for having drawn up some reflections on so im- portant a crisis. " It is no crisis at all," resumed Buonaparte, " but a mere war of politics. Spain falls whenever I have destroyed the English in- fluence at St. Petersburg. I have 800,000 sol- diers in readiness : with such an army 1 consider Europe as an old prostitute, who must obey my pleasure. Did not you yourself once tell me that the word impossible is not French ? You grandees are now too rich, and though you pretend to be anxious about my interests, you are only thinking of wliat might happen to yourselves in case of my death and the dismemberment of my empire. I regulate my conduct much more by the sentiments of my army than by yours. Is it my fault that the height of power which I have attained compels me to ascend to the dictatorship of the world ? My destiny is not yet accomplished — the pictme

1812.] REMONSTRANCES OF TALLEYRAND & FOUCHE. 115

exists as yet only in outline. There must be one code, one court of appeal, and one coinage for all Europe. The states of Europe must be melted into one nation, and Paris be its capital." It de- serves to be mentioned that neither the statesman thus contemptuously dismissed, nor any of his brethren, ever even alluded to the injustice of making war on Russia for the mere gratification of ambition. Their arguments were all drawn from the extent of Alexander's resources — his 400,000 regulars, and 50,000 Cossacks, already known to be in arms — and the enormous population on which he had the means of drawing for recruits ; the en- thusiastic national feelings of the Muscovites ; the distance of their country; the severity of their climate ; the opportunity which such a war v,'ould afford to England of urging her successes in Spain; and the chance of Germany rising in insurrection in case of any reverses !

There was, however, one person who appealed to the Emperor on other grounds. His uncle, the Cardinal Fesch, had been greatly afflicted by the treatment of the Pope, and he contemplated this new war with dread, as likely to bring down the vengeance of heaven on the head of one who had dared to trample on its vicegerent. He besought Napoleon not to provoke at once the wrath of man and the fury of the elements ; and expressed his belief that he must one day sink under the weight of that universal hatred with which his actions were surrounding his throne. Buonaparte led the churchman to the window, opened it, and, point- ing upwards, said, " Do you see yonder star ? " " No, sire," replied the Cardinal. " But I see

I 2

116 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [June, 22d.

it," answered Napoleon ; and abruptly dismissed him.

Trusting to this star, on which one spot of fatal dimness had already gathered. Napoleon, without waiting for any formal rupture with the Russian diplomatists at Paris, now directed the march of very great bodies of troops into Prussia and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Alexander's minister was ordered, in the beginning of April, to demand the withdrawal of these troops, together with the evacuation of the fortresses in Pomerania, in case the French government still entertained a wish to negotiate. Buonaparte instantly replied that he was not accustomed to regulate the distribution of his forces by the suggestions of a foreign power. The ambassador demanded his passports, and quitted Paris.

On the 9th of May, Napoleon left Paris with his Empress, and arrived on the 16th at Dresden, where the Emperor of Austria, the Kings of Prussia, Naples, Wirtemberg, and Westphalia, and almost every German sovereign of inferior rank, had been invited, or commanded, to meet him. He had sent to request the Czar also to appear in this brilliant assemblage, as affording a last chance of an amicable arrangement ; but the messenger could not obtain admission to Alexander's pre- sence.

Buonaparte continued for some days to play the part of undisputed master amidst this congregation of royalties. He at once assumed for himself and his wife precedence over tlie Emperor and Em- press of Austria ; and, in the l)laze of successive festivals, the King of Saxony appeared but as

1812.] WAR PROCLAIMED AGAINST RUSSIA. 117

some chamberlain, or master of the ceremonies, to his imperious guest.

