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 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Comeir University Library 
 DC 203.M87 
 
 Napoleon, warrior and ruler, and the mil 
 
 3 1924 024 330 189 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024330189 
 
*S^,^OTJ^ 
 
 
 
 
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 ^^^^ 
 
 BONAPARTE. 
 
 FROM THE PAINTING BY APPIANl. 
 
NAPOLEON 
 
 WARRIOR AND RULER 
 
 AND THE MILITARY SUPREMACY OF 
 REVOLUTIONARY FRANCE 
 
 WILLIAM O'CONNOR MORRIS 
 
 SOMETIME SCHOLAR OF OKIEL COLLECR 
 OXFORD 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK LONDON 
 
 27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET «4 BEDFORD STREET, STKAND 
 
 i.^t ^mckttbotkci gttss 
 
 1893 
 
Copyright, 1S93, by 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall, London 
 
 BY G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
 ^3!oooJ3 
 X 
 
 Electrotyped, Printed, and Bound by 
 
 Ubc Tftniclicrboclter tprcss, mew l^orft 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
life-like image of this extraordinary 
 man, and to disengage his personality 
 from the masses of details, and of 
 exaggerated fictions, which have gathered round it. 
 Napoleon has been the subject of excessive adula- 
 tion, and of excessive detraction, beyond any emi- 
 nent man of modern times. France made an idol of 
 him for many years ; the kings and princes he con- 
 quered vied with each other in doing him homage ; 
 and the greatest part of the civilised world joined in 
 the chorus of eulogy. 
 
 He suddenly fell, and a violent reaction set in ; 
 in France the floodgates of calumny were let loose 
 against him ; the Coalition of old Europe denounced 
 him as an outlaw ; and he became the mark of inces- 
 sant, passionate, and most foul obloquy. As the 
 animosities and fears of the time passed away, a 
 more just estimate was gradually formed of the 
 
iv Preface. 
 
 great warrior and ruler; and the generation of 
 writers, which flourished between 1830 and i860, has 
 pronounced the most trustworthy judgments which 
 have been formed on Napoleon. But the work of 
 elucidating the truth, and clearing away misrepresen- 
 tation and extravagance, was interrupted ; and when 
 the Empire was restored in France, the features of 
 the real Napoleon were again obscured by clouds of 
 flattering incense, or by the assiduous efforts of 
 slanderers. The preponderance of defamation has 
 been very great since the disastrous war of 1870-71, 
 and the re-establishment of the Republic in France ; 
 and it has had a marked effect on universal opinion. 
 Notwithstanding these adverse influences, the 
 genuine sources of information respecting Napoleon 
 have largely increased ; and the world has, for a con- 
 siderable time, possessed the means of ascertaining 
 to a very great extent, in writings emanating from 
 himself, what this wonderful man was, and what is 
 his proper place in history. The Commentaries and 
 Correspondence of Napoleon have been published 
 long ago ; and these records of the author's experi- 
 ences and career form the best available elements 
 for a study of his life. Yet here, too, an impartial 
 enquirer is, in some measure, baffled ; the Commen- 
 taries, written at St. Helena, abound in mistakes of 
 fact, and are not seldom one-sided and unfair ; and 
 there is reason to believe that large parts of the Cor- 
 respondence, of more or less importance, have been 
 withheld from the public. Still these writings are of 
 inestimable value ; they convey a vivid impression 
 of Napoleon's nature and character ; and this short 
 
Preface. v 
 
 biography of the hero of modern France is largely 
 founded on, and derived from them. 
 
 The writings, however, of a single personage, what- 
 ever may have been his pre-eminence, cannot supply 
 the materials of an adequate, or even a nearly ade- 
 quate account of the history of his time. I do not 
 pretend to have read all that has been published 
 about Napoleon ; but I can truly say I have read a 
 great deal ; and this sketch shows, I hope, that I have 
 studied the subject. I may briefly refer to a few of 
 the principal authorities which relate to this memor- 
 able period, and to its master-spirit. The Autobi- 
 ography of Metternich, and the Memoirs of Harden- 
 berg,* show what Napoleon, and his conduct, and 
 policy were from the point of view of the leading 
 men of Austria and Prussia ; and are of special value 
 as regards the later part of the Emperor's reign. 
 The Memoirs of Talleyrand occasionally display 
 the malevolence of a conspirator and a renegade, 
 but they abound in precious information, and they 
 throw a flood of light on the negotiations and the 
 intrigues of the Congress of Vienna. The letters 
 and despatches of Castlereagh, many of the de- 
 spatches of Wellington, letters and papers of Fox, 
 of Lord Wellesley, of Canning, and of other British 
 statesmen of the day, and the speeches of eminent 
 public men in Parliament, from 1800 to 181 5, show 
 what the rulers of England, and the nation itself, 
 thought of their mighty and most formidable enemy. 
 From what may be called the French side, beside 
 
 ♦Included in Ranke's life. The M/moins d'un Homme d' ^tat, 
 ascribed to Hardenberg are apocryphal. 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 the writings of Napoleon, many articles and passages 
 in the Moniteur are important, and the works of 
 Bignon and Thibeaudeau are of much value. 
 
 Of regular histories, I would name three as deserv- 
 ing the attention of the general reader. The great 
 work of Thiers on The Consulate and the Empire 
 has been written from an almost wholly French 
 point of view, and with a strong National and Im- 
 perialist bias ; but it is a fine monument to Napo- 
 leon, and his deeds ; and it is a vast mine of in- 
 formation collected with assiduous research and 
 industry. The History of Alison, though com- 
 posed on High Tory principles, is, nevertheless, a 
 candid and impartial narrative, and if deficient in 
 artistic skill and arrangement, is a most useful reper- 
 tory of accumulated facts. The book of Lanfrey is 
 only a fragment ; but it is very clever and should be 
 perused ; the author, who may be described as a 
 Tacitus, without the great Roman's power, is the 
 only libeller of Napoleon who has tried to rise to the 
 level of history. Innumerable other histories and 
 memoirs might be cited ; and the short sketch of the 
 late Mr. Fyffe is of real merit for what may be 
 characterised as the politics of the time. Of the 
 detractors of Napoleon little need be said ; the 
 ablest, perhaps, of these is M. Taine, and he de- 
 serves the name of the minute philosopher of 
 calumny. But history has a simple answer to all 
 these slanderers ; Napoleon could never have risen 
 to the heights he reached, could never have done 
 the work he did, could never have acquired his pro- 
 
Preface. vii 
 
 digious authority and influence, had he been a 
 monster of selfishness, of meanness, of lust, of 
 wickedness. 
 
 The wars of this period were of unparalleled 
 grandeur, and have been illustrated by many able 
 and distinguished men. A diligent student will read 
 over and over again the writings of Napoleon on his 
 art, the admirable works of the Archduke Charles, 
 and the despatches of Wellington. Clausewitz and 
 Jomini are the best historians and critics of the mili- 
 tary events of this epoch in general, and Napier has 
 made the Peninsular War his own. A crowd of 
 writers, besides, have described, with more or less 
 excellence, different campaigns of this eventful time ; 
 and the memoirs of eminent soldiers, especially of 
 well-known French generals, are most abundant. 
 Very valuable descriptions of the French army, as it 
 was formed and commanded by Napoleon, will be 
 found in the Souvenirs of the Due de Fezensac, and 
 of M. de Gonneville, and above all, in the brilliant 
 and trustworthy Memoirs of General Marbot, lately 
 published. An admirable analysis of some of Na- 
 poleon's campaigns has been made by General 
 Hamley in his masterly work. The Operatiotis of 
 War. 
 
 After these sheets had been corrected for the 
 press, I have had an opportunity of reading the 
 second part of Captain Mahan's admirable work on 
 Sea Power. I have made no changes in my text ; 
 but it is gratifying to me to find that my views as 
 regards Napoleon's project of a descent on England, 
 
vni 
 
 Preface. 
 
 and the operations that ended at Trafalgar, and as 
 regards the Continental System, coincide with those 
 of a writer, who is not only the first living authority 
 on naval warfare, but possesses remarkable political 
 insight. 
 
 William O'Connor Morris. 
 
 December 20, 1892. 
 
ADDENDA and CORRIGENDA. 
 
 6i, 
 62, 
 
 95. 
 102, 
 
 130. 
 156, 
 
 160, 
 160, 
 172, 
 
 172, 
 
 200, 
 
 288, 
 296, 
 
 315, 
 407, 
 
 line 2 — before " Levant," insert " the." 
 
 " 10 — for " for,'' read "of." 
 
 " 8 — for "Alexandria," read "Alessandria." 
 
 " 17 — dele " great. 
 
 6 from bottom — dele "leading." 
 
 " 12 from bottom — for " in the storms of winter, and to 
 press," read "and after making a descent on 
 Ireland was to press," etc. 
 
 " lo — in place of " just," read " soon after." 
 
 " 8 from bottom— in place of " nth," read " 13th." 
 
 '• 5 — in place of " four sail-of-the-line," read "several 
 warships." 
 
 " 6 — after "in order," insert "not only to obtain sup- 
 plies, but perhaps to lure," etc. 
 
 " 18 — after "trade with them," insert "except upon 
 conditions imposed by herself." 
 
 " 8 — in place of "was," read "were." 
 
 " 2 — in place of "his," read "its." 
 
 " 13 — in place of "at," read "on." 
 
 " 12 from bottom — dele " across." 
 
 atiacK 01 Aivinzi — uanie 01 iMvon — ran 01 mannia — 
 Affairs of Italy — Treaty of Tolentino — Napoleon invades 
 the Austrian states — Passage of the Tagliamento — Prelimi- 
 naries of Leoben — Negotiations — The i8th Fructidor — 
 Treaty of Campo Formio — Fall of Venice — Napoleon returns 
 to France — His conduct and policy in Italy . . 25-55 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Birth and parentage of Napoleon — Early associations — Paoli — 
 The military schools of Brienne and Paris — Youthful studies 
 — He enters the artillery — His first writings — He declares 
 for the Revolution — Tries to obtain the command of the 
 National Guard in Corsica — Expelled from the army — Sees 
 the 20th of June and the loth of August — Is restored to his 
 place in the army — Quarrel with Paoli — Is exiled from 
 Corsica with his family — At the siege of Toulon — With 
 the army of Italy in 1794 — Denounced as a friend of Robes- 
 pierre — Struck off the list of general officers — The 
 revolt of the Sections — 13th Vende'miaire — Marries Jose- 
 phine Beauharnais — Made commander of the army of 
 Italy . 1-24 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Invasion of Piedmont — Armistice — Invasion of Lombardy — 
 Napoleon at Milan — Passage of the Mincio — Siege of 
 Mantua — Napoleon in Central Italy — Attack of Wlirmser — 
 Battles of Castiglione and Bassano — Complete defeat of 
 Wilrmser — Attack of Alvinzi — Battle of Areola — Second 
 attack of Alvinzi — Battle of Rivoli — Fall of Mantua — 
 Affairs of Italy — Treaty of Tolentino — Napoleon invades 
 the Austrian states — Passage of the Tagliamento — Prelimi- 
 naries of Leoben — Negotiations — The i8th Fmctidor — 
 Treaty of Campo Formio — Fall of Venice — Napoleon returns 
 to France — His conduct and policy in Italy . 25-55 
 
X Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Napoleon is appointed to the command of the " Army of Eng- 
 land " — The project of a descent abandoned — The expedi- 
 tion to Egypt — Battle of the Pyramids — Battle of the Nile 
 — Occupation of Egypt by the French — Coalition against 
 France — Reverses of the French armies in Italy and Swabia 
 — Foreign policy of the French Directory — Their domestic 
 policy — Their decline and unpopularity — Invasion of Syria 
 by the French — Siege of Acre — Napoleon returns to France 
 — Battle of Zurich — Combination of all parties to place him 
 in power — The i8th Brumaire — Napoleon's conduct on this 
 occasion ... . . . 56-77 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Provisional Government of France after the i8th Brumaire 
 — The Constitution of the year VIII. — Its singular char- 
 acteristics — Napoleon First Consul and the real ruler of 
 France — Financial reforms — The pacification of La Vendee 
 — Wise and merciful policy to imigres and priests — Resto- 
 ration of internal order — Preparations for the campaign of 
 1800 — Napoleon crosses the Alps — Battle of Marengo — 
 Great results — Renewal of the war after an armistice — Battle 
 of Hohenlinden — Prostration of Austria and peace of Lune- 
 ville — Struggle with England — The Armed League of the 
 North — Evacuation of Egypt — Peace of Amiens — Paris in 
 1802 — Monarchical tendencies of Napoleon' governments, 78-105 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Re-organisation of society in France by Napoleon — Administra- 
 tive and judicial reforms — The Code — Education — The 
 Legion of Honour — The Concordat — Opposition — The 
 Tribunate reduced — Foreign affairs — Amnesty of the ^migris 
 — The Italian Republic — Napoleon its president — Italy kept 
 dependent — Annexation of Piedmont — Settlement of Ger- 
 many ; of Switzerland — Napoleon made First Consul for 
 life — Rupture of the Peace of Amiens — War with England — 
 Reflections on Napoleon's policy . . 106-134 
 
Contents. xi 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Character of the war between England and France — Vast prep- 
 arations of Napoleon for invading England — The flotilla 
 — The camp of Boulogne — Conspiracy of George Cadou- 
 dal — Execution of the Due d'Enghien — Effects of this 
 deed in Europe — Movement in France to make the power 
 of the First Consul hereditary — Establishment of the 
 Empire — Its civil and military functionaries — Coronation of 
 Napoleon — His projects to cover the flotilla by a fleet in 
 the Channel — Cruise of Villeneuve — Coalition formed 
 against Napoleon — He marches from Boulogne to attack 
 Austria — Reflections .... . . i35-l65 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 March of Napoleon into Germany — Military projects of the 
 Coalition — Advance of the French to the Danube — Capitu- 
 lation of Ulm — Battle of Trafalgar — March of Napoleon 
 on Vienna — Secondary operations in Italy and in the Tyrol 
 — Napoleon advances into Moravia — Difficulty and dangers 
 of his position — Prussia secretly joins the Allies — Battle of 
 Austerlitz and complete victory of the French — Peace of 
 Presburg — The Confederation of the Rhine — Fall of the 
 German Empire — Reflections . • . . • i56-l88 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Death of Pitt — Prospects of peace between France and Eng- 
 land — Negotiations broken off — Renewal of war on the 
 Continent— Conduct of Prussia and of Napoleon— Excite- 
 ment at Berlin — Advance of the Grand Army from the Main 
 to the Saale — Battles of Jena and Auerstadt, and overthrow 
 of the Prussian army and monarchy— Capitulation of for- 
 tresses — Napoleon inaugurates the Continental System — 
 The Berlin Decree and the Orders in Council — The Grand 
 Army marches into Poland — Policy of Napoleon to the 
 Poles— Precautions taken by Napoleon to secure his army — 
 Winter campaign on the Narew— Battle of Pultusk — Na- 
 poleon's system of war comparatively fails — March of the 
 Russian army towards the Alia — Pursuit of Napoleon— 
 
xii Contents. 
 
 Battle of Eylau — Napoleon at Osterode and Finkenstein — 
 Extraordinary efforts made to strengthen and increase the 
 Grand Army — Battle of Friedland — Complete victory of 
 the French — Napoleon and the Czar on the Niemen — 
 Peace of Tilsit — Reflections on Napoleon's policy . 189-219 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Efforts made by Napoleon to enforce the Continental System — 
 Bombardment of Copenhagen — Invasion of Portugal and 
 flight of the Royal Family — ^Designs of Napoleon against 
 Spain — State of Spain — Rising at Aranjuez — Napoleon ob- 
 tains from the Spanish Bourbons a renunciation of their 
 rights to the Crown — Joseph Bonaparte proclaimed King 
 of Spain — General rising of the nation — The capitulation 
 of Baylen, and the battle of Vimiero — Napoleon invades 
 Spain in person — Retreat of Moore and battle of Corunna 
 — State of Europe — War with Austria — Battles of Abensberg 
 and Eckmlihl — Napoleon marches to Vienna — His attempt 
 to cross the Danube — Battles of Aspern and Essling — 
 Immense efforts made by Napoleon — Battle of Wagram 
 — Peace of Vienna — Reflections . . . 220-249 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Divorce of Josephine — Napoleon marries Marie Louise — Ex- 
 cesses of the Continental System — Quarrel of Napoleon with 
 the Pope — The Council — Progress of the war in Spain — 
 Campaign of Massena in Portugal — Battle of Busaco — The 
 Lines of Torres Vedras — Retreat of Massena — Great ability 
 shown by Wellington — Battle of Fuentes de Onoro — The 
 Empire in 1810-1811 — Its apparent grandeur and real insta- 
 bility — Birth of the King of Rome — Disputes with Russia — 
 Immense preparations for war made by Napoleon — His 
 reception in Dresden — Passage of the Niemen — The advance 
 to Smolensk — -Battle of Borodino — Napoleon enters Moscow 
 — The retreat from Moscow — Passage of the Beresina — 
 Horrors of the retreat — Ruin of the Grand Army — 
 Reflections 250-288 
 
Contents. xiii 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Return of Napoleon from Russia — The conspiracy of Malet — 
 Immense exertions of Napoleon to restore his armies — De- 
 fection of York — Rising of Germany against France — Efforts 
 made by France to retain her military supremacy — Battles of 
 LUtzen and Bautzen — Policy of Austria — Mettemich — 
 The Armistice of Pleisnitz — The Peninsular War — Battle 
 of Vitoria — Its importance — Negotiations between the 
 Allies and Napoleon — His military preparations and those of 
 the Allies — Renewal of hostilities — Strategy of the Allies — 
 Battle of Dresden — Battle of Culm — Battles of the Katzbach, 
 Gross Beeren, and Dennewitz — Napoleon draws in his forces, 
 and places them on the Elbe — He advances against BlUcher 
 and Bernadotte — Defection of Bavaria — Napoleon compelled 
 to march on Leipzig — Battle of Leipzig — Disastrous retreat 
 of the French — Battle of Hanau — Reflections . . 289-322 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Preparations made by Napoleon to resist the invasion of France 
 by Europe — Proposals of peace made by the Allies — Their 
 armies cross the Rhine and enter France — The apparently 
 hopeless position of Napoleon — Battle of La Rothi^re — The 
 allied armies separate and advance towards Paris along the 
 Marne and the Seine — Battles of Champaubert, Montrairail, 
 Vauchamps, Nangis, and Montereau — Defeat of the Allies 
 — Conferences at Chatillon — New proposals of the Allies 
 — Renewed operations on the Marne and the Seine — Battles 
 of Craonne, Laon, and Arcis on the Aube — Defeat of Napo- 
 leon — He moves his army eastwards — The Allies march to 
 Paris — Negotiations ending in the abdication of Napoleon 
 — State of opinion in France — Napoleon takes his departure 
 for Elba — Reflections on the events of 1814 . . 323-355 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 End of the war — Growing dislike to the Bourbons in France — 
 The Congress of Vienna— Policy of Talleyrand— Discontent 
 in France — Napoleon at Elba — His escape — His landing in 
 
xiv Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 France — Defection of the army and of Nay from the Bour- 
 bons — The Coalition denounces Napoleon as a public enemy 
 — His preparations for war — State of opinion in France — 
 The Hundred Days — The new Constitution — The Champ de 
 Mai — Battles of Ligny, Quatre Bras, and Waterloo — Defeat 
 of Napoleon — His second abdication — He embarks on the 
 Bellerophoii and is sent to St. Helena — Reflections . 356-393 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Policy and conduct of the Allies after Waterloo — Napoleon at 
 St. Helena — The indignities he suffered — Sir Hudson Lowe 
 — Napoleon's writings — The last years of his captivity — His 
 fatal illness and death— His will — His remains are moved 
 ultimately to France — Reflections on his career as a 
 warrior, a ruler, and in private life — Conclusion . . 394-418 
 
 INDEX .......... 423-433 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 *BONAPARTE. FROM THE PAINTING BY APPIANI. 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 MAP OF FRANCE IN 1793 .... I 
 
 LETIZIA RAMOLINO BONAPARTE, " MADAME MfeRE." 
 
 FROM THE PAINTING BY GERARD . . 2 
 
 BONAPARTE. FROM THE PAINTING BY J. GU^RIN . lO 
 
 THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. FROM THE PAINTING BY 
 
 GERARD IN THE GALLERY AT VERSAILLES . 22 
 
 NAPOLEON AT ARCOLA. FROM THE PAINTING BY 
 
 GROS 38 
 
 NAPOLEON AT THE PYRAMIDS. FROM THE PAINTING 
 
 BY GROS IN THE GALLERY AT VERSAILLES 60 
 
 MAP OF CENTRAL EUROPE — 1801 . . -76 
 
 INSTALLATION OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE AT THE 
 PETIT LUXEMBOURG. FROM THE PAINTING BY 
 COUDER . . .... 80 
 
 MAP OF NORTHERN ITALY ILLUSTRATING CAM- 
 PAIGNS OF 1796-1802 92 
 
 NAPOLEON CROSSING THE ALPS. FROM THE PAINT- 
 ING BY PAUL DELAROCHE . 94 
 
 MAP OF CENTRAL GERMANY — 180O . 98 
 
 * From Scribner's Monthly by permission of the publishers. 
 
xvi lUustrations. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FROM A PENCIL SKETCH BY ISABEY . Io6 
 FROM AN OLD ENGRAVING OF A 
 PICTURE BY BOUILLON . . . 138 
 
 FROM A PEN-AND-INK SKETCH BY 
 GROS . . 166 
 
 FORMATION OF THE LINES OF BATTLE AT AUSTER- 
 
 LITZ 180 
 
 BATTLE OF AUSTERLITZ. REPRODUCED FROM THE 
 PAINTING BY GERARD IN THE GALLERY AT 
 VERSAILLES 182 
 
 MEETING OF NAPOLEON AND THE EMPEROR FRANCIS 
 II. AFTER THE BATTLE OF AUSTERLITZ. FROM 
 THE PAINTING BY GROS IN THE GALLERY AT 
 VERSAILLES 186 
 
 NAPOLEON AT JENA. FROM THE PAINTING BY 
 HORACE VERNET IN THE GALLERY AT VER- 
 SAILLES . . . . . . 194 
 
 NAPOLEON RECEIVING THE QUEEN OF PRUSSIA AT 
 TILSIT, JULY 6, 1807. FROM THE PAINTING 
 BY GOSSE NOW IN PALACE OF VERSAILLES . 2 14 
 
 MAP OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 1800 . . . 224 
 
 NAPOLEON AT WAGRAM. FROM THE PAINTING BY 
 
 VERNET IN THE GALLERY AT VERSAILLES . 246 
 
 MAP OF EUROPE IN l8l2, SHOWING FRENCH BOUN- 
 DARIES 262 
 
 MAP OF NORTHERN RUSSIA IN EUROPE 181O 
 
 NAPOLEON IN 1814-15. FROM THE PAINTING BY 
 PAUL DELAROCHE 
 
 FORMATION OF THE LINES OF BATTLE AT WATERLOO, 382 
 
 DISTRICT MAP FOR THE CAMPAIGN OF WATERLOO . 384 
 
 WELLINGTON. FROM SIBORNE's " HISTORY OF THE 
 WATERLOO CAMPAIGN " . 
 
 274 
 
 392 
 
 * From Scribner's Monthly by permission of the publishers. 
 
Elustrations. 
 
 xvu 
 
 THE TOMB OF NAPOLEON ON THE ISLAND OF ST. 
 
 HELENA. REDRAWN FROM AN OLD PRINT . 402 
 
 THE DYING NAPOLEON. BY VELA, AN ITALIAN 
 SCULPTOR. EXHIBITED AT THE PARIS 1878 
 EXHIBITION, AND SUBSEQUENTLY PURCHASED 
 BY THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT AND REMOVED 
 TO PALACE OF VERSAILLES .... 404 
 
 FACSIMILES OF NAPOLEOn'S SIGNATURES. FROM 
 
 THE " NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW " . . 419-2I 
 
yJN 
 
 FRANCE IN 1793. 
 
NAPOLEON. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Birth and parentage of Napoleon — Early associations — Paoli — The 
 military schools of Brienne and Paris — Youthful studies — He 
 enters the artillery — His first writings — He declares for the 
 Revolution — Tries to obtain the command of the National Guard 
 in Corsica — Expelled from the army — Sees the 20th of June and 
 the loth of August — Is restored to his place in the army — Quarrel 
 with Paoli — Is exiled from Corsica with his family — At the 
 siege of Toulon — With the army of Italy in 1794 — Denounced as 
 a friend of Robespierre — Struck off the list of general officers — 
 The revolt of the Sections — 13th Vendemaire — Marries Josephine 
 Beauharnais — Made commander of the army of Italy. 
 
 HE 15th of August, 1769, is 
 probably* the date of the 
 birth of Napoleon. The fam- 
 ily of the future lord of the 
 Continent belonged to the 
 noblesse o f Florence, but 
 owing to the dissensions of 
 the great Tuscan city, it had 
 emigrated to Corsica in the 
 sixteenth century. The Bona- 
 partes— a name that has filled the world, has long 
 
 * The evidence that this is the true date seems greatly to prepon- 
 derate. Colonel Jung, in his work, Bonaparte et son Temps, tome i., 
 
 I 
 
Napoleon. [1769- 
 
 ago effaced the more correct Buonaparte^settled 
 at Ajaccio, the chief town of the island ; and though 
 they kept up their ties with their Italian kinsmen, 
 and were confirmed in their rank by a Grand Duke 
 of Tuscany, they never emerged from the obscure 
 position of petty lords of a few peasant vassals, 
 or notables of a little provincial capital. Their 
 fortunes declined in the eighteenth century, and 
 Charles Bonaparte, born in 1746, though as head 
 of the house he had some social influence, began 
 life as an impoverished lawyer. The needy gentle- 
 man, while still in his teens, made a love match 
 with a girl of no birth, but, though almost a 
 child, of precocious beauty. Napoleon was the 
 second son of this marriage ; of thirteen children 
 only eight grew up ; and the Charlemagne of the 
 nineteenth century, among other marvels of his 
 famous career, raised his whole family to the rank of 
 princes, and placed three of his brothers on kingly 
 thrones. The faculties through which he attained a 
 height never attained before in the modern world, 
 seem in no sense to have been due to his father, a 
 man devoid of eminent parts, with a certain turn for 
 letters, indeed, and perhaps for Italian craft and 
 suppleness, but indolent, and without strength of 
 mind or of character. But his mother, Letizia 
 Ramolino, had many gifts, — intelligence of a high 
 order, intense energy of will, and firmness of pur- 
 pose, combined with penetration and keenness of 
 
 39, 52, has urged all that can be alleged for the earlier date, 7th 
 January, 1768. The point is not of much importance, except in so 
 far as it suggests a charge of fraud against Napoleon's parents. 
 
LETIZIA RAMOLINO BONAPARTE, MADAME MERE.' 
 FROM THE PAINTING B< of^ARD. 
 
1796] Youth and Early Manhood. 3 
 
 thought, — and these were marked qualities of her 
 renowned offspring. Napoleon always treated her 
 with affection and respect, gave her a foremost place 
 in the imperial family, repeatedly sought her judi- 
 cious advice, and consulted her at the most trying 
 crisis of his life, when he was planning his extraordi- 
 nary escape from Elba. 
 
 Napoleon in childhood witnessed events which 
 made a profound impression on him, and may in 
 some measure have shaped his character. Corsica 
 had been at war with Genoa for forty years, but the 
 islanders had made an heroic resistance, and they 
 had gained independence in all but name,. under the 
 inspiration of a great ruler, Paoli. France, however, 
 by a combination of force and fraud, had invaded 
 and ultimately subdued the country ; but a guerilla 
 struggle continued for a time, and it was only put 
 down by extreme severity. The parents of Napo- 
 leon, who, at first, seem to have been zealous in the 
 patriotic cause, ere long adopted the conquering 
 side, and it is a tradition, at least, that before he had 
 reached his teens Napoleon described their conduct 
 as a " base desertion." Be this as it may, the scenes 
 he beheld were never forgotten, and probably had 
 an influence on his nature when it was most ductile. 
 " I was born," he wrote to Paoli in his twentieth 
 year, " when our country was perishing ; the cries 
 of the dying, the groans of the oppressed, the 
 tears of despair were around my cradle from my 
 birth ; " and these memories made him intensely 
 Corsican, and inspired him with a dislike of all that 
 was French, until he had reached the verge of man- 
 
4 Napoleon. [1769- 
 
 hood. Yet they seem to have left even deeper 
 traces, and these may have made a mark on his sub- 
 sequent career. The French conquest of Corsica was 
 a triumph of organised power and guile, and if the 
 conquered kicked against the pricks their opposition 
 soon proved futile. The contest, too, shorthved as 
 it was, was marked by cruelties on both sides, and 
 the cause of patriotism was stained with deeds 
 of blood, and was disgraced by savage excesses at 
 once barbarous, foolish, and useless. And behind 
 this outburst of passions let loose lay the prosperous 
 era of the rule of Paoli, a warrior of no ordinary 
 powers, and a legislator and administrator of real 
 genius. These experiences cannot have been lost 
 on the great military despot who was to be, on the 
 abettor and author of coups d'etat, on the inveterate 
 foe of popular licence, and even of every popular 
 movement, and, finally, on the chief who made 
 France supreme in arms and obedient at home, who 
 raised her out of defeat and anarchy, and who gave 
 her the Concordat and the Code. 
 
 The domestic anecdotes of Napoleon's childhood 
 are not numerous or of special interest. He seems 
 to have been froward, passionate and yet self-con- 
 tained ; and he did not give proof of precocious 
 talent. Through the interest of a French Corsican 
 viceroy— his parents had paid him obsequious court 
 — the lad was entered, when ten years old, as a cadet 
 at the military school of Brienne, a well-known 
 foundation of the Bourbon kings, originally designed 
 to train sons of the poorer noblesse for the profession 
 of arms. Napoleon was at this seminary from 1779 
 
1796] Youth and Early Manhood. 5 
 
 to 1784, and we begin to see what he was at the 
 time, through reminiscences of genuine value. The 
 boy in appearance was a foreigner ; he spoke French 
 badly, and with a strange accent ; he belonged to a 
 conquered and despised race ; and the sons of the 
 wealthy classes had given their tone to an institution 
 changed from its purpose. No wonder then that 
 the uncouth Corsican, with scarcely a livre he could 
 call his own, became a butt for school jokes and 
 tricks ; and the dislike of his fellows was doubtless 
 increased by the contempt he showed for French 
 tastes and habits, and by his Corsican ways and 
 sympathies. One who remembered Napoleon in 
 these years has described him as a morose Timon ; 
 and Bourrienne, apparently true to fact in this, has 
 told us that he was cold and reticent, even to the 
 few lads whom he made his companions. 
 
 Yet the characteristics of future eminence are 
 visible, even at this period of checked development 
 and repressed tendencies. The keen and powerful 
 intellect of the boy delighted in trains of exact 
 reasoning ; as a mathematician he was easily su- 
 preme. He studied history, too, with assiduous care ; 
 and his love of Plutarch's Lives and of Caesar's 
 Commentaries, of the heroic in action, and of great 
 deeds of arms, foreshadowed the career of the com- 
 ing warrior. He was not an adept in Greek and 
 Latin ; but this, Bourrienne says, was the fault of 
 his teachers; about this time he began to acquire 
 that mastery over the French tongue which made 
 him one of its best exponents, though he was 
 never versed in its Parisian subtleties. On the 
 
Napoleon. [1769- 
 
 whole his intellectual promise was great ; his powers 
 were made effective by intense industry, by an 
 application that never flagged, and especially by 
 his grasp of facts in detail. As to the moral side of 
 Napoleon's character, it was thus set forth in an 
 unfavourable report : he was " taciturn, fond of soli- 
 tude, capricious, haughty, extremely disposed to 
 egotism, seldom speaking, energetic in his answers, 
 ready and sharp in repartee, full of self-love, am- 
 bitious, and of unbounded aspirations." Allowing 
 for the gloom of an unhappy life, this picture faith- 
 fully represents features of the imperial figure that 
 appears in history. 
 
 Napoleon passed from Brienne to the military 
 school of Paris, another institution of the Bourbon 
 monarchy. He was only a year at this place of 
 instruction, where he seems, as had been the case at 
 Brienne, to have kept aloof from his comrades and 
 masters. One anecdote of these days may be 
 noticed. The school was filled with sons of the 
 noblesse ; and the silent Corsican youth addressed a 
 memorial, remarkable for its good sense and bold- 
 ness, to the heads of the house, pointing out the 
 evils of luxury in an apprenticeship for the life of 
 camps. In 1785 Napoleon was made a sub-lieutenant 
 of artillery in the regiment of La Ffere ; he spent 
 the greater part of the next five years at different 
 military stations in France. 
 
 The change which marks the approach of man- 
 hood may not have deeply affected his character, 
 but it developed quickly and strongly his nascent 
 genius. He became thoroughly versed in the 
 
1796] Youth and Early Manhood. 7 
 
 science of his arm, as notable examples were soon to 
 prove ; and he would have been the first of artillery 
 chiefs, if his powers had not found an ampler scope 
 and he had not been the greatest of the masters of 
 war. His intellect, however, was not confined by 
 the narrow bounds of professional duties ; he studied 
 military history with intense earnestness ; became 
 one of the most learned of soldiers ; and especially 
 pored for laborious hours over military maps and 
 plans of fortresses, tasks that gave token of the 
 great coming strategist. Nor were these the limits 
 of that eager industry ; he devoured treatises on 
 law, philosophy, theology, and the art of govern- 
 ment. Innumerable extracts and notes from his pen 
 on these subjects remain unpublished ; and it is im- 
 possible to doubt that, in Napoleon's case, the man 
 of deep thought and of fruitful knowledge prepared 
 the way for the man of action, and for the ruler who 
 made the France of the Consulate. 
 
 He dabbled in authorship, too, in those days; but 
 these first essays do not reveal genius, and are re- 
 markable only as showing the influence of association 
 and reigning opinion, even on a mind of the highest 
 order. By this time his father had died ; but his 
 mother, surrounded by a young family, which, as it 
 grew up, he seems to have loved, was the revered 
 head of his Corsican home ; he was often in the 
 island on leave of absence ; and tradition still points 
 out a secluded spot where Napoleon, yet full of Cor- 
 sican sympathies, composed a history, in youth, of 
 Corsica. The book was dedicated to the Abbd 
 Raynal, a brilliant specimen of the philosophes of the 
 
8 Napoleon. [1769- 
 
 age ; but all that is remarkable in it is a tone of 
 impatience, of ambition, and of scorn of mankind, 
 and a real sense of the wrongs of Corsica. A second 
 performance is more curious ; the Academy of 
 Lyons offered a prize for the best essay on the 
 " means of making man happy " ; and Napoleon 
 competed for this distinction. Rousseau had long 
 been the master of French thought ; the composition 
 of the great future despot abounds in the spurious 
 liberalism, in the trashy sentiment, in the " ideology," 
 in a word, which were singled out by him for scoffs 
 and contempt, when he had risen to power. The 
 essay, written doubtless against the grain, was 
 marked by the judge as " bad and feeble." The 
 Emperor took care to destroy his manuscript, but a 
 copy that survives proves how genius, when false to 
 itself, can be in eclipse. 
 
 The crisis of Europe, which was to give birth to a 
 career of marvels, ere long appeared. Napoleon 
 certainly felt sincere reverence for the grandeur and 
 power of the Bourbon kings ; he had many of the 
 instincts of the old regime ; and he did not regard 
 the institutions of France with the aversion general 
 in 1789. He was strict, too, in his ideas of disci- 
 pline ; his profession had increased the strong 
 love of order and authority which was a gift of 
 nature. But he was a needy youth, consumed by 
 ambition ; in the divisions which had distracted the 
 army for years he had usually taken the side of the 
 soldier, though he stood well with his brother- 
 ofificers, already impressed with a sense of his 
 power ; and he declared boldly for the Revolution, 
 
1796] Youth and Early Manhood. 9 
 
 and for the National Assembly when it began its 
 work. 
 
 Events in Corsica brought out for the first time, 
 and on a small scale, some qualities of the future 
 man of action. The island, though still a French 
 dependency, had received a kind of local liberty, in 
 harmony with the ideas of 1789; its old champion, 
 Paoli, had been replaced in power, and his influence 
 was for the time supreme. Napoleon hastened to 
 see the aged patriot ; so fascinated him that he 
 vowed his young friend was cast in the mould of 
 Plutarch's heroes ; and launched an angry invective 
 against a deputy, at this moment sitting at Versailles, 
 as a representative of the noblesse of Corsica, who 
 years before, had betrayed his country to the ambi- 
 tious minister of Louis XV. The " Letter to Butta- 
 fuoco," though disfigured by the declamation and 
 rant of the day, has, nevertheless, a true ring of 
 passion ; and when it was written there can be little 
 doubt that Napoleon was still at heart a Corsican. 
 The next step of the aspiring soldier was to try^ to 
 obtain the command of the National Guard, which 
 was being organised in his native town, as in all 
 parts of the dominions of France ; and he addressed 
 himself to the task with untiring energy, and with 
 admirable adroitness and persuasive skill. A sin- 
 gular incident now occurred ; a French commissioner, 
 whose assent was required to the election, inclined 
 to two other candidates, and Napoleon contrived to 
 arrest him quietly, but with many professions of 
 respect and honour. This, and an attempt which it 
 is said he made to enter Ajaccio and to seize the 
 
lO Napoleon. [1769- 
 
 citadel, has led to a belief that at this juncture 
 Napoleon was thinking of laying hands on Corsica, 
 and of violently shaking off the yoke of France ; 
 but this obviously is a far-fetched notion. Yet 
 the imprisonment of the commissioner sufificiently 
 proves that the future author of the i8th Brumaire 
 was capable of an audacious coup d'etat. 
 
 In this attempt to climb into power in Corsica, 
 Napoleon had exceeded his leave of absence, and 
 his name was struck off from the lists of the army. 
 He was some months in Paris in the spring of 1792, 
 poor, restless, and with no career before him ; 
 his thoughts turned for a moment to trade and 
 lodging-house keeping. The Revolution was now 
 passing into its phase of terror ; yet, forlorn and 
 hopeless as his position seemed, he never dreamed 
 of joining the chiefs of the Commune, or of reaching 
 fortune on a flood-tide of anarchy. He beheld the 
 ignominious scene of the 20th of June, when Louis 
 XVI. was made a puppet for the insolent glee of a 
 howling mob, and the darker tragedy of the loth of 
 August, when the Bourbon monarchy ignobly fell, 
 its palace sacked, and its defenders slaughtered ; 
 and on both occasions he spoke with contempt of 
 the weakness of the King, and of the cowardly cruelty 
 of a rabble that " should have been cut down with 
 grapeshot." 
 
 By this time Germany was marching into France ; 
 the Duke of Brunswick had stirred Paris to frenzy ; 
 a great majority of the officers of the royal army 
 had joined the ranks of the unpatriotic ^migrh 
 and a revolutionary government was taxed to the 
 

 
 
 
 
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1796] Youth and Early Manhood. 1 1 
 
 utmost to find means to resist the invaders. Napo- 
 leon regained his place as a soldier ; it may well be 
 that the youth of genius already perceived, in his 
 own words, that " a career for talent was being 
 opened," amidst the wreck of an old order of things, 
 and the beginnings of an era of war and confusion ; 
 but, be this as it may, he became thenceforward a 
 zealous supporter of French interests, and of all that 
 seemed to maintain the power of France, in her 
 struggle with monarchic and feudal Europe. 
 
 He took no part in the memorable campaign 
 which saw Valmy and ended at Jemmapes ; and his 
 first introduction to war was unfortunate. In 1793 
 a French squadron endeavoured to make a descent 
 on Sardinia. Napoleon was with the invading force, 
 but the expedition completely failed ; and the future 
 commander has vividly described the lawless Jaco- 
 binism of the crews of the ships and the undisciplined 
 licence of the troops on board. An event now 
 happened which marks another turn in the fortunes 
 of the still unknown soldier, and is supposed to 
 reveal a change in his sympathies, severely con- 
 demned by a certain class of writers. The Reign of 
 Terror was supreme in France ; a ferocious tyranny 
 had replaced anarchy ; and the blood-stained Com- 
 mittee of Public Safety, beset by civil war and by 
 foreign invasion, was wildly calling the whole nation 
 to arms, and was crushing down rebellion by the 
 most remorseless cruelties. The people of Corsica, 
 happily outside the fury of the revolutionary storm, 
 had no taste for this savage violence ; it condemned 
 ferocious edicts against nobles and priests, orders 
 
1 2 Napoleon. 11769- 
 
 found innocuous in its own experience ; it resented 
 the frightful excesses of Paris, and its discontent 
 exhibited itself in a strong movement against the 
 French government. The feelings of Paoli were all 
 on this side ; a breach widened between the chief 
 men of Corsica and the knot of Jacobins who ruled 
 in Paris ; and Paoli was summoned to appear at the 
 bar of the Convention and to account for his con- 
 duct, — an order equivalent to a sentence of death. 
 The islanders rallied round their hero ; there was 
 wild talk of a general rising ; and Paoli certainly 
 turned his eyes towards England and her victorious 
 fleets. Napoleon was at this time at Ajaccio ; in 
 the angry conflict which divided Corsica he pro- 
 nounced decidedly for the cause of France ; it has 
 been said that, for the second time, he attempted 
 to seize the forts of the capital. He had evidently 
 become a man of mark ; a general assembly cortvened 
 by Paoli condemned him as a traitor and a public 
 criminal ; and after a fierce outburst of popular 
 passion he was banished from Corsica with all 
 his family. 
 
 The tribe of detractors, which carps at greatness, 
 has seen nothing but the vilest selfishness in Napo- 
 leon's conduct at this crisis. The feelings that led 
 him to break with Paoli and to take what seemed 
 the unpatriotic side were probably of a mixed kind ; 
 and ambition, doubtless, was one of their elements. 
 But he was a soldier in the pay and service of 
 France ; he was bound to think of her rights and 
 interests ; and not impossibly he sincerely wished to 
 save Corsica from being made a battle-field for the 
 
1796] Youth and Early Manhood. 13 
 
 hostile forces of France and of England. Unques- 
 tionably he held the name and the deeds of Paoli in 
 reverence in after years ; and he did much for his 
 island birthplace when at those heights of fortune 
 which bewilder memory. Having seen to the safety 
 of his kindred at Marseilles he joined the Republican 
 levies which at this time were endeavouring to put 
 down with fire and sword the great Royalist and 
 Girondin rising of the South. He took part, it is 
 believed, in the siege of Lyons, and commanded the 
 artillery in the attack on Avignon ; but he has left 
 no record of these services, and all that we possess 
 of him at this conjuncture is a very curious pamphlet 
 from his pen, the last and the ablest of the produc- 
 tions of his youth. 
 
 The Supper of Beaucaire is a conversation, 
 imaginary, of course, between citizens of the towns 
 in revolt and a republican soldier ; it is the first 
 extant specimen of the clear insight, and of the close 
 logic which, with other qualities, distinguish Napo- 
 leon's writings on war. As was natural, too, at a 
 terrible time, when the minds of men were unloosed 
 from their moorings, when faith and principle were 
 forgotten names, and when brute force was the only 
 law, there is much of the doctrine that might is 
 right ; an argument which Napoleon presses home, 
 with an energy that would delight Carlyle. But the 
 most striking feature of the piece is this : the author 
 stands aloof from the factions which were tearing 
 France and social order to pieces ; he regards the 
 scenes before him with evident disgust. 
 
 The great military genius of the modern world 
 
14 Napoleon. tl769- 
 
 now suddenly shone out with conspicuous lustre. 
 Toulon had taken part in the insurrection against 
 the Jacobin government installed in Paris ; a garri- 
 son of the allies had entered the town, and an En- 
 glish and Spanish fleet held the adjoining roadsteads. 
 The Convention sent a considerable force to lay 
 siege to the rebel city, but the commanders were in- 
 capable men ; there were no heavy guns to reduce 
 the place ; and the French levies, scattered along 
 an external circle of deep valleys, hills, and ravines, 
 could not even approach the forts or the ramparts. 
 An accident seems to have caused Napoleon, then a 
 mere subordinate, to be near Toulon ; he was intro- 
 duced to Carteaux, the general in command, by the 
 Republican deputies on the spot ; and if his remi- 
 niscences are correct, he perceived, at a glance, the 
 true way to conduct the operations to a successful 
 issue. 
 
 Carteaux, a painter, who had taken to the work of 
 war, in the hurly-burly of an extraordinary time, 
 conscious happily of his own ignorance, abandoned 
 to the young artillery officer the direction of the 
 works of the siege. Napoleon managed to obtain 
 the ordnance that was required ; his energy and skill 
 were soon in the mouths of everyone, and the bat- 
 teries of the French, which had been impotent, 
 became numerous and formidable in the extreme. 
 On the 15th of October, 1793, a council of war was 
 held in the camp ; the war office had sent a plan 
 from Paris for carrying out a regular siege, but this 
 required an army of sixty thousand men, whereas 
 Carteaux had only twenty-five thousand, and there 
 
1796] Youth and Early Manhood. 15 
 
 was not material sufficient for a protracted effort. 
 Napoleon proposed a wholly different scheme ; a 
 double headland, he remarked, commanded the 
 roadsteads ; the allied fleets were the real defence of 
 Toulon ; and if the two points of vantage were once 
 occupied and crowned with batteries of sufficient 
 strength, the hostile squadrons would be forced to 
 make off, and the place and all its outworks would 
 fall of themselves. Putting his finger on a map, and 
 marking the selected spot, " there," he exclaimed, 
 " is the key of Toulon " ; and his hearers were so struck 
 with the evident truth of an inspiration of genius 
 in war, that they accepted, in part at least, the 
 project. 
 
 Weeks, however, elapsed before Napoleon was 
 enabled to carry out his brilliant conception. Car- 
 teaux was replaced in his command by Doppet, a 
 doctor who had been made a general on account of 
 his fierce Jacobin faith ; the operations were delayed 
 by his ignorance, and there was a want of skilful 
 engineering officers. The Allies, too, had perceived 
 that their ships could be reached by fire from the 
 adjoining shore ; and they constructed a fort of re- 
 markable strength, covering the very headlands 
 which were Napoleon's object. These difficulties, 
 however, were at last overcome ; Dugommier, a 
 veteran and real soldier, who succeeded Doppet, gave 
 Napoleon a free hand and valuable aid. The ascen- 
 dency of genius did the rest ; the obstacle of the fort 
 was at last mastered, partly by surprise, and in part 
 by force ; and sallies of the garrison were repulsed 
 with success by secondary efforts of the besieging 
 
1 6 Napoleon. L1769- 
 
 army. The results were then seen of the admirable 
 skill and resource of the young master of war. As 
 soon as the decisive point was seized, and guns 
 placed on the double promontory, the allied fleets 
 began to sheer off ; they carried away the retiring 
 garrison, and within forty-eight hours the Republican 
 army, astounded at its unexpected triumph, was 
 in complete possession of Toulon, amidst horrible 
 scenes of blood and confusion. 
 
 Napoleon was justly made a general of his arm, 
 for an exploit worthy of a great captain, and which, 
 like the egg of Columbus, shows how the common 
 eye can miss what capacity sees. He was employed, 
 during the next few months, in restoring the defences 
 of the coasts of Provenge, which had long been neg- 
 lected and in decay ; and he brought these into a 
 state of efficiency. Half-mad Jacobins denounced 
 him for constructing and arming a fort to protect 
 Marseilles and its harbour from the dreaded British 
 cruisers ; the " liberticide " " intended to erect a Bas- 
 tille " ; and he narrowly escaped the ban of the 
 jealous Convention. 
 
 His next mission was to what had been pompously 
 called the Army of Italy and the Alps, two ill- 
 connected masses, which, after the conquest of Savoy 
 and Nice in 1792, were confronted by a Sardinian 
 force covering the approaches to the plain lands of 
 Piedmont. He had become known as an eminent 
 soldier ; he had already subjugated more than one 
 of the companions-in-arms he was to raise to fame ; 
 and one of the deputies with the army, the younger 
 Robespierre, the brother of the blood-stained enthu- 
 
1796] Youth and Early Manhood. 17 
 
 siast at this moment the tyrant of France, seems to 
 have been " fascinated by his transcendant merit." 
 Napoleon planned the operations that followed, and 
 was their real director from first to last, though 
 Mass^na, the future chief of the Imperial Marshals, 
 virtually replacing Dumerbion, a worn-out veteran, 
 had nominally, perhaps, the supreme command. The 
 hostile army was in position, in two entrenched 
 camps of remarkable strength upon the spurs of the 
 French Alps trending towards the mouths of the 
 Roya and the Var, and it had been repeatedly at- 
 tacked in front in vain throughout the summer of 
 1793. Napoleon, holding the enemy on the spot in 
 check, turned the defences by a bold and rapid 
 march, made through the hills at a distance to the 
 right, and screened with the skill in stratagem in 
 which he excelled. The Sardinians, threatened in 
 the rear, abandoned the formidable line they had 
 held with success ; they lost Saorgio, an important 
 point ; and their columns disappeared through the 
 pass of Tende, yielding the seaboard to the victors 
 from Nice to Genoa. The result was brilliant, if not 
 decisive ; but it was to be the prelude of far greater 
 triumphs. The campaign of 1794 made Napoleon 
 acquainted with the theatre which was to become 
 the scene of his first efforts in an immortal contest ; 
 and it filled him with visions of glory at hand. He 
 tells us how, after this passage of arms, he gazed 
 from Tende over the plains below ; and, like Hanni- 
 bal, saw in Italy a land for a conqueror. 
 
 A dash into the plains near the Cadibona Pass 
 — the first stage of the campaign of 1796 — closed the 
 
1 8 Napoleon. [1769- 
 
 operations of 1794; and we see Napoleon next at 
 Toulon, preparing the fleet which, within a few 
 months, was defeated, even by the feeble Hotham. 
 During these years he had given his great powers to 
 the service of the Jacobin government ; for which 
 he has been absurdly vilified. He had no choice, as 
 a soldier, but to obey the powers that were supreme 
 in France ; and, much as he hated the Reign of 
 Terror, he seems to have been convinced that the 
 success of the Gironde would have been fatal to the 
 Revolution, and its cause,* which commanded his 
 zealous support and sympathy. In this, and other 
 instances, calumny takes care not to refer to the acts 
 of Napoleon ; these prove that he abhorred Jacobin- 
 ism and its revolting deeds ; he saved emigres and 
 brother officers from the emissaries of the Parisian 
 tyrants ; and, in fact, like every one of the great 
 warriors of France, he detested the Terrorists, and 
 their policy of blood. 
 
 As we have seen, however, he had been on terms 
 of intimacy with a brother of Robespierre ; and he 
 was involved in disgrace, and real danger, after the 
 fall of the head of the Jacobin leaders. He was 
 charged by Salicetti, a fellow-countryman, in mission 
 at the time with the army, who, as a friend of Paoli, 
 disliked Napoleon, with having conspired against 
 the State, as " the man and tool of the two Robes- 
 
 * This was the deliberate opinion of Napoleon writing many years 
 afterwards at St. Helena. " Le resultat est connu : les campagnes 
 de 1793 et de 1794 ont sauve la France de I'invasion e'trang^re. 
 Aurait on obtenu le meme resultat si la Gironde I'eut emporte, et que 
 la Montagne eut ete sacrifiee au 31 Mai ? Nous ne le pensons pas." 
 — Commentaries, tome i., 5. Ed. 1867. 
 
17961 Youth and Early Manhood. 19 
 
 pierres " ; and he was cited to Paris as a " suspected 
 person." Almost anything was possible in the fierce 
 reaction of Thermidor against the extreme Jaco- 
 bins ; but the accusation was not followed up ; and 
 the young general was set free, and even highly 
 praised. Yet the association with a Terrorist clung 
 to Napoleon ; and for some months he was under a 
 kind of proscription. A Girondin was at the war 
 office; the policy of the new government was to 
 separate the officers of the southern armies more 
 or less suspected of Jacobin sympathies ; and the 
 conqueror of Toulon was relegated to the humble 
 rank of general of a brigade of infantry in the army 
 of the West. After angry expostulation Napoleon 
 refused to accept a post he thought a dishonour ; 
 and, soon afterwards, his name was erased from the 
 roll of generals in active service. 
 
 His hopes of advancement now seemed gone ; the 
 growing ambition, which was to know no bounds, 
 had apparently received a fatal check ; for some 
 months he was again in extreme poverty, and in a 
 position almost desperate. He turned for a moment 
 his thoughts towards the East ; addressed a memo- 
 rial to the men in power proposing to reorganise the 
 armies of the Porte ; and perhaps was on the point 
 of departing from France, when, as in the similar 
 case of Cromwell, a change of fortune kept him on 
 the present scene. The army of Italy, since it had 
 lost his counsels, had not been on the whole suc- 
 cessful ; it seemed probable that it would be driven 
 back to the seaboard, though it gained a battle, ere 
 long, at Loano. A new minister of war was now in 
 
20 Napoleon. [1769- 
 
 office ; and Napoleon, whose powers seem to have 
 been well known, was selected by him to di^w up a 
 scheme for operations in Italy, in 1795-96. This 
 plan, admirable for its grand conceptions, and, show- 
 ing extraordinary knowledge of details, anticipates 
 one of its author's masterpieces, the memorable cam- 
 paign of 1796; and is a striking exhibition of Napo- 
 leon's genius.* It was characteristically pronounced 
 " insane " by the men of routine, to whom it was 
 sent. 
 
 Napoleon was soon to play a conspicuous part on 
 the great stage of affairs in Paris. The Convention, 
 assembled after the fall of the throne, had dragged 
 the Revolution through a sea of blood ; but it had 
 saved the State, and rolled back invasion ; and its 
 stormy career had come to an end. In the summer 
 of 1795, after the fashion of the age, it had framed a 
 new constitution for France ; and this, called the 
 " Constitution of the Year III.," had been accepted 
 by a large popular vote. But the self-denying ordi- 
 nance, which had been imposed by the National 
 Assembly on its own members, was supposed to 
 have caused all kinds of evils ; and it was carefully 
 provided, in the present scheme, that two-thirds of 
 the seats in the Convention should not be vacated in 
 the first instance, and for some time, and that one- 
 third only should be thrown open for election to the 
 future Legislative Body. The restriction was not 
 
 * The project deserves the careful study of every historical enquirer. 
 From a military and political view alike it is most remarkable. It 
 will be found in the NapoUon Correspondance, tome i., 64, 78. Ed, 
 1868. 
 
1796] Youth and Early Manhood. 21 
 
 opposed in the Provinces ; but it exasperated all 
 that was bold, or stirring, or ambitious, or eager 
 for change in Paris ; and a violent movement was 
 formed against the Directory, as the new govern- 
 ment was called. The agitation was strengthened 
 by friends of the Bourbons, by the remains of the 
 suppressed Gironde, and even by some of the men 
 of Thermidor ; there was a revolutionary appeal to 
 force ; the National Guards of Paris were brought 
 over ; and the forty-eight sections or wards of the 
 city were organised for an armed rising. The Direc- 
 tors seem to have been taken by surprise ; their first 
 measures were halting and weak ; and Menou, the 
 officer they placed in command of the few regular 
 troops on the spot, having allowed his men to be 
 hemmed in and surrounded, capitulated to a Section 
 which he had been ordered to disarm. This became 
 the signal for a widespread revolt ; the leaders of the 
 Sections called their men to arms ; a bloody revolu- 
 tion seemed imminent, and the government was on 
 the brink of a precipice. In this conjuncture the 
 name of Napoleon was mentioned by the affrighted 
 Directors as that of a soldier fit to cope with the 
 crisis, and he was made second in command of 
 the forces in Paris. The chief command was given 
 to Barras, a man of no capacity, but one who had 
 seen the Revolution in all its phases, and a member 
 of the existing government. 
 
 Napoleon paused before he took this command; but 
 we may disregard the sneers of detractors ; his hesita- 
 tion was not due to guile. We may accept his reason- 
 able account of his conduct ; opinion ran strongly 
 
22 Napoleon. [1769- 
 
 against the government ; the Sections contained the 
 flower of the citizens ; and victory, in such circum- 
 stances, after a fight in the streets, would be an 
 ominous and unhappy triumph. On the other hand, 
 the cause of the Convention was that of the Revo- 
 lution, its rights, and its interests, and the success 
 of the rising would probably lead to a counter-revo- 
 lution, and the subjugation of France. Barras left 
 everything to the young commander ; Napoleon's 
 arrangements were quietly made ; and they showed 
 characteristic energy and skill. He secured the only 
 artillery at hand, which had nearly fallen into the 
 power of the enemy ; he posted his little army, 
 about eight thousand strong, in the broad spaces 
 around the Louvre, commanding the approaches 
 and the course of the Seine, but with a way for re- 
 treat open ; and the danger was so pressing that he 
 gave arms to the Convention, and held the members 
 in reserve. The forces of the Sections, forty thou- 
 sand men, but ill-ordered, and without a single gun, 
 issued from the labyrinth of streets and alleys of the 
 adjoining region of old Paris ; and, after a delay of 
 some hours, the cumbrous masses began the attack. 
 The result was never for a moment doubtful ; the 
 assailants were dispersed by a " whiff of grapeshot," 
 to use the expressive words of Carlyle ; and the 
 soldiery, charging in every direction, drove the scat- 
 tered fugitives in rout before them. One feature 
 of the combat perhaps deserves notice : Napoleon 
 was implored to fire blank cartridge, in the hope that 
 this would dissolve the multitude ; but this, he re- 
 marked, would be false clemency, and the decisive 
 
THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE. 
 
 FROM THE PAINTING BV GERARD l\ THE GALLERY AT VERSAILLES. 
 
17961 Youth and Early Manhood. 23 
 
 effect of his shotted guns probably averted a bloody 
 and uncertain struggle. 
 
 The events of the 5th of October, 1795, known 
 to history as the 13th Vend^miaire, mark the begin- 
 ning of the rule of the sword in the progress of 
 revolution in France. Napoleon was eagerly thanked 
 by the government ; was appointed General of the 
 Interior, and spent some months in quenching the 
 ashes of the revolt, and in making the National 
 Guards of Paris safe. Another turn in his career 
 took place ; and this had a strong influence on his 
 life and fortunes. While still in his teens he had 
 attracted the notice of a fine lady of the old regime ; 
 and his concentrated nature had, for a time, ex- 
 panded under the spell of her sympathy. He had, 
 -also, had some fleeting attachments, and his letters 
 show that he was not superior to the dissipation 
 and amusements of youth, given free scope in an 
 age of licentiousness. He became intimate with 
 Josephine Beauharnais, the widow of a noble, who 
 had been a victim of the fatal axe during the Reign 
 of Terror, and the intimacy ripened into a deep-felt 
 passion. The life of Josephine had not been pure; 
 in after years she justly gave rise to the jealous 
 suspicions of an incensed husband ; but she was an 
 amiable, if a weak woman, and she loved Napoleon 
 with a genuine love, not unmingled with awe and 
 even terror. The pair were married in the spring of 
 1796, and the marriage brought splendid advance- 
 ment with it. Barras had been one of Josephine's 
 lovers — a debt, he felt, was due to Napoleon, and 
 the young general, through his powerful interest. 
 
24 Napoleon. [1769-96 
 
 was appointed to the command of the army of Italy. 
 Other causes may have perhaps concurred ; the 
 French army had done nothing since Loano, and 
 required a chief ; the plans of Napoleon for Italian 
 conquest were justly admired at the war office, and 
 possibly the Directors were not sorry to get rid of a 
 man of genius, whose presence at home they had 
 begun to fear. But the marriage was, perhaps, the 
 decisive reason, and a few words which dropped from 
 Napoleon, at this memorable point of his career, 
 show what was already his faith in himself, and what 
 he thought of the inferior men placed through his 
 boldness and skill in the seat of government. " Do 
 these people imagine," he had said to his intended 
 bride, " that I want their help to rise ? They will be 
 too glad, some day, to accept mine. My sword is 
 at my side, and I will go far with it," 
 
CHAPTER II- 
 
 Invasion of Piedmont — Armistice — Invasion of Lombardy — Na- 
 poleon at Milan — Passage of the Mincio — Siege of Mantua 
 — Napoleon in Central Italy — Attack of Wurmser — Battles of 
 Castiglione and Bassano — Complete defeat of WUrmser — At- 
 tack of Alvinzi — Battle of Areola — Second attack of Alvinzi — 
 Battle of Rivoli — Fall of Mantua — Affairs of Italy— Treaty of 
 Tolentino — Napoleon invades the Austrian states — Passage of 
 the Tagliamento — Preliminaries of Leoben — Negotiations — The 
 i8th Fructidor — Treaty of Campo Formio — Fall of Venice — 
 Napoleon returns to France — His conduct and policy in Italy. 
 
 APOLEON had reached his 
 headquarters at Nice, in the 
 last days of March, 1796. The 
 army, of which he had re- 
 ceived the command, was from 
 thirty-five to forty thousand 
 strong ; but it had suffered 
 terribly from the results of 
 several campaigns in the 
 French Alps. Its organi- 
 sation had been almost destroyed; its cavalry and 
 artillery were scanty and weak ; and it was in a state 
 of destitution, injurious in the extreme to military 
 order, discipline, and worth. But it was almost wholly 
 composed of veteran troops, accustomed to hard- 
 
 25 
 
26 Napoleon. [1796- 
 
 ships, versed in war, and fired with revolutionary 
 passions ; it was filled with young officers, thirsting 
 for renown, and not ignorant of the powers of their 
 chief ; and it was capable of heroic efforts when 
 formed and led by a great commander. Napoleon 
 devoted a few days to making arrangements to take 
 the field ; he displayed remarkable administrative 
 skill; and his eager soldiery were soon able to move. 
 The plan of his operations was, in part, military, in 
 part, as was sometimes the case with him, founded 
 on well-conceived political views ; it was marked 
 by characteristic genius and insight. His army held 
 the crest of the hills, where the Alps join the ex- 
 treme western Apennines, and was spread along 
 the neighbouring seaboard ; it commanded a pas- 
 sage into the plains of Piedmont, and was able to 
 march quickly along the coast towards Genoa. Op- 
 posed to it was an allied army of good Piedmontese 
 and Austrian troops, about sixty or sixty-five thou- 
 sand men ; but this was placed behind the northern 
 slopes of the range ; its distant parts could not 
 easily unite ; it rested on two divergent bases ; 
 its chiefs were divided by the old jealousies of the 
 sovereigns of Turin and Vienna ; and if boldly and 
 skilfully attacked, it might be cut in two, and 
 defeated in detail. 
 
 Surveying the situation with a comprehensive 
 glance. Napoleon marched a detachment towards 
 Genoa ; his centre was for a moment endangered ; 
 but the movement caused Beaulieu, his chief adver- 
 sary, to direct a large body of troops near the 
 menaced point ; and this was exactly what his 
 
1797] Italy and Campo Formio. 27 
 
 enemy wanted. Napoleon, countermarching with 
 extreme celerity, and concentrating his men with 
 ease on the coast, poured in force through the Cadi- 
 bona Pass, an avenue he had, we have seen, explored ; 
 and the Austrians, outnumbered and hemmed in, 
 were driven, routed, from Montenotte. Beaulieu 
 had endeavoured to join hands with Colli, his col- 
 league, far away on his right ; but his nimble foe was 
 too quick for both ; their armies only approached 
 each other; and they were separated, and beaten 
 in a double attack, first at Millesimo and then at 
 Dego. The discomfited chiefs, as had been foreseen, 
 fell back upon their bases in retreat, Beaulieu towards 
 Milan, Colli towards Turin ; and Napoleon seized 
 the opportunity at once. He called in the detach- 
 ment he had left on the hills ; turned against Colli 
 in overwhelming strength ; struck him down in a 
 decisive fight at Mondovi ; and was soon in full 
 march on the Piedmontese capital, having in ten 
 days, by his brilliant manoeuvres, nearly destroyed 
 two armies far superior to his own. " Hannibal 
 crossed the Alps, but we have turned them," he ex- 
 claimed to his enthusiastic soldiers, as, emerging 
 from the mountain barrier in their rear, they gazed 
 on the fertile and spreading plains enriched by the 
 feeders of the Upper Po. 
 
 An embassy from the Court of Turin waited on 
 the conqueror, and begged him to treat when the 
 French army had drawn near the capital. Napoleon 
 had no power even to grant an armistice ; the jeal- 
 ous Directory had appointed his old enemy, 
 Salicetti, with another deputy, to observe and 
 
28 Napoleon. [1796- 
 
 to report on his conduct ; and he had been en- 
 joined, if the chance offered, to stir up a revolution 
 in Piedmont. But he set restrictions and instruc- 
 tions at nought which interfered with the profound 
 designs of ItaHan conquest he had long formed ; 
 the terms he offered were gladly accepted ; the 
 great fortresses which are the keys of Piedmont and 
 the roads into France were placed in his power ; and 
 he sent a message to Paris to announce his victories, 
 and to induce the government to confirm a suspen- 
 sion of arms, to which he had already given assent. 
 These wise miHtary measures, the first examples of 
 the ascendency over the heads of the State, which 
 before long was to become complete, secured his 
 communications and gave him a new base, objects 
 of supreme importance to him ; and he was soon 
 prepared for another forward movement. 
 
 Beaulieu had, by this time, retreated to the Po, 
 making for Lombardy, then a province of Austria ; 
 in the negotiations with the Piedmontese envoys, 
 Napoleon had obtained a passage for his troops, at 
 Valenza ; he had openly given out that he would 
 cross at that point ; and the Austrian leader had 
 placed a large part of his army, not far from 
 Valenza, to oppose his enemy. But the professions 
 of Napoleon were a feint only, one of the innumer- 
 able instances of the skill in stratagem, in which he 
 has surpassed all masters of war. He sent a de- 
 tachment towards Valenza ; and then " rapid as 
 thought," in his own words, he hastened to Piacenza, 
 effected the passage, and was thus not only over the 
 Po, but had approached his adversary's flank and 
 
1797] Italy and Campo Formio. 29 
 
 rear, and had forced him to hurry across the Ticino. 
 BeauHeu, thoroughly alarmed at the sudden collapse 
 of the line of defence, to which he had trusted, fell, 
 outmanoeuvred, back toward the Adda ; Napoleon 
 dashed forward to cut him off; and a part of the 
 French and Austrian armies met in fierce encounter 
 on the bridge of Lodi. A skilful movement of 
 Napoleon's cavalry, and an irresistible charge of his 
 footmen, decided the issue of a well-contested 
 battle ; the Austrians contrived to effect their 
 escape, but they were so disheartened, and had 
 suffered such losses, that Beaulieu was unequal to a 
 further effort, and sullenly retreated behind the 
 Mincio. On this occasion the French soldiery gave 
 their chief a name that will live in history ; they 
 saluted him as their " Little Corporal " ; and Napo- 
 leon has told us that his ambition, the vague dream 
 hitherto of the youth of genius, took definite shape, 
 for the first time, " after the terrible passage of the 
 bridge of Lodi." 
 
 The French entered Milan on the 15th of May, 
 having " rushed down," in their leader's phrase, 
 " from the Apennine, with the speed of a torrent." 
 The Lombards abhorred the yoke of Austria ; the 
 ideas that marched with the Tricolor had made way 
 in an oppressed province ; and the hope of an inde- 
 pendent Italy, though as yet faint, had dawned 
 upon the minds of the people. Napoleon caressed 
 them with flattering words ; received their acclama- 
 tions with apparent gratitude ; and even organised 
 the city, and its authorities, on the pattern of the 
 municipal towns of France. But his real thoughts 
 
30 Napoleon. [1796- 
 
 were for his army and France ; he only dallied 
 with Italian liberty, in order to promote what he 
 deemed higher interests. He had already extracted 
 considerable sums from two representatives of the 
 feudalism of the past, the Dukes of Modena and of 
 Parma ; he now levied a great contribution from 
 Milan ; and, after the fashion of the warriors of 
 Rome, he sent choice trophies of Italian art, torn 
 from galleries and museums, to adorn Paris. With 
 the funds of which he had become thus master, he 
 supplied the wants of his destitute troops ; estab- 
 lished large magazines and depots ; increased his 
 weak force of horsemen and guns ; restored dis- 
 cipline and put down pillage; and, while he added 
 greatly to his military force, he despatched a part 
 of the spoils of Lombardy to the government at 
 home, to recruit its finances. Whatever mere de- 
 tractors have said, this policy and conduct was of a 
 piece with that of most generals of the armies of 
 Revolutionary France ; and what is chiefly to be 
 noted in it, is, that it was carried out with a careful 
 method, and with a power in administration before 
 unknown, and that it made invasion more certain 
 and safe, and on the whole was less harsh and op- 
 pressive, than the irregular and unchecked rapine, 
 which had hitherto accompanied French conquests. 
 While Napoleon was thus strengthening his hold 
 on Italy, and making preparations for new efforts, 
 a message from Paris threatened to bring his 
 ambitious projects to a sudden close. The Directory 
 ordered him to divide his army ; to leave part of 
 it under another chief, and, with the other part, 
 
1797] Italy and Campo Formio. 31 
 
 to march into the depths of the peninsula, and 
 to invade Rome and Naples. He at once refused to 
 carry out a design, due in part to suspicious fears of 
 himself, and in part to erroneous military views; 
 but the offer he made to throw up his command was 
 fortunately not accepted by the men in power in 
 France, already yielding to the spell of his influence. 
 He was ere long on his way to the Mincio, assured 
 that he would reach and crush Beaulieu, when he 
 was compelled hastily to retrace his steps. An 
 Austrian garrison still held the citadel of Milan, 
 which was being besieged by a French detachment ; 
 the partisans of Austria, powerful among the nobles, 
 the priests, and the wealthy classes, lifted their heads 
 as the French army departed ; the exactions of the 
 invaders had, no doubt, provoked discontent even 
 among the people, and Pavia and other towns broke 
 out into a revolt, which extended over the adjoining 
 country. Napoleon sternly put the insurrection 
 down ; a village was burned, and Pavia was sacked ; 
 but the attitude of goodwill which the great mass 
 of the Lombards steadily maintained towards the 
 French disproves the charge of extreme barbarity 
 alleged against him by more than one writer. He 
 had rejoined his army by the close of May ; when 
 Beaulieu, bafHed by superior skill, and easily defeated 
 by exulting foes,* whose augmented numbers and 
 
 * The state of the French army at the beginning of the campaign 
 and when it reached Mantua presented an astonishing contrast. 
 Napoleon wrote thus to the Directory on 8th April : " J' ai trouve 
 cette armee non seulement denuee de tout, mais sans discipline et 
 dans une insubordination perpetuelle ; le mecontentement etait 
 
32 Napoleon. [1796- 
 
 growing moral power, made resistance, for the 
 present, impossible, was quickly dislodged from the 
 Hne of the Mincio. The beaten chief retreated into 
 the Tyrol with the remains only of an army, in 
 despair; his adversary at once laid siege to Man- 
 tua, almost the last spot in Lombardy retained 
 by Austria. 
 
 The theatre had been at last attained marked out 
 by Napoleon as a battle-ground, on which to contend 
 for the prize of Italy. With true insight he had 
 long before perceived that Austria was the principal 
 foe, in the peninsula, to be feared by France ; if her 
 power were broken, the Lesser States of Italy could 
 be easily dealt with ; and this was one chief reason 
 why he had risked everything, sooner than march 
 southwards, with Austria in his rear. But he had 
 learned from the campaigns of Eugene and Villars, 
 or it had been an inspiration of his own genius, that 
 the course of the Adige was the true line on which 
 to resist Austria in her descents on Italy ; the river 
 issuing from the hills of the Tyrol, skirting the Lake 
 of Garda and the adjoining ranges, and ending in the 
 morasses of the Po, forms a barrier of extraordinary 
 strength ; and Napoleon had made this great posi- 
 tion of vantage his principal object in his advance 
 from Piedmont. The Adige was, at this moment 
 before him ; but it was necessary to occupy both its 
 
 telle que des malveillants s'en etaient empares." This was his account 
 of the same army on the ist of June : "lis jouent et rient avec la 
 mort ; ils sont aujourd'hui parfaitement accoutumes avec la cavalerie, 
 dont ils se moquent, Rien n'egale leur intrepidite, si ce n'est la gaiete 
 avec laquelle ils font les marches les plus forcees ; ils chantent tour i 
 tour la patrie et I'amour."- — Correspondance , tome i., 127 ; 345, 
 
17973 Italy and Campo Formio. 33 
 
 banks, and to hold the fortresses, which command 
 the stream, in order to turn it to full account ; this 
 coveted strip of territory was in the hands of a neu- 
 tral power, the Republic of Venice ; and how was it 
 to be mastered by a French army, essential as it was 
 to its commander's purpose ? Napoleon seized an 
 occasion that offered. He had made fair speeches to 
 Venetian envoys, when he had attained Brescia, and 
 approached the Mincio ; but Beaulieu had entered 
 Peschiera, a strong place of Venice, in his late re- 
 treat ; and this contempt of a neutral's rights gave 
 Napoleon a pretext to cross the Adige, to throw 
 French garrisons into Legnano and Verona, fortified 
 towns which form almost the only important pas- 
 sages, and thus completely to attain his object. 
 This was doubtless a violation of international 
 claims ; but it was not so flagrant as has been gen- 
 erally supposed. In every war of the eighteenth 
 century, the neutrality of Venice had been set at 
 nought ; the armies of Austria, of France, and of 
 Spain, had made her provinces a scene of conflict ; 
 and, in these circumstances, we cannot feel surprised 
 that scruples did not stand in the way of Napoleon. 
 The fall of the citadel of Milan was, by this time, 
 certain ; but events at a distance had begun to 
 threaten the position of the invaders on the Adige. 
 Two great French armies had entered Germany; 
 but their chiefs, Moreau and Jourdan, had made no 
 progress ; Austria chafed at her defeats in Italy ; 
 and Wiirmser, a veteran of the Seven Years' War, 
 was despatched from the Rhine to endeavour to re- 
 gain all that she had lost on the Po and the Mincio. 
 
34 Napoleon. [1796- 
 
 He could not, however, reach the Adige for some 
 weeks ; and Napoleon found time to attend to the 
 wishes which the Directory had not ceased to ex- 
 press, and to turn his attention towards Southern 
 Italy. The course he adopted was much the same 
 as that which he had pursued in Lombardy ; he 
 verified his remark that France had not much to 
 fear from the banks of the Po to the Straits of Mes- 
 sina. An insurrection had gathered on his rear, and 
 harassed his communications with Provence ; he 
 quelled it by a sudden display of force ; he 
 menaced Genoa with a weighty vengeance, for its 
 aristocracy connived at the rising. He overawed the 
 Vatican and the Court of Naples, constant plotters 
 against the hated Republic ; showed again his con- 
 tempt of the rights of neutrals by sending a detach- 
 ment across the Apennines, which entered the States 
 of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and attacked English 
 commerce and ships at Leghorn ; gave the people of 
 Bologna, and of other provinces of the Pope, a prom- 
 ise of new-born liberty, but only because he wished 
 to establish a dependency of France, as a check on 
 Rome ; and, wherever he advanced, carried out his 
 system of organised and far-reaching exactions. 
 
 Yet in his relations with the powers he humbled, 
 it had already appeared that the young general was 
 very different from the men who, hitherto, had rep- 
 resented the France of the Revolution abroad. He 
 had shown peculiar deference to the envoys of the 
 Pope ; had dropped the Republican cant and style ; 
 and had exhibited in his frequent diplomatic inter- 
 course not only remarkable craft and tact, but sympa- 
 
1797] Italy and Campo Formio. 35 
 
 thy with the old order of Europe. He maintained 
 a stern and suspicious attitude to one only of the 
 States of Italy. Venice had complied with all his 
 demands ; she had contributed to the support of 
 his army, and had repeatedly made professions of 
 friendship ; but he instinctively felt she was a deadly 
 enemy ; and he stood carefully on his guard against 
 her. 
 
 Napoleon had returned to Mantua near the end of 
 July, to resist the impending attack of Wiirmser. 
 The forces in the hands of the Austrian leader were 
 from 65,000 to 70,000 men ; the French were not 
 more than 50,000, including the troops besieging the 
 fortress ; and at Vienna success was deemed certain. 
 Relying on his great superiority of strength, and 
 thinking that his adversary would keep his positions 
 around Mantua, until it was too late, Wiirmser 
 divided his army into three masses, the first two 
 under the general-in-chief, marching down the Adige 
 on both banks ; the third, led by Quasdanovich, far 
 away along the western shore of the Lake of Garda, 
 the object of the combined movement being to sur- 
 round and to overwhelm the enemy. But Wurmser 
 had to cope with a master of his art, full of genius 
 and resource, prompt, active, and resolute. Instead 
 of remaining bound to Mantua, Napoleon * instantly 
 
 * These admirable operations are perfectly explained in Napoleon's 
 Correspondance,torCie. i., 520. I have only space for a single sen- 
 tence which sets forth Napoleon's conception. " Je sentis qu'il fallait 
 adopter un plan vaste. L'ennemi en descendant du Tyrol par Bres- 
 cia at I'Adige, me mettait au milieu : si mon armee etait trop faible 
 pour faire face aux deux divisions de l'ennemi, elle pouvait battre 
 chacune d'elles separement." 
 
2,6 Napoleon. L1796- 
 
 raised the siege, when aware of the real state of 
 affairs ; and, marching boldly against Quasdanovich, 
 he fell upon his foe, while still without support, and 
 forced him back, defeated in detail. The French, 
 meanwhile, had been' driven from the Mincio ; but 
 Wiirmser had divided his forces, at once seeking to 
 reach Quasdanovich, and to make sure of the prize 
 of Mantua ; Napoleon assailed the masses when 
 apart, and the Austrian chief was beaten, at Lonato 
 first, and then at Castiglione, with decisive results. 
 
 Napoleon ere long had advanced against his 
 beaten enemies, moving on both shores of the 
 Lake of Garda, in the confidence of the moral 
 power of success, and a magnificent passage of arms 
 followed. Wiirmser, a daring and tenacious soldier, 
 had resolved again to descend on Mantua ; march- 
 ing from the Tyrol to the Lower Adige, he hoped 
 to close on the rear of the French, while distant 
 from the now open fortress ; and he had left David- 
 ovich to oppose Napoleon, while he was attempting, 
 himself, the decisive movement. But Davidovich 
 was defeated at the entrance of the hills ; he was 
 kept in check by a few thousand men ; Napoleon 
 turned in pursuit against his chief adversary, and 
 Wiirmser was caught in the defiles of the Brenta, 
 defeated, with enormous loss, at Bassano, and driven, 
 once more routed, far east of the Adige. The posi- 
 tion of the veteran seemed hopeless; a victorious 
 adversary pressed his rear, French garrisons held the 
 line of the river, and Napoleon thought he had his 
 foe in his grasp. Wiirmser, however, contrived to 
 effect the passage, and he ultimately made good his 
 
1797] Italy and Campo Formio. 37 
 
 way into Mantua, having crushed some feeble de- 
 tachments in his path. His army, nevertheless, had 
 been well-nigh destroyed ; a handful of men, far 
 away in the Tyrol, and some thousands shut up in 
 Mantua, a burden, and hardly a support to the 
 garrison, were the only remains of the noble force 
 which had marched on the Adige, a few weeks be- 
 fore, in the pride and hope of superior strength. 
 
 October had come, and the victorious French had 
 long surrounded Mantua and its imprisoned forces. 
 But Austria would not acknowledge defeat ; she had 
 been successful in the war in Germany, and she once 
 more resolved to strike hard for Italy. Davidovich 
 still remained in the Tyrol ; his force was raised to 
 about eighteen thousand men, and an army perhaps 
 fifty thousand strong, was given to Alvinzi, another 
 old general, with directions to march to the Adige 
 and Mantua. The immense strength of the line of 
 the river, held by a great captain, and turned to the 
 best advantage, seems not to have been understood 
 at Vienna; and while Davidovich approached Ver- 
 ona, Alvinzi advanced across the Piave, widely sepa- 
 rated from his distant lieutenant. Napoleon, on this 
 occasion, left a large force round Mantua, and he 
 had probably scarcely forty thousand men to oppose 
 to the enemies converging in very superior numbers. 
 The operations of the Austrians were, at first, suc- 
 cessful ; Davidovich forced back a hostile detach- 
 ment sent to hold him in check, and drew near 
 Verona ; and Alvinzi fairly defeated Napoleon, in a 
 murderous battle at Caldiero. The two commanders 
 had now almost joined hands, and had they pressed 
 
38 Napoleon. [1796- 
 
 forward boldly they might, not improbably, have 
 seized Verona, crossed the Adige, and changed the 
 fortunes of the whole conflict, by the relief of 
 Mantua, which would have set Wurmser free. 
 
 Napoleon extricated himself from grave peril by 
 extraordinary resource and military skill, and ulti- 
 mately rolled back the tide of invasion. He marched 
 out of Verona on the 14th of November, descended 
 the Adige at night with his army, moving rapidly 
 along the western bank, when, suddenly crossing 
 the river again, and advancing along the dykes of 
 Areola, he approached the flank and even the rear of 
 Alvinzi, and threatened to cut him off from Vicenza. 
 A confused battle raged for three days ; Alvinzi lost 
 many thousand men, and though he retained his line 
 of retreat, he was driven away from his main object, 
 Verona. This compelled Davidovich at once to 
 fall back ; he was fiercely pursued, and fled into the 
 Tyrol ; and Napoleon stood once more on the Adige, 
 in triumph. The effort of Austria had utterly 
 failed, and it had cost her the flower of two armies. 
 
 The tenacity, which Austria has shown through 
 her history, did not desert her even at this juncture. 
 Her forces were largely increased by volunteers — 
 the Empress embroidered the standards she gave — 
 and Alvinzi was placed again at the head of an 
 army of sixty-five thousand men. Mantua was, as 
 always, his principal object ; but his operations 
 were different from those before Areola ; he ad- 
 vanced towards Verona by both banks of the Adige, 
 while a lieutenant, Provera, made a wide eccentric 
 march, in order to cross the river as it approached 
 
NAPOLEON 
 
 FROM The pa 
 
 A R C O LA. 
 
 . B>' GROS. 
 
1797] Italy and Campo Formio. 39 
 
 the Po. Napoleon had about forty thousand troops, 
 but he was again in a central position, between 
 adversaries far apart ; and as soon as he became 
 aware of the movements made against him, he sent 
 a detachment to keep Provera in check, and marched 
 from Verona to the table-land of Rivoli, already- 
 occupied by part of his forces. Alvinzi was in 
 greatly superior strength ; he attacked confidently 
 on the 14th of January ; and he endeavoured to sur- 
 round his foe on all sides, in the hope of making 
 him lay down his arms. But in his march through 
 the defiles of the hills, he had left four columns 
 without their guns, and had crowded his whole 
 artillery upon one column ; another column was 
 beyond the Adige ; * and these faulty dispositions 
 gave Napoleon a victory assured from the first and 
 complete. The partial attacks of the Austrians at 
 wide distances, made without the support of an 
 essential arm, and of a reserve not on the decisive 
 spot, were easily repelled by their well-placed ene- 
 mies ; and Alvinzi was driven into the Tyrol com- 
 pletely routed. Meanwhile Provera had crossed the 
 Adige ; but after the crushing defeat of Alvinzi, 
 this only led to a fresh disaster ; Napoleon hurried to 
 Mantua and struck Provera down, and the supreme 
 effort of Austria failed. The situation of the fort- 
 ress was now hopeless, and Wiirmser — he held out 
 to his last crust — surrendered Mantua to his youth- 
 ful conqueror, who treated the gallant veteran with 
 
 * Napoleon's account of the battle of Rivoli is admirable and im- 
 partial. His criticisms on Alvinzi's errors are equally profound and 
 accurate. Commentaries, tome i., p. 435, Ed. 1867. 
 
40 Napoleon. [1796- 
 
 chivalrous courtesy. Austria had lost her last pos- 
 session in Italy, but this was an insignificant part of 
 her losses. Three great armies had perished in the 
 attempt to force Napoleon from the Adige, and the 
 Monarchy was fot the moment exhausted. 
 
 These extraordinary triumphs amazed Europe and 
 sent a thrill of pride and delight through France. 
 The Republic had baffled the League of the Con- 
 tinent before, and had even advanced to the Meuse 
 and the Rhine, but she had now overrun and almost 
 conquered Italy. Germany was to have been the 
 chief seat of the war, but Napoleon had transformed 
 the position of affairs ; Austria had put forth her 
 strength on the Adige, and she had been cruelly 
 stricken in a series of defeats. A great military 
 genius, too, had appeared, who, like one of the 
 champions of romance, had overthrown every adver- 
 sary in the lists ; subordinates worthy of him had 
 become known to fame, Mass6na, before a proved 
 soldier, Lannes, Murat, Augereau, Bessiferes, Mar- 
 mont, Junot, the satellites of the rising sun of 
 victory ; and nothing seemed impossible to the 
 army of Italy. 
 
 Yet the situation was full of diiificulties, and even 
 of dangers, to the young warrior, who had moved 
 from the Var to the edge of the Tyrol, and had 
 resolved to proceed on his path of conquest. The 
 Archduke Charles, the hope of the Hapsburgs, had 
 completely defeated Jourdan and Moreau, in opera- 
 tions which in skill and resource bore a faint resem- 
 blance to those of Napoleon ; the French had been 
 driven back to the Rhine, and Austria might yet 
 
17971 Italy and Campo Formio. 41 
 
 invade Italy and even wrest the peninsula from her 
 enemy's grasp. In Italy, too, what Napoleon called 
 " the war of principles " had led to a state of things 
 of no little gravity to France and her armies. Rome, 
 irritated by the rulers in Paris, was preaching a 
 holy war against the godless Republic ; Naples had 
 set considerable forces on foot ; Sardinia was indig- 
 nant at her late defeats; the Lombards and the 
 people of the petty States, which extended from the 
 Po to the Tiber, were rising against detested masters, 
 and were clamouring for independence and Italian 
 liberty. The peninsula, in a word, from the Adige 
 to Otranto, was more or less agitated by a growing 
 conflict between an established order of things and 
 new ideas which had begun to prevail ; the domina- 
 tion of kings, of nobles, of priests, was threatened 
 by a popular and a national movement, and this, 
 Napoleon perceived, might become perilous, should 
 the hostile forces come into collision. The greatest 
 danger, however, was on the side of Venice, especially 
 should he advance, as was his purpose, and carry the 
 war into the heart of Austria. That Republic had 
 continued to support his troops, and to appear 
 neutral and even friendly, but she had secretly 
 favoured his enemies all through, her aristocracy 
 remained hostile, and events were occurring within 
 her territories which might precipitate a fierce 
 struggle and cause an explosion widespread and 
 alarming. The ferment of opinion, which was 
 stirring Italy, had reached Venice and her subject 
 province ; the nobles of the Terra Firma, long op- 
 pressed by the tyrants of the Lagoons, had begun to 
 
42 Napoleon. [1796- 
 
 shake the yoke ; the people were rising from the 
 Isonzo to the Po ; and the Republic, instigated per- 
 haps from Vienna, was collecting an army of mer- 
 cenaries to maintain her power by the sword. 
 Should a French army cross the Venetian Alps, 
 this condition of affairs might obviously be peril- 
 ous in the extreme. 
 
 The policy of Napoleon, at this juncture, carried 
 out more fully and plainly the policy, the beginning 
 of which we have already seen. The Directory still 
 looked askance at him ; but they bowed before his 
 increasing power, and they ceased to cross him 
 directly in Italy. He marched a small force into 
 the Papal States ; overthrew, in a moment, the sacer- 
 dotal levies, which were to make a La Vendue upon 
 the Tiber; compelled the affrighted pontiff to sue 
 for peace, and wrested from him the ill-ruled prov- 
 inces which lay north of the Tuscan Apennines. 
 The Treaty of Tolentino put an end, too, to the 
 threats of Naples and other Italian Powers ; and 
 the vigour of these strokes checked the partisans of 
 the old order throughout the peninsula. Napoleon, 
 moreover, fulfilled the pledges he had given to 
 Bologna and the neighbouring cities ; and he formed 
 a republic on the French type, not only in Bologna 
 but in Reggio, Modena, and in part of the territories 
 just ceded by the Pope. But he expressed profound 
 reverence for Rome and her Court; he protected 
 expatriated French priests, and even hinted that a 
 time might come when France would be reconciled 
 with the Holy See ; and as for the new republic he 
 made it no secret that it was to be merely a satellite 
 
1797] Italy and Campo Formio. 43 
 
 of France, a pawn on the board in the great game 
 for Italy. 
 
 In other respects the attitude he assumed and his 
 tendencies were even more significant. The Repub- 
 Hc had become an ally of Spain ; and Napoleon 
 urged the Directory, having regard to the contest 
 with Austria and to the interests of his own army 
 and even to those of France, to make alliances in 
 Italy absolutely opposed to the Revolutionary prin- 
 ciples and faith. He insisted that it was the true 
 policy of the hour, to apply to Genoa as a friend to 
 secure his rear, and to induce the Court of Turin to 
 consent to a treaty, and to send a contingent to the 
 Adige in his aid ; and these counsels sufficiently 
 prove how ready he was to make common cause 
 with monarchies and aristocracies, if there was any- 
 thing to be gained, and what he really thought of 
 Italian liberties. His language to Venice, if per- 
 emptory, was clear; he offered the Republic an 
 alliance with France, and he would not even object 
 to her frank neutrality. But he would soon march 
 northward and attack Austria ; he would not toler- 
 ate double-dealing and perfidy ; he would not allow 
 an insurrection to gather in his rear ; above all he 
 would visit with heavy penalties attempts to molest 
 the troops he was about to leave behind ; and he 
 viewed the armaments of the aristocracy with dislike 
 and suspicion. 
 
 The first spring — of 1797 — was at hand, and Na- 
 poleon had his preparations made. The Directory 
 had eluded his requests to make Genoa and Sardinia 
 aUies ; but it had sent him a contingent of excellent 
 
44 Napoleon. [1796- 
 
 troops from the forces lately in the field in Germany. 
 His army was perhaps sixty thousand strong ; it had 
 been the object of his untiring care ; and fired as it was 
 with enthusiastic ardour, its organisation complete, 
 and all its needs supplied, it was an almost perfect 
 instrument of war. The Archduke Charles was in 
 command of the Austrian forces, but these were 
 inferior, even in numbers, to their foes ; they were 
 largely composed of mere rude levies, and they had 
 lost heart under the stress of misfortune. 
 
 It is unnecessary to enlarge on the unequal con- 
 test, though it was another illustration of Napoleon's 
 skill. The French crossed the Tagliamento early in 
 March, the Austrians fell back after a short engage- 
 ment, and the invaders had soon passed from the 
 plains of Friuli into the gorges and defiles of the 
 Julian Alps. But the Archduke, compelled to obey 
 instructions from Vienna, had inclined eastward, in 
 order to cover the port of Trieste. This gave his 
 adversary an immense advantage. Napoleon seized 
 the pass of Tarvis in his path, and was soon in the 
 Carinthian uplands, making for the Noric Alps and 
 the Austrian capital. His opponent was beaten in 
 a series of combats and driven beyond the mountain 
 barrier. Napoleon concentrated his uniting forces, 
 and further resistance became impossible. An armis- 
 tice was signed in the first days of April ; and the 
 young conqueror, who had marched from the Var to 
 the Drave, gazed from the heights of the Semring * 
 
 * It has been said that Vienna cannot be descried from the Sem- 
 ring. Sir A. Alison, who was on the spot, declares that it can. 
 Hist, of Europe, vol. iv.. 43. 
 
1797] Italy and Campo Formio. 45 
 
 on the towers of Vienna extended before him 
 and almost in his grasp. Except that he had not 
 marched from the Tyrol to the Inn, but had taken 
 a wider and more daring flight, he had exactly 
 carried out the magnificent designs he had formed, 
 two years before, at a desk in Paris. 
 
 The anticipations, meanwhile, of Napoleon had 
 been realised in the Venetian Republic. The 
 aristocracy had refused the alliance of France, 
 taking refuge in a seeming neutrality ; and as soon 
 as their dreaded enemy was gone they put their 
 mercenary Sclavonic troops in motion ; the priest- 
 hood proclaimed war against French infidels ; and 
 Austrian commanders, who held the Tyrol, encour- 
 aged an outbreak, which, obviously, might delay 
 and embarrass the hostile army, by disseminating 
 false reports of French defeats. The subject cities 
 and districts rushed to arms ; Bergamo and Brescia 
 were in revolt ; the people of Lombardy gave the 
 insurrection aid ; and it was certainly not discour- 
 aged by the French detachments which protected 
 the rear of the army. A savage and bloody civil 
 war broke out ; small bodies of French soldiers 
 were cut off and slain ; many of the troops in 
 Verona were cruelly butchered in a rising deliber- 
 ately planned and carried out ; and the participation 
 of the nobles with these atrocities seemed established 
 by the murder of a French officer, a crime perpe- 
 trated amidst the lagoons, and apparently sanctioned 
 by the Venetian Government. Napoleon's decision 
 was at once formed : he despatched an envoy to 
 the terrified Senate; declared war against "a per- 
 
46 Napoleon. [1796- 
 
 fidious State," without even a thought of the rulers 
 at home ; and, in a short time, had hurried from the 
 Alps southwards, to compel Venice to accept the 
 terms of a conqueror. The city might have made a 
 protracted resistance, but its aristocracy was corrupt 
 and effete ; " arms fell," in Napoleon's words, " from 
 their hands " ; they yielded at once to his stern 
 menaces ; they were thrust aside by a new govern- 
 ment, formed of the middle classes and called a 
 republic, with institutions of the French type ; and 
 one of the oldest Powers of Europe ignominiously 
 fell. The revolution was quickly accomplished in 
 the Terra Firma and other dependencies ; the Lion 
 of St. Mark was replaced by trees of liberty ; and a 
 treaty was made with the nascent state, attesting, 
 in ominous words, the domination of France, and 
 the intentions of her representative on the spot. It 
 plainly stipulated for the partition of Venetian 
 territory, and for the cession of part of the 
 Venetian fleet. 
 
 These startling events considerably delayed the 
 negotiations which had begun with Austria, and 
 events of the highest importance in France kept 
 everything in suspense for months. The Directory, 
 placed in office by the 13th Venddmiaire, held the 
 reins of government with feeble hands. Jacobin 
 energy was now a thing of the past ; the rulers 
 of France were beset by difficulties, especially by 
 intense financial distress ; the character of their rule 
 was weak and uncertain ; they were opposed by all 
 the parties they had lately subdued, and they soon 
 became divided among themselves. The elections, 
 
1797] Italy and Campo Formio. 47 
 
 under the new constitution, gave a majority against 
 them in the legislative body; and Royalist par- 
 tisans, led by Pichegru, a Republican general but a 
 conspirator, the wealthy classes in Paris, which had 
 been defeated in the revolt of the Sections, and a 
 large following of Moderates, as they were called, 
 combined in a movement to drive them from power. 
 All this ere long became known in Vienna ; and 
 the astute counsellors of the House of Hapsburg 
 put off treating for a definite peace, in the hope that 
 events might take a turn in which they might find 
 safety and even success. The Directory, however, 
 represented the Revolution and all that had been 
 created by it ; and when it had become apparent 
 that the heads of the State were threatened by a 
 league of dangerous factions, and that France and 
 her interests were involved, the leaders of the army 
 throughout the country drew together in general 
 concert to uphold the government and to put an 
 end to what they deemed wicked intrigues and 
 treason. The movement was steadily watched by 
 Napoleon, though he was not one of its principal 
 authors ; and when the fall of the Directory seemed 
 probable, he sent two envoys to give them support 
 in Paris ; his resolve also being, perhaps, quickened 
 by a violent invective against himself and his army 
 uttered by a deputy, who descanted on the wrongs 
 of Venice. The progress of events was now rapid. 
 A large military force was marched into Paris, with 
 the approval of Moreau, and even of Hoche, a 
 chief strongly attached to constitutional rights ; 
 Augereau, one of the two envoys, was placed at its 
 
48 Napoleon. [1796- 
 
 head ; the Chamber of the Legislature was shut up ; 
 a number of deputies were cast into prison, and 
 several seats were declared vacant ; Pichegru and 
 other Royalists were sent into banishment; 
 and even two of the Directors, including Carnot, 
 illustrious for his conduct in 1793, were proscribed, 
 on a charge that they had plotted against the 
 State. The revolution of i8th Fructidor, the 4th 
 of September, 1797, which marks another stage in 
 the course of events that were bringing France 
 under the rule of the sword, put an end for the 
 present to the hopes of the Bourbons, reduced the 
 factions of Paris to silence, proved a heavy blow to 
 the cause of Austria, and greatly increased the 
 strength of the government remodelled after the 
 late coup d'etat. It turned ultimately to Napoleon's 
 advantage ; but he certainly seems to have dis- 
 approved of its violence and its more extreme 
 measures. 
 
 Meanwhile, during the period between the truce 
 made with Austria, and the 1 8th Fructidor, Napoleon 
 had remained in Italy, at the head of affairs. He 
 inhabited palaces of Milan and Venice, wielded a 
 power that the proudest kings might have envied, 
 summoned Josephine to grace more than royal pro- 
 gresses, and received the homage of obsequious en- 
 voys and of multitudes which hailed him as the 
 hope of Italy. The negotiations with Austria, re- 
 tarded as they were, dragged on slowly, and require 
 a word of notice. Some months previously, Clarke, 
 a diplomatist, known afterwards as a leading man 
 of the Empire, had been sent, in appearance, to treat 
 
1797] Italy and Campo Formio. 49 
 
 for peace but really as a spy on Napoleon, but he 
 had yielded to the spell of the conqueror; the 
 deputies of the Republic had also left the army, 
 and Napoleon directed and controlled every thing. 
 
 The great object of France was to obtain Belgium, 
 and the western bank of the Rhine, already conquered, 
 but not ceded ; and to secure this object she was 
 perfectly willing to find Austria compensation in 
 Italian conquests. Napoleon concurred in these 
 views, and for some time he adhered to a project to 
 give Austria a part of the Terra Firma of Venice, 
 reducing the Republic almost to the lagoons, but 
 indemnifying Venice with part of the territories of 
 the Pope, which, as we have seen, had been lately 
 made, with Reggio and Modena, a republic in 
 themselves. Simultaneously Lombardy, Reggio, 
 and Modena were to be formed into a new republic ; 
 and this arrangement, though chiefly proposed in 
 the interests of France and for military ends, would 
 have left Venice an independent state, although 
 largely deprived of power. But the democratic 
 government set up in Venice proved itself to be 
 nearly as hostile to France as the fallen aristocracy 
 had been. Napoleon, too, seems to have regarded 
 the people of Venice with even more contempt than 
 the populations of other parts of Italy, which he 
 had flattered, indeed, but despised at heart ; and he 
 gradually made up his mind to let Venice perish, 
 and to hand over her spoils to Austria, reserving her 
 fleet and the Ionian Islands for France.* This 
 
 * The opinion entertained by Napoleon of Venice, and of the 
 Italians generally, is unequivocally expressed in his correspondence 
 
5o Napoleon. tl796- 
 
 resolution, it is but just to remark, was formed slowly 
 and with reluctance ; it was largely due to the per- 
 sistent refusal of the Directory to make an ally of 
 Sardinia, and to secure her aid should the war be re- 
 newed ; and it was communicated to the Directory 
 long before Fructidor. 
 
 In this state of affairs, the new government of 
 France, in the confidence of augmented power, or 
 possibly from a higher motive, requested Napoleon 
 not to cede Venice, though war with Austria should 
 be the consequence. We may accept his account 
 of his subsequent conduct ; it is confirmed by hos- 
 tile but trustworthy evidence. It is idle to' suppose 
 that he had not a passionate wish to close his 
 triumphs by making a glorious peace ; and this was 
 legitimate, not mere selfish ambition.* But winter 
 was even now at hand ; the French army on the 
 Rhine was not ready, and Augereau, its new chief, 
 in Napoleon's judgment was not equal to a great 
 command ; the forces of Austria had been concen- 
 trated against his own army, which had not been 
 strengthened ; and Venice was not worth the sacri- 
 fice of thousands of French lives amidst the passes 
 and snows of the Alps. After long disputes with 
 the Austrian envoys peace was made, nearly on the 
 same conditions as those which had been discussed 
 before. 
 
 By the Treaty of Campo Formio, signed in Octo- 
 ber, 1797, Austria fulfilled the pledges she had 
 
 at this time. Tome ii., p. 501 ; iii., 400. Contempt and scorn could 
 not go further. 
 
 * Commentaries, tome ii., 113. Ed. 1867. 
 
1797] Italy and Campo Formio. 51 
 
 already given ; and, subject to the assent of the 
 German Empire, France acquired the coveted fron- 
 tier of the Rhine, and she gained the Low Countries 
 to the mouths of the Scheldt, the object of her as- 
 pirations during two centuries. France gave Austria 
 Venice, and the whole Terra Firma, except the dis- 
 trict west of the Adige ; and an enlarged Republic, 
 called the Cisalpine, composed of Reggio, Modena, 
 of part of the States of the Pope, and of the impor- 
 tant province of Lombardy received, in addition, 
 this strip of territory. Venice, which Napoleon had 
 wished to preserve, in part at least, was thus blotted 
 from the map ; a French admiral had already taken 
 her fleet, and held Corfu, the chief of her Ionian 
 Islands ; and the purpose of the conqueror is ex- 
 pressed in a phrase left on record by his secretaiy 
 on the spot — " Venice shall pay for the expenses of 
 the war,* and the boundary of the Rhine ; let the 
 Directory and the lawyers say what they will." The 
 policy of Napoleon in these arrangements is strik- 
 ingly characteristic and cannot be left out of sight. 
 He abandoned Venice to Austria, in order to throw 
 an apple of discord among the old Powers of Europe, 
 which would feel indignant that one of themselves 
 should have compassed the ruin of an aristocratic 
 state ; and he set up the Cisalpine Republic, as an 
 ally depending on France for existence, and a real 
 check, in Italy, on the designs of Austria. One in- 
 cident in the negotiations was significant : the Aus- 
 trian plenipotentiary protested against the distribu- 
 tion of the provinces beyond the Adige. Napoleon 
 * Bourrienne, vol. i., 96. Ed. 1885. 
 
52 Napoleon. [1796- 
 
 dashed a vase on the ground, saying * : " I will break 
 your monarchy, as I have broken this " \ ; and diplo- 
 macy bowed to the argument of force. 
 
 In setting the Directory's will at naught and 
 sacrificing Venice to make peace. Napoleon showed 
 a conqueror's scorn of the authority of the state 
 in a revolutionary time, and his conduct was with- 
 out scruple or pity. But some pleas may be fairly 
 urged for a policy of ambition and hard state-craft : 
 he was already more than half pledged to Austria ; 
 a renewal of the war would be perilous ; he consulted 
 the obvious interests of France ; and Venice had 
 proved implacably hostile, and had plainly shown 
 that her new liberties would not make her a useful 
 ally. Those who denounce Napoleon as a cold- 
 blooded Attila, and compare the fall of Venice to 
 the partition of Poland, miss the truth in their 
 extravagant rhetoric. The whole transaction was 
 not below the political morality of the eighteenth 
 century ; and it was less dishonourable, for a single 
 instance, than the shameless betrayal of the Cata- 
 lans, by the allies, before the Peace of Utrecht. 
 
 He gave a finishing hand to the affairs of Italy 
 before taking his departure for France. The fall 
 of Venice had led to the fall of the aristocracy long 
 supreme in Genoa ; a popular revolution had 
 followed, and he checked and repressed its licentious 
 anarchy. He was also selected as an arbiter in a 
 dispute between two of the Swiss cantons ; he 
 
 * Commentaries, tomeii., 120. Ed. 1867. 
 
 f This has been denied ; but Napoleon positively states he used 
 the words in dispute. 
 
1797] Italy and Campo Formio. 53 
 
 joined the Valteline to the Cisalpine Republic ; and 
 he looked in, so to speak, at the Congress of Ras- 
 tadt, then in session, and discussing the terms made 
 at Campo Formio, as they concerned the Empire. 
 Napoleon reached Paris in the first days of Decem- 
 ber ; he was greeted with an enthusiasm that knew 
 no bounds, was the object of popular honour and 
 applause at festivals resembling in aspect and pomp 
 the magnificence of an Imperial triumph at Rome, 
 and received the homage of the Directory and of 
 the Bodies of the State. The young conqueror, 
 however, whether because a self-concentrated nature 
 disliked the crowd, or more probably because far- 
 reaching ambition deemed seclusion a means of 
 attaining fortune, maintained a reserved and cautious 
 attitude. He seemed to stand aloof from all parties, 
 and he received the flattery of the multitude with 
 polite indifference. He dropped one significant 
 phrase only — " France," he said, in reply to a public 
 address, "required a better political system." 
 
 Napoleon had given proofs of extraordinary 
 powers in the memorable events of 1796-97. His 
 achievements in war had been astonishing ; his 
 military conceptions had been grand, original, and 
 scientific alike ; his execution of them had been 
 marked by daring, unfailing resource, readiness, 
 energy, and skill. Deeply versed in the history of 
 the noblest of arts, he had naturally followed its un- 
 changing principles; but he had set himself free 
 from what was merely obsolete, and he had turned 
 new conditions to the very best advantage. He 
 had become the herald of a revolution in war ; and 
 
54 Napoleon. [1796- 
 
 his power of combination, his quickness of move- 
 ment, his vigour, had baffled and terrified generals, 
 who could not rise beyond the traditions of the 
 past. His political insight, too, had been very 
 striking : his perception that Austria once sub- 
 dued would leave France virtually supreme in Italy, 
 his accurate estimate of the state of opinion and 
 sentiment in the peninsula, and his clear views as 
 to domestic affairs in France reveal an intelligence 
 of a superior kind and give token of a coming 
 statesman. His conduct had been marked by 
 ambition all through, and even by a keen regard to 
 self, though he had laboured to promote the welfare 
 of France ; he had been unscrupulous and harsh at 
 times, and the sacrifice of Venicecannot be justified. 
 Yet history will look at other qualities of Napoleon 
 at present more clearly prominent. From his tent 
 beside the Po or the Adige he had shaped, to a 
 great extent, the fortunes of France ; he had 
 changed the propaganda of the Revolution into a 
 policy of calculation and state-craft ; he had made 
 alliances depend on interest and not on sympathy 
 with the rights of man ; he had offered friendship 
 to states and rulers without regard to their forms of 
 government ; he had been indifferent to claims on 
 popular liberty, and had put democratic licence 
 down; and he had shown to the representatives of 
 foreign Powers that, possessing, as he did, enormous 
 power, he had reverence for the old system of 
 Europe. A youthful soldier had surpassed the 
 exploits of the greatest captains of the ancient 
 monarchy, and of its ablest and most successful 
 
1797] 
 
 Italy and Campo Formio. 
 
 55 
 
 statesmen and had largely transformed Revolu- 
 tionary France. The times even now showed that 
 Revolutionary France, already yielding to the rule 
 of the sword, would find in Napoleon a future 
 master. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Napoleon is appointed to the command of the " Army of England " 
 — The project of a descent abandoned — The expedition to Egypt 
 — Battle of the Pyramids — Battle of the Nile — Occupation of 
 Egypt by the French — Coalition against France — Reverses of 
 the French armies in Italy and Swabia — Foreign policy of the 
 French Directory — Their domestic policy — Their decline and 
 unpopularity — Invasion of Syria by the French — Siege of 
 Acre — Napoleon returns to France — Battle of Zurich — Com- 
 bination of all parties to place him in power — The i8th Brumaire 
 — Napoleon's conduct on this occasion. 
 