Having sufficiently indicated to his allies and vassals the conduct which they were respectively to adopt, in case the war should break out. Napo- leon, already weary of his splendid idleness, sent on the Abbe de Pradt to Warsaw, to prepare for his reception among the Poles, dismissed Maria Louisa on her return to Paris, and broke up the Court in which he had, for the last time, figured as " the King of Kings." Marshal Ney, with one great division of the army, had already passed the Vistula; Junot, with another, occupied both sides of the Oder. The Czar was known to be at Wilna, his Lithuanian capital, there collecting the forces of his immense empire, and entrusting the general arrangements of the approaching campaign to Marshal Barclay de Tolly.* The season was advancing ; and it was time that the question of peace or war should be forced to a decision.

Napoleon arrived at Dantzick on the 7th of June ; and during the fortnight which ensued, it was known that the final communications between him and Alexander were taking place. The at- tention of mankind was never more entirely fixed on one spot than it was, during these fourteen days, upon Dantzick. On the 22d, Buonaparte broke silence in a bulletin. " Soldiers," said he, " Rus- sia is dragged on by her fate : her destiny must be accomplished. Let us march : let us cross the Niemen : let us carry war into her territories.

* This officer had been born and educated in Germany. He was descended from an ancient Scottish family, exiled for adherence to the Stuarts, in 1715.

118 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812.

Our second campaign of Poland will be as glorious as our first : but our second peace shall carry with it its own guarantee : it shall put an end for ever to that haughty influence which Russia has exer- cised for fifty years on the affairs of Europe." The address, in which the Czar announced the termination of his negotiations, was in a far differ- ent tone. After stating the innumerable efforts he had made to preserve peace, without losing for Russia the character of an independent state, he invoked the aid of Almighty Providence as *' the witness and the defender of the true cause ;" and conclivded in these words — " Soldiers, you fight for your religion, your liberty, and your native land. Your Emperor is amongst you ; and God is the enemy of the aggressor."

Buonaparte reviewed the greater part of his troops on the field of Friedland ; and having as- sured them of still more splendid victories over the same enemy, issued his final orders to the chief officers of his vast army. Hitherto the Poles had had no certain intelligence of the object which Napoleon proposed to himself. As soon as no doubt remained on that score, the Diet at Warsaw sent both to him and to the King of Saxony, to announce their resolution to seize this opportunity of re-establishing the ancient national independ- ence of their dismembered country. We have already mentioned the circumstance which com- pelled the Emperor to receive this message with coldness. He was forced to acknowledge that he liad guaranteed to Austria the wliole of her Polish provinces. It was therefore impossible for him to take part in the re-establishment of Old Poland : —

1812.] ARRANGEMENT OF THE ARMIES. 119

" Nevertheless," added he, with audacious craft, " I admire your eftbrts ; I even authorize them. Persist; and it is to be hoped your wishes will be crowned with success."

This answer effectually damped the ardour of the Poles ; and thenceforth, with a few exceptions, the eminent and influential men of the nation were mere observers of the war. If any doubt as to Napoleon's treachery could have remained after his answer to the Diet, it must have been wholly removed when the plan of his campaign transpired, and the Austrian auxiliaries were known to be stationed on the right of his whole line. On them, as it seemed, the march through Volhynia was thus devolved, and no clearer proof could have been afforded that it was Napoleon's desire to re- press every symptom of a national insurrection in Lithuania. The inhabitants, had French soldiers come amongst them, might have been expected to rise in enthusiasm ; the white uniform of Austria was known to be hateful in their eyes, in the same degree, and for precisely the same reason, as the Russian green.