 F the great Coalition of 1793, 
 formed to overthrow Revo- 
 lutionary France, one power 
 only remained in arms, and 
 Napoleon, soon after his re- 
 turn to Paris, was given the 
 command of an army in- 
 tended to make a descent on 
 the shores of England. He 
 passed from Boulogne to 
 Calais and Dunkirk, and with characteristic atten- 
 tion to details examined everything that was being 
 prepared for transporting an army across the Channel. 
 The recent failure, however, of Bantry Bay and the 
 decisive victory of Camperdown were ominous warn- 
 
 r6 
 
1798-99] Egypt and the i8th Brumaire. 57 
 
 ings that boded evil ; England had the command 
 of the narrow seas, and after a calculation of the 
 resources of France he pronounced the attempt, 
 for the present, hopeless. His mind, in fact, had 
 for some time been brooding upon another enter- 
 prise, more promising perhaps, but even more 
 ambitious. Like Alexander he had looked toward 
 the East — the mysterious region of fabulous con- 
 quest. This may have been the impulse which before 
 had led him to try to seek fortune in the land of 
 Islam; and Venice* and the associations that 
 belonged to it had opened to him a grand perspec- 
 tive of empire beyond the Erythraean Sea. He now 
 sought to assail England — he had marked her out 
 as the chief foe of France — in a way that he deemed 
 more certain and safe than hazardous and direct 
 invasion, and that offered him a theatre for dazzling 
 exploits. His eyes had already been fixed on Malta, 
 and he proposed to seize and occupy Egypt, a con- 
 quest which would not only secure a colony to 
 France of the first order, but would gravely imperil 
 British commerce and would be a stage on the road 
 to invade India. The Directory accepted the attrac- 
 tive project ; it was less dangerous than has been 
 supposed, for England had not, for some time, ruled 
 
 * Napoleon's designs against Malta and Egypt and his animosity 
 to England are fully expressed in letters written from the neigjibor- 
 hood of Venice in 1797. Correspondance, tomeiii., 293, 392. There 
 is only space for a few words of quotation. " Pourquoi ne nous 
 emparerons pas de I'ile de Malte ? ... II faudrait nous emparer 
 de I'Egypte. ... II faut que notre gouvernement detruise la 
 monarchie anglicane, ou il doit s'attendre lui-meme i etre detruit par 
 la corruption et les intrigues des ces actifs insulaires." 
 
58 Napoleon. [1798- 
 
 the Mediterranean through her fleets ; and Napoleon, 
 masking his real design, directed the assembly of 
 ships of war, of large convoys, of an immense 
 material, and of considerable bodies of troops 
 drawn together from the old army of Italy — in short, 
 made preparations for a descent on the Nile from 
 towns in the northern provinces of France. As 
 probably had been the case before, the Directory 
 certainly in this instance gave him his command to 
 keep him away from France, and sent him to a 
 splendid kind of banishment. They were over- 
 powered by Napoleon's presence ; they were not 
 deceived by his retiring modesty ; they had angrily 
 resented his condemnation of a barbarous pageant 
 that preserved the memory of the tragic death of 
 Louis XVI. ; and they were convinced his purpose 
 was to thrust them from their uneasy seats. They 
 insisted on his departure, when, in view of dangers 
 already threatening France, he had wished to keep 
 the expedition back. 
 
 The French armament was despatched from 
 Toulon, in the third week of May, 1798. The fleet 
 consisted of thirteen sail of the line — one, the Orient, 
 the finest war-ship afloat ; there was a multitude of 
 frigates and smaller vessels ; and the army num- 
 bered about thirty thousand men, in part convoyed 
 from different ports of Italy. Napoleon had some 
 of his old lieutenants with him ; Kl^ber and Desaix, 
 two most distinguished soldiers of the armies of the 
 Rhine and of the Sambre and Meuse, followed in 
 the train of the chief of Rivoli ; and niany of the 
 most illustrious learned men of France, names of 
 
1799] Egypt and the iSth Brumaire. 59 
 
 high renown in the arts of peace, accompanied the 
 expedition as pioneers of the civihsation to be 
 built up in Egypt. The fleet and its attendants 
 had soon reached Malta, covering the Mediterranean 
 with three hundred sails ; and Napoleon proceeded 
 at once to accomplish the audacious design he had 
 formed at Venice. The Knights of St. John, famous 
 in the days of the Crusades, now faint shadows of 
 the feudalism of the past, laid down their arms after 
 a brief parley ; and a great fortress, of such formid- 
 able strength that it was wittily said " it was a piece 
 of good luck that there was some one within to 
 open the gates," surrendered with hardly a show of 
 resistance. 
 
 The armament was ere long on the Libyan Sea, 
 unconscious that a dreaded foe was at hand, and 
 on the last day of June the antique towers and 
 ruins of Alexandria rose in sight from the wastes of 
 the sea and the adjoining desert. The intelligence 
 quickly spread that an English fleet under Nelson, 
 already an heroic name, had been off the coast but a 
 few hours before. Napoleon ordered his troops to be 
 landed forthwith, and a few thousand men had soon 
 reached the shore and were moving along the nar- 
 row isthmus which divides the Mediterranean from 
 the great adj oining lake. Alexandria fell after a short 
 contest, and Napoleon, leaving Kl^ber in the place 
 and sending a flotilla to the western mouth of the 
 Nile, pushed across the desert by forced marches, 
 his object being to attain Cairo and to take posses- 
 sion of the chief town of Egypt. The movement, 
 under a burning sun and across sandy expanses, 
 
6o Napoleon. [1798- 
 
 was difficult in the extreme, but the army and the 
 flotilla soon came in contact, and the invaders ad- 
 vanced along the great river, — a brief skirmish, in 
 which Napoleon's infantry had easily defeated the 
 Mameluke horsemen, having highly elated the French 
 soldiery. On the 2ist of July .the vast array of the 
 splendid cavalry of Mourad Bey, the head of the 
 warlike Mameluke chiefs, was seen covering the 
 plains near Cairo, the Pyramids towered in the near 
 distance, and a great entrenched camp spread along 
 the banks of the Nile, protecting the Mameluke 
 armed serfs on foot. " Think," Napoleon exclaimed, 
 as, with impassioned gesture, he pointed to the majes- 
 tic structures of the past, "that forty generations 
 look down from these heights ! " The enthusiastic 
 soldiery caught up his words, and they marched to 
 the battle with joyful confidence. The fierce charges 
 of the devoted horsemen broke idly against the ser- 
 ried squares of veterans inured to European war- 
 fare ; Mourad and his ruined squadrons fled from 
 the plain, and the entrenched camp was stormed 
 amidst a scene of carnage. The victors had entered 
 Cairo within a few days. 
 
 A disaster, fatal at first sight and ultimately lead- 
 ing to immense results, befell the expedition after 
 a short time. The British squadron, observing Tou- 
 lon, was too weak to prevent the departure of the 
 great French fleet ; but Nelson was reinforced by 
 ten ships, in addition to three he had before, 
 and he was ere long in pursuit of his enemy. 
 As we have seen, he just missed the hostile arma- 
 ment, but he thought that Syria was the object of 
 
2 £ 
 < ^ 
 
1799] Egypt and the i8th Brumaire. 6i 
 
 the French, and having sailed from Alexandria to 
 Levant, he put into Syracuse, and thence made for 
 Coron, returning to the Morea, after a most deter- 
 mined chase. He heard there, at last, where his 
 enemy was, and on the ist of August, 1798, his 
 sails were descried from the low downs of Aboukir, 
 a headland not far from Alexandria. The French 
 fleet was moored on the roads hard by ; its admiral, 
 Brueys, had been unable or unwilling to comply with 
 Napoleon's orders to enter the harbor of Alexan- 
 dria, or to leave the coast and retire to Corfu ; and 
 he had placed his ships at anchor in a long line, at a 
 little distance from the shore only, but without the 
 protection of batteries on the land. Nelson seized 
 the occasion with the power of genius ; he steered 
 inshore of the enemy's front, and attacked it at 
 the same time seawards, and he had soon brought 
 the van and centre of Brueys under a cross-fire of 
 ovei'whelming force.* The French made a stern but 
 useless resistance ; the magnificent Orient blew 
 up near midnight, and at noon on the 2d two ships 
 crawled away, the only remains of thirteen men-of- 
 war, all the rest having been destroyed or captured, 
 in the most scientific of battles at sea. 
 
 This crushing defeat severed at one stroke the 
 communications of the French with Europe, im- 
 prisoned Napoleon within his conquest, and it 
 might well have appeared from the first decisive. 
 But Egypt had already been nearly occupied, and 
 
 * Whether Captain Foley or Nelson directed this manoeuvre may be 
 questioned, but Nelson as Admiral has the responsibility and the 
 glory. 
 
62 Napoleon. [1798- 
 
 the great captain in command at Cairo was equal to 
 an emergency that appalled his army. Napoleon 
 had played on the hopes and the fears of the Arab 
 population, the chief race of Egypt ; he had caressed 
 Sheik elders and august muftis ; he had denounced 
 the Mamelukes as his only enemies ; and these arts, 
 aided by the stern repression of a rising at Cairo, 
 had for the present reduced the country to complete 
 submission. Always great in administration, he 
 began to lay the foundations for what he hoped to 
 make a noble colonial possession of France. He 
 established factories to supply the wants of his army, 
 built mills, and set up a press and a mint, and suc- 
 cessfully employed the learned men who had fol- 
 lowed the expedition in sedulous efforts to develop 
 the wealth and resources of Egypt. Canals were 
 planned to diffuse the waters of the Nile, and to 
 spread plenty over barren wastes ; experiments of all 
 kinds were tried to encourage the products of Eu- 
 rope to grow in a land admirably fitted for them ; 
 careful and extensive surveys were made to promote 
 agriculture, and all that belongs to it ; and engi- 
 neers were instructed to ascertain the levels between 
 the Mediterranean and the Red Seas. The world 
 owes to Napoleon, in the first instance, the concep- 
 tion of the noble waterway which has thrown the 
 barrier of the Isthmus down, and has brought the 
 East and the West together, in the ancient land of 
 the long vanished Pharaohs. 
 
 The French, however, had scarcely settled in 
 Egypt before a series of events occurred in Europe 
 which changed the whole situation of affairs in 
 
1799] Egypt and the i8th Brumaire. 6 
 
 o 
 
 France, annihilated the results of her late triumphs, 
 and placed her in extreme peril abroad and at home. 
 The attitude of the Directory since the i8th Fruc- 
 tidor had been aggressive to foreign powers ; they 
 resented Napoleon's arts of compromise, and did 
 not like Campo Formio at heart, and they endeav- 
 oured once more to make use of the revolutionary 
 faith to extend their influence. Before the expedi- 
 tion had left Toulon, Genoa had become the Ligurian 
 Republic, French troops had expelled the Pope 
 from Rome, had invaded Switzerland in the name of 
 liberty, and had made a second Fructidor in Holland; 
 and the Roman, the Helvetian, and the Batavian 
 Republics had, like the Cisalpine, sprung into being, 
 and, fashioned after their great original, had placed 
 themselves under the protection of France. 
 
 The splendid victory of Nelson, known as the 
 Nile, soon precipitated and enlarged the sphere of 
 the conflict, evidently already imminent, between 
 the Revolution and old Europe. The capture of 
 Malta and the invasion of Egypt caused Russia and 
 the Turks to join hands, and to declare war against 
 the French Republic ; Austria seized the occasion 
 of Napoleon's absence and of the evident danger of 
 his distant army to draw the sword and to strike 
 with effect ; she received the aid of three-fourths of 
 the Empire ; and England, treated with contempt 
 by the rulers in Paris during recent negotiations 
 which had proved abortive, gave the Coalition her 
 powerful support. In the first months of 1799 
 hostilities raged along an immense front, extending 
 from the Zuider Zee to the Tiber ; and the reverses 
 
64 Napoleon. 11798- 
 
 of France were swift and appalling. Mass^na indeed 
 held his own in Switzerland, the King of Sardinia 
 fled from Piedmont, and a premature effort of the 
 Court of Naples enabled a French army to enter the 
 capital and to set up a Parthenopean Republic. 
 But the Archduke Charles defeated Jourdan in 
 Swabia; a combined Russian and Austrian army 
 overran Italy from the Adige to the Tanaro ; the 
 French were compelled to abandon Naples, and 
 their beaten forces, in their attempts to unite, were 
 routed on the Trebbia and at Novi ; the Cisalpine 
 Republic vanished like a dream, and all Napoleon's 
 conquests were suddenly lost. By the middle of 
 the year two great hostile masses were approaching 
 Provence and threatening Alsace ; France seemed 
 unable to arrest their progress, and there can be 
 little doubt that, had the Allies made at this junc- 
 ture a well-combined effort, they might have attained 
 decisive success, as had been possible in 1793. As 
 it was, the Republic appeared sinking under the 
 weight of foes in overwhelming strength, and Mas- 
 s^na's little force, cooped up among the Alps, 
 seemed already lost amidst the mighty flood of war 
 and invasion spreading all round. 
 
 France, meanwhile, in her internal state had been 
 exhibiting the disorganisation, the weakness, the 
 anarchy which attend misgovernment, the strife 
 of factions, and deep-seated ills in the frame of 
 society. The Directory, after the i8th Fructidor, 
 had oppressed the moderate and wealthy classes and 
 had been cruel to ^migr^s and nonjuring priests ; 
 it next turned against the surviving Jacobins, 
 
1799] Egypt and the i8th Brumaire. 65 
 
 and vainly endeavoured to keep them down ; and 
 it contrived to annul the elections of extreme 
 Republicans to the legislative body by fraud and 
 violence. The policy of " see-saw," as it was con- 
 temptuously called, united all parties against the 
 tottering government ; and three of the directors 
 were driven from power by a coup d'itat effected by 
 the two Councils — known as the Ancients and the 
 Five Hundred — which composed the new-born Par- 
 liament of France. Their places were filled in 
 defiance of law ; in the conflict between the Legis- 
 lature and the executive power, the Constitution 
 became a wreck ; and the impotence of the State was 
 made further manifest by the hostility of the chiefs 
 of the armies — exasperated at attempts made by the 
 Directory to restrain excesses and depredations before 
 sanctioned, — by national bankruptcy now scarcely 
 concealed, by intrigues of Royalists, priests, and 
 imigr^s, and by the prevalence of increasing disorder 
 and crime. 
 
 The great reverses of 1799 quickened these ele- 
 ments of confusion and peril, and hurried on a crisis 
 perhaps already certain. The renewal of the war 
 had been unpopular, and its disastrous experiences 
 provoked discontent and irritation far spread and 
 alarming. Large and unjust taxes were extorted 
 from the rich to support the shattered and defeated 
 armies ; the Conscription, recently made law, was 
 denounced as ruinous and cruel tyranny ; the cred- 
 itors of the State were left penniless ; the pressure of 
 calamity stirred to wrath a nation rudely awakened 
 from dreams of glory. Meanwhile La Vendue had 
 
66 Napoleon. [1798- 
 
 lifted its head and threatened once more to con- 
 vulse the West ; evil scenes of the Reign of Terror 
 reappeared in brigandage, lawlessness, and feuds of 
 class ; and desperate men of the Revolution, rising 
 again, clamoured for the energy of 1793, and tried 
 to compel the Directory to put in motion the tre- 
 mendous machinery of universal violence worked by 
 the Committee of Public Safety. France was angry, 
 terrified, and in a dangerous mood ; and in this 
 state of things all that was sound, moderate, law- 
 abiding, and eager for rest in the nation, sighed for 
 the establishment of a strong government that would 
 make peace and save France from anarchy. This, 
 too, was the wish of the army and its heads; and 
 the contemned Directory struggled in vain to steer 
 the vessel of the State in an overwhelming tempest. 
 Sieyfes, one of the ruling Junta, a celebrated name in 
 1789-91, dropped the words " we must have a brain 
 and a sword " ; and there is reason to believe that 
 efforts were made to elude the vigilance of the 
 British squadrons and to bring Napoleon back 
 from Egypt to France. 
 
 While dangers were thus encompassing France, 
 Napoleon, ignorant of her existing state, had been 
 extending her power in Egypt. Desaix had attained 
 the Cataracts of the Nile, and had pursued Mourad 
 Bey to the verge of the desert ; and the ascendancy 
 of the French appeared established from Alexandria 
 to the south of the Isthmus. Meanwhile Napoleon 
 had proceeded in the work of organising and sub- 
 duing the country ; he administered it through its 
 old functionaries, and he gained the sympathy of 
 
1799] Egypt and the i8th Brumaire. 67 
 
 the Arabs at least, by ostentatious reverence for 
 their rites and customs and by offering homage to 
 the True Prophet. 
 
 All this, no doubt, was policy and craft, but Na- 
 poleon was not a reckless scoffer who mocked at re- 
 ligion as superstitious folly, and treated it like a show 
 at a theatre. The offspring of a bad revolutionary 
 time, he was not a pious or a scrupulous man, but 
 his intelligence was of too high a kind not to see the 
 Divine in the order of things, and, like all great 
 rulers of men, he understood the importance of 
 religion as a moderating force, and of its institutions 
 as bulwarks of the State. From the deck of the 
 Orient he had pointed to the stars and rebuked the 
 atheism of Y2x\s\^t\ philosophes ; his imagination, one 
 of his most distinctive faculties, soared to the 
 heights of the Unknown God ; he loved to dwell 
 upon Moses and Mahomet, great leaders, who had 
 achieved wonders by appeals to faith in the Most 
 High ; he saw in the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth 
 a prodigious influence on the estate of men ; and he 
 recognised in the Church of his fathers a marvel of 
 organisation, and a most potent instrument to up- 
 hold order and to maintain authority. His policy 
 in Egypt as regards Mecca was in the main prompted 
 by the same motives as his better policy, as regards 
 Rome, which restored her fallen altars to France, 
 and, notwithstanding the gibes of satirists, it ex- 
 hibited real insight and wisdom. 
 
 The intelligence, however, which ere long reached 
 him, that the Porte had declared war against France, 
 and that two Turkish armies were on their way to 
 
68 Napoleon. [1798- 
 
 Egypt, compelled him to abandon the work in his 
 hands, and, after his wont, he resolved to attack his 
 enemies while still widely divided. He set off for 
 Syria, in February, 1799, with an army of about 
 thirteen thousand men ; and his imagination, fired 
 by the visions of the East, created vast designs of 
 collecting myriads of auxiliaries in his conquering 
 path, of marching to the Indus from the Euphrates, or 
 of reaching Constantinople through Asia Minor, and, 
 in his own phrase, " taking Europe in reverse." One 
 tragic incident occurred in his advance — he ordered 
 the execution of about two thousand Turks, made 
 prisoners after the surrender of Jaffa ; the plea that 
 they had broken faith at El Arysh cannot stand the 
 test of impartial inquiry, and the deed has left a stain 
 on his name, though unhappily soldiers of European 
 races have been too often merciless in Asiatic war- 
 fare. Towards the close of March he sate down 
 before Acre ; his operations were impeded by a 
 British squadron ; the place made a determined 
 resistance, and Napoleon raised the siege in the third 
 week of May, saying that " a grain of sand had 
 caused grand projects to fall." He wasted the 
 country pitilessly on his retreat, having routed the 
 Turks in many encounters ; but the assertion that 
 he proposed to destroy by poison unhappy soldiers 
 seized by the plague is certainly an unfounded 
 calumny. On his return to Egypt he received the 
 news that the second Turkish army had been disem- 
 barked ; he marched against it with characteristic 
 energy, and it was overthrown and driven into the 
 sea not far from the scene of the defeat of Brueys. 
 
1799] Egypt and the i8th Brumaire. 69 
 
 At this juncture, a mere accident made Napoleon 
 aware of the condition of France and of the reverses 
 that had befallen her arms. He instantly resolved 
 to return to Europe and to brave the indefatigable 
 English cruisers, and it is puerile and absurd to con- 
 demn his conduct. He was already anxiously ex- 
 pected in France, her enemies in Egypt had been 
 crushed, his army was about twenty-two thousand 
 strong and occupied nearly the whole country, and 
 his presence was required on the great stage of 
 events. He set off from the shores of Africa near 
 the end of August, 1799, having transferred his 
 command to Kl^ber. The voyage was tedious 
 and perilous in the extreme, for his weak flotilla of 
 four small vessels had to pass through the midst 
 of the English fleets, but Fortune smiled on her 
 daring favourite, and he had reached the coasts of 
 Provence in October. In an instant he was on his 
 way to the capital, and whether he threaded the 
 defiles of Dauphin^ or traversed the shouting ways 
 of Lyons, he was greeted with an enthusiasm that 
 knew no bounds, as the hope of France, and her 
 sure Deliverer. 
 
 On his arrival in Paris he found France in a 
 position, abroad, of less danger than had been the 
 case when he set sail from Egypt. The Coalition 
 had missed the occasion ; they had divided their 
 forces on the theatre of war ; instead of directly 
 invading France the Archduke Charles had been 
 despatched to the Lower Rhine, to co-operate with 
 the Duke of York, who was making a feeble attack 
 on the Netherlands; and Suv<5rofi had abandoned 
 
70 Napoleon. [1798- 
 
 Italy to assail Massdna, still standing firmly on the 
 defence in Switzerland. In this state of affairs, the 
 Archduke had done nothing; the Duke of York 
 ignominiously failed ; and Mass^na, with admirable 
 energy and skill, had fallen on Korsakoff, the enemy 
 in his front, had won a decisive battle near Zurich, 
 and had compelled Suvdroff to effect his retreat, 
 with terrible loss, through the passes of the Alps. 
 France had been saved, at least for the time ; but 
 her armies had all but lost Italy, she was still 
 menaced by the allied hosts, she was still the prey 
 of anarchy and strife at home, and Napoleon 
 received in Paris the universal acclaim which had 
 welcomed him on his way through the provinces. 
 
 For a few days he withdrew himself into seclusion, 
 as he had done before ; but this attitude had become 
 impossible, and ambition no longer required a mask. 
 The obsequious Directory licked his hand, conceal- 
 ing a hatred they feared to show ; with scarcely an 
 exception, the generals, on the spot, rallied round 
 the chief who towered over them all ; and even the 
 violent Republicans were not unwilling to see a 
 Dictator at the head of affairs. But the most 
 powerful supporters of Napoleon were the moderate, 
 wealthy, and orderly citizens, who feared Jacobinism, 
 and despised the government ; the rising intellect 
 of Paris, too, and, even the multitude, were on his 
 side ; and France, in fact, declared with no uncertain 
 voice, that the warrior of 1796 was required to lead 
 her armies again, and that the strong hand alone of 
 her most successful soldier could rescue her from 
 the depths of misfortune and from the state of dis- 
 
1799] Egypt and the i8th Brumaire. 71 
 
 order and weakness into which she had fallen of 
 late. 
 
 In this state of opinion the existing government 
 of France was doomed, and could not long endure. 
 But the Constitution of the year III. survived, the 
 Directory held the reins of power, the Councils of 
 the Ancients and of the Five Hundred formed the 
 Legislature and had very great influence, and it was 
 no easy matter to effect a change in an order of 
 things for some time established without a violent 
 revolution, that might convulse the country and 
 aggravate all the dangers at hand. Though Sieyfes, 
 too, by many degrees the most able of the Five 
 Directors, had acknowledged that it had become 
 necessary to create a stronger and more united 
 government, and even to transform the institutions 
 of France, he aimed at being the real head of the 
 State ; and he stood angrily aloof from Napoleon, 
 when it had become apparent that France was turn- 
 ing to Napoleon as the ruler of her choice. But 
 Napoleon and Sieyfes, though with different objects, 
 agreed that a complete change was required in the 
 government and the political structure of France ; 
 they had strong common interests, too, that brought 
 them together, and through the influence of Talley- 
 rand, already known as the most eminent of the 
 diplomatists of France, and of other leaders of the 
 class of the Moderates, a reconciliation was effected 
 between the rivals, who, in fact, felt that each could 
 assist the other. 
 
 The purpose of Napoleon and Sieyfes now was to 
 overturn the Directory, and to subvert the Consti- 
 
72 Napoleon. [1798- 
 
 tution, and all that belonged to it, as quietly as 
 possible and without recourse to violence ; and, 
 aided by his colleague, Napoleon formed a plan of 
 operations, which strikingly shows how he could 
 exhibit, in the domain of politics, the skill in strata- 
 gem in which he was pre-eminent in war. The 
 threatening remains of the Terrorist faction were 
 dreaded and hated alike in Paris ; Siey^s was all- 
 powerful among the Ancients, and had a consider- 
 able following in the Five Hundred ; and though 
 these bodies had begun to fear Napoleon, he had 
 the army at his back and five-sixths of the capital. 
 In these circumstances it was arranged that Paris 
 was to be alarmed with a report of a widespread 
 Jacobin plot and rising ; Sieyfes was to inform the 
 Ancients of this, and to obtain a vote from them, as 
 the law allowed, to transfer the whole Legislature 
 to St. Cloud ; and Napoleon calculated that, in this 
 remote spot, the two Councils could be induced, by 
 persuasion, or, if necessary, by force, to consent, in 
 view of the peril of the State, to a revolution in the 
 existing government. To carry out his purpose he 
 had made sure of the leaders of th-e army and of 
 the troops in Paris ; he relied, too, on his own com- 
 manding influence ; and in order to make the trans- 
 fer of power more easy, it was agreed that Sieyfes, 
 and his creature, Ducos, should resign their offices as 
 Directors, and paralyse the Executive at the decisive 
 moment. No provision was made for the future order 
 of things which was to take the place of the old in 
 France, and this was designedly done by Napoleon ; 
 he had from the first resolved to be himself supreme. 
 
1799] Egypt and the i8th Brumaire. "jt, 
 
 The coup d'dtat, planned in this way, was to take 
 place on the i8th Brumaire, the 9th of November, 
 1799. The success of its projectors was, at first, 
 more complete than they had themselves expected. 
 Vague rumours of a Terrorist plot were disseminated 
 through the alarmed capital ; Fouch6, the head of 
 the police, an unenviable name, having received a 
 hint to spread the intelligence ; and the Ancients, at 
 the instance of Sieyfes, holding a sitting, on the 8th, 
 with closed doors, at night, pronounced a decree 
 that the two Councils should repair to St. Cloud to 
 deliberate there on the grave danger that threatened 
 the State. At the same time, setting the law at 
 nought, with an obsequiousness which revealed the 
 state of opinion, they voted Napoleon to the supreme 
 command of all the military force in or near Paris ; 
 and, as far as they could, they sanctioned his use of 
 the power of the sword already in his hands. The 
 Five Hundred obeyed with hardly a protest, reas- 
 sured by the soft words of Lucien Bonaparte, their 
 president, but one of Napoleon's brothers ; and they 
 took their departure to St. Cloud without a show of 
 suspicion. Meanwhile, Napoleon had drawn together 
 large bodies of troops from different parts of the 
 city ; he harangued the soldiers and addressed their 
 chiefs; he found docile followers in the superior 
 officers, and, accompanied by an enthusiastic con- 
 course of citizens hailing the rising sun, he took 
 precautions to prevent the tottering government from 
 making an attempt to assert their authority. The 
 palace of the Directory was occupied by armed men, 
 with Moreau, the known Republican chief, at their 
 
74 Napoleon. [1798- 
 
 head, — one of Napoleon's most dexterous strokes ; 
 Sieyfes and Ducos, as had been arranged, deserted 
 their colleagues and left their posts ; Barras, another 
 of the Five, the old patron of Napoleon in 1794- 
 1795, a waiter on fortune, corrupt and worthless, was 
 persuaded or compelled to resign ; and the honoura- 
 ble resistance of Moulins and Gohier, the two re- 
 maining Directors, proved, of course, futile. By the 
 evening Napoleon appeared master of the situation 
 beyond recall ; Paris, made, by the Revolution, the 
 Dictator of France, had declared for him with a 
 unanimous voice ; the co-operation of the army had 
 been always certain ; the government had vanished, 
 unwept and dishonoured ; and he had, he thought, 
 but to march to St. Cloud to obtain the assent of 
 the Councils to all that he pleased. He was so 
 confident in the result of the enterprise that he 
 refused to listen to Sieyfes, who urged him to arrest 
 the most daring and passionate spirits of the Five 
 Hundred assembled at St. Cloud. 
 
 All had gone on smoothly up to this point of 
 time ; but revolution has many turns, and the coup 
 d'Hat very nearly failed. Napoleon marched to 
 St. Cloud at the head of his troops, followed by 
 applauding thousands from Paris, on the morning 
 of the loth, the 19th Brumaire, and the task before 
 him seemed perfectly easy. But there was a mi- 
 nority, in the Ancients, opposed to Sieyfes ; the Five 
 Hundred clung to the Constitution, for their posi- 
 tion in the State depended upon it ; and both 
 Councils, beginning to perceive that they had been 
 removed, by a trick, from Paris, were irritated, sus-. 
 
1799] Egypt and the i8th Brumaire. 75 
 
 picious, and full of distrust. An unexpected delay 
 caused passionate debates, and despite the efforts of 
 Lucien Bonaparte, the Five Hundred carried a vote 
 to maintain the institutions of France unchanged, 
 and ratified this by a solemn oath. Napoleon, mean- 
 time, had presented himself at the bar of tne 
 Ancients, with his staff hard by ; he was naturally 
 embarrassed when asked to explain the circumstances 
 of a supposed conspiracy, which had been devised 
 for the occasion only ; but he recovered his com- 
 posure, when he dwelt with emphasis on the collapse 
 of the settlement of the year III., destroyed by suc- 
 cessive acts of violence, and he received the thanks 
 of the half-convinced Assembly. 
 
 It was altogether otherwise when he appeared 
 before the Five Hundred to carry out his purpose. 
 The Council had worked itself to a pitch of fierce 
 excitement ; shouts of " down with the tyrant " rang 
 out on all sides ; a cry went forth, " put an end to 
 the outlaw," the cry once fatal to Robespierre ; and 
 little doubt can exist that, like other soldiers versed 
 in the experience of material force, but perplexed 
 when confronted by moral power. Napoleon hesi- 
 tated, was baffled, nay, even quailed. He was carried 
 out of the Assembly by a knot of his soldiers, and 
 Lucien, who had tried to check the torrent of fury, 
 disappeared, exclaiming that the sitting was at an 
 end, and throwing away the robes of his office. Na- 
 poleon's presence of mind at once returned ; he 
 addressed the troops in indignant language ; a file of 
 grenadiers entered the hall of the Council, and the 
 terrified members scattered in flight. A Rump of 
 
76 Napoleon. [1798- 
 
 the creatures of Sieyes and Napoleon was brought 
 together again to declare the extinction of the con- 
 stitution of a few years before, and to inaugurate a 
 Provisional Government, and the Ancients sanctioned 
 all that had been done. The army and the crowds 
 at St. Cloud hailed the coup d'etat with expres- 
 sions of delight ; Paris loudly echoed the universal 
 sentiment, and France joyfully welcomed her coming 
 master. 
 
 The pre-eminence of Napoleon in war, was not 
 conspicuously seen in Egypt and Syria. He routed 
 the Mamelukes and the Ottoman hordes, but these 
 foes were not worthy of his steel, and he was baffled 
 and discomfited at the siege of Acre. Unquestion- 
 ably, too, he underrated the power of England on 
 her own element ; and though he effected the de- 
 scent on Egypt when Nelson's Mediterranean 
 squadron was weak, he might have anticipated that a 
 Battle of the Nile would isolate his army and cut 
 it off from France. If he really contemplated the 
 gigantic designs of a march to the Indus, or on 
 Constantinople — and at St. Helena he said that 
 these were possible — it is certain, from the state of 
 our present knowledge, that either project must 
 have completely failed, and in these vast plans of 
 conquest we begin to see the over-confidence and 
 the imaginative excess, which were his most striking 
 faults as a warrior, and which he had not exhibited 
 in the campaigns of Italy, where he was confronted 
 usually by a superiority of force. The most remarka- 
 ble passage in this phase of his career is certainly 
 the coup d'etat of the i8th Brumaire, and many 
 
CENTRAL EUROPE— 1801. 
 
1799] Egypt and the i8th Brumaire. "jj 
 
 conflicting judgments have been pronounced upon 
 it. His conduct, no doubt, was marked by decep- 
 tion ; he lured the Councils to St. Cloud by an igno- 
 ble trick, and he barely escaped the vengeance of 
 an angry assembly, exasperated by an exhibition 
 of guile and state-craft. But it was his great object 
 — apart from his personal aims — to carry out the 
 revolution without shedding blood ; he accomplished 
 this with perfect success, and, in the existing condi- 
 tion of France, this really excuses his acts and his 
 policy. The Catos, who condemn Brumaire as a 
 crime, are wilfully blind to the plainest facts ; the 
 Constitution of the year III. had failed; France 
 appeared falling at home and abroad, and the genius 
 of Napoleon was required to raise the nation out of 
 defeat and ruin. The coup d'etat was, beyond dis- 
 pute, welcome to nineteen-twentieths of the French 
 people ; and in this matter they were the true judges. 
 The nation is happy which has had no experience 
 of shocks like these in its peaceful annals ; but the 
 majesty of the Senate did not stop Caesar; the 
 Long Parliament was destroyed by Cromwell, and 
 an occasional Dictatorship was an institution, 
 acknowledged to be a necessity of state by the 
 most sagacious community known to history. The 
 hour had come and the man had arrived, and the 
 justification of Napoleon, at this crisis, was the Law 
 of Public Safety, to which all must yield. 
 
CHAPTER rV. 
 
 The Provisional Government of France after the i8th Brumaire 
 — The Constitution of the year VIII. — Its singular char- 
 acteristics — Napoleon First Consul and the real ruler of 
 France — Financial reforms — The pacification of La Vendee — 
 Wise and merciful policy to Emigre's and priests — Restoration 
 of internal order — Preparations for the campaign of 1800 — Na- 
 poleon crosses the Alps — Battle of Marengo — Great results — 
 Renewal of the Vfar after an armistice — Battle of Hohenlinden 
 — Prostration of Austria and peace of Luneville — Struggle v\fith 
 England — The Armed League of the North— Evacuation of 
 Egypt — Peace of Amiens — Paris in 1802 — Monarchical tenden- 
 cies of Napoleon's government. 
 
 lEYES had hoped that he 
 would be able to turn the 
 1 8th Brumaire to his own 
 advantage, but his calcu- 
 lations quickly proved 
 vain. The Provisional 
 Government formed by 
 the coup (T^tat consist- 
 ed of Napoleon, Sieyfes, 
 and Ducos,— the last 
 merely a neglected cipher 
 — who gave themselves 
 the title of Consul, but the authority of Na- 
 poleon was, from the first, absolute. Sieyfes, if we 
 are to believe Napoleon, discovered, after a brief ex- 
 perience, that the young general was deeply versed in 
 
 78 
 
1799-1802] Marengo, Luneville, Amiens. 79 
 
 civil administration, and even in politics, and willingly 
 relinquished the conduct of the State to one who, he 
 declared, " had the will, the capacity, and the power 
 to direct everything." Napoleon, however, entrust- 
 ed to Siey^s the task of framing a new constitu- 
 tion for France, for in this province his colleague en- 
 joyed a reputation without a rival, and, with a clear 
 perception of the real state of affairs, he took the whole 
 system of administration and executive government 
 into his own hands, that is, he assumed the Dictator- 
 ship, which had been, all through, his aim. He was 
 admirably qualified for this supreme position, and 
 circumstances powerfully told in his favour. As we 
 have seen, he had diligently pursued studies connected 
 with political science, and though he never rose to 
 the highest conception of what ought to be the 
 estate of man, he possessed much of the knowledge 
 required for the management of a great European 
 state. His military experience, too, had made him 
 acquainted with many departments of civil affairs ; 
 and he had a faculty of organisation perhaps never 
 equalled, and a power of calculation, a force of in- 
 sight, an industry, and a capacity of mastering details, 
 which Nature has seldom bestowed on man. These 
 gifts were pledges that he would succeed in his task, 
 yet the accidents of his life and career, and the atti- 
 tude, at this juncture, of France, co-operated strongly 
 in the same direction. He was a Corsican, who had 
 scarcely taken part in the terrible drama of the 
 Revolution ; he had had no share in its worst ex- 
 cesses and had almost stood aloof from its factions ; 
 he was chiefly known as a great captain who had 
 
8o Napoleon. [1799- 
 
 shown a marked repugnance to extreme ideas, and 
 these antecedents seemed to make him fitted to 
 rule, to reform, and to heal the wounds of the State. 
 France, too, had called him to power before the 
 1 8th Brumaire, and when she found that he was 
 really supreme, she rallied round him with pas- 
 sionate ardour, was ready to place her resources in 
 his hands, and did him loyal and almost universal 
 service. Years afterwards, in the reflections of 
 exile, he described this great outburst of national 
 feeling as not the least wonderful incident of his 
 career.* 
 
 In a few weeks Sieyfes had produced the Constitu- 
 tion of the year VIII., the name given it in the 
 Republican Calendar. A word must be said on this 
 latest birth of the French philosophy of the eigh- 
 teenth century, for it illustrated the state of opinion 
 in France at the time ; it created institutions of a 
 most singular kind, turned to account by the despot- 
 ism they were designed to check, and it proved the 
 incapacity of its author to understand the true re- 
 quirements of France at the existing crisis. The 
 great objects of Sieyfes were to prevent or lessen the 
 violent oscillations of the public mind which had 
 led to coups d'etat like the i8th Fructidor, and had 
 placed the legislature and the executive govern- 
 ment in antagonism under the Directorial rdgime, so 
 to divide authority in the State that it could not 
 become dangerous to the general welfare, and to 
 
 * Commentaries, tome iv., 3, Ed., 1867. The passage is too long 
 for quotation, but should be studied. It is a fine specimen of 
 Napoleon's power of thought and expression. 
 
INSTALLATION OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE AT THE PETIT LUXEMBOURG. 
 
 FROM THE PAif.TlNG Bt COUOER. 
 
1802] Marengo, Luneville, Amiens. 8i 
 
 secure stability and order even at the expense of 
 freedom. To attain these ends he devised one of 
 the most curious pieces of political mechanism that 
 has appeared in history. The Sovereignty of the 
 French people was acknowledged in name, for Rous- 
 seau still had hold on the hearts of men, but the 
 Sovereign had no real power in the direction of the 
 State ; his only function was to select lists of candi- 
 dates for the public service, ascending from the low- 
 est to the highest ofifices. The Deliberative Bodies, 
 charged to assist, to advise, or, if necessary, to con- 
 trol the government, were not to be elective in any 
 sense ; they were to be chosen from the chief " no- 
 tables " on the lists, by an authority without one 
 popular element, and they were to consist of a Coun- 
 cil of State, which was to propose measures of all 
 kinds ; of a Legislative Assembly, which could only 
 approve or disapprove of what was brought before 
 it, and was absolutely deprived of the right of dis- 
 cussion ; and of a Tribunate intended to debate 
 these projects, but in turn disabled from voting on 
 them ; the object of this partition of powers being 
 to make these bodies, which, be it observed, were at 
 no point in touch with the people, checks upon each 
 other, and without commanding influence. Above 
 the Council of State, the Legislature, and the Tri- 
 bunate was placed the Senate, the only real source 
 and depositary of power in this strange polity. This 
 body, selected, too, from the highest "notables," 
 but composed of wealthy and aged men, was to be 
 nominated by the Executive in the first instance, 
 but thenceforward was to be self-elective, and prac- 
 
82 Napoleon. [1799- 
 
 tically it was to be supreme in the State. It was 
 not to have an active part in public affairs, but it 
 was given a potent veto on them ; the Dehberative 
 Bodies depended on it, for all their members were 
 to be appointed by it ; and, most important of all, 
 it had, indirectly, complete control over the Execu- 
 tive Government. That government was to be 
 composed of a Grand Elector, a mere gilded image 
 of the dignity of the State, whose chief function 
 was to choose two Consuls to conduct military and 
 civil affairs ; and the Consuls again were to name 
 the ministers, who were to do the work of the State 
 through themselves or their agents, all, with few 
 exceptions, " notables " on the lists. But the Grand 
 Elector was to be chosen by the Senate, and could 
 be dismissed by it ; the two Consuls and the minis- 
 ters were in the same state of dependence ; and the 
 Senate, therefore, was the real ruler of France. 
 
 This constitution shut out the nation from any 
 practical share in its own affairs, and made it merely 
 a passive agency, to give the State a choice of its 
 official classes ; and it shows how France, worn out 
 and exhausted by the excesses and follies of revo- 
 lution, had abandoned the ideas of 1789 and the 
 golden dreams of democratic liberty. As for the 
 Deliberative Bodies, they had nothing in common 
 with a free parliament of any kind ; they were crea- 
 tures of power kept apart from the people : the 
 Council of State naturally lent itself to the govern- 
 ment ; the mute Legislature and the merely talking 
 Tribunate could not possess authority, from the 
 nature of the case, and were not only set against 
 
1802] Marengo, Luneville, Amiens. 83 
 
 each other, but could offer no resistance to a strong 
 ruler. 
 
 The most absurd, however, of these creations was 
 the Senate, and the Executive dependent on it. 
 France required a Dictator at this moment, yet 
 Sieyfes, with absolute blindness to fact, gave the 
 supreme direction and control of the State to an 
 aged oligarchy of mere functionaries, to an orna- 
 mental chief, like a Doge of Venice, and to an 
 Executive of subordinates ; that is, weakened and 
 paralysed the whole frame of government. Napo- 
 leon accepted parts of this scheme which obviously 
 furthered his real objects ; but he properly swept 
 other parts away ; and if in this as in many other 
 instances, ambition was probably his leading motive, 
 he certainly did France an immense service. At all 
 times jealous of popular rights, and cordially dis- 
 liking democratic power, he approved of the arrange- 
 ments made by Sieyfes to deprive the nation of real 
 authority, though he justly remarked that the lists 
 of candidates were an unwise restriction on the 
 Executive government. The Council of State, the 
 Legislature, and the Tribunate were sanctioned by 
 him with but few objections, for these institutions 
 he clearly saw could not be effective checks on his 
 power, and could be made its convenient screens 
 and instruments. But he insisted on removing the 
 Senate from the supreme place it held in the State ; 
 and as to the Grand Elector, the two Consuls, and the 
 administration to be formed in this way, he de- 
 nounced them as false conceptions of a dreamer 
 ignorant of human affairs, which would give France 
 
84 Napoleon. [1799- 
 
 a hopelessly bad Executive, and would involve her 
 in defeat and ruin. Sieyfes yielded on every point ; 
 the Constitution was virtually transformed, and 
 though the changes in it appeared few, Napoleon 
 acquired all but absolute power, for the Senate was 
 shorn of its chief prerogatives, and every part of the 
 Executive government was unreservedly placed in 
 his hands. The First Consul, as he was now called, 
 became thus by law as he had been in fact, the real 
 master and head of France, and his Dictatorship 
 was hardly veiled by associating with him a Second 
 and Third Consul, mere satellites who could only 
 advise. Sieyfes and Ducos refused to accept these 
 posts ; Napoleon gave them to Cambac^r^s and 
 Lebrun, one a sagacious and learned jurist, the other 
 a servant of the old monarchy, but both devoted 
 creatures of his own ; and accurately judging the 
 character of Sieyfes, he made his late colleague and 
 former rival, the richly endowed President of the 
 new-made Senate, and relegated him into wealthy 
 obscurity. 
 
 Napoleon, meanwhile, had been directing his ener- 
 gies to the stupendous task of raising France from 
 the depths into which she had fallen. The finances 
 attracted his attention first, for the restoration of 
 these was the first need of the country. When 
 he took the reins, after the i8th Brumaire, the 
 financial condition of France seemed hopeless ; the 
 Treasury was absolutely without specie ; the fallen 
 government had no credit ; National Bankruptcy 
 had been practically declared, the Funds oscillated 
 between six and ten, and the moneyed classes, 
 
1802] Marengo, Luneville, Amiens. 85 
 
 wronged by unjust exactions, were bitterly hostile 
 to the men lately in power. The establishment of 
 the rule of the First Consul put an end speedily to 
 this state of things ; the new government inspired 
 confidence, and considerable sums were advanced 
 by the bankers and capitalists of the chief towns of 
 France, to supply the immediate wants of the State. 
 Large contributions too were obtained from the 
 young republics sprung from their French parent, 
 and though this has been laid to the charge of 
 Napoleon, he really followed, in this matter, the 
 example set him by the Directory. 
 
 These resources, however, were for the moment 
 only, and the First Consul seized the occasion to put 
 the finances of France on an improved footing. For 
 this purpose he availed himself of the administrative 
 skill and experience of Gaudin, another functionary 
 of the Bourbon regime ; and, largely owing to the 
 measures of this very able man, a financial position 
 which appeared desperate, ere long assumed a 
 promising aspect. The exhaustion of the Treasury 
 and the bankruptcy of the State were not due, as was 
 generally supposed — this was one capital mistake of 
 Pitt — to any real decline of France in wealth ; the 
 country in spite of Revolution had made consider- 
 able material progress ; they were caused by the 
 reckless legislation of 1 789-90, which had practically 
 allowed the people to tax themselves; by maladmin- 
 istration of several kinds of revenue ; by the utter 
 discredit of Government paper, and not least by the 
 unfair charges which had been imposed on the more 
 wealthy citizens. Gaudin, with the full sanction of 
 
86 Napoleon. [1799- 
 
 the First Consul, applied effectual remedies to this 
 state of things : borrowing from precedents of the 
 old monarchy he established a strong and centralised 
 system to assess taxation, and to enforce payments ; 
 he administered the revenue by improved methods ; 
 he called in and cancelled the bad Treasury notes ; 
 he abolished the iniquitous plunder of the rich, and 
 he devised expedients simple and well planned by 
 which the officials charged with the duty were given 
 a direct interest to collect the taxes, and the full 
 value of these were assured to the State. The Bank 
 of France, too, and a Sinking Fund were further 
 creations of this able minister • he dealt most suc- 
 cessfully with the remains of the National Debt 
 which were still recognised ; and even made some 
 provision for two thirds of it which had been re- 
 pudiated from time to time by successive govern- 
 ments since 1793. 
 
 Through these means France began to emerge, in 
 a few months, out of distress and bankruptcy ; her 
 financial prosperity became assured ; and the foun- 
 dations were laid of her financial system, which has 
 stood the infallible test of Time. Yet, admirable as 
 the measures of Gaudin were, this recovery could not 
 have been so rapid as it was, but for the improve- 
 ment in the general frame of the government, and 
 especially, perhaps, for the absolute trust of the 
 great mass of the people in their chosen ruler, the 
 distinctive feature of the first years of the Consu- 
 late. La Vendue, meantime, had been taken in hand 
 by Napoleon, with characteristic vigour ; and his 
 policy as regards the great Western tract of Catholic, 
 
1802] Marengo, Luneville, Amiens. 87 
 
 Feudal, and Royal France, was conspicuous for its 
 boldness and wisdom. These provinces had sub- 
 mitted to Hoche ; but they had risen in revolt in 
 1799, under the influence of flattering emigres and 
 of English gold ; the defeats of the Republic, and 
 the weak and cruel conduct of the Directory to 
 the seigneurs and the priests, had strengthened the 
 insurrection, and made it formidable. 
 
 Napoleon, collecting an army of sixty thousand 
 men, put down the rebellion with a determined hand ; 
 but he made clemency, conciliation, and healing jus- 
 tice follow in the train of irresistible force. He amnes- 
 tied insurgent leaders, who laid down their arms ; he 
 put an end to the wrongful edicts, which made the 
 families and estates of Vend6an nobles responsible 
 for every act of disorder ; above all he gave the clergy 
 their altars again, and made no secret, as had been 
 the case in Italy, of his sympathy with their ancient 
 faith. La Vendue was easily pacified in this way; 
 and though a few severe examples were made, and 
 George Cadoudal, one of the rebel chiefs — a plotter 
 of evil we shall meet again — maintained a sullen and 
 threatening attitude, the pacification was happy and 
 complete. The same moderate and judicious policy 
 was seen in many other important measures, and was 
 extended to every part of the nation. Most of the 
 exiles of Fructidor were recalled ; the First Consul, 
 who, even in youth, had saved ^migHs from the Ter- 
 rorist axe, closed once for all the lists of proscription, 
 and allowed hundreds of exiles to return to France , 
 and he openly avowed that he drew no distinctions 
 between Frenchmen, for events in the past, if they 
 
88 Napoleon. [1799- 
 
 were ready, for the future, to be loyal to the State. 
 The marked favour, however, he showed to the 
 Church was the most striking feature of his present 
 conduct. He ordered a solemn funeral for Pius 
 VI. — the aged pontiff had died in France after the 
 Republic had been set up in Rome — ; he stopped the 
 persecution of the nonjuring priests, extended lately 
 even to their conforming brethren ; he threw open 
 the churches which, in many parishes, had been 
 closed by the local authorities ; he restored Sunday 
 as a sacred day of rest ; and he substituted in the 
 case of the clergy, a simple promise of obedience for 
 the oath to the State, considered by many an affront 
 to Rome, and inconsistent with their canonical vows. 
 Six years after the Goddess of Reason had dese- 
 crated the aisles of Notre Dame, the new ruler of 
 France, it had become evident, might yet be the 
 Eldest Son of the Church. 
 
 In this way, an able, wise, and successful govern- 
 ment, the strong guardian of the great interests 
 which had grown out of the Revolution, but nar 
 tional,* founded on a wide basis, and visibly inclining 
 to much that belonged to the Bourbon monarchy, 
 and to the old Church of France, replaced, with a 
 man of genius at its head, the worthless rule of the 
 feeble Directory. These months, too, witnessed the 
 
 * The spirit of this government is well expressed in these words of 
 Napoleon, " Ralliez vous tons a la masse du peuple. Le simple titre 
 de citoyen Frangais vaut bien sans doute, celui de royaliste, de 
 clichien, de jacobin, de feuillant, et ces milles et une denominations 
 qu'enfante I'esprit de faction, et qui, depuis dix ans, tendent a 
 precipiter la nation dans un abime d'ou il est temps enfin qu'elle soit 
 tiree pour toujours. " — Corr., tomevi., 12. 
 
1802] Marengo, Luneville, Amiens. 89 
 
 inauguration of the local administration of the First 
 Consul — a most striking instance of his commanding 
 powers ; the brigandage, which had overrun whole 
 provinces, was repressed by a vigorous police, and 
 by special tribunals ; the roads and canals, which 
 had almost gone to ruin, in the anarchy of the pre- 
 vious ten years, were by degrees restored and im- 
 proved ; and noble public works were planned, and 
 soon begun, which remain grand monuments of 
 Napoleon's reign. A few other events of the time 
 must be noticed, for they clearly illustrate Napoleon's 
 character. The evident tendency of the First Con- 
 sul, to adopt usages of the ancient rdginie, and spe- 
 cially his clemency to the exiled I'mign's, induced 
 many leaders of the Royalist party to believe that 
 he meant to play the part of Monk, and to be the 
 restorer of the Bourbon throne ; and the Pretender, 
 afterwards Louis XVIII., wrote to him, in this sense, 
 with condescending hopefulness. Napoleon, how- 
 ever, put an end to these fancies ; he plainly let the 
 enthusiasts know that he was the Champion of the 
 Revolution, and the Chief of France, and, in a let- 
 ter* of singular grace and dignity, he urged the 
 Comte de Provence not to attempt to return " over 
 the corpses of a hundred thousand Frenchmen." 
 Yet the First Consul showed that he could be far 
 more stern to the faction which had overturned the 
 monarchy, and had stained the Revolution with 
 atrocious crimes. The extreme Republicans looked 
 
 * This letter, and that addressed to the Prince Regent after Water- 
 loo, the one written in prosperous, the other in adverse, fortune, are 
 models of composition of this kind. 
 
go Napoleon. 11799- 
 
 askance at his policy ; and a few of the old Jacobins 
 had begun to plot against his life. The Royalist 
 fanatics, however, were more dangerous ; and he nar- 
 rowly escaped destruction at the hands of conspira- 
 tors guided by George Cadoudal, who fired an infernal 
 machine, as he was on his way to the theatre. The 
 intending assassins received their due ; but Napoleon 
 seized the occasion to mete out vengeance to the 
 remains of the fallen and despised Terrorists ; and a 
 hundred and thirty of these men of blood were ban- 
 ished by a mere act of power. Five sixths were 
 probably deeply guilty , yet the act was ominous of 
 a coming time,when despotism was to be unchecked 
 in France. 
 
 The enemy, however, was on the borders of France ; • 
 and in the midst of the civil cares of State, Napoleon 
 had been making preparations for war. He had 
 scarcely been installed in the Consular seat, when he 
 made offers of peace to England and Austria ; and 
 history will not echo the clamour of partisans, and 
 pronounce these overtures wholly insincere. His 
 proposals, however, were coldly rejected ; for the 
 Allies were sanguine after the events of 1799, and 
 the issue was left to the arbitrament of the sword. 
 Two circumstances favoured the prospects of France : 
 the Czar Paul, chafing at the defeats of Suvdroff, 
 which he attributed mainly to Austrian jealousy, had 
 refused further aid to the Coalition, and England, 
 after her reverses in Holland, could do little upon 
 the Continent ; while Prussia, it should be added, 
 which, since 1795, had been at peace with the French 
 Republic, was evidently well-disposed to the First 
 
1802] Marengo, Luneville, Amiens. 91 
 
 Consul's government. The brunt of the war there- 
 fore fell on Austria, and the situation had become 
 very different from what it had been in the spring of 
 1799. On the other hand, the French scarcely clung 
 to the skirts of Italy, one great Austrian army 
 threatened Provence; another, partly composed of 
 the troops of the Empire, spread over Swabia, and 
 approached the Rhine ; and Europe believed that 
 the campaign of 1800 would end in a successful 
 invasion of France. 
 
 The first care of Napoleon, in this position of 
 affairs, was to succour and strengthen the French 
 armies in the field, where, as always, his administra- 
 tive gifts were manifest. The newly-made Conscrip- 
 tion yielded ample levies, for France had faith in the 
 warrior of 1796; the Treasury, partly replenished by 
 financial skill, was able to afford assistance to the 
 armed masses left in a state of destitution and want ; 
 vigorous efforts were made to restore discipline, and 
 Napoleon, trusting to the magic of his name, made 
 earnest appeals to his old soldiers to prove them- 
 selves worthy of their past glory. The military 
 power of France was thus much augmented, though 
 still inferior to that of her foes ; and, even in two or 
 three months, it had assumed an aspect far more 
 formidable than was generally supposed. The First 
 Consul next addressed himself to the distribution of 
 these growing forces, and his arrangements appeared, 
 at first sight, defensive — at least not calculated to 
 alarm his enemy. The divisions, which had been 
 widely scattered from Switzerland to the Lower 
 Rhine, were formed into a single army ; and, placed 
 
92 Napoleon. 11799- 
 
 in the experienced hands of Moreau, were opposed 
 to the Imperialist host in Swabia ; and Mass^na, at the 
 head of a much weaker force, holding the Apennines 
 and the Genoese seaboard, confronted the Austrians, 
 who from Piedmont, had their outposts on the Roya 
 and the Var. Any other forces which remained to 
 France were disseminated in the interior, and not 
 yet organised ; and, in fact, it was believed that she 
 could not create another army. 
 
 In this situation Napoleon formed a plan of oper- 
 ations, the finest perhaps of his unrivalled conceptions 
 in war, though its execution was not equal to the 
 design. The Alpine tract of Switzerland, which pro- 
 jects, like a huge bastion, into the lowlands of Italy 
 and Germany, on either side, was a dependency of 
 the French Republic ; and it might therefore be made 
 a kind of sally-port for French armies to issue in 
 force on enemies in the valleys of the Po and the 
 Danube. The Austrian army which, under Melas, 
 menaced France on her south-eastern frontier, was 
 not less than 120,000 strong. Mass^na had not more 
 than 40,000 men ; but he could be trusted to make 
 a stern resistance ; and the force of Melas, thrown 
 forward to the Var, would be dangerously exposed, 
 could a hostile army reach its communications spread- 
 ing to the Adige. On the other hand, Moreau had 
 about 130,000 men opposed to about 120,000 in the 
 hands of Kray, in part composed of very inferior 
 troops ; and Moreau would certainly be able to de- 
 fend Alsace, and perhaps to defeat and even over- 
 whelm his adversary. The First Consul gave Mas- 
 s6na the task of holding Melas in check as long as 
 
NORTHERN ITALY-ILLUSTRATING CAMPAIGNS OF 1796-1802. 
 
1802] Marengo, Luneville, Amiens. 93 
 
 possible ; and he directed Moreau to advance to 
 Schaffhausen, to surprise and, if possible, to cut off 
 Kray ; but, in any case, to throw his enemy back, 
 and to send a detachment across the St. Gothard 
 Pass, to co-operate with the force it would find in 
 Italy. Meanwhile the decisive effort was to be 
 made by Napoleon : an army, yet to be formed by 
 him, was to issue from Switzerland, to cross the Alps, 
 to push forward into the valley of the Po, and, join- 
 ing hands with the troops sent by Moreau, was to 
 close on the rear of the army of Melas, and to cut it 
 off from its base in Lombardy. 
 
 The great campaign of 1800 was thus conceived, 
 and good judges have deemed it its author's master- 
 piece. Melas attacked Mass^na in the early spring, 
 and, though he separated his opponent's forces, 
 Mass^na shut himself up within Genoa, and made a 
 defence ever memorable in war. Ere .long Moreau 
 had taken the field ; he had nothing of Napoleon's 
 commanding genius, and he did not venture to 
 march on Schaffhausen ; he crossed the Rhine by 
 complicated and ill-combined movements, but, if he 
 did not surround and rout Kray, he accomplished 
 the most important part of his mission. He defeated 
 the Austrian chief in the Swabian plains, forced him 
 back on Ulm upon the upper Danube, and keeping 
 his antagonist far distant, was able to direct the 
 promised contingent across the Alps to the aid of 
 Napoleon. 
 
 The First Consul, meanwhile, had been collecting 
 an army, about forty thousand strong, composed 
 mainly of veteran troops, drawn from La Vendue 
 
94 Napoleon. [1799- 
 
 and other distant provinces, this being intended to 
 cross the Alps to circumvent and destroy Melas. To 
 conceal an operation, of which the success depended 
 almost wholly on secrecy and surprise. Napoleon 
 assembled a medley of conscripts at Dijon, giving 
 out that this was his army of Italy ; and the Aus- 
 trians, who soon discovered the impotence of this 
 force, were completely deceived by a masterly strat- 
 agem. By the second week of May, the French 
 army, with the First Consul at its head, moved 
 rapidly to the Swiss frontier, was at the verge of the 
 barrier of the Alps ; the principal mass had soon 
 crossed the St. Bernard, and a small force was sent 
 by Mont Cenis, in order to perplex and divide the 
 enemy. The main body was stopped by a hill-fort 
 for a time, but the obstacle was ere long overcome, 
 and the French, descending into the valleys of the 
 streams that form the northern feeders of the Po, 
 had reached Milan by the 2d of June, having thrust 
 aside the weak hostile detachments that endeavoured 
 in vain to arrest their march. Napoleon was at 
 once joined by the divisions sent across the St. 
 Gothard by Moreau, and, having nearly sixty 
 thousand men in hand, he crossed the Po, hold- 
 ing both banks, and advanced to the well-known 
 Stradella Pass, where the spurs of the Apennines 
 almost touch the river, this movement placing 
 him even now on the Austrian communications 
 and rear. 
 
 Melas had endeavoured, meantime, to unite his 
 forces, but he hesitated and lost precious time ; he 
 had been deceived by the apparition of an enemy 
 
NAPOLEON CROSSING THE ALPS. 
 
 FROM THE PAINTING BY PAUL DELAROCHE 
 
1802] Marengo, Luneville, Amiens. 95 
 
 from Mont Cenis, and he would not believe that 
 Napoleon had reached Milan ; one of his lieutenants 
 had hung back to garrison Genoa, surrendered by 
 Mass^na at last ; another had been defeated near 
 the Var by Suchet with a part of Massdna's army ; 
 and the Austrian commander had not collected fifty 
 thousand men by the second week of June round 
 his headquarters at Alexandria. At this moment 
 Napoleon took a step which well nigh caused the 
 failure of his plans — believing that Melas would try 
 to escape by the seaboard after the fall of Genoa, he 
 resolved at any risk to close on his foe ; and he 
 marched into the great plain of Marengo, almost 
 within sight of the Austrian camp, with an army 
 much weaker than that of Melas and very inferior 
 in cannon and horsemen. 
 
 His adversary, a stout soldier, seized the chance 
 before him ; and, on the 14th of June, 1800, he 
 furiously attacked the French army, hoping to break 
 through the toils cast around him, and to force his 
 way successfully to the Po and the Adige. The 
 battle raged for hours ^\ith varying fortunes ; but 
 the day had been nearly lost to Napoleon, when the 
 arrival of Desaix and his division on the field — the 
 warrior fell in the very hour of victory, — and an 
 opportune charge of the heavy French cavalry, sud- 
 denly changed a disaster into a complete triumph. 
 The results were then seen of the grand operations 
 which had barred to Melas his line of retreat ; 
 the Austrians had no choice but to make terms, 
 and though they were allowed to return to the 
 Adige, they abandoned all the large tract between, 
 
96 Napoleon. [1799- 
 
 and Italy had been regained by a march and a battle, 
 while invasion had rolled far away from France. 
 
 Marengo appeared to Europe a kind of portent ; 
 an army had risen, as it were, out of the depths of 
 France, the existence of which had been declared 
 impossible, and, at the bidding of Napoleon, it had 
 mastered the Alps and had annihilated a far more 
 powerful enemy. The contest, however, was not over, 
 the First Consul checked the exulting acclaim which 
 greeted him on his return to Paris ; the tenacity of 
 Austria was known to him, and she was still sup- 
 ported by English subsidies ; and though Austria 
 was glad to accept an armistice, he made great 
 preparations to renew hostilities. Months were 
 spent in negotiations without result, and winter 
 had come when the conflict began again. By this 
 time, Moreau had advanced from Ulm to the Inn, 
 being now largely superior in force, a French army 
 was ready to invade the Tyrol, the victorious 
 army of Italy had approached the Mincio, and 
 Austria was quite overmatched on the theatre of 
 war. Moreau had the good fortune to strike the 
 decisive stroke, though his operations, as a whole, 
 have been severely criticised. Kray had been re- 
 placed by the Archduke John, a brother of the far 
 abler Charles, and this young theorist, in the pre- 
 sumptuous hope that he could perform the feats of 
 Napoleon, crossed the Inn, in order to surprise 
 Moreau, whose army had been unwisely divided, and 
 to cut him off from his base in Bavaria. He gained, 
 for a moment, partial success, but his force was not 
 sufficient to attain his object ; he gave up a manoeu- 
 
1802] Marengo, Luneville, Amiens. 97 
 
 vre seen to be vain, and on the 3d of December, 
 
 1800, he attacked Moreau, with very inferior num- 
 bers, in the great forest of Hohenhnden. The attack 
 was feeble and ill-combined ; Moreau skilfully 
 directed a large detachment which fell on the Aus- 
 trian left and rear, and he gained a decisive and 
 splendid victory, though in this, as in all his cam- 
 paigns, he had not exhibited the powers of a really 
 great general. He now rapidly advanced and had 
 drawn near Vienna, when the Archduke Charles, 
 invoked, as in 1797, to sustain the monarchy in the 
 hour of defeat, proposed terms, as resistance had 
 become impossible, and Moreau honourably accepted 
 these, on a pledge that Austria would make peace. 
 The secondary French armies had, meanwhile, 
 advanced victoriously beyond the Adige. 
 
 Negotiations now progressed at Luneville, once a 
 chief town of Imperial Lorraine. Joseph Bonaparte, 
 Napoleon's eldest brother, was the plenipotentiary 
 of the Republic; Austria was represented by 
 Cobentzel, who had treated with Napoleon in 1797 ; 
 but the First Consul was far more exacting than he 
 had been when the mere chief of an army. He was 
 the undisputed master of France ; he had restored 
 her power abroad and at home ; and nothing 
 seemed impossible to a conqueror whose ambi- 
 tion only grew as its objects multiplied. Austria 
 yielded after a mere diplomatic contest ; she was 
 exhausted, and without an ally on the Continent, 
 and the Peace of Luneville was made in February, 
 
 1 80 1. By this compact Belgium and the western 
 bank of the Rhine were again formally ceded to 
 
98 Napoleon. [1799- 
 
 France, and, as at Campo Formio, she acquired, 
 once more, her " natural boundary " on the side of 
 Germany. But, in other respects, Lundville went 
 far beyond Campo Formio in changing the face of 
 Europe. Austria lost a large part of what she still 
 possessed in Italy ; the Cisalpine Republic was 
 greatly enlarged, and Tuscany was taken from its 
 Grand Duke, an Austrian Prince, and bestowed on 
 the heir of the Duke of Parma, a near kinsman of 
 the royal house of Spain, which had become al- 
 most a vassal of France. The power of Austria in 
 Italy was thus nearly destroyed, and though Pius 
 VII., the lately elected Pope, was restored to Rome 
 through the First Consul's policy, and the King of 
 Naples was placed on his throne again, in deference 
 to the wishes of the Czar, at this moment almost in 
 league with Napoleon, still French supremacy in the 
 peninsula was assured, and as the King of Sardinia 
 had been scarcely thought of in the negotiations 
 brought to a close at Lun^ville, it was evident that 
 France meant to annex Piedmont. Austria, too, 
 was forced to recognise the new republics, which 
 had sprung into being since Campo Formio, and 
 which, modelled by Napoleon's hands, were becom- 
 , ing instruments of his power ; she acquiesced in what 
 really was a vast extension of French domination, 
 and she tacitly agreed that the Princes who had lost 
 territory by the cession of the western bank of the 
 Rhine, and by the changes recently made in Italy, 
 should be indemnified out of the great German 
 Bishoprics, an arrangement which the First Consul 
 saw would be in the interest of Prussia, almost an 
 
CENTRAL GERMANY— 1800. 
 
1802] Marengo, Luneville, Amiens. 99 
 
 ally of France, and would enable him to intervene, 
 with effect, in Germany, the traditional policy of the 
 House of Bourbon. Napoleon insisted, besides, 
 that Austria, after the precedent of the treaty of 
 Utrecht, should make peace on behalf of the whole 
 Empire. The reason of this was twofold : the 
 Congress of Rastadt had come to nothing, owing to 
 the interminable delay made by the small German 
 States, and it had witnessed a dark and atrocious inci- 
 dent, the unprovoked murder of the plenipotentiaries 
 of France, one of the worst crimes of an age of 
 violence. The First Consul took good care that such 
 events should not occur again. 
 
 France, which had seemed fallen a few months 
 before, became thus the dominant State of the Con- 
 tinent, supreme from the Adriatic shores to the 
 coasts of the Netherlands. England, as before, was 
 the only remaining enemy ; and Napoleon, who, 
 we have seen, had perceived the real power of the 
 Mistress of the Seas, addressed himself to a fierce 
 struggle with England, his passionate energy being 
 only quickened by the numberless obstacles that 
 beset his path. Some circumstances seemed, at 
 this time, in his favour; he had closed a maritime 
 quarrel with the United States, and the extreme 
 pretensions of England at sea had inclined the 
 Northern Powers to revive the armed neutrality of 
 1780. Napoleon saw and seized his advantage; 
 he won over the Czar by diplomatic arts, and by 
 a promise to give him Malta, besieged by a 
 British fleet since the Nile ; and Paul placed himself 
 at the head of a formidable league of maritime 
 
lOO Napoleon. [1799- 
 
 States pledged to resist " the tyranny of England " 
 by force. 
 
 The alliance, however, was fatally weakened by 
 Nelson's victory of Copenhagen, and it was dis- 
 solved by the tragic death of the Czar, murdered in 
 his sleep through an intrigue of the Palace, which 
 caused a complete change in Russian policy, his 
 successor, Alexander, though friendly to France, 
 refusing to take part in a contest with England, 
 which would have been ruinous to the trade of his 
 empire. Napoleon thus lost one great chance of 
 success, and, meanwhile, he was overmatched and 
 hampered in a conflict with the Power that com- 
 manded the sea through the position of French 
 affairs in the East. The French army in Egypt had 
 retained its conquest ; after some hesitations and 
 weak parleys, Kl^ber had routed the Turks in a 
 great battle, and though he perished under an as- 
 sassin's blows, his command quietly passed to his 
 successor, Menou, who had failed on the 13th Ven- 
 d^miaire, and who, though in no sense a capable 
 man, administered well, and maintained order. But 
 the invading colonists were cut off from France, and 
 they were evidently an easy object of attack to an 
 enemy that held the Mediterranean in his grasp, 
 and that could collect imposing forces for a descent 
 on Egypt. Napoleon made great and incessant 
 efforts to reinforce his imprisoned army, and he 
 attempted to divert the intention of England by 
 invading Portugal in conjunction with Spain. His 
 labours, however, proved in vain ; an English army, 
 greatly superior in numbers, landed at Aboukir in 
 
1802] Marengo, Lunhitle, Amiens. 161 
 
 the March of 1801 ; it defeated the French in a well- 
 contested battle, and as a large force of Turks was 
 at hand, and a contingent of Sepoys drawn from 
 India, the loss of Egypt to France was made certain. 
 After brief negotiations, the French army was trans- 
 ported in British ships to Toulon, and though 
 Menou had shown no military skill, the result ought 
 not to be laid to his charge, whatever may be said 
 by some French enthusiasts. France obviously 
 could not hold Egypt against a Power supreme in 
 Mediterranean waters. 
 
 In this bitter, but indecisive contest, Napoleon had 
 been, on the whole, worsted. Yet England had 
 gradually inclined to peace ; she was isolated and 
 without support on the Continent, and she felt the 
 danger of the League of the North ; she had no 
 wish to engage for a second time in a single-handed 
 encounter with France ; and her supremacy on the 
 ocean was completely established. Pitt, too, had 
 given place to the very inferior Addington, and 
 though the country had rapidly advanced in wealth, 
 the temporary distress caused by two bad harvests 
 had made the nation eager to bring the war to an 
 end. Even before Egypt had been surrendered by 
 the French, negotiations had been set on foot ; and 
 ere long they were carried on at Amiens, Joseph 
 Bonaparte, as at Lundville, being the envoy of 
 France, and the representative of England being 
 Cornwallis, a soldier and statesman of world-wide 
 experience. 
 
 The position of the two great rivals had become 
 remarkable ; France was the undisputed queen of 
 
102 iSfapoteon. [i79§- 
 
 the Continent, but England was the absolute ruler 
 of the Seas. She had half destroyed the navies of 
 France and Spain ; she had deprived France and 
 her allies of a colonial empire ; and her supremacy 
 in India had been assured. The First Consul fought 
 hard for France and her interests ; but his discom- 
 fiture in Egypt and the refusal of Spain to persist in 
 invading Portugal, compelled him to moderate his 
 imperious language, and after discussions protracted 
 for months, peace was signed at Amiens in March, 
 1802. By this treaty Trinidad and Ceylon were 
 ceded to England ; but she restored the other 
 colonies taken from France and her allies ; and she 
 engaged ultimately to give back Malta, which had 
 been for a considerable time in her hands, to its 
 original owners, the Knights of St. John, under the 
 protectorate of a great European Power. On the 
 other hand, France retained her commanding posi- 
 tion in Europe ; she regained the greater part of her 
 colonial settlements ; and she recovered for Spain, 
 and even for Holland, nearly all the colonies they 
 had lost in the war. The treaty unhappily was 
 silent on points even then seen to be of great im- 
 portance : the conditions as to Malta were some- 
 what obscure ; nothing was said about the prospects 
 of Piedmont ; and England distinctly refused to 
 recognise the new states, which under the name of 
 republics had become dependent vassals of France, 
 in the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Northern Italy. 
 The Peace was obviously a questionable truce ; but 
 the two nations were tired of strife ; and they ac- 
 cepted, for the time, a hazardous compromise. 
 
1802] Marengo, Luneville, Amiens. 163 
 
 The Peace of Amiens was followed by supple- 
 mental treaties between France and other States of 
 the Continent. The world enjoyed a brief moment 
 of repose, though felt to be only a pause in the con- 
 flict between the Revolution and the old Powers of 
 Eurx)pe. A great concourse of foreigners appeared 
 in Paris, eager to see again, after a long space of 
 time, the capital which had overthrown the Bastille, 
 had been the terrible seat of Jacobin crimes, had 
 sent the armed force of France to overrun the con- 
 tinent, had beheld Vend^miaire, Fructidor, and the 
 1 8th Brumaire, and yet, save under the Reign of 
 Terror, had been always a centre of brilliant pleasure. 
 Yet all eyes were chiefly turned on the extraor- 
 dinary man, the offspring of an obscure Corsican, 
 who had twice shattered the league of the foes 
 of France, had surpassed all that had been known 
 in war, had changed the weakness of France into 
 formidable strength, had gathered the Revolution 
 into his master-hands, and had given its forces a 
 new direction ; and had established a firm and 
 successful government in sympathy with Monarchy, 
 with the Church, with the Past. 
 
 Napoleon, at this moment, had won the esteem of 
 many of the leading men of Europe ; he had struck 
 down and humbled Continental powers ; he had 
 made the conquered feel the weight of his sword ; 
 but he had quelled Jacobinism and put down 
 anarchy ; and he was popular in Austria, in Prussia, 
 and even in England. One of the most curious 
 spectacles of the day was the magnificence of the 
 First Consul's Court, and the general tendency to 
 
104 Napoleon. t1799- 
 
 the restoration of monarchic government.. Napoleon 
 had taken up his abode in the Tuileries ; he had 
 placed the unburied remains of Turenne, torn from 
 St. Denis in the madness of 1793, in the Invalides 
 with extraordinary pomp, in honour to the greatest 
 warrior of the fallen monarchy ; he surrounded him- 
 self with the ceremonial of royalty ; and already 
 some of the old courtiers of Versailles returned from 
 exile, did their liege lord homage. The change was 
 seen in that mirror of usage, fashion ; the loose im- 
 modest garb, the classical tresses, the free manners 
 of the beauties of Paris were replaced by stately 
 costumes, and ordered etiquette ; and though mili- 
 tary brilliancy was still predominant, there was a 
 return to the observances of the old monarchy. The 
 only proscribed class was the wreck of the Terrorists ; 
 and Canning remarked with truth, in the House of 
 Commons, that already " the likeness of a kingly 
 crown " was apparent around Napoleon's head. 
 
 The campaign of Marengo, at least in design, was 
 the most dazzling of Napoleon's exploits in war. 
 The plan of issuing from Switzerland by a double 
 movement, in the rear of the enemy in Swabia and 
 Italy, was perhaps equal to any formed by Hanni- 
 bal ; but the execution of it was far from perfect. 
 Moreau completely failed to cut off Kray ; Napoleon 
 made a distinct mistake, in marching into the plain 
 of Marengo, and he exhibited in this instance, the 
 fierce resolve to encounter his adversary at any risk, 
 which cost him dear on more than one occasion. 
 The most striking feature of this part of his career 
 is the restoration of order in France, her sudden and 
 
1802] Marengo, Luneville, Amiens. 105 
 
 rapid rise out of misfortune, and the revival of her mili- 
 tary power ; and though this was largely due to the 
 energy and resource of a great nation not often 
 quelled by disaster, it should perhaps be mainly 
 ascribed to Napoleon's genius. Faults may be found 
 with the First Consul's policy at home ; it showed 
 already despotic tendencies, it concentrated exces- 
 sive power in his hands ; but it was on the whole, 
 enlightened, judicious, and masterly. His conduct 
 to foreign powers was more open to censure ; he 
 still showed respect for the old order of Europe, and 
 especially for the Catholic Church ; but he had been 
 arrogant and harsh in success, and he had given 
 proof of a mere conqueror's unrestrained ambition. 
 He had curbed the excesses of the Revolution, but 
 calm observers had already declared, that he was 
 making use of its still gigantic force to turn France 
 into the paths of war, and to bring all Europe into 
 subjection to her power. That ascendency had been 
 in part realised ; it depended on Napoleon in a great 
 measure, whether he would keep it within its pres- 
 ent limits, or would endeavour to extend it, whatever 
 the hazard. He was a soldier who had achieved won- 
 ders ; he was the chief of a nation that had always 
 aimed at pre-eminence as a military power ; he was 
 the armed champion of the French Revolution, and 
 he was surrounded by States defeated and baffled, 
 but representing monarchic and feudal Europe, and 
 almost inevitably hostile to democratic France, what- 
 ever might be the type of her government. Would he 
 become the good genius of an age of trouble and war, 
 or only its grandest, but most portentous figure ? 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Re-organisation of society in France by Napoleon — Administrative 
 and judicial reforms — The Code — Education — The Legion of 
 Honour — The Concordat — Opposition — The Tribunate reduced 
 — Foreign affairs — Amnesty of the iinigrh — The Italian Republic 
 — Napoleon its president — Italy kept dependent — Annexation of 
 Piedmont — Settlement of Germany ; of Switzerland— Napoleon 
 made First Consul for life — Rupture of the Peace of Amiens — 
 War with England — Reflections on Napoleon's policy. 
 
 HILE France had been victori- 
 ous abroad Napoleon had 
 gone on with the work of 
 reform inaugurated by the 
 1 8th Brumaire. Marengo had 
 assured the Peace of Lun6- 
 ville ; the Peace of Amiens 
 had closed the contest with 
 England, and as the Consti- 
 tution of the year VIII. had 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 transformed the political order of France, he sought 
 to effect far-reaching changes in her social and eccle- 
 siastical order, which would reconcile the Revolution 
 with the past, and would give more ample scope to 
 his own dictatorship. He had already stamped a 
 wholly new character on the Republican system of 
 local government ; and his policy in this respect had 
 
 io6 
 
NAPOLEON. 
 
 FROM A PEriCIL SKETCH B> ISABEY. 
 
1802-3] The First Consulin Peace. War. 107 
 
 been very significant. Local administration, under 
 the old regime, had been centralised to an extreme 
 degree ; thirty Intendants, it had been said, ruled 
 France, and local franchises and the liberty they 
 afford had disappeared in a state of society without 
 active life and almost reduced to servitude. 
 
 The Revolution had led to a wild reaction against 
 this narrow and oppressive system ; decentralisation 
 had been extravagant, and absolute self-government 
 had been bestowed on the communes from Brittany 
 to Provence, an arrangement, which in the phrase 
 of Burke, " split France into forty thousand re- 
 publics," uncontrolled by a real central authority. 
 The supremacy of Paris, perhaps, alone saved the 
 State from disintegration and ruin at the great crisis 
 of 1793-94; but local self-government had been at- 
 tended with mischiefs and dangers of many kinds, and 
 local administration in 1 799-1 800 had become a chaos 
 of waste and anarchy. The Communes — akin to the 
 Anglo-Saxon townships — excessive in numbers, and 
 each too small, had been replaced by much larger 
 units ; these were governed by elective local bodies, 
 without experience or skill in affairs, and unchecked 
 by any central direction ; and the results appeared 
 in the grossest mismanagement, in revolutionary 
 schemes and follies, and especially, as we have seen, 
 in the complete failure of the machinery employed 
 to collect the revenue. The First Consul put an end 
 to a condition of things which had become intoler- 
 able, and a peril to the State, and placed the system 
 of local administration in France on a basis, which, 
 restricted as it was, is that on which it has ever 
 
io8 Napoleon. [1802- 
 
 since rested. He abolished the incapable Elective 
 bodies, the creatures and agents of popular licence, 
 which, without guidance or control from above, had 
 misgoverned the districts they ruled, and had dan- 
 gerously encroached on the supreme power ; and he 
 set on foot an order of things, essentially different, 
 nay well nigh opposite. 
 
 Availing himself of the local divisions of territory 
 which the Revolution had made, he placed at the 
 head of every Department of France a functionary 
 of the central government, charged to superintend 
 all local affairs ; and this high official was repre- 
 sented by subordinates in every local circumscription 
 down to the smallest unit, the Commune. The hier- 
 archy of Prefects, Sub-prefects, and Maires dependent 
 upon the chief power in the State had thus practi- 
 cally the direction of local affairs, and centralisation 
 was again established in an important part of the 
 national life. Local self-government, however, was 
 not wholly effaced ; the inhabitants of every district 
 retained a right of assembling in an Elective Council, 
 but the powers of this body were greatly curtailed. 
 
 This immense change was almost a return to kin- 
 dred institutions of the fallen monarchy ; in Napo- 
 leon's language, " it placed a First Consul and his 
 agents in every Department of France " ; and obvi- 
 ously it favoured despotic power. The central gov- 
 ernment has ever since been supreme in local affairs 
 in France, and the individual self-reliance and energy, 
 which naturally flow from local franchises, have not 
 been well developed in the French community. Yet 
 the system has flourished, almost unchanged, through 
 
18.03] The First Consul in Peace. War. 109 
 
 all the vicissitudes of the State in France ; it plainly 
 falls in with inherent tendencies and sympathies 
 of the French people, and it has secured France an 
 administration of local affairs economical, orderly, 
 and very efHcient. The next work of the First Con- 
 sul was the reform of the judicial organisation of 
 France, modelled partly, too, on the ideas of the past. 
 The Bourbon regime had made no provision for 
 cheap, summary, and expeditious justice ; the tri- 
 bunals were closed to the humbler classes ; and an 
 aristocratic caste administered the laws in High 
 Courts, known by the name of Parliaments, with a 
 slow, cumbrous, and costly procedure. All this had 
 vanished in 1789-91 ; the judicial office had been 
 made elective ; a large body of Justices de Paix had 
 been chosen to settle petty disputes, in a great 
 measure without fixed rules ; and a number of tri- 
 bunals of First Instance, directed by men who owed 
 their position, not to learning or worth, but to popu- 
 lar suffrage, was set up, with a right of appeal, of 
 little use, to defeated suitors. The change had 
 unquestionably done some good ; but not to speak 
 of the terrible wrongs it had caused in a revolu- 
 tionary time, it had produced social confusion and 
 discord ; the laws had become uncertain, and were 
 ill administered ; the courts had ceased to command 
 respect ; and the want of an appellate jurisdiction 
 that could be relied on, in important matters, had 
 had evil results. 
 
 The reforms effected by the First Consul in this 
 province were, on the whole, excellent, and have also 
 defied the ordeal of Time. He restored the appoint- 
 
no Napoleon. [1802- 
 
 ment of judges to the State, and made them inde- 
 pendent of the popular voice ; he restricted the 
 powers of the Justices de Paix, irregular, ill-defined, 
 and absurd, though he did not abolish an order of 
 men very useful as a peace-making class ; he strength- 
 ened the Courts of First Instance ; and, above all, 
 he formed many High Courts of Appeal, with some 
 of the prerogatives of the old Parliaments, but 
 administered not by a noblesse de la robe, but by 
 functionaries of the central government, secured by 
 law from arbitrary loss of office. 
 
 The reform of the judicial tribunals naturally led 
 to the codification of the laws of France. These 
 laws were a huge medley of edicts and customs, 
 divided into two main parts : the first, composed of 
 ancient usages existing in the regions north of the 
 Loire ; the second, mainly of Roman origin, pre- 
 dominating in the southern provinces. The whole 
 system, although illustrated by the genius of able 
 judges and writers, formed an enormous mass of 
 obscure provisions, incrusted with the rubbish and 
 dross of centuries, and unintelligible to ordinary 
 minds ; and, besides that it was behind the ideas of 
 the age, it had clogged, and often frustrated, the 
 course of justice. The National Assembly had 
 undertaken the task of fusing into one organic struc- 
 ture this antique collection of rules of right, and of 
 giving it a modern and scientific aspect ; and it had 
 gathered together a great deal of valuable materials 
 on the subject, and had made important reports on 
 it. Its labours, however, had long ceased ; they 
 were not continued, and were scarcely feasible in the 
 
1803] The First Consul in Peace. War. 1 1 1 
 
 frightful confusion of the succeeding period ; and the 
 codification of the National Law had been scarcely 
 begun at the i8th Brumaire. Napoleon earnestly 
 took up this noble work, and though the conception 
 of it does not belong to him, he brought it to a suc- 
 cessful end ; and it was one of his grandest, and most 
 lasting achievements. 
 
 The First Consul placed the task in the hands of 
 the most learned and experienced jurists of France, 
 but he often presided at these commissions*; and 
 his extraordinary intellectual powers are strikingly 
 seen in the discussions that followed. The Code 
 Civil, the first part of his work, dealing for the most 
 part with the Rights of Persons, was published in 
 1801 ; but the labours of the Commissioners were 
 prolonged for years, and it was near the close of 
 the Emperor's reign before the last part was given 
 to the world. The Code Napoleon, justly entitled to 
 the name, is distributed into four divisions, the Code 
 Civil, the Code de Commerce, the Code Penal, and 
 the Code d'Instruction Criminelle; and it forms a 
 complete text of the law of France, with improve- 
 ments adapted to modern times, and freed from all 
 that is feudal and obsolete. It is impossible to 
 examine this masterpiece here ; enough to say that 
 it mainly adheres to the principles of the jurispru- 
 dence of Rome, yet it is not without special features 
 
 * The reader who studies the Discussions sur le Code Civil can 
 have no doubt of this. Napoleon's faculty of searching analysis, 
 and his strong practical sense are most remarkable. The chapter in 
 his Commentaries on the Rights of Neutrals is a model of juridical 
 reasoning and language. 
 
1 1 2 Napoleon. [1802- 
 
 of its own ; compared to the laws of the Anglo- 
 Saxon races, it breathes a somewhat despotic spirit, 
 but it has found a perfectly congenial sphere in 
 France, and its domain has extended far beyond her 
 borders. " My code," their author said truly, " will 
 outlive my victories " ; his empire of the sword is a 
 vision of the past, but these monuments of his crea- 
 tive genius still claim willing respect and obedience 
 in regions around the Rhine and the Tiber. 
 
 National Education was another subject to which 
 Napoleon turned his thoughts at this time. The 
 instruction of the people under the Bourbon Mon- 
 archy had been for the most part left to the Church ; 
 and in France, as generally throughout the Conti- 
 nent, the humbler classes had grown up in ignorance. 
 The National Assembly had sought to apply a 
 remedy to this state of things, and it had decreed 
 that every Commune should support a school in 
 order to teach the first rudiments. This project, 
 however, had not been carried out in a period of 
 anarchy and of war with Europe ; it never had a 
 cTiance of success, and the Consulate found many 
 Communes bankrupt, and the rising generation of 
 young Frenchmen drawn off into the life of the 
 camp. The First Consul did a good deal for ele- 
 mentary education, even in these circumstances; 
 but the Communes were not taxed for primary 
 schools, and the experiment, indeed, would have 
 been a failure. He made great efforts, however, to 
 promote higher education in different ways ; he 
 endowed a number of secondary schools, in which 
 sons of the middle classes were carefully brought 
 
1803] The First Consul in Peace. War. 1 1 3 
 
 up ; he established excellent special schools to 
 advance the military and other arts, and he founded 
 a university, some years afterwards, which has had 
 many eminent names in Letters and Science, though 
 it was far too much a dependency of the State. 
 
 Still, learning could not flourish in the Napoleonic 
 age ; France, indeed, still feels the evil effects of the 
 abolition of the great foundations and seminaries, 
 which the Revolution destroyed, and it is the irony 
 of fate that intellectual progress has been, to a cer- 
 tain extent, retarded by a movement ushered in by 
 intellectual boasting. The First Consul was much 
 more successful in encouraging merit by another 
 method. He had, as we should never forget, strong 
 sympathy with the ideas of the past ; he appreci- 
 ated the grandeur of the old order of feudal, kingly, 
 and mediaeval Europe ; and he understood how vast 
 was the influence of even its purely honorary rewards 
 and dignities, as elements of " the cheap defence of 
 nations." But orders of knighthood and distinc- 
 tions of the kind had been exclusive privileges of 
 the noble classes ; the community had had no part 
 in them ; and it was a happy and most fruitful 
 thought of Napoleon to create a national order of 
 merit to which Frenchmen of every degree could 
 aspire. He established the famous Legion of 
 Honour ; its rolls were thrown open to the deserving 
 of all ranks and of all callings ; and the success of 
 the experiment has been decisive. It has encour- 
 aged excellence and probity in the State ; and an 
 institution of the kind has found a place in almost 
 every country of Europe. 
 
ii4 Napoleon. [1602- 
 
 The greatest, however, by many degrees of these 
 reforms was the final settlement of ecclesiastical 
 affairs in France with the far-reaching and lasting 
 results effected at this time by Napoleon. Objec- 
 tions certainly may be urged against the Concordat, 
 as it has been justly named ; but this arrangement 
 of the relations between the State and the Church 
 in the Revolutionary France of 1801-2, shows the 
 commanding genius of the First Consul and his 
 superiority to the ideas of the day. The Church of 
 France, in the old regime, was a powerful and 
 wealthy estate of the realm, as has been the case 
 in all feudal monarchies, and many and grievous as 
 had been its faults, it could boast a proud list of 
 illustrious names. The National Assembly practi- 
 cally destroyed this great corporaition on its tem- 
 poral side, and it placed in its stead a salaried clergy, 
 elective, and bound to an allegiance to the State, 
 which, as we have seen, was fiercely resented. The 
 Civil Constitution of the Church, as it was called, 
 caused a widespread and deeply-marked schism ; 
 the non-juring priests, far the most numerous and best 
 members of the sacerdotal body, who refused to take 
 the oath of the law, had resisted the Revolution at 
 every stage, even the conforming priests disliked it at 
 heart ; and both classes had had hundreds of victims 
 during the Reign of Terror. 
 
 Napoleon, we have said, had put an end to the 
 annoying persecution, which the Directory had occa- 
 sionally exercised on the whole clergy ; he had made 
 a declaration of obedience to the State an equivalent 
 for the obnoxious oath, and he had treated the 
 
1803] The First Consul in Peace. War. 1 1 5 
 
 Church with marked respect and sympathy. All 
 these, however, were passing expedients, and 
 when the First Consul became supreme, he under- 
 took the most arduous task of restoring ecclesiastical 
 order in France, and of bringing it into accord with 
 the civil power. The position of the Church, at 
 this time, was a national danger, and a grave scan- 
 dal ; and it had largely ceased to perform its func- 
 tions as a minister of good-will and peace, and as a 
 beneficient social influence. Many of the non-juring 
 bishops and priests had joined the hnigr^s, living 
 abroad, and exercised an influence still powerful in 
 denouncing the existing order of things in France ; 
 those who remained at home, if less openly hostile, 
 detested all that happened since 1789; and even 
 the conforming clergy were by no means loyal, 
 though both classes recognised Napoleon's benefits. 
 The Church therefore, was still more or less an 
 enemy of the State, and gave it no moral support ; 
 and, besides that it was divided against itself, and 
 torn by unseemly and bitter dissensions, it was in 
 a condition of wild disorder after the anarchy of a 
 revolutionary time. A great number of its priests 
 had married in defiance of canonical law ; its civil 
 constitution and its elective principle had been 
 declared sacrilegious at Rome ; it was scarcely in 
 communion with the Holy See, and, notwithstanding 
 all that Napoleon had done, its services were aban- 
 doned in many places, where its altars remained 
 unheeded and fallen. In whole parishes of France 
 not a priest could be found to bless the child at the 
 font, or to say a prayer for the dead. 
 
Ii6 Napoleon. [I802- 
 
 Napoleon was keenly alive to the perils and evils 
 of this position of affairs. A great ruler, he clearly 
 perceived that a disaffected clergy, in foreign lands, 
 was a standing menace to the welfare of France, and 
 that a clergy that gave him no real support, could, 
 at any moment, become his enemies ; a profound 
 thinker, he thoroughly understood the bad conse- 
 quences of religious discord, and of the want of 
 religious life in a nation. As he had shown, too, in 
 his career in Egypt, he had a strong conviction of 
 the existence of the Divine, and of the power of 
 spiritual things in human affairs,* and he had deep 
 reverence for the Catholic Church as a means of 
 assuring social order and genuine sympathy with her 
 time-honoured faith. After long negotiations with 
 the Papal Court, where, notwithstanding intrigues 
 and resistance, he found Pius VII. in the main, 
 an ally, the Concordat was signed in the spring of 
 
 * Napoleon's writings abound in musings on religion ; and it is 
 absurd to describe them as insincere. I select, as a specimen, a 
 single passage from an address to the clergy of Milan, made a few 
 days before Marengo : " Moi, aussi, jesuis philosophe, et je sais que, 
 dans une societe quelle qu'elle soit, nul homme ne saurait passer pour 
 vertueux et juste s'il ne salt d'oii il vient et oil il va. Le simple raison 
 ne saurait nous fixer la dessus ; sans la religion on marche continuelle- 
 ment dans les tenebres ; et la religion catholique est la seule qui 
 donne a I'homme des lumieres certaines et infaillibles sur son principe 
 et sa fin derniere. Nulle societe pent exister sans morale ; il n'y 
 pas de bonne morale sans religion : il n'y a done que la religion qui 
 donne i I'etat un appui ferme et durable. Une societe sans religion 
 est comme un vaisseau sans boussole : un vaisseau, dans cet etat, ne 
 pent ni s'assurer de la route, ni esperer d'entrer au port. Une soci- 
 ete sans religion toujours agitee, perpetuellement entravee par le choc 
 des passions les plus violentes, eprouve en elle memetoutes les fureurs 
 d'une guerre intestine." — Corr., tome vi. , 339. 
 
1803] The First Consul in Peace. War. 1 1 7 
 
 1802 ; and the Church of France was placed on a 
 new foundation, and was reconciled alike with the 
 State and with Rome. 
 
 By this great settlement the Catholic faith was 
 declared to be that of the mass of the nation ; a 
 diocesan and parochial organisation was given to 
 France differing largely from that before 1789; the 
 clergy was everywhere restored to their altars, and 
 they were encouraged to do their sacred ofifices 
 without, hindrance, in all parts of the country. Ab- 
 solution too, was extended to the married priests ; 
 a veil was thrown over the errors of the past, and the 
 revived Church of France received its ancient honours 
 and came into full communion with the Holy See. 
 The supremacy of the State was, however, secured by 
 provisions of the most stringent kind ; the Gallican 
 liberties were asserted again ; the clergy was placed 
 under the secular law ; and as they had lost their lands, 
 they were largely dependent on the government, to 
 whom they owed their stipends. The appointment 
 of the bishops was reserved to the head of the 
 State ; Napoleon insisted that all prelates non-juring 
 or otherwise, should resign their offices and that he 
 should reappoint them or not, as he pleased, and by 
 these means the long-standing quarrel between the 
 priestly orders was gradually closed. Perfect reli- 
 gious liberty was, at that time, declared to be the right 
 of all Frenchmen, and Protestant and other dissident 
 sects obtained the protection and support of the 
 government. This settlement certainly made the 
 Church a kind of spiritual agency of the State, in 
 France, and it was strongly Erastian in aim and ten- 
 
ii8 Napoleon. LI8O2- 
 
 dencies. But it put an end to a dangerous state 
 of things ; it healed a festering schism and fierce 
 discords ; and it enthroned religion again in France, 
 and connected it with the hfe of the nation. The 
 Concordat still regulates the Church in France ; it 
 has secured religious peace in the State, and probably 
 it is largely due to it, that a great Christian people 
 has not become infidel. 
 
 In the eyes of the ignoble tribe of detractors these 
 great reforms had no other object than to increase the 
 dominant power of Napoleon. Undoubtedly the 
 centralisation of local authority, and the re-establish- 
 ment of the Church, in subjection to the State, 
 conduced to despotism in many ways ; and the 
 reorganisation of the judicial system, the Code, and 
 even the Legion of Honour in some degree had the 
 same tendency. But the accidental is not the essen- 
 tial ; if these measures strengthened a grand Dictator- 
 ship, they were conceived in the lasting interest of 
 France, and time has given its sanction to their value 
 as a whole. The legislation of the Consulate abolished 
 much that was most noxious in the Revolution, and 
 placed the interests it had formed on a safe basis ; it 
 bridged a perilous gulf between the past and the 
 present, and all that is most stable in the institutions 
 of France belongs to, or has been derived from it. 
 These reforms entitle Napoleon to a place among 
 the great founders of states and empires ; and they 
 remain monuments of his supreme genius, amidst 
 the wrecks of his short-lived conquests. 
 
 Yet circumstance, in this, as in all instances, largely 
 contributed to his wonderful success. France at this 
 
1803] The First Consul in Peace. War. 1 1 9 
 
 time was as clay in the hands of the potter ; the 
 Revolution had effaced parts of the old structure of 
 the national life, and had left the ruins scattered and 
 confused; and she awaited the hand of a master- 
 workman. If, too, it was Napoleon's distinctive 
 merit that he turned a great opportunity to the best 
 account, and that he perceived what were the needs 
 of the State, the tendencies of Frenchmen broadly 
 considered, fell in with the reforms he achieved. 
 The decentralisation of 1789-90 was but a sudden 
 reaction against abuses ; and centralisation had been 
 for centuries a cardinal fact in French history. The 
 change wrought by Napoleon in the French Courts 
 of Justice was largely a return to an old order of 
 things, which, faulty as it was, had been respected ; 
 the Code effected that uniformity of the law, which 
 had been the object of a long succession of jurists. 
 It is unnecessary to point out that the Legion 
 of Honour flattered self-esteem — a French national 
 quality ; and the Concordat harmonised, in many 
 respects, with the real instincts and wishes of France. 
 The mass of the people was at heart religious in 
 1800, i8oi, and 1802, spite of ihe philosophes and the 
 sceptics of Paris ; the evils of sectarian schism and 
 discord were deeply embedded in French traditions ; 
 the State and the Church had been allied in France 
 /for ages, and the nation had been always proud of its 
 friendship with Rome. 
 
 But, if France welcomed the reforms of the Con- 
 sulate, they encountered an opposition, more or less 
 sincere, from the satellites of the power of Napoleon. 
 The democratic ideas of 1789, and the infidel spirit 
 
1 20 Napoleon. [1802- 
 
 of the eighteenth century still had real influence 
 among the men who, though, as moderates, they 
 had hailed the i8th Brumaire, were yet prominent 
 in the Revolution ; and they were prevalent in the 
 deliberative bodies of the State. A movement against 
 the First Consul's measures, which found support, 
 even in the Senate, had its origin in the Tribunate, 
 and was felt in the Legislature ; and loud complaints 
 were heard that the administrative changes, and 
 the Code Civil, were artful expedients to promote 
 centralised despotic power. But the Concordat was 
 the object of the fiercest attacks ; it was a return to 
 superstition and mediaeval tyranny, and this opinion 
 was held by most of the chiefs of the army, the 
 survivors of the leaders of 1793, who had made war 
 against altars and thrones. This sentiment was 
 increased by the evident purpose of Napoleon to 
 gather into his own hands authority of all kinds in 
 the State ; and, in fact, the Consulate, at this time, 
 was rapidly becoming a scarcely veiled despotism. 
 
 Bickerings arose between Napoleon and the Assem- 
 blies ; he proposed candidates to the Senate, under 
 the Constitution, and these were rejected, and the 
 Tribunate protested against the preamble and other 
 parts of the Code Civil. Napoleon, already as domi- 
 neering as Louis XIV. had been to his awed Parlia- 
 ments, was meditating on putting all resistance 
 down, when the obstacles in his way disappeared. 
 The submissive Senate yielded at the first serious 
 hint, and Cambac^rfes, by putting adroitly a gloss on 
 a constitution which was being made a mere instru- 
 ment for the ruler of France, eliminated from the 
 
18031 The First Consul in Peace. War. 121 
 
 Tribunate and the Legislative Body the members 
 who had been chiefly obnoxious. The mihtary 
 chiefs, too, obeyed their imperious commander, and 
 open opposition had ere long ceased. The Concordat, 
 however, remained an object of the dislike of the 
 men who surrounded Napoleon ; and, docile as they 
 were, they did not conceal it. The Restoration of 
 the Church in France was celebrated with solemn 
 pomp at N6tre Dame ; and, at the First Consul's 
 express instance, the Bodies of the State, and a large 
 assemblage of ofificers of rank were in attendance. 
 But the children of the Revolution did not belie their 
 parent ; the Holy Place had nothing Divine for them, 
 and they beheld the ceremony with scorn and 
 indifference. 
 
 We justly condemn the despotic attitude of 
 Napoleon in this resistance to his will ; but, if wrong 
 in his means he was right in his ends, and his superi- 
 ority to his followers is distinctly manifest. He 
 properly insisted on carrying out reforms of immense 
 and lasting value ; and we see in him the deep think- 
 ing ruler, aware of the wishes and needs of France, 
 very different from the scoffing sceptics and rude 
 soldiers who tried to cross him. A general amnesty, 
 with a few exceptions — the most notable of these 
 was Pichegru, proscribed justly in the i8th 
 Fructidor — to imigris and exiles, closed the list of 
 these constructive and healing measures ; and they 
 shed glory on the Consular era. 
 
 We turn to Napoleon's policy abroad, and here 
 history pronounces a different verdict. The position 
 of France was now so commanding, that Napoleon 
 
122 Napoleon. [I802- 
 
 ought to have made it his chief object not to vex or 
 alarm foreign States by a sudden display or exten- 
 sion of power, and especially not to give umbrage to 
 England, a most formidable and discontented enemy. 
 He chose to take an opposite course, and though 
 the climax had not been nearly reached, we begin to 
 see in him a growing purpose to enlarge the sphere 
 of the domination of France beyond reasonable, and 
 even endurable, limits. One of his first acts was to 
 annex Piedmont, in the midst of the existing general 
 peace, and though something like this had been fore- 
 seen, it was not expected that he would convert an 
 ancient kingdom into Departments of France. He 
 turned his attention also to the rest of Italy ; and 
 his policy, in this respect, was very significant. The 
 Treaty of Lun^ville had enlarged the Cisalpine 
 Republic, and Napoleon gave it the national name, 
 as though it was intended for far higher destinies. 
 But he took care that he should be made President, 
 that is, ruler, of the Italian Republic ; and as the 
 Ligurian Republic and the Spanish kingdom of Tus- 
 cany were made dependent vassals, France, after 
 laying her hands on Piedmont, had practically made 
 the peninsula north of the Arno and up to the Adige 
 , a subject province. Domination had come in the 
 place of ascendency, and this was indicated by the 
 presence of great military roads, which, leading 
 across the Alps into the valley of the Po, could 
 transport a French army from Franche Comte and 
 Provence in a few days to Milan and Turin. In the 
 South, the Pope and the King of Naples owed their 
 precarious thrones to the ruler of France ; and the 
 
1803] The First Consul in Peace. War. 1 2 3 
 
 fair vision of an independent Italy, presented by 
 Napoleon, in 1796, to the imagination of self-deceived 
 patriots, had proved a vain and delusive dream. He 
 never really entertained any notions of the kind. 
 
 The First Consul, too, had not been less active in 
 making France dominant in other parts of Europe, 
 and even in stretching her arms to the New World. 
 He had made the Batavian Republic a mere depend- 
 ency, and had added the naval resources of a State, 
 still renowned, to those of Rochefort, Brest, and 
 Toulon. He had, in deference to the Czar and to 
 the expressed wish of Germany — Marengo had been 
 a terrible lesson — withdrawn his troops from the 
 vantage-ground of Switzerland ; but the anarchy of 
 the Helvetian Republic and the pretensions of the 
 aristocracy of Berne had led to another occupation 
 by France; he mediated between the divided can- 
 tons, and though the arrangement he effected was 
 well conceived and shows political insight of a high 
 order,* it placed Switzerland again under French 
 influence. Meanwhile he had sent a fleet and an army 
 across the Atlantic to reduce St. Domingo, long 
 emancipated from the French yoke ; he had obtained 
 Louisiana from feeble Spain, in exchange for the 
 Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and had tried further to 
 obtain Florida ; and he boasted that France would 
 become once more the powerful maritime and colonial 
 
 * Napoleon did not, and indeed could not, understand the play of 
 free political institutions. But he saw, as clearly perhaps as Montes- 
 quieu, the tendency of political systems, and he was skilled in the 
 mechanism of politics. His addresses to the Swiss Deputies are 
 most remarkable. Corr., tome viii., p. 124, 188. 
 
1 24 Napoleon. [I802- 
 
 State she had been before the Seven Years' War. The 
 Peace of Lun^ville, however, as he had partly fore- 
 seen, gave him his best opportunity at this juncture 
 to enlarge the limits of French supremacy. The 
 Treaty had, we have seen, indirectly provided for 
 the indemnity, out of the great German Bishoprics, 
 of the Princes, who had lost territory in Italy and Ger- 
 many, by cessions to France ; and this had led to 
 angry disputes between the German Powers, unable 
 to agree in the division of the spoil, the old rivalry 
 of Austria and Prussia appearing once more in full 
 relief, and the greed of Prussia being specially 
 manifest. The First Consul was invited to inter- 
 vene, and he intervened as Richelieu had done, and 
 Mazarin, before the Peace of Westphalia, but with 
 more authority, and apparent effect. His mediation 
 was attended with success ; he apportioned do- 
 mains between his expectant clients, and the gen- 
 eral principle he followed was to create a kind of 
 new balance of power in Germany, increasing Bavaria 
 and Prussia, and weakening Austria — the settled 
 policy of France for centuries — and making the Lesser 
 States her dependents. This policy may have tended 
 to unite Germany, the dread of Frenchmen from 
 Henry IV. to Thiers, but for the present it made 
 France the arbiter and controller of German affairs, 
 and it seemed a masterpiece of far-sighted statecraft. 
 In order not to offend the world too much, Napoleon 
 had prayed the young Czar to assist him, as a co- 
 operator in a great work of peace ; but the First 
 Consul directed everything ; he had skilfully made 
 use of a mask for his policy. 
 
1803) The First Consul in Peace. War. 125 
 
 France had thus become infinitely more formid- 
 able than when William III., a century before, had 
 combined the Grand Alliance against Louis XIV. 
 Her territory had been enlarged by Piedmont only, 
 but she had consolidated and greatly augmented her 
 power ; and Germany had suddenly felt her over- 
 mastering influence. Indeed, though her dominions 
 were increased afterwards, she was more really strong, 
 and was far more prosperous, than she became under 
 the succeeding Empire. Her military resources 
 were still growing; her best youth had not yet 
 been wasted, in hecatombs, in gigantic wars ; and 
 the exhausted continent bowed to her will, reluctant 
 indeed, but afraid to strike. At home she flour- 
 ished under the rule of a great, able, and enlight- 
 ened despotism, the inherent evils of which were 
 as yet undeveloped. Her revenue had immensely 
 increased ; her credit had revived, and stood high ; 
 the Funds which, before Marengo, were not above 
 10, had risen to between 40 and 50; her public debt 
 was paid, and her finances prospered. Her trade and 
 manufactures, too, half destroyed by war, had begun 
 to show vigorous life again ; and the fall of Feudal- 
 ism, which had set the land free, had given her agri- 
 culture a powerful impulse. Great results had fol- 
 lowed, also, from the putting down of lawlessness, 
 from the opening of new roads and canals, from 
 religious peace, from a growing sense of security, 
 from an improved administration of local affairs, 
 from more regularity in the course of justice, in 
 short, from the First Consul's domestic reforms; 
 and the people, sick of Revolutionary phrases. 
 
126 Napoleon. [1802- 
 
 had turned from the Rights of Man to energetic 
 industry. 
 
 France enjoyed glory, order, repose, and wealth, in 
 a combination never seen again ; and if the ideas of 
 1789 had vanished, nay, were discredited by a nation 
 which, of all others, suddenly passes to opposite ex- 
 tremes of conduct, she had extraordinary and very 
 real welfare. Yet this display of grandeur had a 
 dark side, though even keen observers could not yet 
 see it. France had nothing resembling a free gov- 
 ernment ; she had no guarantees for stability in the 
 State ; she depended for everything on one great 
 man, unchecked, supreme, and in fine a Dictator. 
 Napoleon had raised her out of the depths of disas- 
 ter; might he not launch heron paths that would 
 lead to ruin ? His attitude to the world was even 
 now menacing ; and his government at home had 
 begun to show some of the distinctive marks of des- 
 potic power — a Press in bondage, an Inquisitorial 
 Police, the spy and the informer in constant mission. 
 It was, perhaps, the most distinctive mark of all, that 
 Napoleon had many able ministers — Talleyrand and 
 Maret for Foreign Affairs, both diplomatists of the 
 first order — and Berthier, who had replaced Carnot, 
 the former Director, at the War Office — and yet that 
 he treated these distinguished men as mere subordi- 
 nates to carry out his behests. 
 