The disposition of the French army when the campaign commenced was as follows : — The left wing, commanded by Macdonald, and amounting to 30,000 men, had orders to march through Cour- land, with the view of, if possible, outflanking the Russian right, and gaining possession of the sea coast in the direction of Riga. The right wing, composed almost wholly of the Austrians, 30,000 in number, and commanded by Schwartzenberg, were stationed, as has been already mentioned, on the Volhynian frontier. Between these moved the

120 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812.

various corps forming the grand central army, under the general superintendence of Napoleon himself, viz. those of Davoust, Ney, the King of Westphalia, the Viceroy of Italy, Poniatowski, Junot, and Victor; and in numbers not falling below 250,000. The communication of the centre and left was maintained by the corps of Oudinot, and that of the centre and the extreme right by the corps of Regnier, who had with him the Saxon auxiliaries and the Polish legion of Dombrowski. The chief command of the whole cavalry of the host was assigned to Murat, King of Naples; but he was in person at the head-quarters of the Em- peror, having immediately under his order three divisions of horse, those of Grouchy, Montbrun, and Nansouty. Augereau with his division was to remain in the north of Germany, to overawe Berlin and protect the communications with France.

A glance at the map will show that Napoleon's base of operations extended over full one hundred leagues; and that the heads of his various columns were so distributed, that the Russians could not guess whether St. Petersburg or Moscow formed the main object of liis march.

The Russian main army, under Barclaj'^ de Tolly liimself, had its head-quarters at Wilna; and con- sisted, at the opening of the campaign, of 120,000. Considerably to the left lay " the second army," as it was called, of 80,000, under Bagrathion; w^ith whom were Platoff and 12,000 of his Cossacks ; while, at the extreme of that wing, " the army of Volhynia," 20,000 strong, commanded by Torma- zoff', watched Schwartzenberg. On the right of Barclay de Tolly was Witgenstein with 30,000,

1812.] ARRANGEMENT OF THE ARMIES. 121

and between these again and the sea, the corps of Essen, not more than 10,000 strong. Behind the whole line two armies of reserve were rapidly forming at Novogorod and Smolensko; each, pro- bably, of about 20,000 men. The Russians actu- ally on the field at the opening of the campaign were, then, as nearly as can be computed, in number 260,000 ; while Napoleon was prepared to cross the Niemen at the head of at least 470,000 men.

On the Russian side the plan of the campaign had been settled ere now ; it was entirely defen- sive. Taught by the events of the former war in Poland, and of that which had already fixed the reputation of Wellington in the Peninsula, the Czar was resolved, from the beginnincr, to draw Buona- parte if possible into the heart of his own country ere he gave him battle. The various divisions of the Russian force had orders to fall back leisurely as the enemy advanced, destroying whatever they could not remove along with them, and halting only at certain points, where intrenched camps had already been formed for their reception. The difficulty of feeding half a million of men in a country deliberately wasted beforehand, and sepa- rated by so great a space from Germany, to say nothing of France, was sure to increase with every hour and every step ; and Alexander's great object was to husband his own strength until the Polar winter should set in around the strangers, and bring the miseries which he thus foresaw^ to a crisis. Napoleon, on the other hand, had calcu- lated on being met by the Russians at, or even in advance of, their own frontier, (as he had been by

122 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [June 24.

the Austrians in the campaigns of Austerlitz and Wagram, and by the Prussians in that of Jena); of gaining a great battle ; marching immediately either to St. Petersburg or to Moscow — and dic- tating a peace, after the fashion of Presburg or Schoenbrunn, within the walls of one of the Czar's own palaces.

On the 24th of June, the grand imperial army, consolidated into three masses, began their passage of the Niemen : the King of Westphalia at Grodno ; the Viceroy Eugene at Pilony, and Napoleon him- self near Kowno. The Emperor rode on in front of his army to reconnoitre the banks ; his horse stumbled, and he fell to the ground. " A bad omen — a Roman would return," exclaimed some one r it is not certain whether Buonaparte himself or one of his attendants. The first party that crossed were challenged by a single Cossack. " For what purpose," said he, " do you enter the Russian country?" " To beat you and take Wil- na," answered the advanced guard. The sentinel struck spurs to his horse, and disappeared in the forest. There came on at the same moment a tremendous thunder storm. Thus began the fatal invasion.