 At this moment, however, France, as a nation, was 
 one in heart and mind with Napoleon, and regarded 
 him as a beneficent saviour. A general sentiment 
 found expression that the First Consul was worthy 
 of a more exalted station ; and this was blended 
 
18031 The First Consul in Peace. War. 127 
 
 with a confused notion, that the institutions of 
 France ought to be made more stable. The com- 
 manding position of the Head of the State, and the 
 character of his recent measures, seemed to justify, 
 in the eyes of many, the establishment of a new and 
 reformed monarchy ; and, indeed, in this, as in other 
 matters, the Revolution could not blot out the past. 
 This idea found favour in Napoleon's family, eager 
 to rise to princely rank and distinction, though 
 Josephine, one of the old rigime, sighed at heart for 
 the return of the Bourbons ; and it was approved in 
 several Continental Courts. France, however, as a 
 whole, had not forgotten the faults and abuses of the 
 ancient state of things; and Paris and its society, 
 the Bodies of State, and the army detested the name 
 of king. An expedient was devised, which was 
 deemed sufficient to satisfy an almost universal 
 wish. Napoleon, after the i8th Brumaire, had been 
 named First Consul for ten years, and the Senate 
 proposed to extend this period to ten years further 
 from 1802-3. The ruler of France, however, studi- 
 ously stood apart, as he had done in 1796 and 1799, 
 and no doubt from the same motive ; but he inti- 
 mated that he would not accept this overture ; and 
 the difficulty was removed by Cambacdr^s, one of 
 the most ingenious satellites of power. 
 
 The philosophy of Rousseau was made to serve its 
 turn ; and an appeal was made to the sovereign peo- 
 ple, to declare Napoleon First Consul for life, with 
 power to choose and appoint a successor. France 
 assented by an almost unanimous vote, and acclaimed 
 the new dignity of the master of her choice. The 
 
128 Napoleo7i. [1802- 
 
 change was followed by fresh amendments of the 
 Constitution, already a mask of despotism. The 
 Senate had exercised a dispensing power, and even 
 a legislative power, on more than one occasion ; but 
 it now obtained in substance, a right to make laws, 
 and even to interfere with the course of justice, in 
 addition to its existing rights : the Legislative Body 
 became a phantom ; and the Tribunate was reduced to 
 a mere Department, little differing from the Council 
 of State. The work of Siey^s had thus been turned 
 into a convenient means to surround Napoleon with 
 docile servitors ; the trappings which had veiled des- 
 potism, in part, fell off ; and at the very time when 
 restraint was most needed, France was committed to 
 the hands of an unchecked autocrat. The lists of 
 notables were abolished, as restricting the choice of 
 the government for the public service ; but the nation 
 received no additional rights. 
 
 The sudden and vast aggrandisement of the 
 power of France necessarily gave umbrage to the 
 one State which still lifted up its head in Europe. 
 The annexation of Piedmont, the subjection of Italy, 
 the complete ascendency of France in Germany, the 
 growth of the maritime power of the French Repub- 
 lic, through its control over the resources of Holland, 
 and the settlement of Switzerland under French 
 influence, provoked anger and alarm in England ; 
 and the circumstance that these menacing events had 
 taken place in universal peace, only aggravated and 
 embittered the sentiment. The Addington ministry 
 and the majority in Parliament were still strongly 
 opposed to a rupture with France and her powerful 
 
18031 The First Consul in Peace. War. 129 
 
 master ; but a war party in the House of Commons 
 gained strength ; the nation felt that danger was 
 near, and that it would be forced to defend itself and 
 the Continent ; and nothing, indeed, could be more 
 untenable than an argument, urged at the time by 
 Napoleon, that England had no right to a voice in 
 the matter, as she had not recognised the new States 
 which had been set up as vassals of France, and the 
 Treaty of Amiens did not provide for Piedmont. 
 The elements of distrust, suspicion, and ill-will were 
 not slow to arise in the case of two nations, deadly 
 foes of late years, and for ages rivals ; and a series of 
 occurrences inflamed the quarrel. 
 
 Pitt, a statesman still misunderstood in France, 
 and zealous for peace throughout his career, kept 
 steadily aloof from warlike counsels ; but the lan- 
 guage of his followers was violent in the extreme, 
 and Lord Grenville and Canning spoke ominous 
 words. The Press, too, teemed with invectives 
 against Napoleon ; ferocious pamphlets were written 
 by passionate dmigris, who abused the right of asy- 
 lum in England ; and George Cadoudal and some of 
 his adherents of La Vendue, undoubtedly conspira- 
 tors of the worst kind, continued, it is said, to re- 
 ceive pensions from the British government for past 
 services. On the other hand. Napoleon assumed a 
 most arrogant attitude, and seemed to show a deter- 
 mination to provoke a rupture. Incensed at the 
 criticism of a free Press, an institution he could not 
 understand, and at the hesitation of the Ministry to 
 comply with his demands as regards the ^migr/s, 
 Cadoudal and his crew, he retaliated in a fierce and 
 
1 30 Napoleon. [I802- 
 
 reckless fashion ; and the Moniteur, the organ of 
 the State, was filled with papers, some from his 
 own pen, which held England up to execration and 
 contempt. Some of his diplomatic correspondence 
 abounded in threats and boastful assertions of his 
 own power ; and one of these letters * reveals designs 
 of conquest and domination that justified all that 
 the war party in England had said against him. Nor 
 did he confine himself to words ; he despatched emis- 
 saries to our coasts to observe and report, evidently 
 with a view to an intended descent ; the dockyards 
 of France and her circle of allies exhibited sudden 
 and extreme activity ; and he sent an officer of rank 
 to Egypt to examine a region which he still hoped 
 to conquer and make a French province. 
 
 In this state of affairs there was scarcely a hope 
 that the Peace of Amiens could be of long duration. 
 Malta was the occasion, but hardly the cause, of the 
 first open dispute between France and England. 
 The island, we have seen, was to be returned to 
 the Knights under the protectorate of a leading 
 Power of Europe; and the British government, in 
 the first instance, was ready, nay eager, to carry out 
 the treaty. But the Czar refused to become protec- 
 tor ; a Grand Master, chosen by the Pope, to be head 
 of the order, would not accept the office ; and French 
 
 * This despatch is not in the Napoleon correspondence, but Thiers 
 quotes from it as genuine. I have space for a few words only. "Le 
 Premier Consul n'a que trente trois ans, il n'a encore detruit que des 
 £tats de second ordre ! Qui sait ce qu'il lui faudrait de temps, s'il 
 y etait force pour changer de nouveau la face de I'Europe, et resus- 
 citer I'Empire d'Occident ? " See also the Correspondance, tome viii., 
 219, 247, 250, 304, 319, 328. 
 
18031 The First Consul in Peace. War. 1 3 1 
 
 diplomatists were lukewarm and slow in suggesting 
 expedients for a fresh arrangement. Meanwhile the 
 prodigious increase of the power of France, and the 
 aggressive attitude of the First Consul, had exas- 
 perated the public mind in England ; and the war 
 party insisted on the retention of Malta, as an equiv- 
 alent for French annexations and conquests. Lord 
 Hawkesbury, the Foreign Minister, dropped a hint, 
 in an interview with a French envoy, that England 
 would have to take precautions, the state of the 
 Continent had been so greatly changed ; and Napo- 
 leon replied by a peremptory demand for the evacu- 
 ation of the island by the British garrison. 
 
 A long diplomatic correspondence followed ; but 
 the Ministry, eager for peace, and with a just regard 
 to treaties, would probably have complied with the 
 First Consul's request, had not circumstances sud- 
 denly changed their purpose. The French officer, 
 who had been sent to Egypt, made a report insinuat- 
 ing that our commander on the spot had been privy 
 to a plot against his life ; he added significantly that 
 it would only require six thousand Frenchmen to con- 
 quer the country ; and Napoleon published this in the 
 official Moniteur, as though he intended to defy 
 England. This was followed by conduct even more 
 aggressive ; in a formal message to the Bodies of 
 State, the First Consul announced that " England 
 by herself was not able to cope with France " ; and 
 in the presence of a great official circle he addressed 
 Lord Whitworth, the English ambassador, in vehe- 
 ment language that approached an insult. This 
 series of threats and injurious acts provoked a gen- 
 
132 Napoleon. [I802- 
 
 eral explosion of wrath in England ; Malta was kept 
 to prevent a French descent on Egypt ; and war in 
 fact had become certain. Napoleon seems to have 
 perceived that he was in the wrong; he made sev- 
 eral attempts to negotiate ; but he refused to accept 
 the terms of England, which revealed distrust, and 
 had become onerous, under the stress of national 
 indignation and passion. War was declared between 
 the two countries in May, 1803. 
 
 The conduct of Napoleon, in this passage of his 
 career, apparently presents a most striking contrast. 
 His policy at home is still, in the main, beneficent ; 
 he gives France wise and lasting reforms ; he is, on 
 the whole, an enlightened ruler. His policy abroad 
 is one of aggression and craft ; he seeks the aggran- 
 disement of France, whatever the risk ; he provokes 
 a most dangerous quarrel with England. Yet this 
 seeming opposition is easy to understand, if we 
 consider his position and that of Europe. If never 
 a statesman of the highest order, Napoleon was an 
 administrator of the rarest genius ; he had the 
 insight to see what were the needs of France, and 
 never perhaps was the difficult task of putting the old 
 wine into the new bottles more successfully accom- 
 plished than in his efforts to bring the Revolution 
 into harmony with the past and to establish reli- 
 gious and social peace. Yet even in these he shakes 
 off restraints on his power, and we see the figure of 
 the uncontrolled despot appear amidst prosperity 
 and social order. 
 
 He looked at the Continent with a conqueror's 
 eye ; he believed that it offered a safe field for his 
 
1803] The First Consul in Peace. War. 133 
 
 own domination and that of France ; and, indeed, 
 he encountered so httle resistance, nay, his interven- 
 tion was so sought for, that we can hardly feel sur- 
 prised if he thought all was possible, and if he 
 forgot that it was, in the main, his enemy. His 
 worst mistake was his breach with England, and in 
 this we see conspicuously, for the first time, one of 
 his most distinctive and notable faults, contempt of 
 national movements and passions, though certainly 
 this was not surprising, for his experience of all that 
 was called national in Italy, and even in France, could 
 not command respect. Unable to see that a great 
 and proud people stood behind a weak and precari- 
 ous government, he thought that threatening the 
 Ministry would overawe England, and he embarked 
 recklessly in a contest with a Power, the resources of 
 which were not unknown to him, and which for ages 
 had been the soul of formidable coalitions against 
 France. War with England opened a long vista of 
 perils and obstacles not to be foreseen ; and if he 
 could rely on his power and his genius, he ought 
 never in the existing position of France, to have 
 risked her grandeur on such a hazard. As to the 
 merits of the disputes which led to the rupture, 
 Napoleon had some just grounds of complaint, but 
 his domineering arrogance cannot be justified. On 
 the other hand, the retention of Malta was a tech- 
 nical breach of a solemn Treaty ; but the real fault 
 of the British government was that its conduct was 
 feeble and halting ; had it firmly taken its stand on 
 the principle of international right in the existing 
 state of Europe, Napoleon possibly might have 
 
134 Napoleon. ri802-3 
 
 yielded. The war was the cause of world-wide 
 calamities ; it was to raise France to the highest 
 point of glory ; it was to place Napoleon, on the 
 stage of events, in the grandest and yet most terrible 
 aspect, but it was to end in Waterloo and St. 
 Helena. As for England it was to expose her to the 
 gravest dangers, and, if it brought her splendid suc- 
 cess at last, it arrested her social progress for years. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Character of the war between England and France — Vast prepara- 
 tions of Napoleon for invading England — The flotilla — The 
 camp of Boulogne — Conspiracy of George Cadoudal — Execu- 
 tion of the Due d'Enghien — Effects of this deed in Europe — 
 Movement in France to make the power of the First Consul 
 hereditary — Establishment of the Empire — Its civil and military 
 functionaries — Coronation of Napoleon — His projects to cover 
 the flotilla by a fleet in the Channel — Cruise of Villeneuve — 
 Coalition formed against Napoleon — He marches from Boulogne 
 to attack Austria — Reflections. 
 
 RANGE and England, after the 
 declaration of war rushed furi- 
 ously to arms in a death 
 struggle. Two events had 
 stirred national passions to 
 their depths ; British men-of- 
 war had, without formal no- 
 tice, captured French traders 
 on the high seas, and Napo- 
 leon had detained and even 
 imprisoned British subjects who happened to be in 
 France. The First Consul made preparations at 
 once to cross the narrow sea and to invade Eng- 
 land, and his design was one of gigantic proportions. 
 Five years ago he had, we have seen, deemed the 
 
 135 
 
136 Napoleon. [1803- 
 
 existing resources of France inadequate ; but the 
 project of a descent on England had, since the 
 days of Louis XIV., been a favourite idea at 
 the French War OfiSce, and he had informed 
 Lord Whitworth that he would make the at- 
 tempt. The military and the naval power of France 
 and of a large part of the Continent was now 
 concentrated in a great despot's hands ; nothing 
 seemed insuperable to the victorious soldier, who 
 had made the barrier of the Alps fall, and Napoleon, 
 though he had weighed the risks, believed that he 
 could " force the wet ditch of the Channel," and 
 appear on the seaboard of Kent in irresistible force. 
 France answered his summons with exulting pride, 
 and made immense efforts to second his purpose. 
 The Senate and the obsequious Bodies of the State 
 overflowed with addresses of loyal acclaim, as had 
 happened in the American War ; the chief cities and 
 towns of France made gifts of war ships to increase 
 the fleet, and many of the Departments freely taxed 
 themselves to exhibit their ardour against the 
 ancient enemy. 
 
 It is idle to represent a great national movement 
 as a factitious effort of arbitrary power compelling 
 the assent of an enslaved people ; the same has been 
 said of the mighty exertions of France in 1793 and 
 in 1870-71 ; and, indeed, Napoleon commanded the 
 hearts of Frenchmen for many years after this period. 
 It is a striking proof of the extraordinary growth of 
 the prosperity of France, since the i8th Brumaire, 
 and of the excellence of her financial system, that 
 she proved perfectly able, at this crisis, to bear the 
 
1805} War with England. The Empire. 137 
 
 enormous strain of a great maritime war and of 
 preparations on a colossal scale ; and thus to belie 
 the predictions of British statesmen. Napoleon, 
 indeed, acquired large funds by the sale of Louisiana 
 to the United States ; he compelled Spain to yield 
 him an ample subsidy ; and, as had been the case 
 before, he extracted a tribute from the vassal States 
 of the supreme Republic. But the charge of the 
 contest fell mainly on France, and yet her taxation 
 was but slightly raised, and the danger and waste of 
 loans were avoided. 
 
 Napoleon's preparations to effect the descent con- 
 tinued for more than two years. His design was 
 possibly too vast, like more than one of his military 
 designs ; he underrated the power and the spirit of 
 England ; he had no experience in naval affairs ; 
 he did not possess the technical knowledge essential 
 in an enterprise of the kind ; and his efforts ended in 
 a disastrous failure. What he accomplished, how- 
 ever, remains a monument of his comprehensive 
 genius in war, of his characteristic organising powers, 
 of his extraordinary gifts in arranging details, of 
 his indefatigable and most fruitful energy, of his dis- 
 tinctive and peculiar skill in stratagem, and of his 
 passionate and unchanging hatred of England ; and, 
 to a certain extent, he attained success, more nearly 
 than is commonly supposed. The rulers of France 
 who had gone before him had never contemplated 
 invading England with more than thirty or forty 
 thousand men, and the invasion was to be a diver- 
 sion only ; he resolved to attack with one hundred 
 and sixty thousand, and with a mighty blow to 
 
13^ Napoleon. [1803- 
 
 strike down the power, which he described as the 
 " oppressor of France for ages." His fleets, how- 
 ever, and those of his allies, were not to be compared 
 to those of his foe ; and by what means and under 
 what conditions was he to transport across the Chan- 
 nel a force far more numerous than had hitherto 
 appeared, in a single army, on any field in Europe ? 
 His first care was to increase and strengthen his 
 naval squadrons by all means in his power ; the army 
 he had sent to St.Domingo had fallen a victim to tropi- 
 cal disease, but the ships had safely returned to port ; 
 men-of-war were rapidly built and fitted out in the 
 dockyards of France and of her dependents ; nothing 
 was left undone to obtain crews ; and Antwerp was 
 selected, with true insight, to form a great centre of 
 naval construction and a base of operations of the first 
 order. After several months of incessant toil, the ma- 
 rine of France, which had been almost ruined before 
 the Peace of Amiens, had begun to revive ; Toulon 
 and even Rochefort possessed fleets ; and two formida- 
 ble squadrons, at Brest and the Texel, one capable 
 of bearing thirty thousand soldiers, were given the 
 name of " The Wings of the Army of England." 
 Meanwhile masses of troops had been drawn together 
 and placed in camps along the sea-coast extending 
 from Brest to Calais and Dunkirk, other divisions 
 being in the interior ; and this great armament, ulti- 
 mately one hundred and thirty thousand strong, 
 was destined to converge to the shores of Picardy, 
 and to strike the stroke that was to prove decisive.* 
 
 * Napoleon's attempt to invade England, and the results were of 
 supreme importance to his own fortunes and to those of the world, and 
 
/1il ' 
 
 
 r, 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 NAPOLEON 
 FROM ^H OLD ENGRAVING OF A PICTURE BY BOUILLON. 
 
1806] War with England. The Empire. 1 39 
 
 A word must be said on the means employed to 
 ferry across the Channel this large force, the " Main 
 Body of the Army of England." Along the' banks 
 of the chief rivers which fall into the sea from the 
 Scheldt to the Garonne, small vessels were built at 
 available places, and were brought down to the coast 
 in hundreds. These craft were composed of three 
 classes : light pinnaces to carry the van of the army, 
 larger boats to convey the succeeding divisions, and 
 heavy barges for the impedimenta of war ; but all 
 the classes had flat bottoms, were comparatively of 
 small draught, were capable of being propelled by 
 sails and oars, and for their size, were powerfully 
 armed with cannon. The elements of a gigantic 
 flotilla were thus formed, and the scattered construc- 
 tions were by degrees drawn together from a variety 
 of points, arrayed in squadrons, and brought along 
 the coast to the places where the army was to em- 
 bark. Careful precautions were taken to protect 
 these divisions on the passage from attacks of the 
 enemy, by placing batteries on assailable spots, and 
 by distributing horsemen along the seaboard ; and 
 though the whole flotilla was never assembled, for 
 
 have perhaps received less attention than they deserve. An excel- 
 lent sketch of the purely naval operations will be found in Admiral 
 Colomb's Naval Warfare ; it is little more than an abstract, but it 
 is very valuable. I cannot, however, concur with Admiral Colomb's 
 view that possibly Napoleon did not really intend to invade England; 
 he certainly hesitated and changed his plans, but he had a settled 
 purpose to effect the descent. I would also refer to the admirable 
 work of Admiral de la Graviere, Guerres Maritimes sous la Kepub- 
 lique et V Empire ; the extracts from the diary of Villeneuve are 
 most instructive. 
 
140 Napoleon. [I803- 
 
 some headlands could not be doubled, still the vast. 
 number of two thousand three hundred vessels, 
 manned by upwards of fifteen thousand seamen, 
 and carrying about three thousand guns, were ulti- 
 mately collected along the coast extending from 
 Etaples and Ambleteuse, within sight of Dungeness 
 and Folkestone. Immense preparations had, mean- 
 while, been made to provide for the safety of this 
 vast armament ; the beds of the Liane and the 
 Canche had been deepened, widened, and made 
 navigable, a great central basin had been constructed 
 at Boulogne, with quays, and all the appliances of a 
 port ; and every little roadstead had been turned to 
 account and placed under the guns of batteries, to 
 cover the squadron contained in it. 
 
 Before the end of 1804, the shores around Bou- 
 logne presented an array of armed vessels, extending 
 for miles and ready to put to sea, and the efforts 
 made by the British cruisers to destroy or to injure 
 this menacing force, had been attended with no suc- 
 cess. Meantime Napoleon had brought together 
 and collected into four great camps, between Arras, 
 Montreuil, and Boulogne, the masses of troops, 
 intended to effect the passage ; and extraordinary 
 care was taken to arrange the details for the embark- 
 ation and the subsequent descent. Every fraction 
 of the army had its allotted place in the part of the 
 flotilla assigned to it ; the sea and land forces were 
 trained to act in concert, and nothing was left untried 
 by repeated efforts to assure regularity, order, and 
 speed, in placing men, horses, and the material of 
 war, in the assemblage of transports arrayed for the 
 
1805] War with England. The Empire. 141 
 
 purpose, and in making the means of invasion certain. 
 The rivalry and ardour of soldiers and sailors were 
 kept up by frequent reviews, and by spirit-stirring 
 harangues and addresses ; and their vigour was 
 increased by continual exercise in the construction 
 of the works at the great camp of Boulogne. The 
 master-mind of the First Consul, directed the whole 
 enterprise down to its smallest details. 
 
 England had looked on, for a time, unmoved at 
 these preparations to invade her shores. Her fleets 
 had blockaded the ports of France ; she had squadrons 
 off the Irish and Dutch coasts, and she guarded the 
 Channel by a few war ships, for the most part of 
 inferior size and by petty armed craft not in large 
 numbers. The idea of a descent was, at first, ridi- 
 culed ; the Admiralty and its trained advisers, aware 
 of the difficulties caused by winds and tides, believed 
 that the flotilla could not make the passage, and, in 
 any event, they conceived that the attacking force 
 would not exceed a few thousand men. But confi- 
 dence gave place by degrees to alarm, when Boulogne 
 and the surrounding region had been changed into 
 huge leaguers containing tens of thousands of armed 
 men assembled almost within sight of Dover ; when 
 an immense array of vessels, whose powerful guns 
 had successfully resisted many hostile efforts, had 
 been collected in the narrow sea ; and when a great 
 tempest of war had gathered together from Brittany 
 to the flats of Holland. 
 
 The nation, however, was equal to itself ; the 
 army, though fallen from its old renown, and ill 
 organised, was largely increased ; the militia was 
 
142 Napoleon. [1803- 
 
 called out to support it, and volunteers eagerly flocked 
 in thousands to defend the natal soil from wrong and 
 aggression. More than two hundred thousand men 
 were arrayed in arms, and though these troops and 
 levies were not to be compared to the veteran and 
 practised legions of France, they were by no means 
 contemptible foes, and had they been well directed, 
 they could have resisted an invasion, which could 
 only have been an unsupported raid in any event, 
 far more formidably than Napoleon supposed. 
 Meantime something was done to protect the Chan- 
 nel ; but this vital point was, at no time, guarded by 
 a naval force in really great strength, and no English 
 seaman entertained a thought that a hostile fleet 
 in largely superior numbers, could be brought into 
 the narrow seas and be made to cover the flotilla on 
 its way to our shores. The traditions, in truth, of 
 the complete failure of D'Orvilliers in 1779, of the 
 First of June, of the Nile, of Camperdown, were all 
 powerful in the minds of Englishmen, and menacing 
 as the flotilla was felt to be, it was not imagined that 
 it could obtain the assistance of French squadrons 
 in British waters. The belligerents, in fact, were 
 each too confident of superiority within their respec- 
 tive domains. Napoleon never doubted but that if 
 he once could land the mass of his army on the 
 shores of England, he would dictate peace amidst 
 conquered London, and yet not improbably he 
 would have found a Moscow. Nelson and St. Vin- 
 cent assumed that a great French fleet could, in no 
 event, makes its way to the Channel ; and yet they 
 were very nearly mistaken. 
 
1805] War with England. The Empire. 1 43 
 
 While Napoleon had thus been " devouring the ob- 
 stacles " lying in the way of his great enterprise, a 
 wicked plot had been formed against his life. George 
 Cadoudal and his band had, we have seen, remained 
 in England after the Peace of Amiens, and the re- 
 newal of the war gave the conspirators hopes of 
 striking with effect at the First Consul. La Vendue, 
 however, had been pacified ; it was impossible to stir 
 up civil war in France, and all that remained was to 
 slay the infernal usurper, who stood in the path of 
 the King by the grace of God. It was resolved to mur- 
 der Napoleon, in the open day, when attended by a 
 few of his friends only, and nothing shows more 
 clearly the perverted judgment of more than one of 
 Napoleon's detractors, than that writers have been 
 found who have accepted the plea that this was 
 not assassination but a fair combat. Meetings were 
 regularly held to further the project, and as it was 
 evidently necessary to gain over the army if a 
 Bourbon Restoration was to follow the crime, over- 
 tures were made to Moreau, for some time a secret 
 enemy of the First Consul, through Pichegru, who, 
 we have seen, had been excluded from the great 
 recent amnesty, and through other agents of an 
 , inferior order. The British government, it is unneces- 
 sary to say, was wholly unaware of these counsels 
 of blood, though unhappily, as we have seen, it had 
 Cadoudal and some of his adherents in its pay, on 
 account of services in the late war, and Louis XVIIL, 
 at this time at Warsaw, refused, to his honour, to be 
 privy to them. But the brother of the Pretender, 
 the Comte d'Artois, and leading men of the imigr^ 
 
144 Napoleon. ti803- 
 
 fanatics, undoubtedly took part in the plot generally ; 
 and the Comte d'Artois was certainly more than 
 once present at the conspirators' hidden and nightly 
 conclaves. 
 
 Cadoudal and several of his murderous band made 
 their way to Paris to carry out their design in the 
 winter of 1803-4; they were followed by Rivifere 
 and two Polignacs, noble and trusted friends of the 
 Comte d'Artois, and foremost in the highest ranks 
 of the emigrds ; and Pichegru, Cadoudal, and Moreau 
 met and discussed the fall of the Consular govern- 
 ment, though Moreau seems to have been averse 
 to an atrocious crime. The conspiracy gradually 
 became divulged, and was discovered mainly through 
 Napoleon's efforts ; and the disclosures made by 
 some of Cadoudal's crew led to the unexpected arrest 
 of Moreau. Ere long Cadoudal himself, Rivifere, 
 and the Polignacs, and finally Pichegru were arrested, 
 and if the Royalists in Paris feigned scepticism, it 
 was placed beyond doubt that a far-reaching plot 
 had existed to slay the ruler of France. Moreau 
 was sentenced to imprisonment after a fair trial, but 
 Napoleon allowed him to go to America. Cadoudal 
 was justly sent to the scaffold ; his three noble satel- 
 lites were condemned to death ; yet here, too, Napo- 
 leon showed himself merciful, and he granted the 
 culprits a free pardon. Pichegru had strangled him- 
 self meanwhile in prison, and it is idle to lay his 
 death to the First Consul's charge. 
 
 The conduct of Napoleon up to this point had 
 been equally just and clement. Cadoudal and 
 Moreau were rightly convicted, and history would 
 
18051 War with England. The Empire. 145 
 
 not have uttered a word of censure if Rivifere and 
 the Polignacs had been sent to death, nay if their 
 guilty patron, the Comte d'Artois, had been involved 
 in the same doom, had he fallen into the hands of the 
 Head of the State. These proceedings, in fact, bore 
 a striking resemblance to the Jacobite plots against 
 William III., and we know how they were dealt with 
 by British justice, far less merciful than the First 
 Consul. Unfortunately, however, at this conjunc- 
 ture Napoleon took a course and committed acts 
 which, palliate them as we may in a certain measure, 
 must nevertheless be sternly condemned by every 
 candid and well-informed enquirer. During the 
 investigations before the late trials, it had repeatedly 
 been deposed that a Bourbon Prince was to join the 
 conspirators in the French Capital, and as it was sup- 
 posed that this person was the Comte d'Artois, a 
 watch was set on the spot where it was believed that 
 D'Artois, then in England, would land on the coast 
 of Normandy. This mission, however, having proved 
 fruitless. Napoleon turned his eyes on the different 
 members of the House of Bourbon in other parts of 
 Europe, and his attention fixed itself on the Due 
 d'Enghien, a young scion of the princely stem of 
 Cond6, at this time quietly living at Ettenheim, in the 
 Duchy of Baden, near the banks of the Rhine. The 
 report of a spy, despatched to observe the Due and 
 his movements, raised the suspicions of the First 
 Consul to the highest pitch, and urged him to form 
 a fatal purpose. An English agent called Smith, 
 charged to make enquiries about the descent, was not 
 far from Baden ; meetings of imigris had been held 
 
146 Napoleon. [I803- 
 
 near Ettenheim, and the spy, making a disastrous 
 mistake, declared that Smith and Dumourier — the 
 chief of Valmy, but banished from France since 1793 
 — had been lately in the house of the Due, who, the 
 spy added, had been more than once in Strasburg. 
 
 This fell like a revelation on Napoleon's mind ; 
 the Bourbon prince was discovered, and a fresh band 
 of plotters ; and bodies of armed men were at once 
 despatched to enter the territory of Baden to seize 
 D'Enghien and to send him to Paris a close prisoner. 
 The order was only too well obeyed, and after the 
 arrest of the ill-fated young man, his papers were 
 placed in Napoleon's hands. They certainly con- 
 tained some questionable words, but they were 
 incompatible with murderous guilt, and it was soon 
 discovered that the tale of the spy about Smith and 
 Dumourier was a complete error. Napoleon, how- 
 ever, had resolved to make an example and to terrify 
 the Bourbons and all that belonged to them ; and, 
 wholly changing the nature of the charge, he caused 
 an accusation to be preferred against the Due of 
 having been an dmigr^ in arms against France, and 
 of being disaffected to the Consular government, an 
 accusation no doubt true, but not the one that had 
 led to the arrest. The Due d'Enghien was hurriedly 
 taken to Vincennes, was arraigned at the dead of 
 night on this new indictment, before a military com- 
 mission told off for the purpose, and was shot within 
 two hours, after a mock trial, in which the accused 
 was left without means of defence. 
 
 Some excuses may, in justice, be urged to extenu- 
 ate the guilt of this deed of blood. The dread of 
 
1805] War with England. The Empire. 147 
 
 murder shook the iron nerves of Cromwell, and 
 murder had been brought before the mind of the 
 First Consul during many months. The invasion of 
 Baden by French troops was an audacious violation 
 of the rights of neutrals ; but, not to refer to Napoleon 
 in 1796 and 1797, the rights of neutrals were, in this 
 age, trampled under foot by most of the great 
 powers of Europe. The time, too, was one of atro- 
 cious acts — of the execution of Carracioli, of Murat, 
 of Ney — and the death of the Due d'Enghien was 
 not so grave a crime as the assassination of the 
 ambassadors of France at Rastadt. It is most 
 remarkable, besides, that Talleyrand, a sagacious 
 and a calm-minded man, was at least consenting to 
 D'Enghien's fate, nay, perhaps directly took part 
 in the deed ; the scornful denial that appears in 
 Talleyrand's Memoirs does not refute a charge sus- 
 tained by much proof. But, when all has been said, 
 the Due d'Enghien sits heavily on Napoleon's mem- 
 ory, and, like the victims of Richard before Bos- 
 worth, this phantom is still a living accuser. There 
 seems to be no value in the imaginary pleas that the 
 First Consul intended to commute the sentence, or 
 that an accident delayed the appearance at Vincennes 
 of a functionary charged to report on the trial, and 
 to restrain the Commission at the last moment ; 
 and the facts converge to a plain conclusion. 
 
 Napoleon was not cruel, as his whole life shows ; 
 but he had determined to strike down conspirators : 
 he was inexorable when he had made up his mind, 
 and he resolved to sacrifice the Due d'Enghien in 
 order to teach Bourbon plotters a lesson. He did 
 
148 Napoleon. [I803- 
 
 not scruple, with this end in view, to bring the Prince 
 within the scope of a charge, far-fetched and nearly- 
 obsolete, if technically correct, but from which there 
 was no possible escape ; to hand him over to a tri- 
 bunal, which, he well knew, would be bound by no 
 law and would show no mercy ; and to do his 
 prisoner to death for reasons of state. This, indeed, 
 is Napoleon's account of the matter, recorded in 
 his will in his last moments : " I caused the Due 
 d'Enghien to be arrested and convicted, because this 
 was necessary for the security, the interests, and the 
 honour of the French people, at a time when the 
 Comte d'Artois, by his own admission, supported 
 sixty assassins in Paris. In similar circumstances I 
 would act in the same way again." * 
 
 The tragic death of the Due d'Enghien led ulti- 
 mately to another league against France ; but it 
 seemed at first to have but slight results. Prussia, 
 indeed, gorged with the spoils of Lun^ville, and wist- 
 fully looking to Napoleon for more, withdrew from 
 the formal alliance with France, which she had been 
 meditating for some time ; and Russia assumed a men- 
 acing attitude. The young Czar and his Court went 
 into deep mourning — a grotesque exhibition after the 
 fate of Paul ; his ministers uttered solemn protests 
 against the violation of the rights of Baden ; and 
 
 * Comment., tome v., p. 495, Ed. 1867. The death of the Due 
 d'Enghien is perhaps the darkest incident in Napoleon's career, and 
 ultimately led to important consequences. Those who care to study 
 the subject fully may read the valuable works of Nongaride de Fayet 
 and Welschinger, the last very able but unjust to the First Consul, 
 and perhaps to Talleyrand. The evidence will be found summed up 
 in the Edinburgh Review of April, 1889. 
 
1805] War with England. The Empire. 149 
 
 Alexander, who had been compelled to play an 
 inferior part in the late settlement of German affairs, 
 by the ruler of France, sought to appear a champion 
 of an injured Germany. These demonstrations, 
 however, came to nothing ; Austria, the Head of the 
 Empire, took care not to interfere on behalf of one 
 of the Lesser States ; and, indeed, the only use she 
 made of an occasion of trouble was to aggrandise 
 herself, and to extend her possessions. The Conti- 
 nent, in fact, though indignant at heart, was still so 
 overawed by the power of Napoleon, that the mere 
 death of a Bourbon was not sufificient to cause it to 
 run the risks of war ; and, indeed, on the imperious 
 summons of the First Consul, it consented to the 
 banishment of Smith, and of other English agents, 
 who, like him, had been given the task of obtaining 
 information about the descent, just as Napoleon, at 
 this very time, had agents in Ireland to stir up a 
 rebellion. The only important effects of the tragedy 
 of Vincennes, for some months, were apparently two ; 
 plots, like those of Cadoudal altogether ceased, and, 
 indeed, were never heard of again ; and Napoleon's 
 calculations in this respect were verified. The second 
 consequence was of greater moment ; the government 
 and the institutions of France depended on the 
 existence of the First Consul ; and what would happen 
 if an assassin's knife destroyed him before he had 
 named a successor? Another strong movement 
 began to impel France, already in the hands of a 
 great ruler, already feeling the approach of monarchy ; 
 and a sentiment grew up in the more enlightened 
 classes, and thence passed into the mass of the 
 
1 50 Napoleon. [1803- 
 
 nation, that the time had arrived when it had become 
 necessary to raise Napoleon to an hereditary throne, 
 to establish the Revolution on a monarchic basis, 
 and still further to close the divisions between the 
 Republic and the old order of Europe. 
 
 This movement, general and spontaneous — it is 
 vain to deny its real nature, — made its way into the 
 Bodies of the State, and especially into the docile 
 Senate, eager to anticipate a master's wishes, though 
 these sons of the Revolution, in many instances, 
 still retained their inveterate dislike to Royalty. 
 Fouch^, indeed, lately dismissed from the Ministry 
 of Police, was the only one of the leading men in 
 Paris who urged Napoleon to ascend the throne — 
 his motives were sufficiently plain, and Cambac^rfes 
 even made objections. But Napoleon's purpose was 
 already formed, his ambition had step by step ad- 
 vanced to the thought of an Empire of the West, 
 with France supreme over a subject Europe ; and he 
 seized the opportunity offered by fortune. Except 
 Russia, the Powers of the Continent welcomed with 
 feigned or sincere pleasure the announcement that 
 monarchy was to be restored in France, and the 
 army exulted at the new title of its chief, if some 
 military leaders were, perhaps, unwilling. The Tri- 
 bunate was the first of the Bodies of the State to 
 vote the First Consul to his august dignity; the pro- 
 test of Carnot was not thought of amidst adulation 
 that knew no bounds, and the Senate, hurrying to 
 the spot to bow down and worship, hailed Napoleon 
 Emperor of the French at St. Cloud, the scene of 
 the 1 8th Brumaire, now well-nigh forgotten. 
 
1805] War with England. The Empire. 1 5 1 
 
 The institutions of the new Empire require but 
 little notice ; the boasted Constitution of the year 
 VIII. had proved simply an egg to hatch Despotism, 
 and all that remained was to hide away the shell in 
 the trappings and pomp of Imperial splendour. 
 Napoleon was declared Sovereign of the French 
 People ; in default of male children, the succession 
 to the crown was limited to his brothers Joseph and 
 Louis, Lucien, the old President of the Five Hun- 
 dred, and the youngest brother, Jerome, being ex- 
 cluded for having married beneath their rank ; but 
 the Emperor was given the right to adopt a succes- 
 sor, as had been the case when he was First Consul. 
 The throne was surrounded by Grand Dignitaries, 
 resembling the Electors of the German Csesars, but 
 composed of prominent men of the Consulate — 
 Cambac^rfes, Lebrun, and four others, and the mag- 
 nificence of the old monarchy of France reappeared 
 in a host of grand officers, of high functionaries, and 
 of attendants of a Court who revived the memories 
 of the glories of Versailles. The Empire, however, 
 was one of the sword, and its main prop, the army, 
 was represented in it by an array of marshals and 
 distinguished generals, future ennobled paladins of 
 a new era. As for the institutions of the Consular 
 time, the Senate acquired additional powers, and the 
 Tribunate was before long suppressed ; but for some 
 years these had only been the instruments of an 
 all-controlling ruler, and they almost pass out of the 
 sight of history. Napoleon stood supreme above 
 this assemblage of newly-formed and dependent 
 dignities, and he retained the whole administration 
 
152 Napoleon. [1803- 
 
 of the State in his hands, for his ministers remained 
 his mere subordinates. The approbation of the na- 
 tion had been so manifest, that an appeal was made 
 to it only on the single question, if the Empire was 
 to be of an hereditary type. 
 
 Paris flocked to behold the Coronation on the 2d 
 of December, 1804. The German Caesars, in the 
 ancient rite, had crossed the Alps to wait on the 
 Pontiff, but Pius VII. had come from Rome, that 
 nothing should be wanting in Napoleon's honour. 
 The old man had left the Vatican in fear and trem- 
 bling, but he had been greeted with respect and 
 delight in the Infidel Land and the Godless City, 
 which a few years before had risen in revolt against 
 the altars and thrones of Christendom. He had 
 been received at the Tuileries with the pomp of 
 sovereigns, and Napoleon and Josephine had, in 
 secret, invoked his blessing on their marriage vows, 
 which, according to Revolutionary law, had been 
 sanctioned only by a functionary of the State. On 
 the day of the ceremony, Pius left the Palace, accom- 
 panied by a long array of the higher clergy of the 
 new-born Church of France, and as the procession 
 passed through the streets and along the stately ways 
 of the capital to the antique fane of the good St. 
 Louis, cheers burst from the multitudes, which had 
 lately beheld Robespierre doing homage to the Su- 
 preme Being, and Pagan orgies offered to the Powers 
 of the Seasons. The interior of N6tre Dame had 
 been draped with tapestry, bright with the golden 
 bees of the Imperial soldier, which concealed the 
 ravages of the neglect of the Commune, and as the 
 
1805] War with England. The Empire. 153 
 
 Pontiff was met at the high altar by the Prelates of 
 the sixty dioceses of France, solemn music and 
 hundreds of voices joined in the chant, which com- 
 memorates the Divine words that made Peter the 
 Rock of the Church. 
 
 Ere long another procession appeared : Napoleon, 
 surrounded by his band of marshals, by his chief 
 civil officers and by the Bodies of the State, had 
 entered the Cathedral in a vast concourse, and the 
 dim religious light brought out an extraordinary 
 scene of the magnificence of the past and of a pres- 
 ent age of wonders. The Pontiff addressed himself 
 to his sacred office, he poured the mystic oil on the 
 kneeling sovereign, gave him the sceptre, and girt 
 him with the sword, but Napoleon, with an expres- 
 sive gesture, placed the crown on his head with his 
 own hands, and wreathed the brows of his wife with 
 a golden chaplet. The Emperor then ascended a 
 high throne of state, the double processions being 
 gathered round it, the apostolic blessing was pro- 
 nounced, and as choir and organ pealed forth the 
 hymn which had hailed Charlemagne Lord of the 
 West, shouting crowds outside gave a joyous re- 
 sponse, and the acclaim echoed far and wide through 
 Paris. The satirist may gibe at all that may have 
 been incongruous or out of date in the pageant, 
 but history notes its true significance — how the 
 Revolution, changed by a man of genius, had made 
 a great military monarchy of France, and had arrayed 
 itself in the most august forms of royal and feudal 
 state in the past. The ideas of 1789 had given place 
 for a brief moment to the ideas of the Franks of the 
 
154 Napoleon. [1803- 
 
 West, in the city which had made an idol of Vol- 
 taire, and had torn the dead bodies of its kings from 
 the grave in the fool fury of 1793. 
 
 Ere long fresh stretches of power had begun to 
 increase the alarm of the troubled Continent. Soon 
 after the declaration of war with England, a French 
 army had overrun Hanover ; and this had become a 
 standing menace to Prussia, already turning towards 
 the Great Power of the North. French troops had 
 taken possession of southern parts of Naples, on the 
 plea that the Queen was an ally of England, and in 
 answer to the retention of Malta ; and divisions were 
 placed on the Pyrenean frontier to keep Spain true 
 to the French alliance. Soon after the coronation 
 in Paris, Napoleon resolved that the Italian Republic 
 should be transformed like its original in France ; in 
 a spectacle of great pomp in the Cathedral of Milan 
 he was crowned with the Iron Crown of the Lom- 
 bard kings ; and, after uttering the ancient words of 
 challenge, " Beware who touches this gift of God," 
 he assumed the title of King of the whole of Italy. 
 The Ligurian Republic was then swallowed up, with 
 Genoa the Proud, made a part of France ; and the 
 little territory of Lucca became an Imperial fief, and 
 was bestowed on the eldest of Napoleon's sisters, 
 the first instance of many acts of the kind. 
 
 The rankling indignation caused by the death of 
 the Due d'Enghien in every court of Europe now 
 took the form of distinct hostility ; Austria, still 
 casting her eyes on Italy, made secret preparations 
 to renew the war ; Russia moved troops by degrees 
 towards the Niemen ; and Prussia, fearing France, 
 
18051 War with England. The Empire. 155 
 
 was yet willing to strike. An incident in England 
 had greatly strengthened the tendency of old Europe 
 to take up arms once more. Pitt, replacing Adding- 
 ton and his weak ministry, had been called by the 
 nation to power ; and the son of Chatham, and the 
 great treasurer of the two Leagues of 1793 and 1799, 
 naturally turned to the Continent to seek assistance 
 for his country against her implacable foe, though he 
 had never ceased to regret the war. A proposal by 
 the young and inexperienced Czar to make a general 
 settlement of the affairs of Europe was changed, by 
 the veteran British statesman, into a project of a 
 Coalition against France ; and Austria and Russia, 
 Prussia holding back, undertook, in certain events, 
 to bring into the field a force, with allies, of half a 
 million of men. Pitt, as usual, was ready to give sub- 
 sidies ; and though the Continent seemed quiescent, 
 the Coalition against France and her power, always 
 hated and feared since 1789, had been almost matured 
 in the summer of 1805. 
 
 These preparations had not escaped Napoleon ; 
 but he still hoped to accomplish the descent, and to 
 " cut the knot of coalitions in London." It is doubt- 
 ful if he ever had the intention of crossing the Chan- 
 nel with the flotilla alone, but he had long resolved 
 to cover the passage by bringing a great fleet into 
 the narrow seas, superior to any that England could 
 oppose to it on the spot. His genius, his energy, 
 his profound craft, were tasked to the utmost to 
 effect his purpose ; and indeed the difficulties in his 
 way were such, that he thought for a moment of 
 giving up the enterprise and of sending an expedi- 
 
1 56 Napoleon. [1803- 
 
 tion to invade India, an object of which he never 
 lost sight. He had soon returned, however, to the 
 project of the descent ; and the plans he fornaed to 
 master the Channel for a time, in the face of an 
 enemy infinitely stronger at sea, were wonderful, and 
 must be briefly noticed. His first design was that 
 the Toulon fleet, eluding the blockading force of 
 Nelson, who could not always keep the port closed, 
 should traverse the Mediterranean, join the Rochefort 
 squadron, and reach Boulogne with sixteen sail of 
 the line, an armament much greater than the Eng- 
 lish Channel fleet ; and this has been deemed most 
 formidable by experienced seamen. The death, 
 however, of the Admiral at Toulon, La Touche — an 
 able man, who had beaten off an attack directed by 
 Nelson, in 1 801, on an assemblage of small armed 
 craft at Boulogne — prevented the attempt being 
 made ; and Napoleon had recourse to a second pro- 
 ject. According to this plan the Brest fleet, from 
 eighteen to twenty sail-of-the-line, was to break 
 the blockade, in the storms of winter, and to press 
 into the Channel at once, secondary attacks being 
 at the same time made on the English settlements 
 in the West Indies ; but this arrangement proved 
 also fruitless. 
 
 The third and last scheme was formed in the 
 winter of 1804-5, ^^id it was the boldest, the grand- 
 est, and perhaps the most promising. By this time 
 England and Spain were engaged in war ; Napoleon 
 disposed of the naval resources of Spain ; and he 
 was master of fleets which in numbers at least were 
 scarcely inferior to those of England. His plan now 
 
18051 War with England. The Empire. 157 
 
 was that Villeneuve, La Touche's successor, should 
 escape from Toulon, attain the Straits, and rally 
 a Spanish squadron at Cadiz ; and the allied fleet 
 was to make for the West Indies, in order to direct 
 attention in England on an attack threatening her 
 West Indian colonies. In the meantime the Brest 
 fleet, in the hands of Ganteaume, was to evade the 
 blockading fleet of Cornwallis, to join a French and 
 Spanish squadron at Ferrol, and to hurry off to the 
 West Indies ; and then Villeneuve and Ganteaume, 
 combining their forces, were to cross the Atlantic 
 and enter the Channel. An armada of from forty- 
 five to fifty sail-of-the-line would thus be brought 
 together to shield the flotilla, and the English Chan- 
 nel fleet could not prevent the descent. In design at 
 least this project was a strategic conception of the 
 highest order ; and the idea of masking the invasion 
 by sending fleets across the ocean to the West Indies 
 was worthy of Napoleon's genius of stratagem. 
 
 By the last days of March, 1805, Villeneuve and 
 his fleet had got out of Toulon. He had soon 
 joined the Spanish squadron at Cadiz ; and he was 
 at Martinique on the 13th of May with a combined 
 fleet of eighteen large war ships. The passage had 
 been slow, though without accidents ; the French 
 ships, hastily and ill-constructed, and the Spanish 
 ships, ill-equipped and ill-manned, had proved for 
 the most part, bad sailers, and Villeneuve, a skilful 
 seaman, but a timid chief, still full of the dreaded 
 memories of the Nile, feared the apparition of Nel- 
 son on his path. That great warrior, however, who 
 had always had an eye for a French descent on 
 
158 Napoleon. [1803- 
 
 Egypt, had turned far eastward in pursuit of Vil- 
 leneuve, and when he had learned that his foe was 
 upon the Atlantic, he was long detained by contrary 
 winds. Nelson had not left Europe until the second 
 week of May, but he still hoped that he would reach 
 and defeat Villeneuve, though he had not more than 
 ten sail-of-the-line, and the French were more than 
 three thousand miles distant. Meantime, Napoleon's 
 projects had received a first check, if Villeneuve's 
 movements had been as yet successful. Owing in 
 some measure, to long protracted calms, but mainly 
 to the stringency of the blockade, Ganteaume had 
 not been able to stir from Brest ; the Emperor, there- 
 fore, had had to change his plan, and he despatched 
 two ships to inform Villeneuve that he was to leave 
 the West Indies, if his colleague had not joined him 
 by a given day, to rally the allied fleet at Ferrol, and 
 then to sail for Brest, to unite with Ganteaume, and 
 to appear in irresistible force in the Channel. Vil- 
 leneuve was far from Martinique by the first days 
 of June, eager, in any event, to avoid Nelson, and 
 trembling at the responsibility imposed on him ; but 
 his bad ships again retarded his course, and July 
 was advanced before the combined fleet had even 
 approached the seas of Europe. 
 
 Nelson, meantime, had missed his expected 
 quarry ; he had been led by a false report to steer 
 for Trinidad, and he only reached Antigua to find 
 Villeneuve gone, without any indication of his 
 enemy's movements. He set off in hot chase to 
 recross the Atlantic ; but Nelson had not fathomed 
 Napoleon's designs, and he made for Cadiz, prob- 
 
1805] War with England. The Empire. 159 
 
 ably in the belief that his adversary was endea- 
 vouring to return to Toulon. Most fortunately 
 he took a precaution which saved England, per- 
 haps, from invasion ; he despatched a light vessel 
 to inform the Admirality that Villeneuve was on 
 his way to Europe, and the Admiralty, when made 
 aware of this, had just time to detach a squadron 
 from the blockades of Rochefort and Brest, and to 
 give it to Sir Robert Calder with orders to stop and 
 attack Villeneuve. The French Admiral, whose 
 movements had been as slow as ever, encountered 
 Calder on the 22d of July, at some distance from 
 Cape Finistfere ; he had twenty sail-of-the-line to 
 fifteen, and though the battle was indecisive, he 
 lost two ships. He made good, however, his way to 
 Vigo, leaving three of his worst ships at that place, 
 and in a few days he was in the roads of Ferrol, 
 where he found a large Spanish and French 
 squadron. 
 
 Villeneuve had now fulfilled a large part of his 
 task ; he had reached Ferrol almost intact ; he had 
 rallied the fleet he was to join at that place, and 
 he was in command of twenty-nine war ships, which 
 might be augmented to thirty-four by the Rochefort 
 squadron, at sea, and near. But Ganteaume re- 
 mained imprisoned at Brest, he had been unable to 
 fulfil his mission, and the inferiority of the French 
 and Spanish fleets had been proved in every con- 
 ceivable way. An obstacle, too, of the most formid- 
 able kind, lay in the path of the French Admiral. 
 Nelson, after touching at Gibraltar, had set sail for 
 England ; but he had left the greatest part of his 
 
i6o Napoleon. [1803- 
 
 fleet at Brest ; Calder had for a moment joined 
 Cornwallis ; the three British squadrons, if less 
 numerous than those of Villeneuve and Ganteaume 
 united, were far stronger than that of Villeneuve 
 alone, and the French chief believed that he would 
 be overpowered off Brest, before his colleague could 
 come into line with him. 
 
 Yet fortune, at this crisis, gave Villeneuve a chance 
 which a great leader might have turned to account. 
 Cornwallis, just at this time, detached Calder to 
 observe Ferrol with seventeen ships, keeping only 
 eighteen or twenty at Brest, and this strategic error 
 made it possible that Villeneuve might defeat or 
 elude Calder, might find Cornwallis at Brest too 
 weak to resist him, and might rally Ganteaume and 
 sail into the channel. Villeneuve, however, was not 
 aware of the facts; he saw Nelson, Calder, and 
 Cornwallis combined off Brest and waiting to de- 
 stroy their prey; he had not yet heard of the 
 Rochefort squadron, and he missed an occasion, his 
 best and his last. Overwhelmed with care, and yet 
 afraid to cross the will of an imperious master, who 
 could not, or would not, perceive the weakness of 
 the allied fleets compared to their foes, Villeneuve 
 put out from Ferrol on the nth of August, and 
 sent a messenger to Napoleon that he was on his 
 way to Brest. The winds, however, were adverse, 
 and he lost spars and masts ; he received the news 
 that an English fleet was at hand ; and he sud- 
 denly changed his course and made sail for Cadiz, 
 his alarm being so great that he did not recall an 
 order to the Rochefort squadron to advance north- 
 
1805] War with England. The Empire. 1 6 1 
 
 ward. The project of the junction of Villeneuve and 
 Ganteaume, and of an Armada in the Channel, was 
 thus completely frustrated. 
 
 Napoleon, meanwhile, had hastened from Italy — 
 he had purposely delayed until the last moment 
 — to direct his great and audacious enterprise. He 
 had reviewed a mass of one hundred thousand infan- 
 try, assembled around the camp of Boulogne ; and he 
 wrote exultingly to his minister Decrfes, who shared 
 the secret with Ganteaume and Villeneuve, " that 
 England did not know what was hanging on her ears." 
 Every preparation had been made by the first days of 
 August ; the fleets at Brest and the Texel had their 
 troops on board ; the impedimenta of the army were 
 in the transports ; men, horses, and guns had their 
 regular places in the diiTerent squadrons of the flo- 
 tilla ; and forty-eight hours of fine weather would 
 suffice, it was believed, to effect the descent and to 
 land one hundred and sixty thousand men on the 
 shores of England. Napoleon's letters at this mo- 
 ment overflow with passion and hope raised to the 
 most extreme pitch ; when he heard that Villeneuve 
 had put into Ferrol he wrote, " set off, and England 
 is at our feet " ; and he addressed Ganteaume in 
 these emphatic words : " Appear in the Channel 
 with your whole forces, and we shall have avenged 
 six centuries of shame and wrong." 
 
 His confidence was at its height in the last week 
 of August ; and he strained his eyes from the cliffs 
 of Boulogne to see the horizon whiten with the sails 
 which would bring him, he thought, universal empire. 
 Time however passed, and hope began to decline ; 
 
1 62 Napoleon. [1803- 
 
 an ambiguous message despatched by Villeneuve 
 threw doubt on the Admiral's real purpose ; and 
 Napoleon heard at last, with anguish and wrath, 
 that Villeneuve had taken refuge in Cadiz. Mean- 
 time the Continent had been fast arming : a Russian 
 force had approached Galicia ; the Austrians were 
 near the Adige and the Inn ; and invasion threat- 
 ened France arid her alHes. Napoleon's purpose was 
 quickly formed, with the energy and determination 
 of a great captain. The project of the descent had 
 failed, and all that remained was to assail England 
 through the Coalition, of which she was a chief 
 author. Orders were sent to the army to break up 
 from its camps and to advance rapidly across France 
 and Germany ; and in a few days the great warlike 
 arrays were marching from the Channel and the 
 Hanoverian plains to the Rhine and the Main, and 
 thence to the Danube. 
 
 Napoleon's project for invading England certainly 
 offered many chances of success. Except the skilful 
 and sagacious Collingwood— and he guessed only 
 part of the truth — no English seaman saw through 
 the design ; and the Emperor had the immense 
 advantage of an attack concealed by profound strata- 
 gem. Had a tempest driven Cornwallis from Brest, 
 Ganteaume probably would have reached the West 
 Indies, and, with Villeneuve, might have led into the 
 Channel an armament of irresistible force. Had not 
 Nelson warned the Admiralty in time, nay, had 
 Villeneuve's ships been better sailers, Calder could 
 not have checked the allied fleet, and Villeneuve 
 might have rallied Ganteaume and entered the nar- 
 
1805] War with England. The Empire. 163 
 
 row seas in overwhelming strength. Even at the 
 last moment, had Villeneuve made boldly and skil- 
 fully from Ferrol for Brest, he might have found 
 Cornwallis and Calder far apart ; and in that event 
 he might have been joined by Ganteaume, and both 
 might have commanded the Channel. 
 
 Yet the adverse chances must, too, be considered, 
 and, on the whole, they perhaps preponderate. 
 Cornwallis succeeded in keeping Ganteaume at Brest, 
 and the formidable plan of assembling a great fleet 
 in the West Indies to attain the Channel was frus- 
 trated by superior British seamanship. Villeneuve's 
 fleet was so sluggish in its movements that time was 
 given to Calder to stop him, and the whole enterprise 
 became thenceforward imperilled. Even had Ville- 
 neuve had the good fortune of finding Calder and 
 Cornwallis divided, he could hardly have destroyed 
 the fleet of Cornwallis, the quality of the allied war 
 ships was so bad ; and in that case, even if he had 
 joined Ganteaume, and both had made their way 
 into the Channel, Calder, Cornwallis, and the Eng- 
 lish Channel squadron would have made the passage 
 of the flotilla doubtful in the extreme. An experi- 
 enced and impartial French seaman has written that, 
 in almost any event, the descent would have met many 
 obstacles, and he hints that a great fight between 
 Torbay and Dover might possibly have forestalled 
 Trafalgar. Still, when all has been weighed. Napo- 
 leon's design, as regards the mere landing on the 
 shores of England, was not far from being accom- 
 plished ; and it is a striking instance how genius in 
 war, but with imperfect means, and not in its own 
 
164 Napoleon. [1803- 
 
 element, may be baffled by professional skill, pos- 
 sessing more trustworthy and better resources. Had 
 the descent been effected, the French army would, 
 we have said, have encountered, most probably, a 
 sterner resistance than Napoleon imagined ; and, cut 
 off from all communication with France by the con- 
 centration of fleets superior at last, he might have 
 been imprisoned within his own conquest. It deserves 
 peculiar notice that he did not expect to subdue 
 England by mere force of arms ; his intention was 
 to overthrow the government and to set up a Demo- 
 cratic Republic ; but this project would have certainly 
 failed. The spirit of Englishmen would have united 
 the whole nation against the invaders ; and this is 
 not the least striking example of Napoleon's rooted 
 contempt of patriotism, and of the enormous force 
 of popular feeling. 
 
 Historically, the most important event in this 
 phase of Napoleon's fortunes was the failure of the 
 invasion of England. Trafalgar was but the closing 
 scene of a series of operations which proved that 
 France could not contend on the seas with her foe ; 
 and the energies of her ruler were from this time 
 directed to enterprises which naturally led to an 
 attempt to subjugate the whole Continent, in efforts 
 to effect the ruin of England. Universal conquest, 
 already his dream of ambition, became in Napoleon's 
 eyes a great scheme of policy, which aimed at des- 
 troying the trade of England and at striking down 
 her allies in Europe ; and the discomfiture of Ville- 
 neuve was soon followed by Austerlitz, Jena, Fried- 
 land and Tilsit. The tragic fate of the Due d'Enghien 
 
1805] War with England. The Empire. 165 
 
 was an incident also of the gravest moment. This 
 caused the movement that formed the Empire, and 
 gave new incentives to Napoleon's passion for 
 domination and despotic power ; and it ultimately 
 tended to create that League of Europe, which, 
 baffled as it was over and over again, overthrew at 
 last the proud Lord of the Continent. " King, Caw- 
 dor, Glamis," — the author of this deed " now had it 
 all," in the poet's language ; but if Napoleon was not 
 a mere assassin, he certainly " had played foully for 
 it," and Fate was to " palter with him in a double 
 sense," like its weird ministers that played with 
 Macbeth ; was to tell him that " none of woman 
 born could hurt him," was to beckon him along a 
 path of conquest and to send him over the abyss 
 in despair. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 March of Napoleon into Germany — Military projects of the Coalition 
 — Advance of the French to the Danube — Capitulation of Ulm 
 — Battle of Trafalgar — March of Napoleon on Vienna — Second- 
 ary operations in Italy and in the Tyrol — Napoleon advances 
 into Moravia — Difficulty and dangers of his position — Prussia 
 secretly joins the Allies — Battle of Austerlitz and complete vic- 
 tory of the French — Peace of Presburg — The Confederation of 
 the Rhine — Fall of the German Empire — Reflections. 
 
 N the first days of September, 
 1805, Napoleon's great army- 
 was in full march across France 
 and Germany, to attain the 
 Danube. The soldiery, fired 
 with enthusiastic ardour, and 
 trained to exertion by the 
 hard life of the camp, advanced 
 with a celerity never before 
 witnessed, and their move- 
 ments were screened by the craft and resource of 
 the greatest master of stratagem in modern war, 
 and by the stern precautions of a despotic govern- 
 ment, which silenced the noisy babble of the press. 
 The Emperor's object was to take advantage of the 
 bad operations of the Coalition, which, though able 
 
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 NAPOLEON. 
 
 FROM A PEN-A^D-INK SKETCH BY GROS. 
 
1805-6] Trafalgar and Austerlitz. 167 
 
 to place in the field a force largely superior to his 
 own, had distributed it wrongly upon the theatre, 
 and had exposed itself to- his strokes at the decisive 
 points. 
 
 The Allies, influenced partly by reasons of state, 
 and disregarding true military views, had projected 
 four separate and ill-combined attacks ; the first, on 
 Hanover and Holland by a Russian and British 
 force ; the second, on Lower Italy by a similar body ; 
 the third, by a great Austrian army on Upper Italy ; 
 and the fourth, by a United Austrian and Russian 
 army, moving across Southern Germany to the 
 Rhine. But the first and second attacks were mere 
 diversions, eccentric, feeble, and certain to fail, if 
 success were achieved 00 the main scene of events ; 
 and, as to the third and fourth, the Coalition had 
 made, and even aggravated, the mistakes of Austria, 
 in the memorable contest of 1800. Austria, always 
 eager to reconquer Italy, had massed about one hun- 
 dred thousand men on the Adige, and in the hill land 
 of the Tyrol, under the command of the Archdukes 
 Charles and John, with directions to overrun the 
 peninsula, and, if possible, to reach the frontier of 
 Provence. As had happened, therefore, in the case 
 of Melas, too large a force had been placed on 
 secondary points, while too small a force, as in the 
 case of Kray, had been collected on the principal 
 point, the valley of the Danube approaching the 
 Rhine, and that even with more evident error. By 
 this time, the Austrian Mack had drawn close to the 
 Inn, in order to compel Bavaria to join the Allies, 
 and was even making his way to the Iller, but his 
 
1 68 Napoleon. [1805- 
 
 army was far distant from that of the Russian chief, 
 Kutusoff, and still further from that of Buxhowden, 
 the one in Galicia, the other in Poland, the last 
 observing the conduct of Prussia, known to be with 
 the invaders at heart ; and Mack's force was not more 
 than eighty-five thousand strong, thrown forward 
 toward the Swabian plains and the Danube. The 
 Allies, however, had not perceived their mistakes, or, 
 if they had, thought they had ample time for Kutu- 
 soff and Buxhowden, with perhaps one hundred and 
 forty thousand men, to come into line and to sup- 
 port Mack. 
 
 Napoleon had seized this position of affairs, with 
 the comprehensive knowledge of the theatre of war, 
 and the skill of arranging armies upon it, in which 
 he has no equals among modern captains. He 
 opposed Mass6na to the Archdukes, with a much 
 weaker force, confident that his great lieutenant 
 could hold them in check. He neglected the attacks 
 from the North Sea, and the South ; but he resolved 
 to strike down Mack, in overwhelming strength, 
 should he advance without his Russian supports. 
 A word must be said on the magnificent arrays, 
 rightly given the name of the Grand Army, assembled 
 at this time under the Emperor's eagles — the signs 
 in which he was long to conquer — and forming the 
 finest army he ever commanded. About one hun- 
 dred and sixty thousand men were actually on the 
 march ; but they were to be joined by a Bavarian 
 contingent, which had escaped to the Main, from the 
 grasp of Austria, and by a few other German allies ; 
 and the Grand Army's full strength was nearly two 
 
1806) Trafalgar and Austerlitz. 1 69 
 
 hundred thousand men, with perhaps two hundred 
 thousand more in second line, made up of inferior 
 troops, and levies of conscripts. The Grand Army 
 was composed of seven corps d'arm^e, each an inde- 
 pendent army in itself, and in the hands of experi- 
 enced chiefs, the marshals and generals of the new 
 age, too prone, indeed, slavishly to obey Napoleon, 
 and without sufficient freedom of thought and action, 
 but veteran and well tried soldiers ; and it was nearly 
 all formed of Frenchmen in the flower of life, 
 but with a valuable admixture of old and proved 
 troops. Apart from this noble force was the Imperial 
 Guard — the Tenth Legion of the modern Caesar — 
 and like the Tenth Legion, matchless in the field ; 
 and the Emperor besides held in his own hands 
 great reserves of guns and thousands of horsemen, 
 his " Club of Hercules," to deal decisive strokes. 
 The Grand Army, probably, though less in mere 
 numbers, was a more safe and perfect instrument of 
 war, than the young conscript armies of the present 
 day, never yet tried by the rude test of misfortune ; 
 and yet it had real and evident defects. It was 
 crowded with rude and ill-informed officers, the 
 remains of the huge levies of 1793-94; the arrange- 
 ments of the stafT were far from good ; and it had 
 never lost the habits of the revolutionary hordes, 
 let loose over Europe to slay and to plunder. 
 
 The great mass of the Grand Army had reached 
 the Main and Rhine by the last week of September. 
 The left wing, joined by the Bavarian forces, and com- 
 manded by Bernadotte and Marmont, had marched 
 from Hanover and Holland, and was around Wurtz- 
 
1 70 Napoleon. ti805- 
 
 burg ; the centre, the corps of Soult, and Davoust, 
 moved from the Channel, was at Spire and Mann- 
 heim, and the right wing, formed of the corps of 
 Ney and Lannes, with the Imperial Guard, and the 
 horse of Murat, filled the region between Carlsruhe 
 and Strasburg, the extreme right under Augereau, 
 which had advanced from Brittany, being still 
 behind but drawing towards Huningen. By this 
 time Mack was upon the Iller, holding the fortress of 
 Ulm on the upper Danube, and extending his forces 
 thence to Memmingen ; his conviction being that the 
 French would advance on the ordinary path of pre- 
 vious invasions, across the Upper Rhine, and through 
 the Black Forest. Napoleon's object, however, was 
 wholly different : the Grand Army was upon the arc 
 between Wurtzburg, Mannheim, and Strasburg ; and 
 his purpose was to advance to the Danube, to close 
 on the flank and rear of Mack, as he had closed on 
 the flank and rear of Melas, and to effect the destruc- 
 tion of the Austrian army. 
 
 By the first days of October the great French 
 masses, their movements combined with perfect skill, 
 were in full march from the Rhine to the Main, 
 across Wiirtemberg and the Franconian plains ; and 
 cavalry filled the approaches to the Black Forest, in 
 order to deceive and perplex Mack, as Melas had 
 been deceived five years before, by the apparition of 
 a hostile force at Mont Cenis, while the First Consul 
 was passing the St. Bernard, and descending upon 
 the Po, and the plains of Piedmont. The Danube 
 ere long was reached and crossed, at Donauworth, 
 Ingolstadt, and other points ; and Napoleon already 
 
1806] Trafalgar and Austerlitz. 171 
 
 stood on the rear of his enemy, interposing between 
 him and Vienna, and cut him off from the 
 Russians, even now distant. The net was quickly 
 drawn round the ill-fated Mack ; some mistakes 
 were made in gathering in the toils, mainly owing 
 to disputes between Ney and Murat ; but by the 
 third week of October, the Grand Army had encom- 
 passed the Austrians on every side, and Napoleon 
 held his quarry in his grasp. Mack, unlike Melas, 
 had not had the heart to strike a desperate stroke, and 
 to risk a battle ; and he capitulated at Ulm on the 
 19th of October. Two divisions of his army had 
 contrived to break out ; but one was pursued and 
 nearly destroyed by Murat, and the other was com- 
 pelled by Augereau to lay down its arms, as it was 
 on its way to the hills of the Tyrol. An army of 
 eighty-five thousand men had thus, so to speak, 
 been well-nigh effaced ; and not twenty thousand had 
 effected their escape. 
 
 France, meanwhile, had met a crushing disaster on 
 the element which England had made her own. We 
 have seen how Villeneuve had put into Cadiz, afraid 
 to face the hostile fleets off Brest, and how this had 
 baffled the project of the descent. Napoleon was 
 indignant with his ill-fated admiral ; but he ordered 
 him quickly to set sail, to enter the Mediterranean, 
 and to land a detachment to support the French 
 army in the south of Italy ; and soon afterwards he 
 resolved to supersede Villeneuve, " a creature," he 
 exclaimed, " who thinks only of his skin." Villeneuve, 
 meantime, had been making exertions, unfortunately 
 with very little results, to improve the French and 
 
1 72 Napoleon. tl805- 
 
 Spanish squadrons in Cadiz ; but, at a hint of dis- 
 grace the susceptible Frenchman made up his mind, 
 at any risk, to iight. By this time Nelson had left 
 England, and was off Cadiz with a powerful fleet ; 
 and he actually weakened his force by four sail-of- 
 the-line, in order to lure his adversary out. 
 
 On the 20th of October, 1805, the allied fleet was 
 in the open sea ; it had been declared at a council of 
 war, that a lost battle was almost certain, so bad was 
 the condition of many of the crews ; but Villeneuve 
 was bent on challenging Fate ; and almost courted 
 defeat, in his despair. Nelson's plan of attack had 
 been already formed ; he had resolved to bear down, 
 in double column, directly upon the long line of his 
 foes ; and if these tactics would have been reckless, 
 had Villeneuve's fleet been nearly as good as his 
 own, they were an inspiration of genius, as affairs 
 stood, for they assured speedy and complete success. 
 On the morning of the 21st, the allied fleet, thirty- 
 three war ships, and a number of frigates, was off 
 Cape Trafalgar, making for the Straits ; but Ville- 
 neuve, at the first sight of Nelson, turned the heads 
 of his ships towards Cadiz, in order to secure a way 
 for retreat, and this was a plain confession of weak- 
 ness. Nelson advanced slowly against his doomed 
 enemy, with twenty-seven ships and their attendant 
 frigates ; the famous signal floated from his mast, 
 " England expects every man to do his duty " ; and, 
 at about noon Collingwood pierced Villeneuve's 
 centre, nearly destroying the Santa Anna with a 
 single broadside. Ere long Nelson had broken Ville- 
 neuve's line, with the Victory, causing frightful de- 
 
1806] Trafalgar and Austerlitz. 173 
 
 struction; and as other British ships came up by 
 degrees they reheved the leading ships from the 
 f pressure of their foes, and completed the ruin already 
 begun. At about one, Nelson met his death wound, 
 struck by a shot from the tops of the Redoiitable , 
 but his spirit lived in the heroes he led ; and he knew 
 that he had gained a great triumph before he died. 
 As the battle advanced, the French and Spanish 
 ships, in many instances, fell out of line ; and though 
 a few made a gallant resistance, the result was, in a 
 short time, assured. Pierced through and through, 
 the shattered allied centre was soon a collection of 
 captured wrecks ; the van slowly withdrew from the 
 scene of carnage ; and the rear was almost destroyed 
 by Collingwood's column, the Royal Sovereign and 
 her consorts, overwhelming everything in their way. 
 Only eleven ships out of thirty-three escaped; and 
 the burning Achille, like the Orient at the Nile, 
 added to the grandeur and horrors of an appalling 
 scene. Villeneuve, who had fought most honourably 
 in the Bucentajire, was compelled to strike his flag 
 before the death of Nelson. 
 
 The van of the allies that had fled at Trafalgar, 
 was soon afterwards captured by a British squadron. 
 Though dearly bought by the death of Nelson, the 
 victory may be compared to Lepanto ; and it blotted 
 France out as a great Power on the ocean. Napo- 
 leon, indeed, repeatedly sent out light cruisers to 
 prey on British commerce; he built, especially at 
 Antwerp, formidable fleets, in order "to fight a 
 second Actium," at last ; but he never tried after- 
 wards to meet England at sea ; and Trafalgar, we 
 
1 74 Napoleon. [1805- 
 
 have said, led him to seek for means of ruining Eng- 
 land through Continental conquests. His success, at 
 this moment, had been so wonderful, that what he 
 called " the loss of a few ships at sea," seemed a trifling 
 and passing rebuff of fortune. By the grand oper- 
 ation of directing the mass of his forces to the deci- 
 sive spot, and overwhelming Mack at Ulm, on the 
 upper Danube, after a march from the Channel to 
 the Rhine and the Main, he had discomfited the 
 whole plan of the Allies ; and the failure of the attack 
 on the main scene of the theatre had caused all the 
 secondary attacks to fail. The weak diversions in 
 the North, and in Southern Italy, projected by the 
 Coalition, suddenly collapsed ; and in Northern Italy 
 it was scarcely more successful. While the Emperor 
 had been pressing forward on Ulm, Mass^na had 
 held the Archduke Charles, on the Adige, in check, 
 and had even beaten him at Caldiero, the scene of 
 Napoleon's defeat in 1796; but on being informed 
 of the destruction of Mack, the Austrian chief had 
 been forced to retreat, and was ere long in the 
 passes of the Julian Alps. The Archduke John was 
 equally compelled to abandon the Tyrol; and the 
 two princes were soon in full march, through the 
 valley of the Drave, towards the Lower Danube, in 
 order to strike a last blow for the House of Hapsburg. 
 Napoleon now carried out the magnificent de- 
 sign of Villars, formed in another age, a design that 
 must have prevented Blenheim and Ramillies ; and 
 he marched directly, and with accustomed speed, 
 down the valley of the Danube, on the Austrian 
 capital. The Inn, the Traun, the Enns, and other 
 
1806] Trafalgar and Austerlitz. 1 75 
 
 lesser feeders of the great river, were rapidly mas- 
 tered ; the Russians, under Kutusoff, who had ap- 
 proached the Inn, fell back after the capitulation of 
 Ulm ; and Napoleon throwing out detachments to 
 protect his flanks, had entered Vienna on the 14th 
 of November. One mistake, however, had been 
 made in this wonderful march; Kutusoff had crossed 
 the Danube, and had nearly destroyed a small body 
 of the French on the northern bank, not far from 
 the dungeon of Cceur de Lion. 
 
 The conqueror found Vienna abandoned ; the 
 House of Hapsburg and its chief had fled. Napoleon 
 treated the city with studied clemency, showed him- 
 self in the streets with a few guards only, and dis- 
 seminated proclamations artfully designed to set the 
 Russians and Austrians at feud with each other. 
 Extraordinary as his success had been, the position 
 of the Emperor had, in a few days, become grave, 
 nay, even alarming. In his march from Hanover to 
 the Main, Bernadotte had passed through Anspach, 
 an outlying tract of Prussia, and though it is per- 
 haps questionable if this really was a violation of a 
 neutral's rights, the Prussian Court felt, or pretended, 
 anger. The Czar had dexterously played on this 
 sentiment ; he had paid assiduous homage to the 
 King and his beautiful Queen at a visit to Berlin, 
 and Prussia, secretly leaning towards the Allies for 
 months, had agreed to send an army through the 
 Bohemian passes and to descend in force on the 
 rear of Napoleon while engaged with the Coalition 
 in front. Meanwhile Kutusoff, a name to become 
 famous, had made good his way to the north of the 
 
1 76 Napoleon. [1805- 
 
 Danube, though his army had suffered great losses ; 
 he had been joined by his colleague Buxhowden, 
 and a considerable part of their united forces, per- 
 haps from seventy to eighty thousand men, were 
 assembled in Moravia, not far from Olmiitz. These 
 had rallied the remains of the army of Mack, from 
 twelve to fifteen thousand strong ; and the two 
 Archdukes, still at the head of from seventy to 
 eighty thousand troops, were making for Moravia 
 by forced marches across the Danube and through 
 the plains of Hungary. 
 
 Dangers were gathering round the French at 
 Vienna, and the condition of the Grand Army had, 
 at the same time, become to a certain extent 
 ominous. Large detachments were required to 
 guard the long line of the communications with the 
 Rhine ; the system of living on conquered prov- 
 inces inaugurated by the Revolution in 1792-93, and 
 brought by Napoleon to the extreme of perfection — 
 if organised rapine can so be called, — had not been 
 able to suffice for the hosts in the field ; crowds of 
 deserters, marauders, and stragglers infested the tracts 
 between the Rhine and the Danube, and Napoleon 
 had not one hundred thousand men in hand — apart 
 from the bodies that covered his flanks — to make 
 head against his converging enemies. Always dar- 
 ing, however, he resolved to attack the Allies before 
 they could receive aid from Prussia ; and he marched 
 from Vienna towards the close of November, having 
 taken careful precautions to guard his rear. He 
 disposed of from seventy thousand to eighty thous- 
 and men, and a skilful stratagem which had made 
 
1806] Trafalgar and Austerlitz. 177 
 
 him master of the course of the Danube at Vienna 
 had opened to him an easy way into the Moravian 
 plains. 
 
 Napoleon had before long reached Briinn, but with 
 part of his army only ; two of his corps had been de- 
 tached at a little distance. By this time the Allies 
 were around Olmiitz, the Archdukes were not many 
 marches away, and a Prussian army was nearly 
 ready to move. Had the Russians and Austrians 
 fallen back from Olmutz and effected their junction 
 with the Archdukes, they could, therefore, have op- 
 posed the French with a force more than twofold 
 in numbers ; and had Napoleon ventured to attack, 
 the Prussians might have fallen on his rear, and pos- 
 sibly cut him off from the Rhine. The exercise of the 
 simplest prudence would, in short, have made Napo- 
 leon's position exceedingly critical, if not desperate ; 
 and his advance on Briinn betrays the same over- 
 confidence as the advance in 1800 into the plain of 
 Marengo. 
 
 But the folly and presumption which reigned 
 among the young nobles surrounding the Czar — 
 Alexander was now at the head of his army — 
 brought on the Coalition deserved punishment, and 
 pedantry had its part in an immense disaster. The 
 force of Napoleon appeared small, his natural line of 
 retreat was exposed, and a theorist in the Austrian 
 camp persuaded the Czar and the Austrian Emperor, 
 who was at the head of his troops at Olmutz, to 
 consent to a magnificent plan of assailing Napoleon 
 by the well-known method of Frederick the Great, 
 in the Seven Years' War, of turning his right wing, by 
 
1 78 Napoleon. [1805- 
 
 an attack made, in the oblique order, in great force, 
 and of cutting him off from his base at Vienna, and 
 driving him, routed, into Bohemia. This grand 
 project on paper, which involved a march across 
 the front of the hostile army within reach of the 
 greatest of masters of war, was hailed with exulta- 
 tion in the allied councils, and the noisy acclaim 
 of the companions of the Czar * — like that of 
 Pompeys patricians before Pharsalia — silenced the 
 faint protests of the experienced Kutusoff. The 
 Allies were soon in full march from Olmiitz, and 
 preparations were made for the decisive movement 
 in the night of the 1st December, 1805. Napoleon 
 had watched the reckless false step being made by 
 his foes with unfeigned delight ; " that army is mine," 
 he proudly exclaimed, and in an address to his 
 troops he explained the bad manoeuvre which was 
 to place Austrians and Russians in their hands. He 
 had already secured a second line of retreat, had 
 called in his two detached corps, and was ready to 
 overwhelm his imprudent enemies. But — consum- 
 mate in stratagem now as always — he had assumed 
 a timid, defensive attitude, for he sought to lure the 
 Allies on to their fate. 
 
 The sun of Austerlitz rose on the 2d, the light of 
 victory often invoked by Napoleon. The sound of 
 armed masses of men and of advancing batteries had 
 
 * " Heec turn facta sunt in consilio, magnaque spe et Isetitia omnium 
 discessum est ; ac jam animo victoriam prsecipiebant, quod de re tanta 
 et a tarn perito imperatore nihil frusta confirmari videbatur." — Caesar, 
 Be Bella Civili, iii., 87. The council of war at Olmiitz, according to 
 «very account, was a repetition of this scene. 
 
1806] Trafalgar and Austerlitz. 179 
 
 reached through the darkness the camps of the 
 French, which, for a moment, had burst into flame, 
 to do honour to their Imperial leader. The dawn 
 of the winter's day revealed three large columns, 
 succeeded by a fourth at no great distance, toiling 
 through a tract of marshes and frozen lakes, to out- 
 flank Napoleon's right on the Goldbach, the allied 
 centre, on the table-land of Pratzen, immediately 
 before the French front, having been dangerously 
 weakened by this great turning movement. The 
 assailants were opposed by a small force only, under 
 Davoust, one of the best of the marshals, which held 
 the hamlets of Telnitz and Sokolnitz, points well 
 fortified for a stern defence ; and, entangled as they 
 were in an intricate region, they made little progress 
 against their well-directed foes. Ere long Napoleon, 
 who, like a beast of prey, had reserved his strength 
 until it was time to spring, launched Soult in force 
 against the Russian and Austrian centre, enfeebled 
 by the detachment against the French right and 
 exposed to the whole weight of Napoleon's attacks ; 
 and Pratzen was stormed after a fierce struggle, in 
 which Bernadotte gave the required aid to Soult. The 
 allied centre was thus rent asunder. Lannes, mean- 
 while, had defeated the allied right ; and though 
 heroic efforts were made to restore the battle, and 
 the cavalry of the French and Russian Imperial 
 Guards joined in a contest, for a moment doubtful, 
 the broken centre and right of the Allies was soon a 
 mere chaos of dissolving fugitives, hurrying along 
 the roads that extend to Austerlitz. Napoleon now 
 turned with terrible energy and in overwhelming 
 
i8o Napoleon. [1805- 
 
 strength against the four columns, that had assailed 
 his right, but had begun to retreat. His victorious 
 centre was aided by his right, now set free ; the 
 Russians and Austrians were struck with panic, a 
 horrible scene of destruction followed, the flying 
 troops were slain or captured in thousands, and mul- 
 titudes perished, engulfed in the lakes, the French 
 artillery shattering their icy surface. The rout was 
 decisive, complete, and appalling ; about eighty 
 thousand of the Allies were engaged ; they lost all 
 their guns and nearly half their numbers, and the 
 remains of their army were a worthless wreck. 
 Napoleon had only sixty thousand men in the fight, 
 and yet Austrians and Russians had nobly done 
 their duty. The issue had been simply due to the 
 fact, that mere force being even nearly equal, skill 
 must prevail over ignorance in war, even though 
 sustained by heroic courage. 
 
 The memorable campaign of 1805 is, perhaps, the 
 grandest of Napoleon's exploits in war. It was not 
 a series of prolonged efforts, in which genius at last 
 prevailed, like the contest of 1796-97 ; it was not so 
 dazzling as the campaign of Marengo ; but it ex- 
 hibited, in complete perfection, Napoleon's peculiar 
 gifts as a warrior, the insight which sees the essential 
 point of attack on a vast field of manoeuvre, rapid, 
 well combined, and scientific movements, and espe- 
 cially pre-eminent skill in stratagem, the results of a 
 nature, in which imaginative power, calculation, 
 energy, craft, and daring were qualities of surpassing 
 force, and it proved the immense superiority of the 
 Grand Army, as it had been fashioned by a master's 
 
y.QWM.Q'HtT? 
 
 FORMATION OF THE LINES OF BATTLE AT AUSTERLITZ. 
 
18063 Trafalgar and A usterlitz. 1 8 1 
 
 hand, over all armies hitherto seen in Europe. The 
 methods of Napoleon in 1805 were, we have seen, 
 nearly the same as those of 1800; he isolated and 
 hemmed in Mack, as he had isolated and surrounded 
 Melas, but if the march from the Channel to Ulm 
 was less brilliant than that across the Alps, it was 
 perhaps more grand and was better prepared, though 
 the great superiority of the French in numbers 
 makes their ultimate triumph less striking and won- 
 derful. It must, however, be borne in mind that if 
 Napoleon knew how to collect forces that defied 
 resistance on the decisive point, he was weaker than 
 the Coalition on the whole theatre, and this is one 
 of the most signal instances of skill in war. Never- 
 theless, an error was, perhaps, made amidst these 
 noble displays of the military art, which might have 
 led to untoward results ; the advance into Moravia 
 was hazardous in the extreme, the Allies ought to 
 have made it disastrous ; and we see here again one 
 of Napoleon's faults, excessive daring when on the 
 flood-tide of fortune. 
 
 The campaign was magnificently closed by Aus- 
 terlitz, the most perfect of battles on land, as the 
 Nile was the most perfect on sea. It is an inade- 
 quate account of this mighty conflict to say that it 
 proves how the system of Frederick encountered 
 that of Napoleon, and was exploded by it ; this is 
 the truth, but far from the whole truth ; the attack 
 in oblique order * was, in no case, likely to succeed 
 
 * The attack in oblique order was P'rederick the Great's favourite 
 method of attack. It is fully explained in Hamley's Operations of 
 War, p. 404, 5th ed., 1889. 
 
I §2 Napoleon. [1805- 
 
 against the flexible French movements, but at Aus- 
 terlitz it was a flank march across the front of a 
 great captain, that dangerously laid bare a weakened 
 centre, and utter defeat was the natural result. The 
 battle, however, was something wholly different 
 from a scene of rival evolutions in the field ; it was a 
 triumph of genius in war knowing how to turn every 
 advantage on the ground into account and to seize 
 the occasion at the right moment, over pedantry and 
 most unwise presumption. It illustrates, in the very 
 highest degree, what Napoleon has called the " divine 
 side of war," that which belongs to intellect and 
 moral power, not the terrestrial side, the routine of 
 tactics. 
 
 The Czar and his nobles were only too glad to 
 accept an armistice after the rout of Austerlitz ; 
 and the Russians had soon disappeared into the 
 steppes of the North. The Austrian Emperor, 
 abandoned by his ally, had no choice but to sue 
 for peace from the conqueror ; and negotiations 
 had soon begun. The Continent lay at the feet of 
 Napoleon ; and an opportunity for moderation, and 
 for a wise policy of the most auspicious kind, was 
 presented by fortune. The state of France was 
 such' as to command prudence ; the blockade of her 
 ports had injured her trade ; the Conscription was 
 slowly wasting her industry ; and a pressure on her 
 finances, already severe, had been aggravated by 
 efforts made by the Treasury,* to sustain the credit 
 of a knot of speculators who had undertaken to 
 
 * Gaudin, still at the head of the finances, was in no way respon- 
 sible for these measures. 
 
1806] Trafalgar and Austerlitz. 183 
 
 execute contracts for the State. The enthusiasm 
 which had upheld the First Consul was, in fact, 
 lessening towards the Emperor ; and Napoleon had 
 not been greeted with general acclaim, as he had 
 passed through Paris, on his way to the Danube. 
 At this conjuncture Talleyrand gave his master 
 sound and judicious advice ; he urged Napoleon to 
 spare Austria, to bind her to France by the tie of 
 gratitude, and to make her a bulwark against the 
 power of Russia, already menacing the civilisation 
 of the West ; he pressed him, too, not to trust 
 Prussia, whose double dealing had long been mani- 
 fest ; and though this policy had something in com- 
 mon with that of France before the Seven Years' 
 War, it might have secured repose to Europe. 
 
 Napoleon, however, in the intoxication of success, 
 insisted on making peace on his own terms ; he re- 
 jected the counsel of the sagacious minister ; and by 
 the Treaty of Presburg, made at the close of the 
 year, Austria was deprived of her late acquisition 
 of Venice, including the eastern Adriatic provinces, 
 of the Tyrol, and of much that she possessed in 
 Swabia, for centuries a dominion of the House of 
 Hapsburg, and was reduced to a power of the second 
 order. Meanwhile Napoleon had given his com- 
 mands that the Bourbons at Naples must cease to 
 reign ; the French divisions, which, as we have seen, 
 had entered the kingdom some months before, seized 
 the capital and overran the country, on a charge that 
 the Queen had broken faith, and Sicily was marked 
 out for approaching conquest. Prussia had to be 
 dealt with, in the next instance, and Napoleon 
 
184 Napoleon. [1805- 
 
 treated her with a cynical contempt, which, if the 
 just meed of her weak perfidy, was, nevertheless, 
 certain to make her an enemy. After Austerlitz she 
 had licked the Emperor's hand ; had hastily put an 
 end to her armaments ; and had sent an envoy to 
 the camp of the victor to make earnest professions 
 of sincere friendship. Napoleon was not in the least 
 deceived ; but Prussia, he thought, could be bought 
 cheap ; and he flung her Hanover as a bait, as the 
 stipulated price of a close and lasting alliance with 
 France, and in order to set her at odds with Eng- 
 land, to whose king Hanover really belonged. It 
 was the statecraft of Campo Formio less skilfully 
 displayed. 
 
 These arrangements necessarily made Austria a 
 deadly foe of France and her ruler ; turned Prussia 
 into a discontented vassal, disgraced by a shameful 
 and dangerous bribe, and gave England a point of 
 vantage in Sicily, the last refuge of the fallen Court 
 of Naples. Yet this division of conquest was but a 
 part of the scheme of ambition now formed by Napo- 
 leon. The time had come, he believed, to realise the 
 project of a vast Empire of the West, with subject 
 kings and dependent princes, which had flitted be- 
 fore his mind of late ; and he addressed himself to 
 carry out his purpose. He added the Venetian pro- 
 vinces to his kingdom of Italy, and made his stepson, 
 Eugene Beauharnais, Viceroy ; he bestowed the crown 
 of Naples on his brother Joseph, and suddenly 
 changed the Batavian Republic into a monarchy for 
 his brother Louis. In Italy, moreover, which he had 
 treated almost from the first, as wax in his hands, he 
 
1806] Trafalgar and Austerlitz. 185 
 
 created a series of great Imperial fiefs, like that of 
 Lucca, before referred to ; and these appanages of 
 conquest were to become the domains of the chief 
 feudatories of the Empire of France. One of these, 
 Pontecorvo, was given to Bernadotte, a near kins- 
 man of the new King of Naples ; another, Beneven- 
 tum, was given to Talleyrand, a reward for services 
 not enough valued ; and the others were reserved 
 for the chief companions of arms, whom the modern 
 Charlemagne had resolved to make the heads of a 
 noblesse of the sword, mingled with the twblesse of 
 the Bourbon monarchy that had survived the Revo- 
 lution and its shocks. Princely alliances, too, were 
 to support the dynasty established upon the throne 
 of the West ; a princess of Bavaria married Eugene 
 Beauharnais ; a prince of the House of Baden married 
 a cousin of Eugene ; and a princess of Wiirtemberg 
 was destined to Jer6me Bonaparte, as soon as he 
 could be released from an inconvenient marriage. 
 
 Another event at this conjuncture largely extended 
 a domination ever on the increase. In order still 
 further to weaken Austria, Napoleon had enlarged 
 Bavaria and Wiirtemberg, and had made the Electors, 
 his allies, kings ; he had also reduced the privileges 
 of the great sovereign nobles, for centuries loyal to 
 the House of Hapsburg ; and this had led to such 
 confusion and discord that Germany had turned 
 again to Napoleon, as she had turned after the Peace 
 of Lun^ville. Through the Emperor's intervention, 
 the States between the Lahn, the Rhine, and the 
 Upper Danube, were formed into a League depend- 
 ent on France, and given the name of the Confedera- 
 
1 86 Napoleon. t1806- 
 
 tion of the Rhine ; their princes were merely crowned 
 vassals bound to send contingents to the French 
 armies ; and their Protector, Napoleon, was simply 
 their master. As evidence of their complete sub- 
 jection, Murat received the Principality of Berg ; and 
 the Grand Army, which had been on its way home, 
 was spread over a large part of Southern Germany. 
 The establishment of the new league caused a revo- 
 lution that greatly moved Europe ; the Emperor of 
 Austria renounced the title of Emperor of Germany 
 long borne by his House ; and the Holy Roman 
 Empire disappeared. An august name, which had 
 linked the world of the Caesars with the Middle 
 Ages and the nineteenth century, had been replaced 
 by a creation of the sword, moulded out of Revolu- 
 tion, by an adventurer, who had left a nook in Cor- 
 sica, to subdue France and the Continent. 
 
 Trafalgar and Austerlitz — a tremendous contrast 
 — had confirmed Napoleon's growing belief that if 
 he could not overthrow England at sea he could 
 deal her destructive blows on the Continent ; and 
 defeat and victory urged him into new wars and to 
 a further extension of the domain of conquest. He 
 had again stricken down a great Coalition, and had 
 added to the military grandeur of France, but he 
 had not increased the strength of his Empire. At 
 home his position had gradually changed ; he seemed 
 no longer to be the wise Dictator defending the 
 Revolution and all that belonged to it ; august as 
 were the forms in which he veiled his power, and 
 ennobled by the memories of the past, he had be- 
 come a despot ruling by force ; and dynastic ambition 
 
1806] Trafalgar and Austerlitz. 187 
 
 had been a leading motive in his latest arrangement 
 of Continental Europe. A people proud of military 
 renown, and of supremacy over every other state, 
 might hail for a time an Empire of the West, encir- 
 cled with subject thrones and powers, especially as 
 long as the huge fabric was irradiated by the glare 
 of repeated victories. But the Empire had no foun- 
 dation in the traditions of France, and was not rooted 
 in the national sentiment ; and should the hour of 
 misfortune come. Frenchmen would not rise to main- 
 tain the throne of a Joseph or a Louis Bonaparte, as 
 they had risen to defend the natal soil against the 
 embattled hosts of Europe. 
 
 Abroad the Empire had become a scheme of 
 oppression leading to universal conquest. The 
 respect for the ancient order and state of the Con- 
 tinent, which had distinguished Napoleon's earlier 
 policy, had either disappeared, or was only seen in 
 violent changes, not the less odious because con- 
 cealed in the pomp of the past ; and the boundaries 
 of states were recklessly shifted, with no regard to 
 aught but the wish of an autocrat. It may well be 
 doubted if the arrangement of Continental Europe, 
 at the Peace of Lundville, could have endured the 
 trials of time ; but that which followed Austerlitz 
 could not be lasting. Even subject Italy could not 
 like the presence of foreign potentates seated in her 
 midst, and sending her wealth across the Alps, as 
 had been her lot when under the yoke of Austria. 
 Russia was still in arms, though vanquished in the 
 field ; Austria and Prussia were made angry foes of 
 France, and the tendency of the Powers, which had 
 
i88 Napoleon. ti805-i806 
 
 despoiled Poland, to draw together after that deed 
 of wrong, was another element to combine them ' 
 against the Empire. As for Germany, the Confedera- 
 tion of the Rhine was a menace to her independence, 
 and even existence ; and the presence of French 
 armies on the Main and the Danube showed that the 
 supremacy of France had been replaced by tyranny. 
 The dissolution, too, of the old German Empire, 
 and the creation of new kingdoms ruled by Napo- 
 leon's satellites, broke up the barriers which had 
 divided the nation ; and French conquest and 
 oppression directly encouraged a general movement 
 towards German unity, in order to set the country 
 free. The end, however, was still not at hand ; and 
 the Titan of war was for a space of time to heap 
 Pelion on Ossa with defiant hands, until the avenging 
 bolts of Olympus should fall. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Death of Pitt — Prospects of peace between France and England- 
 Negotiations broken off — Renewal of war on the Continent — 
 Conduct of Prussia and of Napoleon — Excitement at Berlin — 
 Advance of the Grand Army from the Main to the Saale — Battles 
 of Jena and Auerstadt, and overthrow of the Prussian army and 
 monarchy — Capitulation of fortresses — Napoleon inaugurates 
 the Continental System — The Berlin Decree and the Orders in 
 Council — The Grand Army marches into Poland — Policy of 
 Napoleon to the Poles — Precautions taken by Napoleon to 
 secure his army — Winter campaign on the Narew — Battle of 
 Pultusk — Napoleon's system of war comparatively fails — 
 March of the Russian army towards the AUe — Pursuit of 
 Napoleon — Battle of Eylau — Napoleon at Osterode and Finken- 
 stein — Extraordinary efforts made to strengthen and increase 
 the Grand Army — Battle of Friedland — Complete victory of the 
 French — Napoleon and the Czar on the Niemen — Peace of 
 Tilsit — Reflections on Napoleon's policy. 
 
 SUDDEN change in the Coun- 
 cils of England gave Europe 
 a prospect of general peace in 
 the spring and summer of 
 1806. The health of Pitt had 
 been long in decline, and, 
 though he was revived for a 
 few weeks by Trafalgar, he 
 expired, broken-hearted, after 
 the rout of Austerlitz. He 
 was succeeded by a Ministry of Tories and Whigs, but 
 his great rival, Fox, was its real head ; and an accident 
 
 189 
 
I go Napoleon. [I8O6- 
 
 enabled Fox, who had denounced the contest with 
 France since 1793-94, and had become intimate with 
 the First Consul during a visit to Paris in 1802, 
 to make overtures of a friendly kind to Napoleon. 
 The negotiations were continued for months, and 
 promised for a time a successful issue, but Napoleon 
 would not forego his claim on Sicily, as part of his 
 brother Joseph's kingdom of Naples, though he had 
 failed to land a single man on the island ; a brilliant 
 victory won by a British force at Maida, in Calabria, 
 stirred all hearts in England ; and even Fox viewed 
 with alarm and distrust the enormous extension of 
 the power of France, caused by the newly-formed 
 Confederation of the Rhine. Napoleon was frustrated 
 in an attempt to make a separate peace with the 
 Czar, and to detach Russia from the English alliance ; 
 and the death of Fox, who, in his last moments, con- 
 demned the ambition of the Imperial conqueror, 
 made the war party in England supreme, and put an 
 end to all hope of a pacific settlement. 
 
 On the Continent, however, the renewal of far- 
 spread war was due to the angry and false relations 
 which had been formed between Prussia and France. 
 Napoleon, we have seen, had, after Austerlitz, given 
 Hanover as a bribe to Prussia, who, for some months, 
 had been plotting against him ; and the bribe, under 
 these conditions, was a mocking affront. But 
 Prussia, in order to save appearances, refused to 
 accept Hanover, except on her own terms ; she 
 tried to excuse herself with Russia and England, 
 and she actually sent an envoy to the Czar, at this 
 moment at war with France, to offer him secretly 
 
18071 Jena. Friedland. Tilsit. 191 
 
 help and alliance. In terror, however, of Napoleon's 
 power, she ere long weakly shifted her course ; and 
 she ultimately consented to take Hanover, but now 
 on Napoleon's conditions, and not on her own ; 
 these involving the closing of her ports to England, 
 and war with a Power she could not resist at sea.* 
 Meanwhile negotiations had been in progress be- 
 tween the plenipotentiaries of France and England ; 
 and it was perfectly understood that, in the event 
 of peace, England was to obtain possession of 
 Hanover again, though Napoleon had made it over 
 to Prussia. That Power, already chafing at the con- 
 duct of France, and suffering cruelly from war with 
 England, now believed that she had been made a dupe 
 by Napoleon, and was about to be offered up as a 
 scapegoat, in order to secure European peace ; and 
 her alarms were aroused almost to frenzy by the 
 presence of the Grand Army in Germany, and by 
 the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine, 
 which made France a dangerous neighbour on the 
 Elbe. The pent-up passion of months burst forth ; 
 the whole nation clamoured for war with France ; 
 the partisans of the French alliance, and even the 
 French ambassador at Berlin, were covered with 
 j insults; the army, proud of the renown of Fred- 
 lerick, thought only of vengeance and of triumphs at 
 hand ; and Prussia recklessly challenged Napoleon 
 to a single-handed and most unequal contest. The 
 
 * Prussia, at this juncture, was the object of the scorn and 
 reproach of nearly all Europe. Fox denounced her conduct as ' ' a 
 compound of everything that is contemptible in servility, with every- 
 thing that is odious in rapacity." 
 
192 Napoleon. [I8O6- 
 
 Queen, the fairest ornament of the Court, put her- 
 self at the head of the war party, and overbore the 
 timid and hesitating King. 
 
 That Prussia had wrongs can hardly be denied ; 
 but her perfidy and weakness had brought them on 
 herself, and if Napoleon had resolved to take Han- 
 over from her, he intended to give her an ample 
 equivalent. An impartial review of the facts proves 
 that he had no wish for a war at this crisis, and he 
 received the summons of Prussia to the field with 
 regret.* The die, however, had been foolishly cast, 
 and a Power, quite of the second order, was brought 
 into collision with the great Empire of France. 
 The conditions of the struggle, besides, were un- 
 favourable, in every respect, to Prussia. She had 
 boldly assumed a daring offensive, almost before the 
 declaration of war ; and her armies, moved from 
 Magdeburg and Dresden, were spread, in the first 
 week of October, on both banks of the Upper Saale, 
 not far from the defiles of the Thuringian Forest, 
 the chiefs exulting at the prospect of a march to the 
 Rhine. But at this very moment, the Grand Army, 
 which had gradually advanced from Southern Ger- 
 many, was in positions on the Upper Main, approach- 
 ing, from Franconia, the valley of the Saale ; and it 
 was thus already near the flanks of its foe, and 
 threatening his communications with the Elbe. 
 The leaders of the Prussians too, Hohenloe and 
 Brunswick, were worn-out veterans of the Seven 
 
 * See a remarkable letter of Napoleon to the King of Prussia, 
 written some weeks before hostilities broke out. Correspondance, 
 tome xiii., 170. Detractors can only denounce it as insincere. 
 
18071 Jena. Friedland. Tilsit. 193 
 
 Years' War, divided in purpose, and devoid of skill ; 
 the French were in the hands of the first of captains. 
 The Prussian army was ill-organised, slow in move- 
 ment, and unaccustomed to war; the Grand Army 
 had reached the extreme of perfection, and, reckon- 
 ing even an unwilling Saxon contingent, the Prus- 
 sians were very inferior to their foes in numbers, — 
 perhaps one hundred and fifty thousand to one hun- 
 dred and ninety thousand men, not to speak of 
 great French reserves in second line. 
 
 In these circumstances, the issue of events could 
 hardly be, even for a moment, doubtful. Napoleon 
 advanced from the Upper Main, on the 8th of Octo- 
 ber, making from Bamberg and Baireuth for the Upper 
 Saale, at Saalfield and Hof, in three great columns ; 
 and he had soon overwhelmed some weak detach- 
 ments of Hohenloe's scattered and half surprised 
 force. The Grand Army was now on the flank of 
 its enemy, and this menacing attitude forced the 
 Prussian chiefs to abandon all thoughts of an offen- 
 sive movement, and to retreat as quickly as they 
 could to the Elbe, Hohenloe crossing the Saale and 
 drawing near Jena, and Brunswick falling still further 
 back, and seeking to gain the line of the Unstrut. 
 Napoleon would not believe, for a time, that the 
 flight of his foes could be so precipitate, and he 
 made preparations for a great battle, near Gera 
 and Auma, between the Saale and the Elster. His 
 arrangements were, however, changed with char- 
 acteristic skill, when he had been made more fully 
 aware of the facts. He despatched Davoust and 
 Bernadotte to seize the passages of the Lower 
 
194 Napoleon. Li 806- 
 
 Saale, at Naumburg and Dornburg, and to close on 
 the line of the retreat of the Prussians ; and he 
 advanced on Jena to attack his enemy, with the 
 corps of Lannes, Ney, Soult, and Augereau, the 
 Guard, and the horsemen of Murat. 
 
 These movements formed the prelude to the great 
 day of Jena, one of the most decisive of Napoleon's 
 triumphs. The Emperor, having crossed the Saale, 
 made himself master of the Landgrafenberg, a height 
 overlooking Hohenloe's camps, after extraordinary 
 and incessant efforts ; and he had his foe in his grasp 
 before a shot was fired. On the morning of the 
 14th of October, Napoleon issued from this point of 
 vantage with part of his troops, and his advancing 
 forces, gathering on either side, closed gradually on 
 the doomed Prussian army, whose chief was not pre- 
 pared for this daring attack. The Prussian soldiery 
 fought with desperate courage, and, even in the hour 
 of defeat and ruin, exhibited* the precision and 
 skill in manoeuvring which Frederick had made their 
 special excellence ; and the corps of Ney was for a 
 time in danger. But Soult on the right, and Au- 
 gereau on the left, turned Hohenloe's position on 
 both flanks; the French centre advanced in over- 
 whelming force, and the Prussians, utterly outnum- 
 bered, and hopelessly routed, were soon a multitude 
 of disbanding fugitives. 
 
 *"The Prussians fought like tigers," wrote an English eye- 
 witness. Napoleon was just to his enemy : " L'armee ennemie 
 etait nombreuse et montrait une belle cavalerie ; ses manoeuvres 
 etaient executees avec precision et rapidite." — Corr., tome xiii., 
 356. 
 
NAPOLEON AT JENA. 
 
 FROM THE PAINTING BY HORACE VERNET IN THE GALLERV AT VERSAILLES. 
 
1807] Jena. Friedland. Tilsit. 195 
 
 A contest, meanwhile, of a very different kind had 
 been raging at Auerstadt to the right. Davoust, we 
 have seen, had been despatched to Naumburg, to 
 intercept the retreat of the enemy ; and when he 
 had become aware that the army of Brunswick was 
 endeavouring to make its way to the Unstrut, he 
 advanced through the defile of Kosen, and urged 
 Bernadotte, some miles to his left, to join him and 
 to attack the Prussians. But Bernadotte had been 
 ordered to go to Dornburg,* and either from the 
 habit of slavish obedience, which was the worst fault 
 of Napoleon's marshals, or more probably from jeal- 
 ous dislike of a colleague, he refused to send a single 
 man to Davoust, and took no part in the operations 
 of the day. Davoust was thus left with twenty-seven 
 thousand men to confront Brunswick with seventy 
 thousand, for Napoleon, at Jena, had opposed one 
 hundred thousand to Hohenloe and sixty thousand ; 
 and the Marshal and his troops gained undying re- 
 nown. The charges of the Prussian cavalry failed 
 against the squares of the French footmen ; the 
 Prussian infantry made no impression on the flexible 
 steady French lines ; and after the fall of Brunswick, 
 and most of his colleagues, the fatal resolve was 
 formed to retreat, and to effect a junction with 
 Hohenloe's army, believed, at the moment, to be 
 safe at Jena. This false and unworthy course proved 
 ruinous. The columns of Brunswick came in contact 
 
 * Napoleon seems to have given Bernadotte a discretion to 
 join Davoust, and severely censures Bernadotte. Corr., tome xiii., 
 393- 
 
196 Napoleon. [I8O6- 
 
 ere long with the routed host of Jena, the conta- 
 gion of terror and dismay spread, and the two 
 Prussian armies, inextricably confused, and present- 
 ing hideous scenes of despair and weakness, were 
 driven in ignominious rout towards the Elbe. The 
 Saxon plains were strewn with the dying and the 
 dead, and whole regiments surrendered when the 
 dreaded trumpets of the pursuing French horsemen 
 were anywhere heard. 
 
 The operations that ended at Jena, decisive and bril- 
 liant as they were, are not to be classed with Napo- 
 leon's best exploits in war. The superiority of the 
 French over the Prussian army in numbers and quality 
 was so great that the ultimate result could be hardly 
 uncertain ; in this instance, the conditions of 1796, of 
 1800, and of 1805, were reversed, and the balance, 
 caused by inferiority of force, was not redressed by 
 commanding genius and skill. The plan, too, of 
 marching from the Upper Main into the valley of 
 the Saale, on the flank of the enemy, was an obvious, 
 though the best possible, course, and it occurred to 
 Jomini, at this time a young officer in the Imperial 
 service. Napoleon, besides, made more than one 
 mistake. He could not conceive that the army of 
 Frederick would suddenly decamp and shun a bat- 
 tle ; he lost time in preparing to fight, in positions, 
 between Gera and Auma ; and while he attacked 
 Hohenloe in overwhelming strength, Davoust was 
 left too weak to confront Brunswick, though proba- 
 bly this was mainly the fault of Bernadotte. Errors 
 like these, however, are but spots on the sun ; they 
 are inevitable in the chances of war, and even the 
 
1807] yena. Friedland. Tilsit. 197 
 
 greatest captains cannot avoid them, for they must 
 often act on imperfect knowledge. 
 