No opposition awaited these enormous hosts as they traversed the plains of Lithuania. Alexander withdrew his armies deliberately as they advanced. Tlie capital itself, Wilna, was evacuated two days before they came in sight of it ; and Napoleon took up his (quarters tliere on the 28th of June. But it was found that all the magazines, which Buona- parte had counted on seizing, had been burnt be- fore the Russians withdrew, and the imperial bul-

1812.] PASSAGE or THE NIEMEN. 123

letins began already to denounce the " barbarous method" in which the enemy seemed resolved to conduct his defence.

It was noticed in an early part of this narrative that Napoleon's plan of warfare could hardly have been carried into execution on a great scale, unless by permitting the troops to subsist on plunder ; and we have seen through how many campaigns the marauding system was adopted without pro- ducing any serious inconvenience to the French. Buonaparte, however, had learned from Spain and Portugal how difficult it is for soldiers to find food in these ways, provided the population around them be really united in hostility against them. He had further considered the vast distance at which a war with Russia must needs be carried on, and the natural poverty of most of the Czar's provinces, and came to the resolution of departing on this occasion from his old system. In a word, months before he left Paris, he had given orders for preparing immense quantities of provisions of all kinds, to be conveyed along with his gigantic host, and render him independent of the countries which might form the theatre of his operations. The destruction of the magazines at Wilna was a sufficient indication that the Emperor had judged well in ordering his commissariat to be placed on an efficient footing ; and his attention was natu- rally directed to ascertaining, ere he advanced further, in how much his directions as to this matter had been fulfilled. He remained twenty days at Wilna — a pause altogether extraordinary in a Buonapartean campaign, and which can only be accounted for by his anxiety on this head. The

124 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [1812.

result of his inquiries was most unsatisfactory. The prodigious extent of the contracts into which his war-minister had entered was adequate to the occasion ; but the movement of such enormous trains of cattle and waggons as these contracts provided for must, under any circumstances, have been tedious, and in some degree uncertain. In this case they were entered into either by French traders, who, in consequence of Buonaparte's own practice in preceding campaigns, could have slen- der experience of the method of supplying a great army in the field ; by Germans, who regarded the French Emperor as the enemy of the world, and served him accordingly with reluctance ; or finally, by Polish Jews — a race of inveterate smugglers, and consequently of inveterate swindlers.

The result was, that after spending three weeks at Wilna, the Emperor found himself under the necessity, either of laying aside his invasion for another year, or of urging it in the face of every difficulty which he had foreseen, and, moreover, of that presented by a commissariat less effective by two-thirds than he had calculated on.

1812.] INVASION OF RUSSIA. 125

CHAPTER XXX.

Russia makes Peace with England, xcith Swede?!, and with Turkey — Interrial preparations — Napoleon leaves Wilna — The Dunna — Bagrathioris Movements — Battle of Smolensko — Battle of Borodino — Napoleon eyiters Moscow — Constancy and enthusiasm of the Rus- sians— Conduct of Rostophchin — The burning of Mos- cow— Kutusoff refuses to treat.

While Napoleon was detained in the capital of Lithuania by the confusion and slowness which marked almost every department of his commis- sariat at this great crisis, the enemy employed the unexpected pause to the best advantage. The Czar signed treaties of strict alliance with England, Sweden, and the Spanish Cortes, in the middle of July ; and the negotiation with Turkey was urged, under the mediation of England, so effectually, that a peace with that power also was proclaimed early in August. By these means Alexander was enabled to withdraw whatever troops he had been maintaining on the two flanks of his European dominions, and bring them all to the assistance of his main army. Admiral Tchichagoff, at the head of 50,000 soldiers, hitherto opposed to the Turks on the side of Moldavia, marched towards the left wing of Barclay de Tolly's force ; and the right, which had gradually retired until it reached