 The next passage in the contest is, perhaps, the 
 finest example in Napoleon's career, of one of his 
 greatest military gifts — his power in striking down a 
 defeated enemy ; a gift which makes " his battle," 
 in Napier's language, resemble " the wave that 
 effaces the landscape." He had soon crushed the 
 feeble reserve, the only intact part of the Prussian 
 army, which opposed itself to his terrible strokes ; 
 and he allowed the Saxon contingent to disband, 
 and separated it from the wrecks of the forces of 
 Jena. He had, therefore, nothing to deal with 
 now but the remains of Hohenloe's and Brunswick's 
 troops ; and his pursuit of these was most skilful, 
 keen, and decisive. The Prussian commanders had 
 got over the Elbe, followed by a scattered and con- 
 fused multitude ; and, fearing they would be inter- 
 cepted by the victorious French, they endeavoured 
 to reach and cross the Oder by a circuitous march, 
 of great length, through the plains of Mecklenburg 
 and Pomerania. Napoleon, however, had seized 
 the chord of the arc along which his beaten ene- 
 mies moved ; and, turning to advantage the lesser 
 distance, and hastening the advance of his exulting 
 troops, he anticipated the Prussians, and cut off 
 their retreat. Hohenloe laid down his arms with 
 some sixteen thousand men, the mere fragments of 
 his ruined army; Bliicher, a rough veteran of the 
 Seven Years' War, but destined to win an historical 
 name, tried boldly to retrace his steps to the Elbe, 
 and entered the neutral town of Liibeck, in the 
 
igS Napoleon. [1806- 
 
 hope of effecting his escape by sea ; but he, too, was 
 compelled to surrender, and not twenty thousand 
 men of the routed forces of Jena and Auerstadt 
 reached the Oder. Meanwhile terror and despair 
 had paralysed the energies of Prussia, and of the 
 stricken nation. Berlin had humbly thrown open 
 her gates to the conqueror ; great fortresses had 
 yielded to Murat's hussars ; Spandau, Stettin, Mag- 
 deburg, and other strong places fell after hardly a 
 sign of resistance ; and the military monarchy, 
 reared by Frederick the Great, crashed down as if 
 through the stroke of an earthquake. 
 
 We can hardly feel surprise that, after these tri- 
 umphs, Napoleon believed that nothing could with- 
 stand his power.* He had felt sincere respect for 
 the Prussian army, the traditions of Frederick were 
 still so strong; but that army had been literally 
 blotted out, and Prussia lay a fallen victim, at his 
 feet. He had entered Berlin, a few days after Jena, 
 had passed through the streets with the Imperial 
 Guard, had, as at Vienna, caressed the middle classes, 
 but had said hard things of the noblesse of the 
 sword ; and he was soon engrossed in the congenial 
 tasks of calling up reserves from the Rhine, of levy- 
 ing contributions from vanquished provinces, and of 
 ministering to the needs of his victorious forces. It 
 is much to be regretted that so great a man, in 
 the exultation of marvellous success, should have 
 
 * Napoleon wrote thus from Potsdam, 25th of October, 1806 : 
 " J'ai ecrase la monarchie Prussienne ; j'ecraserais les Russes s'ils 
 arrivent ; je ne crains pas davantage les Autrichiens."— Corr., tome 
 xiii., p. 410. 
 
1807] Jena. Friedland. Tilsit. 199 
 
 stooped to such acts as making booty of the orders 
 and sword of Frederick the Great, and in slandering 
 the ill-fated Queen of Prussia, a chief author of the 
 war, but a defenceless woman. 
 
 Napoleon was now master of three-fourths of the 
 Continent ; and he turned his mind to a vast project, 
 on which he had brooded for some time, for injuring 
 the one Power which had baffled his arms, and 
 which he had felt to be his most formidable foe. 
 Trafalgar had made the descent impossible ; but 
 might not the lord of the greatest part of Europe 
 be able to destroy the commerce of England, and 
 to compel her at last to bow to his will ? Since the 
 beginning of the Revolutionary War, it had been 
 the habit of the governments of France to seize and 
 confiscate British merchandise, in countries occupied 
 by French armies, and the ports of France and of 
 her allies were closed to British trade. Napoleon 
 now formed the gigantic design of excluding Eng- 
 land, and all her dependencies, and all neutral 
 nations who traded with her, from intercourse with 
 European countries ; and it must be admitted that 
 the contempt shown by England for neutral rights 
 at sea, gave some colour to this unjust policy. By 
 two famous Decrees, one issued from Berlin, the 
 other from Milan some months afterwards, Napo- 
 leon declared the British islands in a state of block- 
 ade, defending the measure, as a reprisal for the 
 "paper blockades" of British fleets; and the con- 
 sequences were immense and far-reaching. British 
 subjects in France, or in the countries of her allies, 
 were to be prisoners of war. British goods, or the 
 
200 Napoleon. [1806- 
 
 goods of British colonies, or even of neutrals trading 
 with England, were pronounced liable to confisca- 
 tion. All commerce with England, or with her 
 colonies, was prohibited under severe penalties, 
 and vessels that touched at the ports of Great 
 Britain, or even of her colonies, were shut out from 
 the harbours of France, and of her allies. Every 
 land, in a word, under the sway of the Emperor 
 was to reject commerce with England, and all that 
 pertained to it ; and Great Britain and her people, in 
 the poet's words, were to be isolated from the rest 
 of mankind, amidst the civilisation of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 These measures are known as the Continental 
 System ; and England retaliated by declaring, in the 
 scarcely less famous Orders in Council, that France 
 and her allies were blockaded, and that neutrals 
 were not to trade with them. We shall see here- 
 after clearly the results of these monstrous violations 
 of nature and law, but the subject may now be 
 briefly glanced at. The Orders in Council were not, 
 perhaps, very effective, and the Continental System 
 did not destroy British commerce, as Napoleon 
 expected, though it certainly did it no little injury. 
 It is questionable, however, if the prohibition of a 
 world-wide trade did not do more mischief to France 
 and her vassals than to England, and it placed the 
 marine of every weak State at the mercy of the 
 dominant British fleets. Yet these were not the 
 chief and most potent consequences. The attempt 
 to deprive the Continent of British and colonial 
 imports, that is of many necessaries and luxuries of 
 
1807] yena. Friedland. Tilsit. 201 
 
 life, provoked general indignation and distress ; and 
 it led to an inquisition of the most oppressive kind 
 throughout the French Empire and its dependencies, 
 in order to confiscate British merchandise. The 
 most memorable result was, however, this : In the 
 hope of closing the channels of trade to England, 
 Napoleon was led from conquest to conquest ; his 
 eagerness to carry out the Continental System caused 
 him to aim at universal dominion ; and this was 
 one of the main reasons that his armies were sent 
 to perish in Spain and in Russia. 
 
 All this, nevertheless, was still in the future, and 
 the conqueror as yet was upheld by Fortune. Rus- 
 sia had never ceased to be at war with France, but 
 she had been unable to extend a hand to Prussia ; 
 and her armies had not approached the Vistula until 
 weeks after the disaster of Jena. Napoleon, having 
 taken every precaution to strengthen his forces and 
 to protect his flanks, had sent forward part of the 
 Grand Army into Poland, in the second week of 
 November, and he was soon advancing with the 
 remaining part in the hope of defeating his new 
 enemy. He was now on the scene of the famous 
 Partition ; the Poles greeted the French as deliv- 
 erers ; they had shed their blood in the armies of 
 France, and it had always been a tradition of French 
 poHcy to defend, and, if possible, to restore Poland. 
 But no proof exists that either on this occasion, or 
 on another still more momentous. Napoleon really 
 entertained the thought of making the Poles once 
 more a nation. The difficulties of such a policy 
 were immense; he could hardly, at this juncture, 
 
202 Napoleon. [1806- 
 
 make Austria a foe and throw her into the arms of 
 Russia and Prussia, by trying to undo the work of 
 the Three Powers, and a considerable party in the 
 noblesse of Poland was disinclined to an alliance 
 with France. In this, too, as in every passage of 
 his career, he scorned and distrusted popular move- 
 ments, and his conduct to the Poles was nearly of a 
 piece with that of which he had given proof in 
 Italy. He caressed their leaders and spoke fair 
 words ; he enrolled Poles among his troops in thou- 
 sands; but he declared that Pohsh independence was 
 not to be thought of until the whole nation had 
 risen in arms, a condition which he knew was impos- 
 sible. He looked to France and his Empire all 
 through, and treated Poland simply as a card in 
 his game. 
 
 Towards the close of December the Grand Army 
 had established itself firmly on the Vistula, holding 
 the river on both banks from Thorn to Warsaw. 
 The Russian commanders fell back at its approach, 
 and retreated into the region of morass and forest, 
 formed by the Narew, the Ukra, and the Bug, com- 
 municating, on their extreme right, with the remains 
 of the Prussian army, spread around Soldau. The 
 Allies, however, were widely divided ; Kamenski, a 
 veteran of the day of Suvdroff, had no control over 
 his younger lieutenants ; one of these, Benningsen, 
 was thrown forward into the angle between the Ukra 
 and the Narew ; the other, Buxhowden, proved in 
 1805, was far in the rear, at Ostrolenka, and the 
 Prussian Lestocq was at a great distance. These 
 faulty dispositions were not lost on the great captain. 
 
1807] yena. Friedland. Tilsit. 203 
 
 who, on the field before him, saw an opportunity to 
 separate and defeat his enemies ; and Napoleon 
 resolved to advance from the Vistula, to beat the 
 Russian chiefs in detail, and, isolating Lestocq, to 
 force the Russian army into the barren and inhospi- 
 table wastes of Poland, where it could hardly escape 
 disaster and ruin. 
 
 The Grand Army, far more powerful than its foes, 
 — probably one hundred and forty thousand to one 
 hundred and twenty thousand men, and flushed with 
 the renown of many triumphs, was in full march in 
 the last week of December ; and the Emperor was 
 so confident of decisive success that he wrote to 
 Paris he hoped to bring the war at once to a close. 
 Yet his brilliant design almost wholly failed, and he 
 gained only imperfect success. His right wing, 
 under Davoust and Lannes, crossed the Narew and 
 the Ukra, and expelled Benningsen from the conflu- 
 ence of the two rivers ; his centre, led by Augereau 
 and Soult, crossed the Ukra and bore down on Bux- 
 howden, and far to his left Ney attacked Lestocq, 
 and drove him from his positions at Soldau. But 
 the Grand Army became almost paralysed and 
 proved unequal to make the rapid movements, which, 
 in Italy and Germany, had proved decisive. The 
 troops were retarded for want of supplies ; the cav- 
 alry could not discover the enemy behind a screen 
 of far-spreading woodland ; above all, the advancing 
 columns, possessing no roads, and toiling through 
 swamps, which formed a vast sea of mud, could not 
 come up with their retiring foes. Napoleon's 
 project was not carried out and his intended quarry 
 
204 Napoleon. [1806- 
 
 eluded his grasp. Lannes fought at Pultusk against 
 superior numbers and narrowly escaped a serious 
 defeat. Davoust, at Golymin, was really held in 
 check ; Soult and Augereau hardly accomplished 
 anything, and though Ney certainly defeated Les- 
 tocq, he was not able to follow up his victory. The 
 allied generals suffered great losses, but they effected 
 their retreat behind the Narew, and Napoleon's 
 operations proved abortive. 
 
 The movements of Napoleon in this brief contest 
 were, as always, brilliant in the extreme, in design. 
 They failed, nevertheless, to a very great extent, and 
 the chief reason of the failure deserves attention. 
 Napoleon's splendid and scientific genius was the 
 main cause of his triumphs in war ; the " divine 
 side of the art," we use his words again, was illus- 
 trated in the highest perfection by him. But war, 
 too, has a " terrestrial side," and material conditions, 
 which contributed to victory from 1796 to 1805, were 
 wanting in the campaign in Poland. The French 
 generals of the Revolutionary War, because really 
 they had no other choice, were the first to strike a 
 decisive blow at one of the most conspicuous, yet 
 most faulty parts of the military routine of the 
 eighteenth century. Instead of depending on huge 
 magazines, which necessarily delayed the march of 
 armies, they fiung their troops, like hordes, over the 
 countries they entered, made them live on resources 
 found on the spot, and scattered them over every 
 road they met ; and this practice, bad and dangerous 
 as it was, gave rapidity and ease to their general 
 movements. Napoleon found this system existing, 
 
1807] yena. Friedland. Tilsit. 205 
 
 but he adapted it to the real uses of war, and brought 
 it to a pitch of the highest perfection. It is a mis- 
 take to suppose that he did not employ magazines, 
 arrange depots, and, in short, do everything to pro- 
 vide for the needs and safety of his troops ; he was 
 one of the most methodical, as well as the first of 
 captains. But when he was actually in the field, he 
 required his soldiers, as far as possible, to find out 
 supplies for themselves, though he supplemented 
 these by immense exactions ; and he thoroughly per- 
 ceived how the progress of husbandry and the great 
 increase of communications and roads which had 
 taken place since the Seven Years' War, would en- 
 able armies to move with far more celerity, than 
 had been possible in the days of Frederick the 
 Great, the ideal of most of the commanders of his 
 youth. The general result was that the Napoleonic 
 legions, unincumbered by the huge iinpedimenta, 
 which kept back their over-burdened foes, and ad- 
 mirably directed on all the highways, available to 
 them in a given region, had a quickness, a power, 
 and an art of manoeuvring which their adversaries 
 could not possess or acquire, and their great chief, 
 by these means, overcame soldiers accustomed only 
 to the usages of the past. But if this system of war 
 produced great results in fertile lands like the valley 
 of the Po, the tracts round the Danube, and the 
 plains of Germany, and where the roads were fre- 
 quent and good, it could not succeed when these 
 conditions either did not exist, or were reversed ; 
 and the operations in Poland largely failed, because 
 the French soldiery could not find means of subsist- 
 
2o6 Napoleon. [I8O6- 
 
 ence in barren wastes, and because their naovements, 
 and especially those of the cavalry, were paralysed 
 amidst trackless forests and marshes. It does honour 
 to Wellington that he was the first commander to 
 perceive the inherent defects of this system, and the 
 lesson he taught in Portugal was to have great results. 
 The Grand Army, after this indecisive contest, was 
 placed again along the line of the Vistula. But the 
 great difficulty of obtaining supplies in barren and 
 ill-cultivated tracts of country, caused it to be spread 
 over an immense region, and the corps of Ney and 
 Bernadotte, its left wing, was disseminated nearly 
 to the East Prussian seaboard. This extreme dis- 
 persion gave the Russian commanders an oppor- 
 tunity which might have been made fortunate. The 
 aged Kamenski had been superseded, and Benning- 
 sen, who had persuaded the Czar that he had really 
 gained a victory at Pultusk, having been given the 
 command of the Russian army, resolved to take a 
 determined offensive. Moving on a great semi- 
 circle behind the lakes and forests, between Northern 
 Poland and Eastern Prussia, and contriving to con- 
 ceal his march from his enemy, he fell on the left of 
 the Grand Army and endeavoured to overwhelm 
 Bernadotte and Ney before supports could come to 
 their aid. His attacks, however, were timid and 
 partial, the marshals fell back towards the Vistula ; 
 and meanwhile Napoleon had broken up from his 
 camps and made preparation for a decisive counter- 
 stroke. Marching rapidly in the last days of Janu- 
 ary — the winter of the North had congealed the 
 plains and made military operations no longer dif- 
 
1807] Jena. Friedland. Tilsit. 207 
 
 ficult — he approached the heads of the Alle and the 
 Passarge, his object being either to cut off the retreat 
 of Benningsen, should he advance further, or to 
 force him, defeated, across the Niemen. An inter- 
 cepted despatch, however, made the Russian com- 
 mander aware of his danger, and he instantly fell 
 back towards the Alle and the Pregel, pursued by 
 his indefatigable and now hopeful enemy. The 
 Russian troops, in the retreat, displayed the stub- 
 born constancy of the Muscovite race. They de- 
 fended more than one position with success, and 
 Benningsen at last, severely pressed, resolved to 
 make a bold stand and to fight, and drew up his 
 army behind the little town of Eylau. 
 
 The battle fought on the 8th of February, 1807, 
 was one of the most frightful and well-contested 
 of any age. The Russians were slightly superior 
 in numbers, probably eighty thousand to seventy 
 thousand men, and had largely the greater force of 
 guns ; but the Grand Army had never known defeat, 
 and Napoleon was a host in himself. The engage- 
 ment began with a long artillery contest, for the 
 Emperor was waiting the arrival of his reserves ; but 
 the Russians seem to have been the first to move, 
 when the approach of Davoust and his corps, on the 
 right, gave Napoleon an opportunity to attack. The 
 conflict raged for hours with ever changing fortunes, 
 the' corps of Augereau, the French centre, was al- 
 most destroyed, assailed in a Winding tempest of 
 snow ; a furious charge of Murat, with all his 
 cavalry, redressed the balance in Napoleon's favour, 
 but Lestocq, hurrying to the field, held Davoust in 
 
2o8 Napoleon. [I8O6- 
 
 check, and the scale was only just turned, at last, 
 by Ney advancing from the left, by a forced march. 
 The Russian army slowly fell back, but for a few 
 hundred yards only ; the battle, in fact, had had no 
 certain results, and night fell on an appalling scene 
 of carnage, where twelve thousand Frenchmen and 
 fifteen thousand Russians lay in their blood on the 
 snows spreading round Eylau. 
 
 Napoleon had never fought a battle like this as 
 yet. The Grand Army had been sorely stricken, the 
 corps of Augereau was disbanded, its remains divided 
 among other corps ; and apart from these great losses 
 in the field the French suffered terribly from cold 
 and privations. Had Benningsen been a great chief 
 he would have held his positions and scorned retreat ; 
 and in that event the Emperor would have been 
 compelled, as he half admitted, to fall back to the 
 Vistula. But the Russian commander retired, though 
 not pursued ; his army, too, had been cruelly injured ; 
 and this gave his adversary an opportunity to 
 announce to a doubting Europe that he had been 
 victorious. Indomitable constancy we shall see, 
 was not one of Napoleon's distinctive qualities, but 
 he well knew the importance of renown in war ; no 
 one could assume a more imposing attitude ; and he 
 advanced a little distance from Eylau, and boldly 
 challenged his adversary to another trial of strength. 
 
 Yet his position had become very far from safe. A 
 thrill of passion ran through the subject Continent, 
 and he confessed his danger by making overtures to 
 Prussia, still held under his heel, and to Austria, 
 vanquished, but necessarily a foe. These Powers, 
 
1807] yena. Friedland. Tilsit. 209 
 
 however, refused to treat, and the Emperor addressed 
 himself with characteristic energy to prepare to 
 renew the contest and to increase his strength for 
 war. Abandoning the too long line of the Vistula, 
 he placed the Grand Army behind the Passarge ; 
 and he made immense and successful exertions to 
 obtain supplies for it in Eastern Prussia, and from 
 the provinces of his new ally, Poland. At the same 
 time he left nothing undone to render his military 
 position safe. He had already reduced the Silesian 
 fortresses, dangerous points on his right flank and 
 rear, and he laid siege to the great place of Dantzig, 
 which threatened his line on the Passarge and the 
 Vistula. Meanwhile he tightened his grasp on con- 
 quered Prussia ; enormous contributions were levied 
 from the people, and the fortresses on the Elbe, held 
 by French garrisons, were made stages on the way 
 of great reinforcements advancing to join the Grand 
 Army. The Confederation of the Rhine, too, had 
 been increased by the accession of Saxony ; the con- 
 tingents of the Allies were mustered, and Hesse 
 Cassel had been blotted out as a state, as its ruler 
 inclined to the side of England. 
 
 The Emperor, however, mainly relied on France, 
 the dominant power, to increase his armies. The 
 practice of anticipating the Conscription began. 
 One hundred and fifty thousand youths were enrolled 
 in this way and enabled tens of thousands of trained 
 soldiers to leave France, and to enter the field ; 
 regiments were sent from Italy to the Oder and the 
 Elbe, even Spain was compelled to supply a con- 
 tingent ; a powerful force was despatched to the 
 
2IO Napoleon. [1806- 
 
 Pomeranian coast to repel a threatened British 
 descent from Stralsund, and a great army was 
 arrayed on the Elbe to invade Bohemia should 
 Austria move. By the close of the spring of 1807, 
 the Imperial forces reached the immense aggregate 
 of six hundred and fifty thousand men, between the 
 Seine, the Elbe, and the Passarge ; and three hun- 
 dred thousand of these were in Poland and Germany. 
 Nor did Napoleon, amidst these mighty toils of 
 war neglect the civil affairs of his huge empire. We 
 see him, in his tent at Osterode and Finkenstein, 
 administering, in the minutest details, his centralised 
 and all-controlling government. He props up the 
 finances, tries to promote industry, encourages 
 letters and the education of the young, and keeps a 
 watchful eye on a jealous police ; but if the spectacle 
 illustrates his wonderful gifts, it is an example, also, 
 of the essential frailty and the precarious nature of 
 the despotism of one man. 
 
 The preparations of Napoleon were complete by 
 the end of May, 1807. The first line of the Grand 
 Army, the corps of Soult, Davoust, Ney, and Berna- 
 dotte, were in cantonments on the Passarge ; the 
 horsemen of Murat filled the plains round Elbing; 
 the Imperial Guard with the Emperor were near 
 Finkenstein, and Mass6na, brought from Italy, 
 Lannes, and Mortier, replacing the disbanded corps 
 of Augereau, were on the Vistula with imposing 
 forces. The collective arrays were about one 
 hundred and eighty thousand strong ; the troops, 
 still, for the most part, composed of the warriors of 
 Austerlitz and Jena, had had their wants supplied 
 
1807] Jena. Friedland. Tilsit. 211 
 
 by degrees, and were eager to meet their enemy 
 again ; and the cavalry, partly strengthened by the 
 Poles, was extremely powerful and ready for the 
 field. On either side the flanks of the Grand Army 
 had been made secure from dangerous attacks ; 
 Dantzig had been taken after a memorable siege ; 
 Glogau, Breslau, Schweidnitz, and Ciistrin had 
 fallen, and the vast space between the Elbe and the 
 Vistula had been made a base of operations for 
 the French, as safe as that between the Rhine and 
 the Meuse. A great army, commanded by Brune 
 and numbering perhaps one hundred thousand 
 men, had, we have seen, been assembled to 
 observe Austria ; troops in thousands were march- 
 ing from Western Germany, to take part, if required, 
 in the approaching conflict ; and Prussia was trodden 
 under foot by the armed multitudes which she was 
 forced to support and even to equip. The modern 
 world had never seen war conducted on such a 
 colossal scale ; and except possibly in his efforts to 
 invade England, Napoleon's genius for organisation 
 had never been so apparent. Yet there were two 
 points of weakness in this immense display of 
 military strength that overawed the Continent. 
 The reserves of the Grand Army were now largely 
 made up of auxiliaries of many races and tongues, 
 with no heart in a conqueror's quarrel, and they 
 were rudely treated by their French masters, as the 
 Barbarians were who recruited the Legions. The 
 Emperor's exactions, too, were unable to find 
 adequate means to supply and transport these 
 enormous bodies of men and animals, and of the 
 
212 Napoleon. [1806- 
 
 impedimenta following in their train ; the railways of 
 modern times did not yet exist ; and not less than 
 sixty thousand deserters and stragglers were scat- 
 tered along the rear of the Grand Army, living on 
 pillage, and spreading discontent and disease. To a 
 certain extent the ominous scenes of the invasion 
 of 1812 were foreshadowed. 
 
 The arrangements of the Czar had been very dif- 
 ferent from those of his untiring opponent, though 
 the theatre of war was on the verge of Russia. Alex- 
 ander, indeed, had been hardly treated by fortune ; 
 he had been involved in a war with the Turks caused 
 in the main by Napoleon's arts ; a British squadron, 
 sent to the Bosphorus, had been forced to retire 
 from the Dardanelles ; and, above all, there had 
 been no British descent from Stralsund, an act of 
 neglect which he resented deeply, for it had enabled 
 Mortier to reach the Vistula, and to give up watch- 
 ing the Pomeranian seaboard. But he had not 
 assembled more than one hundred and twenty-five 
 thousand men to confront the Grand Army upon 
 the Passarge, and the Russians, even in numbers, 
 were greatly overmatched. 
 
 In these circumstances a retreat behind the Nie- 
 men was Benningsen's only prudent course, and had 
 he adopted this he would have probably saved his 
 army and himself from an immense disaster. The 
 Russian chief, however, made bold by Eylau, tried 
 to repeat the manoeuvre of a few months before, and 
 screening the movement as well as he could, he 
 attacked Ney in the first week of June, his corps 
 being somewhat forward and exposed. Ney, how- 
 
1807] Jena. Friedland. Tilsit. 213 
 
 ever, fell back upon his supports at hand ; and 
 Napoleon, who now had his army collected, ad- 
 vanced in great force against his rash enemy. Ben- 
 ningsen retreated towards the Upper Alle ; the 
 Russians stubbornly repulsed the French at Heils- 
 berg, though forced to abandon a great camp at that 
 place, and Benningsen made by the eastern bank of 
 the Alle for Konigsberg, as for a haven of refuge. 
 Napoleon pursued along the western bank, but his 
 army was divided and still behind when a false step 
 of his adversary suddenly gave him an opportunity 
 to gain a decisive victory. Early on the 14th of 
 June, 1807 — the anniversary of Marengo — Benning- 
 sen crossed the Alle, from Friedland, and occupied 
 the French bank, in the hope of cutting off the ad- 
 vanced corps of Lannes, but the corps of Mortier and 
 other reinforcements came up ; Napoleon, Ney, and 
 Victor were ere long on the field ; and the Emperor 
 gave orders for a general attack. The Russian 
 centre was broken after fierce resistance, and the 
 terrible effects were then seen of fighting a battle 
 with a river close in the rear. The Russian right 
 wing was driven into the Alle, thousands perishing 
 in the attempt to cross ; the shattered centre was 
 crushed in the streets of Friedland, only a part 
 having got across the bridges, which had been half 
 destroyed by the French artillery ; and the left wing 
 was involved in the common ruin. The defeated 
 army lost about twenty-five thousand men, and fled 
 to the Niemen in rout and despair. 
 
 The victorious French were soon on the Russian 
 frontier ; Konigsberg, almost the last possession of 
 
214 Napoleon. [1806- 
 
 the Prussian monarchy, having fallen two or three 
 days after Friedland. The forces of the Czar could 
 resist no longer ; troops of Calmucks and Bashkirs, 
 armed with bows and arrows, the last reserves of the 
 exhausted Empire, which had gathered upon the 
 banks of the Niemen, formed a sorry defence against 
 the Grand Army, and Alexander humbly sued for 
 peace. Napoleon, gigantic as his power was, felt 
 his isolation, in the midst of Europe ; he had vainly 
 tried to conciliate Prussia and Austria ; and he re- 
 solved to win Russia over to his side, and to lead 
 the Czar to make an alliance with France. The two 
 sovereigns met on a raft on the Niemen, in the 
 presence of their armies on either bank ; French and 
 Russians rejoiced at the prospect of peace, and effu- 
 sively interchanged friendly words and offices ; and 
 Napoleon exercised all the arts of a genius that had 
 a fascinating power, to convert his late enemy into a 
 sincere ally. 
 
 The scenes that followed still have an air of ro- 
 mance ; the town pi Tilsit was made neutral ground, 
 to facilitate the negotiations already begun ; the 
 King and Queen of Prussia repaired to the spot, in 
 the hope of saving the fallen monarchy, but were 
 treated, especially the ill-fated Queen, by the con- 
 queror, with ill-concealed contempt ; and Napoleon 
 and Alexander, who had completely yielded to the 
 influence of his all-powerful tempter, proceeded, in 
 the first flush of new-born friendship, to arrange, at 
 their will and pleasure, the affairs of Europe. The 
 Treaties of Tilsit, signed in July, 1807, grew out of 
 this diplomatic honeymoon ; and though all the 
 
NAPOLEON RECEIVING THE QUEEN OF PRUSSIA AT TILSIT. JULY 6, 1S07 
 
 FROM THE PAI\TI,NG BY GO.-.SE NOW iN PALACE OF VERSAILLES. 
 
1807] Jena. Friedland. Tilsit. 215 
 
 secret articles have not been made public, their main 
 provisions have long been generally known.* 
 
 By this great settlement Prussia was compelled to 
 pay the whole penalty of the late war ; she lost her 
 provinces west of the Elbe, and her lately acquired 
 possessions in Poland ; she remained ground down 
 by frightful exactions, and she was reduced to the 
 position of a third-rate Power. A kingdom of West- 
 phalia, formed out of the spoils of Prussia and Hesse 
 Cassel, was conferred on Jer6me, the youngest of 
 the Imperial brothers, and became a State of the 
 Confederation of the Rhine ; Prussian Poland was 
 bestowed on the King of Saxony.f with the appel- 
 lation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, placing a 
 vassal of Napoleon upon the Vistula, and giving the 
 Poles a phantom of hope ; and Russia and Prussia 
 both recognised all the new creations of the Napo- 
 leonic Empire, including Joseph's right to Naples, 
 and even to Sicily. The subjugation of the West, 
 confirmed by the Czar, seemed thus completely as- 
 sured ; yet this was but a small part of the arrange- 
 ments of Tilsit. In this, as in all instances, England 
 was the great mark of Napoleon's hostile efforts ; 
 and he found Alexander, indignant at recent British 
 policy, a willing co-operator in a colossal scheme to 
 strike mortal blows at the British Empire. Russia 
 was rigorously to carry out the Continental System ; 
 a Chinese wall was to be raised along every coast, 
 
 * The latest works on the settlement of Tilsit are those of M.M. 
 Vandal and Tatischeff ; see also the Edinburgh Review for April, l8gi . 
 f In accordance with the traditions of the past, and of French 
 policy. 
 
2i6 Napoleon. [1806- 
 
 from Archangel to Trieste, against British commerce • 
 and should England refuse a mediation, which was 
 to be a mere pretence, every navy of the Continent 
 was to be combined against her, and to endeavour 
 to destroy her rule on the seas. Nor was this all ; 
 an invasion of India was, not improbably, discussed 
 at Tilsit ; and Napoleon was perhaps given a free 
 hand to subjugate Portugal, and even Spain, in order 
 to close the peninsula to British trade. In return 
 for these immense concessions, a vast prospect was 
 opened to Russian ambition. Alexander was encour- 
 aged to annex Finland, then a province of Sweden, 
 an old ally of France ; a revolution in Turkey gave 
 Napoleon an opportunity to break his engagements 
 with the Porte, and to plan an eventual partition of 
 the Turkish Empire. The Czar, it is believed, was to 
 obtain the region north of the Danube ; France was 
 to have Greece, Thessaly, Albania, and perhaps 
 Egypt ; and Austria was to be offered the great tract 
 on her eastern frontier. All this, however, was in 
 the future only ; the jealousy of Napoleon refused 
 to allow Alexander to think of the dreams of Cath- 
 erine; Constantinople and the adjoining provinces 
 were, in no case, to become Muscovite spoil. 
 
 In these vast projects of overbearing power we 
 see no trace of the wisdom of Napoleon's youth, or 
 even of his profound and masterly statecraft. The 
 settlement of Tilsit was a mere chimera of force ; it 
 had not a single stable element ; it contained in itself 
 the certainty of its speedy overthrow. Prussia might 
 be struck down at Jena and Auerstadt ; but her 
 power had been growing for two centuries ; so what 
 
1807J yena. Friedland. Tilsit. 217 
 
 chance, in the long run, had Saxony and Poland, in 
 decay, against her? The humiliation, too, of the 
 people of Frederick the Great, which had emerged, 
 in triumph, from the Seven Years' War, could not 
 continue, for any length of time ; and Prussia would 
 ultimately overcome fortune, and be more than 
 ever a deadly foe of France. The creation, besides, 
 of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw necessarily gave 
 umbrage to the three Powers which had divided 
 Poland between them, including Russia, the new ally 
 of France, for it nursed the Poles in the hopes of 
 liberty ; and it had a direct and plain tendency to 
 unite Austria, Prussia, and Russia against Napoleon. 
 Nor was the power of the Empire increased by its 
 extension to the Elbe and the Vistula ; the subju- 
 gation of Germany could not last ; and these con- 
 quests exasperated the whole Teutonic race. 
 
 Yet these were but the main features of a scheme 
 which portended universal war, on the chance of 
 accomplishing universal conquest. England might 
 be compelled to fight for existence, but her navy 
 had never been so supreme ; she was the treasurer 
 of a Continent that, at heart, detested, if it dreaded, 
 the French yoke ; she had it in her power, as events 
 were to prove, to prevent the conquest of Spain and 
 Portugal ; and the projects of a descent on the Indus, 
 and even of a partition of Turkey, were not feasible. 
 Yet not to speak of the bad faith shown by Napo- 
 leon to old allies, the worst side of the policy of Til- 
 sit has yet to be noticed. This vast plan of dividing 
 the spoils of Europe rested on the assumption that 
 the Czar and Napoleon would always be cordial 
 
2i8 Napoleon. [I8O6- 
 
 friends, and that Russia and France had no conflict- 
 ing interests. But what sympathy would really exist 
 between Alexander, a representative, spite of liberal 
 professions, of the old monarchies and aristocracies 
 of the Europe of the past, and the crowned cham- 
 pion of the French Revolution ; and how could Rus- 
 sia be always at war with England, and persistently 
 maintain the Continental System, absolutely ruinous 
 to her peculiar commerce? Napoleon, too, had 
 alarmed the Czar, even at Tilsit, by the Grand Duchy 
 of Warsaw ; and he had whetted, not satisfied Rus- 
 sian ambition, by giving it hopes of a fragment 
 of the Turkish Empire, and withholding the mighty 
 prize on the Bosphorus. The Treaties of Tilsit, in 
 a word, meant war, confusion, and discord, in every 
 part of Europe ; and they embodied an almost self- 
 destructive policy. 
 
 The long contest of 1806-7, did not exhibit, in 
 the best aspect. Napoleon's extraordinary gifts as 
 a warrior. The conquering march indeed, by which 
 he cut off and annihilated the scattered forces of 
 Prussia, was a wonderful specimen of skill and 
 energy ; and his conduct on the Passarge turned 
 the scale of fortune. But he made mistakes before 
 Jena and Auerstadt ; he failed in the brief campaign 
 of Pultusk ; he was very nearly defeated at Eylau ; 
 and brilliant as Jena and Friedland were, they were 
 not to be compared with the great fight of Auster- 
 litz. Napoleon's faculties, as an administrator, were, 
 however, tried to the utmost, and seen in the fullest 
 grandeur, in his preparations in the spring of 1807 ; 
 and this is the distinctive excellence of his general- 
 
1807] yena. Friedland. Tilsit. 219 
 
 ship at this time. Yet, as we have pointed out, his 
 gigantic exertions to strengthen and add to the 
 Grand Army, filled it with half-hearted and faithless 
 allies, and brought into it elements of decay ; and 
 signs were already not wanting that the Empire was 
 tottering under its own weight. The most striking 
 feature of this time, however, was Napoleon's ex- 
 travagant policy abroad, exaggerating all its pre- 
 vious excesses. If the settlement of the Continent, 
 after Austerlitz, could not have been, in the nature 
 of things, enduring, the Continental System and the 
 arrangements of Tilsit led directly to fresh usurpa- 
 tions and conquests, to the complete subversion of 
 the order of Europe, and to the arraying of the 
 civilised world against Napoleon. And this reck- 
 less scheme of mere brute force, that had universal 
 domination as its end, depended on a compact be- 
 tween two despots, who had many reasons to dis- 
 trust each other, and between two great States with 
 many opposing interests. Napoleon's dominions 
 were yet to increase ; he was to win battles, and to 
 subdue enemies ; but Tilsit was no distant cause of 
 a quarrel with Russia, of the catastrophe of 1812, 
 and of the fall of the Empire. The rule of Napo- 
 leon had become like a thundercloud streaming 
 against the wind, and doing violence to the forces of 
 nature ; let the electrical current be once spent, and 
 the thundercloud ceases to disturb the movement 
 of the elements that resume their normal play. 
 
CHAPTER rX. 
 
 Efforts made by Napoleon to enforce the Continental System — 
 Bombardment of Copenhagen — Invasion of Portugal and flight 
 of the Royal Family — Designs of Napoleon against Spain — 
 State of Spain — Rising at Aranjuez — Napoleon obtains from the 
 Spanish Bourbons a renunciation of their rights to the Crown — 
 Joseph Bonaparte proclaimed King of Spain — General rising of 
 the nation — The capitulation of Baylen, and the battle of 
 Vimiero — Napoleon invades Spain in person — Retreat of Moore 
 and battle of Corunna — State of Europe — War with Austria — 
 Battles of Abensberg and Eckmiihl — Napoleon marches to 
 Vienna — His attempt to cross the Danube — Battles of Aspern 
 and Essling — Immense efforts made by Napoleon — Battle of 
 Wagram — Peace of Vienna — Reflections. 
 
 'APOLEON, after his return to 
 France, proceeded at once to 
 make the most of the supre- 
 macy he had won at Tilsit. 
 Detachments of the Grand 
 Army were sent to enforce 
 the Continental System on 
 the North German seaboard ; 
 British merchandise was 
 seized throughout the Em- 
 pire, and even British subjects were arbitrarily 
 detained ; and at every port from Dantzig to Venice, 
 French functionaries were let loose to plunder and 
 
 220 
 
1807-9] The Invasion of Spain. Wagram. 1 2 1 
 
 confiscate. Peremptory messages were, at the 
 same time, despatched to the States subject to, or 
 allies of, France, to join in a crusade against British 
 commerce. The Pope, already changed from the 
 friendly attitude he had assumed in 1802 and 1805, 
 and discontented with the ruler he had crowned, was 
 ordered to close his ports against England. The 
 Regent of Etruria, the new name given to an 
 Infanta of Spain, who had become the Sovereign 
 of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, was compelled to 
 banish British ships from Leghorn ; and Portugal 
 was summoned to go to war with England, and to 
 take the severest measures against British trade, of 
 which it had long been a great emporium. Mean- 
 while, Spain, Austria, and the Lesser Maritime 
 States, were urged, or required, to get their fleets 
 in readiness for an attack on England ; and Napo- 
 leon made immense preparations to show an impos- 
 ing naval force on the seas. He had, since Trafalgar, 
 sent out light squadrons, on several expeditions, 
 against British colonies ; he had continued building 
 numbers of war ships ; and he now resolved to make 
 a great effort to rule the Mediterranean, at least 
 for a time. He equipped an armament to invade 
 Sicily, not yet annexed to the Crown of Joseph ; 
 and he made extraordinary exertions to establish 
 the ascendency of France in the Ionian Islands, and 
 especially, in their chief centre, Corfu, with a view 
 probably to designs in the East, which had always 
 had a fascination for his mind, and which, we have 
 seen, had been discussed at Tilsit. The whole 
 power of the Continent was thus to be turned 
 
222 iSfapoleon. tl807- 
 
 against England and her maritime rule; and Napo- 
 leon believed, a few weeks after Friedland, that he 
 would force his stubborn enemy to yield to his 
 terms. 
 
 In these circumstances, the British government, 
 compelled to fight for existence, in a death struggle, 
 adopted a course which has been very differently 
 judged, and which the direst necessity could alone 
 justify. A new ministry had been for some time in 
 office, an aged Whig, Portland, being its nominal 
 head; but Canning and Castlereagh were its leading 
 spirits ; and these statesmen, daring and young, 
 having been informed of some of the secret provi- 
 sions of Tilsit, had resolved to anticipate Napoleon's 
 strokes, and to prevent one of the chief of the 
 Lesser States from placing its naval means in his 
 hands. A powerful fleet and army were sent to the 
 Baltic, and Denmark was required to give up her 
 war ships, to be held by England, until the close of 
 the war, so that no hostile use could be made of 
 them. On the refusal of the Danes to accept these 
 conditions, Copenhagen was bombarded with ex- 
 treme severity, and the fleet of Denmark was 
 carried into British ports. 
 
 This tremendous measure, a most striking in- 
 stance of the disregard of the rights of neutrals, 
 which characterised an age of internecine war, and 
 of very doubtful policy at best, provoked indigna- 
 tion and fear on the Continent, and turned it, for a 
 short time, against England. Napoleon skilfully 
 made use of this passing sentiment. He persuaded 
 Austria, for a moment, to break with Great Britain, 
 
1809] The Invasion of Spain. Wagram. 223 
 
 and he seized the opportunity to carry out projects 
 on which he had brooded, perhaps, for months, and 
 which had probably been put forward at Tilsit. He 
 had long cast his eyes on the Iberian Peninsula, and 
 partly in order to further the Continental System, 
 and partly urged by an ambition that now stopped 
 at nothing, he had marked it out as a new domain 
 for conquest. The Portuguese government had 
 tried to elude compliance with his imperious com- 
 mands to fight England and to despoil her trade; 
 and this was made an occasion to invade Portugal, 
 and to endeavour to annex it to the all-encroaching 
 Empire. In the autumn of 1807, a French army, 
 commanded by Junot, was despatched from 
 Bayonne, and having occupied parts of Spain on its 
 way, was hurried by forced marches to Lisbon, 
 Junot's orders being to seize the capital, and to turn 
 a deaf ear to every kind of overture. The terrified 
 Regent and the Royal Family abandoned a king- 
 dom they could not defend ; they took refuge in the 
 Brazilian Provinces, having put to sea at a moment's 
 notice ; and Napoleon had soon proclaimed, in char- 
 acteristic language, that the House of Braganza 
 had ceased to reign. 
 
 His attention was next directed to Spain. Here, 
 too, an effete dynasty of old Europe was to be 
 violently or otherwise driven from the throne, and 
 a scion of the conquering House of Bonaparte was 
 to replace the last scions of the House of Bourbon, 
 who retained the position of kings in a changed 
 world. But by what means, and on what pretext, 
 could this revolution, which would recall the days 
 
2 24 Napoleon. [1807- 
 
 of the War of the Spanish Succession, be accom- 
 plished, even in an age of war, and of universal 
 confusion and trouble? Spain had been almost the 
 first Power to desert the Coalition of 1793 ; she had 
 for fifteen years been a vassal of France ; she had 
 slavishly followed in Napoleon's wake ; she had lost 
 colonies and fleets in carrying out his behests, and 
 she had lately despatched a large armed force as 
 an auxiliary of the Grand Army in the North. Nay, 
 as if to oppose an insuperable bar to the project 
 now entertained by the Emperor, she had just 
 agreed to a secret treaty for the dismemberment 
 and partition of Portugal, by which she was to 
 obtain an illusory share of the spoil, and she had 
 marched an army to support Junot. Blunted as 
 the conscience of Europe was by the excesses of 
 a revolutionary time, it would hardly tolerate, in 
 this position of affairs, the subjugation of Spain by 
 Napoleon's hands. 
 
 The conqueror, however, believed that he had the 
 means of compassing his intended ends, without a 
 recourse to extreme violence, in the corruption and 
 weakness of the Spanish monarchy, and in the 
 divisions of the Spanish Court ; and he sought for 
 a justification for himself and his policy in a hope, 
 which was, no doubt, sincere, that he would raise a 
 great nation from its fallen state. For a gen- 
 eration the Spain of Charles III. had been an 
 object of the scorn of Europe ; a Power that 
 ruled a world-wide Empire had sunk into complete 
 decrepitude ; the navy, after Trafalgar, had become 
 a set of hulks ; the army had been reduced to a few 
 
SPAIN AND PORTUGAL— 1800. 
 
18091 The Invasion of Spain. Wagram. 225 
 
 worthless regiments ; the government was a worn- 
 out despotism resting on a bad noblesse and a super- 
 stitious Church. Authority, too, in its highest seats, 
 had been degraded, and provoked contempt ; the 
 King, Charles IV., was an imbecile trifler ; the 
 Queen an adulterous and shameless harlot ; and the 
 administration of affairs had become the appanage 
 of Godoy, a low-born schemer, who owed his rank 
 to the evil passions of the Queen. The nation, 
 proud and with great qualities, detested the humili- 
 ation it had long endured ; it sighed for a change 
 to a better state of things, and its hopes had cen- 
 tred in the heir-apparent to the crown, Ferdinand, 
 the Prinfce of Asturias, who, as yet unknown, was 
 looked up to as a coming deliverer. The young 
 Prince, however, as he grew up to manhood, became 
 a deadly enemy of Godoy ; the King and Queen 
 joined in hatred of their son, and were more than 
 ever mere tools of the favourite, and the Court 
 separated into hostile factions, the one trusting to 
 the existing rulers, the other passionately upheld 
 by the People. 
 
 In this state of affairs Godoy charged Ferdinand 
 with conspiring against the Royal Authority ; 
 scenes of scandal and discord were made public ; 
 and the King, the Queen, the Prince, and the 
 favourite, appealed in turn to the Emperor of 
 the French, long recognised as their real lord and 
 master. This gave Napoleon an opportunity to 
 intervene. He spoke smooth words to his eager 
 suppliants, keeping them in suspense, and hiding 
 his purpose ; and on various pretexts he gradually 
 
226 Napoleon. [1807- 
 
 introduced a formidable armed force into Spain, 
 taking possession of the Pyrenean fortresses, and 
 establishing his hold on the northern frontier. The 
 nation greeted these legions of conquest, in the first 
 instance as friends and deliverers, for an opinion 
 prevailed that Napoleon's object was to banish 
 Godoy and to make Ferdinand king ; and the French 
 troops were allowed to spread over the country for 
 some time without a sign of resistance. But the 
 favourite was more cunning or better informed ; he 
 saw at least that the end of his power was at hand, 
 and he persuaded the feeble King and his worthless 
 consort to imitate the example of the House of 
 Braganza, to fly beyond the Atlantic to the colonies 
 of the West, and to wait there in safety the issue 
 of events. 
 
 His preparations were, however, frustrated ; a 
 rising at Aranjuez which, beyond dispute, represent- 
 ed the feelings of all true Spaniards, prevented the 
 departure of the royal fugitives ; Godoy was nearly 
 slain by a furious populace, and Charles IV., in the 
 hope of saving " his friend," signed an abdication in 
 favour of his son. Ferdinand was thus suddenly 
 raised to the throne, but the weak father ere long 
 repented of an act he declared extorted by force ; 
 and the monarchy thus, so to speak, became vacant, 
 betrayed in a disgraceful family quarrel. The pur- 
 pose which Napoleon had for some time formed 
 seemed strangely favoured in this way by fortune ; 
 he was already master of a third of the country ; he 
 had sent Murat as his Heutenant to Madrid, and 
 Murat, faithfully carrying out his orders, announced 
 
1809] The Invasion of Spain. Wagram. 227 
 
 that the Emperor would not recognise the Prince of 
 Asturias as King of Spain, and would himself decide 
 on the claims to the throne. Symptoms of insur- 
 rection, at last followed by a fierce popular outbreak 
 at Madrid, seemed to portend revolution at hand ; 
 and, partly led by their weak impulses, but prin- 
 cipally induced by the artful lures set before them 
 by Napoleon and Murat, Ferdinand and, ere long, 
 the old King and Queen, took their departure from 
 Spain to lay the tale of their wrongs and disputes 
 before their all-powerful arbiter. 
 
 Napoleon received the wanderers near Bayonne ; 
 the poor things, fascinated by his over-mastering 
 spell, were informed that the Bourbons could not 
 reign in Spain, and after scandalous scenes between 
 the son and his parents, renunciations were easily 
 obtained of the noblest of the crowns of Charles V. 
 The exiles went into gilded captivity ; and Joseph 
 Bonaparte, leaving his kingdom of Naples bestowed 
 on Murat for the part he had played as an accom- 
 plice in an evil intrigue, was proclaimed Monarch 
 of Spain and the Indies. His title received the 
 sanction of a small body of Spanish notables assem- 
 bled at Bayonne — creatures ready to worship the 
 rising sun — and Napoleon thought he had set a 
 crown to his policy by giving a new constitution to 
 Spain, which placed the monarchy on a broad basis, 
 and contained institutions chiefly borrowed from 
 those established in France since 1789. 
 
 The detractors of Napoleon have been numerous 
 and unjust, but impartial history severely reprobates 
 
228 Napoleon. [1807- 
 
 his policy at this juncture. He certainly believed * 
 that his intervention in Spain would regenerate a 
 country under a bad government, and the Spanish 
 Bourbons courted and deserved their fate. He was 
 also convinced that the Continental System, on the 
 carrying out of which he had set his heart, required 
 that the peninsula should be subject to France, and 
 it must be borne in mind that, in this instance, as 
 in that of the unfortunate Due d'Enghien, he acted 
 more or less under the advice of Talleyrand f — as a 
 rule an advocate of moderation and right — who, 
 having exchanged the position of Foreign Minister 
 for that of a dignitary of the French Empire, endeav- 
 oured to regain his lost influence by urging Napoleon 
 to dismember Spain, however he may have con- 
 demned the acts done at Bayonne. 
 
 But when this has been said nothing can excuse 
 the perfidy of sending, on false pretences, an armed 
 force into Spain, in order to effect the subjugation 
 of a confiding people, of enticing the Royal Family 
 into France, and of compelling it, in terror, to give 
 up its rights. It is not easy to find a parallel to this 
 evil statecraft of fraud and force, and if Napoleon's 
 stratagems are admirable in war, they have some- 
 times a revolting aspect in the field of politics. The 
 conqueror's hopes that the submission of Spain 
 could be easily effected were to be frustrated, with 
 
 * The evidence of this is complete and decisive. See for one of 
 the latest proofs on the subject, General Marbot's most valuable 
 Memoirs, tome ii., 41. 
 
 \ This is also established in the mpst convincing manner. The 
 faint denials of Talleyrand (^ijototVj, tome i., 385) really convict 
 him, and he admits that he recommended the dismemberment of Spain. 
 
18091 The Invasion of Spain. Wagram. 229 
 
 consequences of the most momentous kind ; and the 
 coup d'etat at Bayonne was, in time, to prove a 
 principal cause of the fall of the Empire. Notwith- 
 standing the corruption and decay of the State, the 
 Spanish people had not lost its essential character ; 
 it was still a noble and patriotic race; it possessed 
 local franchises which retained life, under a central- 
 ised and half-feudal monarchy ; and it broke out into 
 a tempest of wrath when it found that it had been 
 tricked by Napoleon, that its princes had been de- 
 coyed out of Spain, and that a foreigner had been 
 insidiously made its sovereign. The peasants of 
 Asturias were the first to rise against the usurped 
 power of Joseph ; the insurrection spread like an all- 
 mastering flame from the plains of Castile to the 
 Valencian seaboard ; Andalusia flocked to a man to 
 arms, and Galicia and Leon joined in a movement 
 spontaneous, general, and of terrible strength. In an 
 incredibly short time every province was organised 
 under Xoz'sX juntas, directing the revolt ; rude levies 
 in thousands hastened to increase the regular troops 
 of the fallen monarchy ; the large towns prepared to 
 defend their citizens as they had resisted Carthage 
 and long-bafifled Rome ; and bands of armed men — 
 the savage guerillas — were to be found everywhere, 
 incited to vengeance by a priesthood fearing for 
 their threatened shrines, and proclaiming war to the 
 knife with the foreigner. This sudden revolution — 
 for it was no less — was stained by many excesses 
 and deeds of blood. It presented some of the hid- 
 eous features of Jacobinism and the Reign of Terror, 
 but it was not the less a grand popular rising against 
 
230 Napoleon. [1807- 
 
 a domination justly abhorred, and it was as worthy 
 of admiration as the efforts of France against the 
 Coalition of 1793. 
 
 Napoleon had never had, hitherto, to deal with a 
 movement of this kind ; contempt of popular forces, 
 we have often seen, was a distinctive feature of his 
 strongly-marked character ; and he treated the ris- 
 ing of Spain at first with scorn. He had, not to 
 speak of his army in Portugal, eighty thousand men 
 in the Spanish peninsula. Trained soldiers could 
 overwhelm rude levies, and he sent out detachments 
 east, west, and south, to put down the insurrection 
 at its birth, neglecting his accustomed methods in 
 war. In a few weeks he was cruelly undeceived ; 
 and for the first time in his career of triumphs, his 
 arms suffered great and even disgraceful reverses. 
 His disciplined troops, indeed, quickly dispersed 
 mere armed multitudes in the open field ; Bessiferes 
 won a battle at Rio Seco, which was little more than 
 a pursuit and a massacre ; Joseph entered Madrid 
 and held the city down ; and the French crushed 
 resistance in the provinces of the North. But 
 Moncey was driven in retreat from Valencia ; Du- 
 hesme was isolated in Catalonia, and, except 
 between the Pyrenees and the capital, the scattered 
 French forces were too feeble to make head against 
 the universal revolt. Meanwhile the remains of the 
 French fleet, beaten at Trafalgar, were seized at 
 Cadiz ; and ere long a terrible tale of disaster spread 
 far and wide through the southern provinces. 
 
 Dupont, a young general of fairest promise, had 
 been sent by Napoleon into Andalusia. He had ad- 
 
1809] The Invasion of Spain. Wagram. 231 
 
 vanced to Cordova and sacked the town, but he 
 had been obliged to fall back through hosts of ene- 
 mies ; and he was caught in the defiles of the Sierra 
 Morena, hemmed in by the regular Spanish army 
 near Baylen and forced to capitulate on humiliating 
 terms. Nearly twenty thousand men of the French 
 army were thus cut off at a single stroke, but the 
 moral effect was far more decisive ; Joseph and his 
 Court took flight from Madrid, and in a few weeks 
 the Imperial forces, baffled and paralysed, were be- 
 hind the Ebro. About the same time a disaster of a 
 similar kind befell the arms of France in Portugal. 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley, a chief who was to rise to 
 greatness, and already known for his victory of 
 Assaye, landed at Mondego Bay in August, 1808, 
 and at the head of about eighteen thousand men, 
 advanced along the coast-line towards Lisbon, which 
 was rising against the yoke of the French. He was 
 attacked boldly at Vimiero by Junot with a some- 
 what inferior force ; but the French general was 
 completely defeated, and he might have been cut 
 off and destroyed, had not Wellesley, in the very 
 hour of success, been superseded in his command 
 by a timid veteran officer. As it was, however, the 
 position of the French in Portugal had become 
 desperate ; and Junot was too glad to extricate him- 
 self, through a convention signed at Cintra, which 
 assured his army a safe return to France in British 
 transports. 
 