126 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [July,

a Strong camp formed on the river Dwina, was reinforced from Finland, though not so largely. The enthusiasm of the Russian nation appeared in the extraordinary rapidity with which supplies of every kind were poured at the feet of the Czar. From every quarter he received voluntary offers of men, of money, of whatever might assist in the prosecution of the war. The Grand Duchess, whose hand Napoleon had solicited, set the ex- ample by raising a regiment on her estate. Mos- cow offered to equip and arm 80,000 men. Platoff, the veteran hetman of the Cossacks, promised his only daughter and 200,000 rubles to the man by whose hand Buonaparte should fall. Noblemen everywhere raised troops, and displayed their pa- triotism by serving in the ranks themselves, and entrusting the command to experienced officers, chosen by the government. The peasantry parti- cipated in the general enthusiasm, and flocked in from every province, demanding arms and train- ing. Two hundred thousand militia-men were called out, and in separate divisions began their march upon the camp.

Napoleon, having done whatever lay in his power to remedy the disorders of his commissariat — and this, after all, does not appear to have been much — at length re-appeared in the field. He had now determined to make St. Petersburg his mark : he counted much on the effects which a triumphal entry into the capital would produce tliroughout the country ; and the fleet at Cronstadt was in itself a prize of the utmost importance. He di- rected, therefore, all his efforts towards the Dwina, where the Russian commander-in-chief had now

1812.] THE RUSSIANS RETREAT TO SMOLEXSKO. 127

halted on extensive intrenchments, and Riga. This town, however, was now defended, not only by Essen, but by the Enghsh sailors of Admiral Martin's fleet, and resisted effectually ; and, to the confusion of Napoleon, he was repelled in three successive attempts to force Barclay's camp at Dunaburg.

He upon this changed his plan of operations, and resolving to march, not for Petersburg, but for Moscow, threw forward the centre of his army, under Davoust, with the view of turning Barclay's position, and cutting off his communications with Bagrathion. That general w^as compelled by this movement to pass the Dnieper (or Borysthenes) ; and Barclay, on perceiving the object of Davoust's march, broke up from the camp on the Dwrna, and retired upon Vitepsk, where he hoped to be joined by Bagrathion. Davoust, however, brought Bagrathion to action near Mohilow, on the 23d of July ; and as the French remained in possession of that town at the end of the day, the Russians found themselves under the necessity of altering the line of their retreat. Bagrathion informed Barclay that he was now marching, not on Vitepsk, but on Smolensko, and the commander-in-chief felt the necessity of abandoning Vitepsk also. During three days (the 25th, 26th, and 27th of July,) his troops were engaged with the French at Vitepsk ; and, though Napoleon's bulletins an- nounced three splendid victories, the result was that the Russians left their position in admirable order, and retired altogether unmolested on the proposed point of junction. Meantime Regnier, on the right wing, and Oudinot, on the left, were

128 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. [Aug.

defeated ; the former by Tormazoff, the latter by Witgenstein, both with severe loss. The Emperor halted at Vitepsk for several days ; " his troops," as the bulletins admitted, " requiring refreshment." The Russian plan of defence was already ascer- tained— and alarming. The country was laid ut- terly desolate wherever they retired ; every village was burnt ere they quitted it : the enthusiastic peasantry withdrew with the army, and swelled its ranks.

Napoleon quitted Vitepsk on the 8th of August, and after a partial engagement at Krasnoi on the Ikh, came in sight of Smolensko on the 16th. The first and second armies of the Czar, (Bagra- thion having at length effected his junction with Barclay,) lay behind the river which flows at the back of this town ; but it was occupied in great force. Three times did Buonaparte attack it, and three times he was repulsed. During the night the garrison withdrew, and joined the army across the river — but before they went they committed the city to the flames, and, the buildings being chiefly of wood, the conflagration, according to the French bulletin, " resembled in its fury an eruption of Vesuvius." " Never" (continues the same bulletin) " was war conducted with such inhumanity : the Russians treat their own country as if it were that of an enemy." Such was indeed their resolution. They had no desire that the invader should esta- blish himself