 The indignation of Napoleon may well be con- 
 ceived, when the intelligence of these unexpected 
 disasters arrived. He let Junot off with a repri- 
 
232 Napoleon. [1807- 
 
 mand ; but he was wounded to the quick by the 
 surrender of Baylen, which he justly thought a dis- 
 honour to his arms ; and Dupont was detained in 
 prison until the close of his reign. As for the rising 
 in Spain, he still believed that " force and reforms " 
 would easily put it down ; but he made great prep- 
 arations to cross the Pyrenees, and to "plant his 
 eagles on the pillars of Hercules." Large detach- 
 ments were drawn from the Grand Army, which had 
 been gradually moved towards the Rhenish Provin- 
 ces, and was for the present called the Army of the 
 Rhine ; the territory between the Oder and Vistula 
 was, for the most part, evacuated by the French ; 
 and one hundred and sixty thousand men, the 
 flower and pride of the Imperial armies, were 
 rapidly directed to the peninsula. A treaty, too, 
 was made with down-trodden Prussia, relieving 
 her of some of the exactions of 1807; but her 
 army was arbitrarily reduced one half, an act of 
 oppression eluded afterwards with results that cost 
 the Empire dear. The conqueror, in a word, though 
 making light of the resistance of Spain, as " a stirring 
 of the canaille," made arrangements for an immense 
 display of his power, in order, chiefly, to overawe 
 Europe ; and he turned his attention to his great 
 ally of the North, still under the spell of the dalli- 
 ance of Tilsit. 
 
 Alexander crossed the Niemen to meet Napoleon 
 at Erfurt, not far from the field of Jena; and the 
 interview was a strange and suggestive spectacle. 
 The Czar inclined before the Lord of the West ; the 
 vassal Princes of the Confederation of the Rhine 
 
1809] The Invasion of Spain. Wagram. 233 
 
 vied with each other in bowing the knee to their 
 suzerain, and in seeking his gifts ; * and scenes of 
 base flattery mingled with pageants of splendour 
 never before witnessed. The intellect of Germany, 
 too, yielded to the fascinations of Napoleon's pres- 
 ence. Goethe and Wieland appeared in the train of 
 worshippers, and the mighty despot discussed with 
 the enchanted poets, the French stage, and the 
 "falsehoods of Tacitus," an object of the dislike of 
 all despots. This trifling, however, did not inter- 
 fere with the great affairs of state that had led to 
 the meeting. Napoleon, in view of events in Spain, 
 felt that it was not enough to dazzle the Czar with 
 prospects of a new Empire in the East, as had been 
 really his policy at Tilsit ; and he consented, though 
 with secret reluctance, that Moldavia and Wallachia 
 should be torn from the Turks, and, under certain 
 conditions, be annexed to Russia. In return, the 
 alliance was formally renewed. Alexander consented 
 to the subjugation of Spain, and England was sum- 
 moned by the two potentates, to submit to an 
 ignominious peace, which would have set the seal to 
 the domination of France, would have given a sanc- 
 tion to all Napoleon's conquests, and would have 
 recognised the late usurpation of Joseph. 
 
 Trusting to the support of the Czar in the North, 
 Napoleon invaded Spain, in the winter of 1808, at 
 the head of nearly two hundred and fifty thousand 
 men. The Spanish levies had been reinforced, by 
 
 * Talleyrand, a cynic, but an admirable observer, expresses un- 
 equivocally his disgust at the adulation of Erfurt. Memoires^ tome 
 i., 420, 451. 
 
234 Napoleon. [1807- 
 
 the contingent which had been sent into Germany, 
 and which had effected its escape in British vessels ; 
 but they were unable to face the French in the field ; 
 and they had been imprudently moved towards the 
 Pyrenean frontier. They were struck down, and 
 scattered in flight, at Espinosa and Tudela, to the 
 left and the right ; the Somo Sierra Pass was forced 
 by a fine effort made by the Polish horsemen ; and 
 Napoleon entered Madrid in triumph, where he re- 
 placed Joseph on his precarious throne. The con- 
 queror thought the peninsula was in his grasp ; but 
 the hydra-headed revolt still grew. The routed armies 
 gradually gathered again ; insurgent bands made 
 repeated attacks on the long line of march from 
 Bayonne to the capital ; and the invaders were beset 
 by the same kind of obstacles which had prevented 
 their success in Poland, — they could not find supplies 
 in a poor country, or move rapidly through moun- 
 tainous ranges and defiles. 
 
 Ere long, too, Saragossa made the memorable de- 
 fence that will live in history. The flower of the 
 army of Lannes perished before its walls ; the city, 
 defying the skill of the engineer, was conquered only 
 by furious assaults forcing street after street, and 
 house upon house, and every town in Spain learned 
 by a grand example what patriotism could do even 
 behind weak ramparts. Napoleon, meantime, had 
 broken up from Madrid, in the hope of crushing a 
 new and scarcely expected enemy. The British 
 army, which had won Vimiero, had been placed 
 under the command of Moore, a soldier of no ordi- 
 nary powers ; and Moore had advanced from Portu- 
 
1809] The Invasion of Spain. Wagram. 235 
 
 gal in order to effect his junction with a small force, 
 under Baird, and in the hope of threatening the 
 French communications with Madrid. Moore had 
 approached Valladolid near the middle of Decem- 
 ber. He was at Sahagun, a few days afterwards, 
 with from thirty to thirty-five thousand men, and 
 Napoleon arranged a great general movement to 
 cut off and overwhelm the British commander. 
 The Emperor crossed the Guadarrama, in a furious 
 hurricane ; his passionate eagerness to reach Moore 
 was shown in the hardships he made his troops en- 
 dure ; and he confidently hoped that with Soult and 
 Ney he would soon have his quarry in the toils. He 
 had advanced to Astorga, in the first days of Janu- 
 ary; but alarming intelligence reached him from 
 France ; and in a few hours he was on his way to 
 Paris, having entrusted the task of pursuing Moore 
 to Soult. The retreat of the British army was ardu- 
 ous in the extreme, but its chief made good his way 
 to Corunna ; he beat Soult off in a bloody combat, 
 and, though wounded to death, Moore lived to know 
 that his troops were safe and about to embark for 
 England. 
 
 Troubles of many kinds awaited the Emperor 
 when, after a hurried journey, he reached the capital. 
 His efforts at sea had, as always, failed ; Ganteaume 
 had been unable to land a man in Sicily, and he 
 had narrowly escaped destruction at the hands 
 of CoUingwood. England, too, the detested, yet 
 dreaded, foe, had rejected Napoleon's and Alexan- 
 der's terms ; she had found a battle-field in the 
 peninsula, favourable, in a special way, to her arms. 
 
236 Napoleon. [I807- 
 
 Though she was suffering from the Continental Sys- 
 tem, her command of the seas still upheld her com- 
 merce ; the development of her manufacturing 
 power immensely increased her wealth and resources ; 
 and she steadily resolved to maintain the contest. 
 The Spanish war, besides, had alarmed France ; the 
 Empire, it was seen, had become a scheme of dynas- 
 tic ambition, and never-ceasing conquest ; and opin- 
 ion had already begun to doubt its stability, and 
 to distrust its creator. Nor was the aspect of the 
 Continent serene ; a movement, feeble as yet, but 
 increasing, against French domination and rapine, 
 had begun even in the States of the Confederation 
 of the Rhine, and was restrained, with difficulty, in 
 oppressed Prussia ; the party hostile to France in 
 Russia, made half bankrupt by the war with Eng- 
 land, was becoming ascendent in the councils of the 
 Czar ; and Alexander himself had found that Tilsit 
 had formed an alliance fraught with many perils. 
 
 The attitude of Austria, however, was the chief 
 immediate cause of alarm for Napoleon. That great 
 State, humbled by Austerlitz and the Peace of Pres- 
 burg, had only waited an opportunity to renew the 
 contest. She had stirred for a moment after Eylau, 
 and she now believed that the time had come for 
 recovering her old position in Europe. She had 
 secretly renewed her alliance with England, and the 
 direction into Spain of great French armies, the 
 agitation arising in Germany, and the revolt of the 
 Tyrol, her lost loyal province, against Bavaria, a 
 vassal of France, combined to determine her purpose 
 for war. She relied chiefly, however, on her own 
 
18091 The Invasion of Spain. Wagram. 237 
 
 armaments, and these had become not only formid- 
 able in the extreme, but were of a character differing 
 in many respects from those hitherto arrayed by the 
 Austrian monarchy. The Archduke Charles had 
 for some time had the supreme direction of military 
 affairs ; he had largely increased the regular army, 
 but he had connected with it great national levies, 
 filled with a strong patriotic spirit and eager to 
 avenge the wrongs of their country. Austria by 
 these means was enabled to place nearly four hun- 
 dred thousand men in the field ; and these forces 
 were of a much higher order than the serf-like troops 
 of 1796, of 1800, and of 1805. 
 
 Napoleon's power, therefore, defied by England, 
 diminishing in France, and losing its hold on Russia, 
 was, throughout the Continent, assailed by forces 
 with which hitherto he had not had to cope. The 
 spirit of national independence and national right 
 was, gradually arising against armed Despotism, and 
 even Austria had inscribed this cause on her banners. 
 The conqueror, however, prepared to take the field 
 with confidence ; he moved the available divisions 
 of the old Grand Army from the Main and the Rhine 
 towards the Upper Danube ; he called for the con- 
 tingents of the Confederation of the Rhine, and he 
 entreated the Czar to send a Russian army to co- 
 operate with a levy of Poles and to oppose Austria 
 on her Galician frontier. Nevertheless his forces, 
 reduced by the war in Spain, were not for the 
 moment in adequate strength ; and he was compelled 
 largely to fill their ranks with young soldiers, and, 
 in view of the impending conflict, to anticipate the 
 
238 Napoleon. LI807- 
 
 conscription once more, and even to increase the 
 tale of its numbers. 
 
 Austria, in fact, was ready before Napoleon, 
 and in the second week of April, 1809, her main 
 army, led by the Archduke Charles, and about 
 one hundred and fifty thousand strong, crossed 
 the Inn and the Isar, and advanced towards Ratis- 
 bon in order to join a large detachment at that 
 place, and, with the combined force, to assail the 
 enemy. The Emperor, anticipating a movement 
 of the kind, had directed his lieutenants on the 
 spot to fall back ; but his order was neglected 
 for some unknown reason, and the French army 
 was for some time most dangerously exposed and 
 widely divided, Davoust isolated and liable to 
 attack at Ratisbon, Mass6na at Ulm, and Oudinot 
 at Augsburg, and the Bavarians and other allies 
 between the Isar and Ingolstadt. Napoleon, how- 
 ever, was soon on the scene of events, and he 
 extricated his imperilled forces, and ultimately 
 baffled and defeated his foe, who had made no use of 
 a great occasion, in a series of operations which will 
 always rank among the finest masterpieces of war. 
 Drawing in Davoust, on the left, from Ratisbon, he 
 brought the Marshal in line with the German 
 auxiliaries ; he then moved Oudinot and Massdna 
 with extreme celerity to threaten the Austrian com- 
 munications with the Inn ; and having collected a 
 considerable force, he suddenly fell on the Arch- 
 duke's centre and routed it at Abensbergwith great 
 loss. Napoleon now joined Mass6na and Oudinot 
 and forced the Austrian left wing across the Isar; 
 
18091 The Invasion of Spain. Wagravi. 239 
 
 and, turning against the Archduke again, who had 
 united his right wing with his beaten centre, over- 
 threw him at Eckmiihl with decisive effect, and drove 
 him at Ratisbon across the Danube. Here the 
 Prince was met by the expected detachment, but 
 he was cut off from his shattered left wing and 
 divided from it by a great river ; and the first effort 
 of Austria had completely failed. Napoleon had 
 plucked safety and victory out of danger, and his 
 collective forces, compared to those of the enemy, 
 had been inferior in numbers. 
 
 Commanding genius had once more triumphed ; 
 and, notwithstanding ominous warnings, Fortune 
 appeared still to second the great captain. On other 
 parts of the theatre of war, success had, at first, 
 attended the arms of Austria. Though she had not 
 repeated the faults of 1800 and 1805, and had not 
 sent into Italy too large an army, the Archduke 
 John had defeated Eugene Beauharnais — improperly 
 placed in supreme command owing to Napoleon's 
 family sympathies — at Sacile, near the Venetian 
 frontier ; and the French had been driven back to 
 the line of the Adige. The Tyrolese, too, inspired 
 by an heroic chief, Hofer, had risen in an insurrec- 
 , tion, general and fierce like that which convulsed 
 the Spanish peninsula ; and, aided by a detachment 
 of Austrian troops, had driven their Bavarian masters 
 out of their Alpine ranges. But the success of 
 Napoleon at the decisive point, the valley of the 
 Danube— the path to Vienna — soon made these 
 secondary triumphs fruitless ; the Archduke John 
 was compelled to retreat, pursued by Eugene, across 
 
240 Napoleon. [1807- 
 
 the Noric Alps ; and the revolt of the Tyrol was 
 quenched in blood. The Emperor pushed forward 
 to the Austrian capital, but this march was not un- 
 disputed like that of 1805 ; a desperate battle was 
 fought at Ebersberg, and the defeated left wing of 
 the Austrian army found means to escape beyond 
 the Danube, and to join the main force of the Arch- 
 duke Charles. 
 
 The French entered Vienna on the 13th of May ; 
 the House of Hapsburg had again fled ; but Napo- 
 leon, as before Austerlitz, flattered the townsmen • 
 and, having taken most careful precautions to protect 
 the flanks and rear of his army, sought an occasion 
 to bring his enemy to bay, and to strike him down 
 in a decisive battle. The task, however, was one of 
 immense difificulty ; the Emperor had not, as in 1805, 
 mastered the bridges leading across the Danube ; 
 and how was an army of one hundred thousand men 
 to pass a river, wide as an arm of the sea, in the 
 face of a powerful and watchful enemy ? To effect 
 his purpose. Napoleon chose an island known in 
 history by the name of Lobau, below Vienna, of 
 large size, which separates the Danube into two 
 branches, the one broad along the southern bank, 
 the other, along the northern bank, narrow ; and he 
 threw a great bridge, from the shore, into Lobau, 
 connecting the island with the northern bank, by 
 other bridges of no considerable size. The passion- 
 ate eagerness, however, to close with his foe, shown, 
 we have seen clearly, in many instances, nearly 
 involved his army in an immense disaster. There 
 was but a single bridge across the main branch of 
 
1809] The Invasion of Spain. Wagrain. 241 
 
 the Danube ; the French crossed by this into Lobau ; 
 and thence, traversing the small bridges, issued into 
 the edge of the great plain of the Marchfield, and 
 seized Aspern and Essling on the northern bank. 
 The Archduke, disposing of very superior forces, 
 attacked furiously on the 21st and 22d of May; but 
 Aspern and Essling were strong defensive points ; 
 and the battle raged for hours with no certain results. 
 The imprudence, however, was seen at last, of 
 trusting to a single bridge only to transport a large 
 army across a wide river ; the great bridge was more 
 than once broken down, and was finally destroyed 
 by the flooded current, and by combustible masses 
 launched against it ; ammunitions and other neces- 
 saries for the field fell short ; and the French were 
 left isolated on the northern bank. Lannes met a 
 soldier's death in the struggle ; Mass6na defended 
 Aspern with characteristic energy ; but the villages 
 were, in a short time, lost, and the Imperial army 
 was driven into Lobau. 
 
 Napoleon had made a grave mistake in relying on 
 only a single bridge ; and had his adversary been a 
 great chief, he might have forced his enemy into the 
 Danube. The position of the French had become 
 most critical ; thousands of men were huddled to- 
 gether on an exposed island, with difficult access to 
 their supports ; and the marshals urged the Emperor 
 to draw off his forces, and to retreat to the Inn, nay, 
 perhaps to the Rhine. Napoleon rejected these 
 counsels of despair ; and assuming the proud and 
 confident attitude, which, after Eylau, had overawed 
 
 Europe, determined on maintaining a daring offen- 
 16 
 
242 Napoleon. [1807- 
 
 sive. Yet the intelligence from France had be- 
 come alarming ; the invasion of Spain had not 
 prospered ; at this very time Wellesley had surprised 
 Soult, and driven him in confusion from the Douro ; 
 and preparations were being made in British ports 
 for a vast expedition to destroy Antwerp. 
 
 The Emperor's operations were as wonderful as 
 any, perhaps, in his career as a warrior. Having 
 collected his forces on the southern bank — a tacit 
 admission of an undoubted error — he addressed him- 
 self to the stupendous work of " making a highway 
 of the Danube," and transporting across a largely 
 increased army. Three wide and solid bridges, one 
 of boats, two of piles, protected from the current by 
 a huge stockade, and by a flotilla of armed barges, 
 were thrown across the main arm of the river ; and 
 the lesser arm was so effectually bridged that thou- 
 sands of men could cross in a brief space of time. 
 Meanwhile Lobau had been turned into a great 
 entrenched camp, bristling with redoubts and well- 
 placed batteries ; and thus, while the passage of the 
 Danube had been made secure, the island became a 
 colossal fortress, most formidable either for defence 
 or attack. Simultaneously Napoleon took his 
 wonted care to shield his communications and line 
 of retreat ; and fearing that the Archduke might 
 change his position, and cross the Danube for an 
 offensive movement, he sent strong detachments to 
 guard the chief passages. At the same time, with 
 that marvellous power of organisation and arrange- 
 ment peculiar to him, he summoned every available 
 horse and man to join the main army on the Danube, 
 
1809] The Invasion of Spain. Wagram. 243 
 
 and to take part in the great battle at hand. Eugene, 
 now receiving the aid of Macdonald, was ordered to 
 drive away the Archdul<e John in retreat through 
 the vast plains of Hungary, and to draw gradually 
 towards Lobau. Bernadotte and a Saxon contingent 
 advanced from the north, thousands of troops from 
 the Confederation of the Rhine, and large masses of 
 young conscripts were marched to join the Emperor's 
 standards; and Marmont, with one of the old bands 
 of Austerlitz, was ordered to the Danube from the 
 Dalmatian wilds. The assembled arrays were impos- 
 ing and vast ; yet elements of weakness abounded 
 in them. The first line of the French at Eylau and 
 Friedland was mainly composed of trained soldiers ; 
 the bad troops only filled the reserves ; but now, 
 Germans, Italians, and beardless boys were crowded 
 into the ranks of the Imperial army, and most of 
 these levies had no heart to fight. Another incident, 
 too, betrayed the gradual exhaustion of military 
 power, — the feebleness of the infantry had become 
 manifest, and it was attempted to make up for this 
 by an increase of guns, a dangerous and at best a 
 doubtful expedient. 
 
 The preparations of the Emperor to cross the 
 Danube were completed by the first days of July. 
 What, in the meantime, had been the conduct of 
 his foe, victorious, in effect, at Aspern and Essling ? 
 The Archduke Charles was a learned soldier; he 
 was a good general of the second order ; but he was 
 no more able to cope with Napoleon than Pompey 
 and his nobles were, to contend against Caesar. He 
 was in the heart of the Austrian monarchy ; but he 
 
244 Napoleon. [1807- 
 
 had made little use of the martial levies, which had 
 been arrayed to maintain the war; and he did not 
 even gather together, to the main scene of events, 
 all the available strength of the regular army. An 
 Austrian force was on the Galician frontier ; the 
 Czar had trifled with Napoleon's request, to send a 
 body of troops to hold it in check, and Russians, 
 indeed, would not support Poles ; yet the Archduke 
 did not call in this detachment, to co-operate with 
 him, upon the Danube. If, too, he had directed 
 the Archduke John, to advance from Hungary to 
 his aid, he had not secured his brother's obedience; 
 and the Archduke John, kept away by Eugene, was 
 still far distant, and not willing to move. The Arch- 
 duke Charles, besides, had not fathomed the designs, 
 or the capacity, of his mighty antagonist ; he was 
 convinced that Napoleon had not the means of 
 effecting the passage, with a great army, and he 
 remained in his camps, o,n the low hills of the March- 
 field, neglecting the tract on the verge of the river. 
 Worse than all, perhaps, the Austrian chief was 
 overawed by Napoleon's presence ; and his opera- 
 tions betrayed a timidity* and an indecision of 
 sinister omen. 
 
 * The terror felt by Continental generals, when opposed to Na- 
 poleon, may be expressed by the lines of Virgil ; 
 
 " At Danaum proceres, Agamemnoniseque phalanges, 
 Ut videre virum, fulgentiaque arma per umbras, 
 Ingenti trepidare metu." 
 " Mais, Monseigneur, figurez vous qu'an lieu de Bonaparte, c'est 
 Jourdan que vous avez devant vous," v^as the remark of an aide-de- 
 camp to his trembling superior. 
 
18091 The Invasion of Spain. Wagram. 245 
 
 The gigantic enterprise planned by Napoleon 
 began in the night of the 4th of July. The most 
 minute and far-sighted precautions had been taken 
 to prevent mistakes and confusion ; the Imperial 
 army had been assembled in Lobau ; and under 
 cover of the darkness, and of the fire of batteries 
 sweeping the northern bank, with an avalanche of 
 shot, the French divisions, crossed the small arm of 
 the Danube, mastered thoroughly by bridges as firm 
 as causeways, and issued into the vast plain of the 
 Marchfield, turning Aspern and Essling far to the 
 left, and spreading over the undefended expanse. 
 Seventy thousand men had passed by the morning 
 of the 5th ; the whole of the great array came grad- 
 ually into line ; and, by the afternoon. Napoleon's 
 collective forces had taken their positions in the 
 Archduke's front, between Glinzendorf and Ader- 
 klau, having crossed the Danube, under the eye of 
 an enemy bafifled, outmanoeuvred, and almost para- 
 lysed. The Austrians, in fact, had scarcely made a 
 sign ; and after a skirmish with Bernadotte's Saxons, 
 in which these were decidedly worsted, both armies 
 prepared for a great fight on the morrow. 
 
 The early dawn of the 6th saw the hostile forces 
 engaged along the immense line of outposts. 
 Armies of such a size had never before been seen, 
 on one field, in modern war ; Napoleon was at the 
 head of about one hundred and sixty thousand 
 men with from five to six hundred guns ; the Arch- 
 duke had perhaps one hundred and thirty thousand 
 with nearly the same number of guns as his enemy. 
 The Austrian Prince assumed the offensive : he 
 
246 Napoleon. [I807- 
 
 extended his wings on either side ; and his left fell 
 on Napoleon's right, for he expected the Archduke 
 John would advance by the plain that leads to 
 Nieusidel by the Russbach. This attack, however, 
 was repelled by Davoust, placed in formidable 
 strength on that flank by his master, aware that the 
 Archduke John was approaching ; and the French 
 gradually gained ground between Glinzendorf, the 
 Russbach, and the uplands beyond. But on the 
 opposite side of the vast space of battle, the Arch- 
 duke won important success ; his right wing all but 
 routed Napoleon's left ; Bernadotte and his men 
 were driven back in confusion ; and all the energy of 
 Mass^na could not prevent thousands of auxiliaries, 
 and of young French levies, from disbanding and 
 scattering over the Marchfield. The skill of Napo- 
 leon, nevertheless, triumphed. His adversary had 
 extended his wings too widely ; the Emperor 
 strengthened his shattered left, assembled the 
 Italian army backed by the Guard, and preceded 
 by such an array of cannon as never had been 
 put together before, directed Macdonald, against 
 the Archduke's centre, in position upon the hills of 
 Wagram. The defeat of the Austrians, at this deci- 
 sive point, after a resistance of the most tenacious 
 kind,* gave the French a hard bought and almost 
 doubtful victory. The Archduke Charles slowly 
 fell back, just as the heads of his brother's columns 
 appeared ; and had the Austrian prince had Welling- 
 
 * The battle of Wagram has a strong general resemblance to that 
 of Sadowa. But Napoleon was not Benedek, and the Archduke John 
 ■was not the Crown Prince of Prussia. 
 
1809] The Invasion of Spain. Wagrant. 247 
 
 ton's constancy, or the Archduke John Bliicher's 
 heroic energy, something like Waterloo might have 
 been seen at Wagram. 
 
 Austria, however, had made a final eilort ; Napo- 
 leon, indeed, did not pursue the defeated army with 
 his wonted vigour, for he had suffered too much loss; 
 the Archduke effected his retreat in safety ; but the 
 monarchy was, for the time, exhausted, and envoys 
 were soon sent to the conqueror's tent. The nego- 
 tiations were protracted for weeks, for the Austrian 
 plenipotentiaries wished to see the result of the 
 descent on the shores of the Scheldt, which had 
 been announced by England to Europe. This ex- 
 pedition, however, ignominiously failed ; the British 
 fleet never reached Antwerp ; and half a fine army 
 perished by disease, in the pestilence-stricken flats 
 of Walcheren. Austria was forced to accept Napo- 
 leon's dictation ; and his terms, if not outrageous, 
 were humiliating in the extreme. She lost her 
 Alpine frontier on the side of Italy ; she lost the 
 barrier of the Inn on the side of Bavaria, and — a 
 hint probably to the Czar, from the conqueror, 
 that he resented the apathy of Russia in the cam- 
 paign, and that Tilsit was not an irrevocable bond 
 — she was compelled to cede a part of her Galician 
 provinces, to be annexed to the Saxon Poland 
 formed on the Vistula. She was also obliged to 
 submit to the insulting wrong done, a short time 
 before, to vanquished Prussia; her army was re- 
 duced to one hundred and fifty thousand men, a 
 number not to be exceeded until a general peace. 
 This treaty which marks the lowest point of the 
 
248 Napoleon. [1807- 
 
 fortunes of Austria, in that age, was signed at 
 Vienna in October, 1809. 
 
 Napoleon's military genius shone out grandly in 
 the memorable campaign of 1809. He has described 
 the operations that led to Eckmiihl as the finest of 
 his splendid career ; and his passage of the Danube 
 was a magnificent exploit. Not less remarkable 
 was his tenacious daring in defying fortune after 
 Aspern and Essling; and though the Archduke 
 Charles was not to be compared to him, he was by 
 no means a contemptible foe. Still, from a mere 
 military point of view, the capacity of the Emperor 
 is not the most striking feature of this great con- 
 test. The Austrians at Wagram had the better 
 army ; they fought with remarkable vigour ; except 
 the Bavarians, always foes of Austria, the auxiliaries 
 of Napoleon were inferior troops ; the young French 
 levies were too weak for the field ; and Wagram was 
 only a Pyrrhic victory. The strength of the Empire 
 was wasting in universal war. Napoleon, at this time, 
 had the colossal force of eight hundred thousand 
 men under arms, and yet this scarcely upheld 
 his overgrown power. While, too, his resources 
 were being sapped, mighty forces were being com- 
 bined against him, unknown in the first years of his 
 triumphs ; he had to deal with nations, and not only 
 with kings ; and the rising of Spain, the revolt of 
 the Tyrol, and the movement gradually arousing 
 Germany, were ominous signs of coming peril. 
 
 Nor was he less the enemy of established govern- 
 ments ; he was abhorred in Austria and Prussia 
 alike ; and the recent extension of the Grand Duchy 
 
1809] The Invasion of Spain. Wagram. 249 
 
 of Warsaw, another expression of sympathy with 
 the Poles, impaired still more the alliance of Tilsit, 
 already opposed to Russian feelings and interests. 
 Even in France, also, Napoleon had ceased to 
 be the idol of an enthusiastic nation ; mutterings 
 of discontent and alarm were being heard ; and 
 these were of special danger in the case of a people 
 always in extremes and easily moved, and in which 
 Revolution had destroyed real loyalty. And just 
 across the Channel stood undaunted England, im- 
 possible to reach by the Imperial legions, strong 
 enough to defy the Continental System, victorious 
 in Portugal, and not defeated in Spain, able, through 
 her absolute supremacy at sea, to throw armies on 
 any point of the Continent, and, above all, ready, at 
 any moment, to unite the Powers of Europe against 
 her great enemy, and to multiply their resources by 
 her lavish subsidies. The prospect was darkening 
 for Napoleon, yet he had not reached the most 
 dazzling heights of his fortunes. His gigantic em- 
 pire was still to expand ; and he was to ally himself, 
 with the old order of Europe, by a bond which, in 
 his exulting hopes, was to make doubly sure the 
 assurance of fate, yet was to prove a false and 
 ensnaring pledge. Nemesis was waiting, in grim 
 repose, for her victim ; the Son of the Morning was 
 ere long to fall. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Divorce of Josephine — Napoleon marries Marie Louise — Excesses of 
 the Continental System — Quarrel of Napoleon with the Pope — 
 The Council — Progress of the war in Spain — Campaign of Mas- 
 sena in Portugal — Battle of Busaco — The Lines of Torres Vedras 
 — Retreat of Massena — Great ability shown by Wellington — 
 Battle of Fuentes de Onoro — The Empire in i8io-i8ll — Its 
 apparent grandeur and real instability — Birth of the King of 
 Rome — Disputes with Russia — Immense preparations for war 
 made by Napoleon — His reception in Dresden — Passage of the 
 Niemen — The advance to Smolensk — Battle of Borodino — 
 Napoleon enters Moscow — The retreat from Moscow — Passage 
 of the Beresina— Horrors of the retreat — Ruin of the Grand 
 Army — Reflections. 
 
 N the spring of 1810 an event 
 occurred which raised Napo- 
 leon to another height of 
 grandeur, and seemed to 
 give increased stability to 
 his throne. The Empress 
 Josephine had borne him 
 no offspring; and, though in 
 spite of domestic scandals 
 which had exasperated him 
 after his return from Egypt, and of her extravagant 
 and somewhat frivolous life, he had been an in- 
 dulgent, nay, a kind husband — Napoleon, whatever 
 
 250 
 
1810-12] Torres Vedras. Borodino. Moscow. 251 
 
 calumny has said, was generous, and even fond, as a 
 head of a family— he had resolved for some time to 
 part from her, in the hope of securing, by another 
 marriage, an heir to himself, and to his gigantic 
 empire. Negotiations were opened, with more than 
 one Court, to obtain a wife for the Lord of the Con- 
 tinent ; the Czar, if no longer the satellite of Tilsit, 
 was willing to give the Emperor a youthful sister; 
 but the prejudices of his mother and of the Russian 
 noblesse prevented a union with a merely crowned 
 soldier; Napoleon hastily withdrew his proposals; 
 and ill-feeling once more embittered relations 
 already becoming estranged, nay, hostile. Austria, 
 though in truth only biding her time, in her present 
 humbled and prostrate state, eagerly caught at 
 overtures that promised a truce at least ; and the 
 representative of the German Caesars gladly con- 
 sented that a daughter of his house should become 
 the bride of his all-powerful conqueror. The mar- 
 riage with Josephine was annulled, by one of the 
 devices often employed by Rome to sanction ques- 
 tionable acts ; and after exhibitions of passionate 
 grief, with which Napoleon had unfeigned sympathy, 
 the discarded Empress hid her sorrows in a retreat, 
 which magnificence, and even affection, could not 
 render happy. 
 
 The second nuptials were made an occasion for 
 the display of the ceremonial of old Royal Europe. 
 Berthier was sent to Vienna in great pomp to de- 
 mand the hand of the child of the Hapsburgs ; the 
 marriage contract was drawn in the forms of that of 
 Louis XVL and Marie Antoinette ; and the Arch- 
 
252 Napoleon. [I8IO- 
 
 duke Charles represented Napoleon at the solem- 
 nisation of the sacred rite. The bride was accom- 
 panied to France by a brilliant train of courtiers ; 
 she was received by Napoleon eagerly at Compifegne, 
 and the marriage was celebrated again, in state, at 
 the Tuileries. The Empress Marie Louise, raised 
 thus to a throne which appeared the pinnacle of 
 every earthly grandeur, proved herself to be, in the 
 changes of fortune, no worthy descendant of Maria 
 Theresa. She was intelligent, and had amiable 
 qualities ; but the woman who had lain by Napo- 
 leon's side, and had become the mother of his only 
 son, ought not to have left him in the hour of 
 disaster, to have shaken him off like an evil dream, 
 to have been seen, with a smiling face, in the throng 
 of his conquerors, to have dishonoured his name by 
 an ignoble love. The fate of her fallen rival was 
 very different ; Josephine died, " broken-hearted at 
 the ruin of her Cid," amidst the crash of the perish- 
 ing Empire. 
 
 The Peace of Vienna turned the attention of 
 Napoleon once more to the Continental System, 
 that perilous chimera of force and wrong. The at- 
 tempt to crush British commerce, had hitherto 
 met with little success ; England, in command of 
 every sea on the globe, had found markets of some 
 importance in the great colonies which had followed 
 the revolt of Spain ; British merchandise made its 
 way into the Continent, by a contraband trade,* 
 
 * Even Massena, not to speak of other French generals, was 
 guilty of this conduct. See Mdmoires de G^n^ral Marbot, tome 
 iii., 17. 
 
1812] Torres Vedras. Borodino. Moscow. 253 
 
 through the fraudulent connivance of French officials, 
 and through the efforts of merchants in every town ; 
 and hundreds of neutral vessels, with the consent of 
 England carried British and colonial produce into 
 many ports of Europe, its origin concealed in dif- 
 ferent ways. Napoleon redoubled his efforts to 
 prevent this traffic ; he employed tens of thousands 
 of soldiers to watch the coasts, from Dantzig to 
 Marseilles, and thence to Trieste ; he confiscated 
 and punished without stint or scruple ; and he even 
 entered into a quarrel with the United States — 
 already indignant with both England and France 
 for their absolute disregard of the rights of neu- 
 trals — because America resented the Continental 
 System. 
 
 These measures undoubtedly distressed England ; 
 her paper circulation fell in value ; her working- 
 classes suffered cruelly ; and though a flourishing 
 agriculture and a gigantic commerce enabled her to 
 resist the shock, many houses eminent in her trade 
 fell. But, on the other hand, France and the States 
 of the Continent were left without many of the 
 necessaries of trade, and to a great extent of the con- 
 veniences of hfe ; their manufactures were much 
 injured ; some of their centres of commerce were al- 
 most ruined, for free and general export had become 
 impossible ; and an immense rise in the price of all the 
 products of India, and of every colonial settlement, 
 provoked discontent in palace and cottage alike, 
 through the Empire and its vassal dependencies. 
 Napoleon toiled hard to lessen these dangers and 
 evils; he established a system of trading licences, 
 
254 Napoleon. [1810- 
 
 which mitigated the Continental System, by permit- 
 ting imports and exports to be made on the pay- 
 ment of a tax to the Treasury ; he allowed colonial 
 and even British merchandise to enter the Empire 
 under heavy imposts. But these expedients brought 
 no general relief; trade could not flourish under 
 these restrictions ; and the universal indignation was 
 only quickened when it had become apparent that 
 the Continental System was made a means to re- 
 plenish the Imperial exchequer. Yet these were far 
 from the worst results of an unnatural scheme, 
 which, we have seen, directly tended to universal 
 conquest. Holland owed her existence to foreign 
 commerce ; even Napoleon's brother Louis, the new 
 king, evaded the tyranny of the Continental Sys- 
 tem ; and for this, and other causes of complaint, the 
 Conqueror suddenly deprived him of his throne, and 
 declared the States a province of the all-encroaching 
 Empire. Hanover, the Hanse Towns, and the 
 Grand Duchy of Oldenburg were soon annexed, on 
 the plea of excluding British commerce from the 
 North German seaboard ; and Sweden, and even the 
 Czar, were plainly told that a rupture with France 
 would be the consequence of baffling or eluding the 
 Emperor's policy. The Empire was, in this way, 
 extended along the coast, until, with the Grand 
 Duchy of Warsaw, it drew dangerously near the 
 frontier of Russia. 
 
 This extravagance of power was, at the same time, 
 seen in another great, but very different, sphere. 
 A dispute had been for some years growing between 
 Napoleon and Pius VH. ; and it broke out into an 
 
1812] Torres Vedras. Borodino. Moscow. 255 
 
 angry quarrel, threatening Church and State through- 
 out the French Empire. The Pope had expected 
 to receive some of his lost provinces from the new 
 Charlemagne ; and when disappointed in a natural 
 hope, he had crossed Napoleon in different ways. 
 He had refused to annul the first marriage of Jer6me, 
 and to sanction a Concordat in the kingdom of 
 Italy; he had supported the fallen Bourbons of 
 Naples; and he had opposed, on more than one 
 occasion, the spiritual power of Rome, not extinct, 
 even in an infidel age, to the colossal temporal power 
 of a conqueror. Napoleon had, by this time, taken 
 the Grand Duchy of Tuscany from the Infanta of 
 Spain, discrowned like her ill-fated parents, and had 
 conferred it on his sister Elisa, " the Semiramis of 
 Lucca," as Talleyrand called her; and he soon 
 marched an army into the Papal States, declared the 
 throne of the Pontiff vacant, and annexed Rome 
 and all his dominions to the Italian kingdom. Pius 
 answered this violence by excommunication, and by 
 the subtle but more potent expedient of refusing 
 to institute to their offices the prelates nominated 
 by the Emperor ; and the aged priest was carried off 
 to Savona, and, though treated with respect, was 
 placed in captivity. 
 
 The Church was soon in disorder and trouble ; a 
 schism seemed, for a time, imminent ; but, though 
 religion cannot be said to have suffered, the organ- 
 isation of the Church was impaired by the absence 
 from their sees of a number of Bishops. The Em- 
 peror, though with little effect, attempted to remedy 
 this state of things ; he was baffled and thwarted by 
 
256 Napoleon. [I810- 
 
 moral influences not to be put down by material 
 force ; and he at last called a great Council of the 
 Church, composed of prelates convened from all 
 parts of the Empire, to make a settlement of eccle- 
 siastical affairs. In absolute trust in his overwhelm- 
 ing power, he had hoped to attract Pius VII. to 
 Paris, to induce him to consent that the Roman 
 pontiffs, should be only first Bishops of the Lord of 
 the West, and that spiritual supremacy as well as 
 temporal should be concentrated in one autocrat's 
 hands ; and he wished the Council to examine the 
 question. But the assembly visibly inclined to the 
 Pope ; and after long debates, in which the captivity 
 of the head of the Church was sharply glanced at, 
 by the tongues even of obsequious flatterers, it only 
 consented to advise the Pope to fill the vacant sees 
 in the interest of the faith. Pius VII. yielded, but 
 with reluctance ; he ultimately assented to the loss 
 of his temporal power; but the project was never 
 again advanced of placing Napoleon on the double 
 throne of the Caesars and of Gregory VII. 
 
 The war in the Iberian peninsula had, meanwhile, 
 been going on with varying fortunes. Soult had 
 been driven, we have seen, from the Douro, and 
 had narrowly escaped a second Baylen ; but Victor 
 had entered Estremadura, and had routed the Span- 
 ish levies by the Guadiana. Wellesley had soon 
 afterwards advanced in the valley of the Tagus, 
 with a British army ill supported by a force of auxili- 
 aries ; he had defeated Victor and Jourdan in a hard- 
 fought battle at Talavera, not far from Madrid ; but 
 a great Ftench army, under Soult and Mortier, de- 
 
1812] Torres Vedras. Borodino. Moscow. 257 
 
 scended on his flank, through the hills of Avila, and 
 almost involved him in a real disaster. This peril 
 warned the British commander — raised to the peer- 
 age by the revered name of Wellington — that oper- 
 ations in Spain were, as yet, premature ; and he 
 executed a preconceived design, which saved the 
 peninsula from Napoleon's arms, and contributed 
 largely to the Emperor's fall. 
 
 Deep thinking, and possessing all but perfect judg- 
 ment, Wellington had, even before leaving England, 
 perceived the difficulties that beset the French ; and 
 the power of the Spanish rising was not lost on him, 
 though he knew how small was the worth of the 
 Spanish troops. He thoroughly understood how the 
 long line of the French communications, from Ba- 
 yonne to Madrid, was always exposed to an attack 
 from Portugal ; like Marlborough he saw the im- 
 mense value to England, of the command of the 
 sea; and, above all, he had grasped the cardinal 
 fact, that Napoleon's system of conducting war 
 could hardly succeed in a poor country, and that 
 his decisive movements were all but impossible 
 amidst ranges and defiles, where masses of men 
 could not find the means of living on the spot. Im- 
 pressed with these truths, he had insisted that a 
 British army, though not large in numbers, would 
 be able, if backed by resources from home, and by 
 auxiliary Portuguese levies, to maintain its ground 
 against the French in Portugal ; that it would find 
 opportunities to assist the Spaniards, and even to 
 fall, with effect, on their foes, exposed and scattered 
 over whole provinces ; and that it would always re- 
 
258 Napoleon. [I8IO- 
 
 tain the means of retreat ; and he declared, with pro- 
 phetic insight, that Napoleon would rue his effort 
 to overrun the peninsula. The British government, 
 though suffering from the defeat of Walcheren, and 
 as yet with little belief in these views, allowed 
 Wellington to take his own course ; and that saga- 
 cious general proceeded to carry out a masterly plan 
 of defence he had formed. He had already about 
 thirty thousand British troops ; he induced the men 
 in power, for the time, in Portugal, to give him con- 
 trol over the Portuguese army ; and he assembled an 
 irregular force of levies able to make a stand behind 
 works and entrenchments. Meanwhile, with remark- 
 able secrecy and skill, he fortified a hilly neck of land 
 between the ocean and the Tagus, in front of Lis- 
 bon ; the art of the engineer gave the position pro- 
 digious strength, and in the Lines of Torres Vedras — 
 a vast system of formidable defences held by a pow- 
 erful force — he " deposited," as was eloquently said, 
 " the independence of Portugal and even of Spain." 
 By the spring of 18 10, the French armies in Spain 
 numbered fully three hundred and fifty thousand 
 men, and Napoleon had intended to cross the Pyre- 
 nees, at the head of this enormous force. His marri- 
 age, however, or more probably the innumerable toils 
 and cares of Empire prevented him from carrying 
 out his purpose ; and this was one of the capital mis- 
 takes of his life, for his presence was necessary on the 
 scene of events. He still despised the insurrection 
 of Spain ; he held Wellington cheap as a " Sepoy gen- 
 eral " ; strange as it may appear, he was wholly igno- 
 rant of the existence of the Lines of Torres Vedras, 
 
1812] Torres Vedras. Borodino. Moscow. 259 
 
 and he persisted in maintaining that the only real 
 enemy in the Peninsula was the British army, which 
 he estimated at twenty-five thousand men. He gave 
 Massdna seventy thousand men, with orders " to 
 drive the English into the sea " ; and, at the same 
 time, he sent a great army to subdue Andalusia and 
 the South, false to his art in thus dividing his forces. 
 A contest followed renowned in history, and big 
 with memorable results for Europe. Messina took 
 the fortresses on the northeast of Portugal, and by 
 the close of September had entered Beira ; he met a 
 bloody reverse at Busaco, but he succeeded in turn- 
 ing Wellington's flank, and he advanced, in high 
 heart, from Coimbra, on Lisbon. To his amaze- 
 ment, however, the impregnable lines, a gigantic 
 obstacle utterly unforeseen, rose before him, and 
 brought the invaders to a stand, and the " spoiled 
 child of victory," daring as he was, after vain efforts 
 to find a vulnerable point, recoiled from before the 
 invincible rampart, baffled and indignant, but as yet 
 hopeful. Massdna, with admirable skill, now chose 
 a formidable position near the Tagus, and held the 
 British commander in check ; he scoured the whole 
 country around for supplies, and he sent pressing 
 messages to his Imperial master, to inform him of 
 the situation, and to ask for reinforcements. But 
 Wellington, with wise, if stern, forethought, had 
 wasted the adjoining region with fire and sword ; 
 Napoleon, meditating a new war, was unable to 
 despatch a regiment from France ; Soult, ordered 
 to move from Andalusia to the aid of his colleague, 
 paused, and hung back ; and Massdna, his army lit- 
 
26o Napoleon. [1810- 
 
 erally starved out, and strengthened by a small de- 
 tachment only, was at last reluctantly forced to 
 retreat. The movement began in March, 1811; 
 it was conducted with no ordinary skill ; but Wel- 
 lington had attained his object and the French general 
 re-entered Spain with the wreck only of a once noble 
 force. Massdna, however, would not confess defeat ; 
 having restored and largely increased his army, he 
 attacked Wellington at Fuentes de Onoro, and possi- 
 bly only missed a victory, owing to the jealousies of 
 inferior men. This, nevertheless, was his last effort ; 
 he was superseded in his command by Napoleon, 
 unjust in this instance to his best lieutenant, and 
 Wellington's conduct of the war had been complete- 
 ly justified. Torres Vedras permanently arrested 
 Napoleon's march of conquest ; the French never 
 entered Portugal again. 
 
 These events occurring in a nook of Portugal, 
 scarcely attracted the attention of the world at first. 
 But they made a deep impression on thoughtful 
 minds : the British ministry, before doubting, but 
 convinced by Wellington's wisdom and success, gave 
 him a free hand, and large reinforcements ; and 
 England maintained the struggle with redoubled 
 energy. Soldiers, too, had begun to study the 
 strategy which had had such results at Torres 
 Vedras ; the weak point in the Napoleonic system 
 of war — the vulnerable heel of Achilles — had been 
 detected ; and it was seen that a retreat before 
 largely superior forces might lead to ultimate and 
 great success, if the enemy was kept back by ob- 
 stacles, and was prevented from living on the tracts 
 
1812] Torres Vedras. Borodino. Moscow. 261 
 
 he entered. Meantime, the never-ceasing insurrec- 
 tion of Spain continued to waste the Imperial forces, 
 and surrounded them, as it were, with a circle of 
 fire. It was all in vain that another great army was 
 struck down in the field at Ocana ; that Suchet 
 invaded and held Valencia ; that Soult ravaged 
 Andalusia ; that Victor besieged Cadiz. The resist- 
 ance of the nation became more intense than ever; 
 Saguntum, which had defied Hannibal, Girona, Tor- 
 tosa, and, above all, Tarragona defended their walls 
 to the last ; and not a village from Asturias to 
 Granada acknowledged Joseph, at Madrid, as its 
 lawful king. Besides, the war in the Peninsula had 
 been ill conducted ; Napoleon, in his contempt of 
 his enemy, had scattered and divided his forces ; he 
 had fallen into the dangerous error of directing 
 operations far away from Paris ; his armies could 
 hardly unite from want of supplies ; and especially 
 his lieutenants did not support each other, and were 
 separated by jealousies and conflicting interests. 
 Two soldiers, notably, of very different natures, 
 Bliicher, overcome in 1806, but thirsting for re- 
 venge, and Wellington, more than ever confident, 
 saw in Spain and Portugal a certain presage of 
 evils gathering round the Imperial conqueror. 
 
 To ordinary observers, however, the distant clouds 
 that were to burst in storm were as yet scarcely 
 visible ; and the Empire seemed at the height of 
 its power. We may glance for a moment at this 
 colossal structure of revolutionary and all-engross- 
 ing conquest. France had overpassed her " natural 
 boundaries," the Ocean, the Alps, the Pyrenees, the 
 
262 Napoleon. [I810- 
 
 Rhine ; her kingdom of Italy, stretched from the 
 Roya to the Tiber and the Adriatic shores, com- 
 prised Dalmatia, and reached the valley of the Save, 
 known as the Illyrian Provinces, lately annexed ; 
 and, to the north, her frontiers included Holland, 
 and extended to the verge of the Baltic. Yet this 
 immense territory was but the centre of a domina- 
 tion which bestrode the Continent. The Kingdom 
 of Naples, under Murat, and that of Westphaha, 
 under Jerome, were French provinces in all but 
 name ; Central Germany and its vassal princes were 
 mere dependencies of the Empire ; the supremacy 
 of France was carried beyond the Vistula, by the 
 creation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw ; and 
 Joseph Bonaparte was maintained by force at 
 Madrid, on the throne of Spain and the Indies. 
 The giant empire, too, which towered over every 
 state in the mainland of Europe, was upheld by 
 military force unequalled in extent. Napoleon had 
 nine hundred thousand men in arms ; his legions 
 had struck down the Leagues of old Europe in; a 
 succession of rapid and glorious victories ; and, if 
 England remained the mistress of the seas, he was 
 steadily gathering naval resources together, was con- 
 structing fleets and collecting seamen, to enable 
 him, as he hoped, to avenge Trafalgar. 
 
 Moreover, except at a few points, this great fabric 
 of triumphant force was magnificent in its external 
 aspect. Paris, the chief seat of the conqueror's 
 rule, had assumed the look of the Rome of the 
 Caesars, had gathered into her lap the spoils of 
 Europe, and year after year was being decked with 
 
EUROPE IN 1812-FRENCH BOUNDARIES- 
 
1812] Torres Vedras. Borodino. Moscow. 263 
 
 new ornaments of beauty and grandeur. The 
 cannon-moulded Column of Austerlitz rose ; the 
 Madeleine was begun as a Temple for the Grand 
 Army ; the foundations of the Arch of the Star had 
 been laid, and of the Arch bearing the Lion of St. 
 Mark; and the Seine had been spanned by the 
 bridge of Jena, and by similar constructions that 
 told of conquest. The same sights were seen in 
 other cities of France ; fine public buildings, too, 
 had risen in Milan, and in some of the chief towns 
 of Italy ; Antwerp had expanded into a great 
 arsenal ; and large sums had been spent in improv- 
 ing Mayence, Cologne, Wesel, Strasburg, and other 
 strong places. The great national works of the 
 Consulate, also, had by this time been almost 
 completed ; the barriers of the Alps had fallen, 
 overcome by admirable and broad highways ; the 
 rivers of France and of her new provinces had 
 been linked with each other, and with the sea, by a 
 noble and prosperous system of canals ; new roads 
 stretched through the length and breadth of the 
 Empire ; and Napoleon had toiled incessantly to 
 make Cherbourg one of the finest creations of the 
 fallen monarchy, a rival of Portsmouth across the 
 Channel. 
 
 The Empire, too, still appeared settled on a per- 
 manent and even assured basis. Napoleon was in 
 the first prime of manhood, and he often expressed 
 a belief that he " would reign thirty years," to con- 
 solidate, and extend the structure he had raised. A 
 son, besides, had just been born to him ; and the 
 title of King of Rome, conferred on the infant, 
 
264 Napoleon. [1810- 
 
 seemed a pledge of the fortunes of the Imperial 
 heir, and of the duration of the conqueror's dynasty. 
 Nor was the Empire a scheme of mere absolute 
 power, maintaining itself by force only. Napoleon 
 himself was a crowned Dictator; but, within the 
 bounds of old and of parts of new France, a shadow 
 of national sovereignty remained in the neglected 
 Constitution of the year VIII., and in the Senate, 
 and the Legislature lately given free speech ; these 
 Bodies had still, in name, a right to enact laws and 
 to impose taxes ; and in a time of peace, and under 
 a different ruler, they might by degrees have devel- 
 oped liberty. The government, too, continued to 
 secure the great interests which the Revolution had 
 formed ; millions of peasants felt no fear for their 
 lands, emancipated from harsh feudal bondage ; the 
 powerful middle class, which had risen since 1789, 
 was confirmed in its position in the State ; and, above 
 all, the destruction of exclusive privilege, and the 
 tendency to a broad social equality, which had been 
 the main results of the revolt from the past, were 
 permanently and completely assured. As for the 
 Republican parties of former days, they had dwindled 
 into a few obscure names ; the Terrorists had long 
 shrunk out of sight ; and the disappearance of the 
 Republican calendar had effaced the last visible sign 
 of the ideas of 1793. 
 
 The institutions of the Consulate and of the 
 Empire, too, seemed flourishing, and settled on a 
 firm basis ; the Concordat had not been shaken by 
 the dispute with the Pope ; the Church of France 
 obeyed Caesar, and upheld the Faith ; the Code 
 
1812] Torres Vedras. Borodino. Moscow. 265 
 
 Napoleon was administered by the reformed tri- 
 bunals, and proved an admirable rule of justice and 
 right ; education was diffused in hundreds of schools ; 
 and even the finances, though suffering from the 
 Continental System, and propped up by unwise ex- 
 pedients, at least wore a prosperous look. Material 
 grandeur, order, and obedience prevailed, as a gen- 
 eral rule, in the France of the Empire ; and a crea- 
 tion, formed of late by Napoleon, was deemed by 
 him a new means to support the fabric. He had 
 long surrounded his throne with the old noblesse, 
 recalled from exile, and even highly favoured ; the 
 Rohans, the Mortemarts, the De Noailles, the Nar- 
 bonnes, were the most brilliant ornaments of the 
 Imperial Court ; and, as we have seen, he had raised 
 Talleyrand and Bernadotte to the rank of Princes. 
 Napoleon had carried out a design of calling into 
 being a second noblesse of the new era, of making 
 it the aristocracy of Imperial France, and of blending 
 it ultimately with the nobles of the past ; and this 
 order, he hoped, would be a mainstay of his dynasty, 
 and would add to its splendour. The institution had 
 characteristics of a significant kind ; owing to the 
 hatred of Feudalism, still felt in France, the chief 
 titles contained in the new peerage were wholly 
 derived from foreign lands ; and they were usually 
 accompanied with large endowments, drawn from 
 royal domains, changed into fiefs, in Italy, in 
 Germany, and even in Poland, or from the revenues 
 of conquered provinces. The leaders of the armies 
 had been fitly made the most numerous pillars of a 
 monarchy of the sword ; Mass^na was Duke of 
 
266 Napoleon. LI810- 
 
 Rivoli and Prince of Essling, Davoust Duke of 
 Auerstadt and Prince of Eckmuhl, Berthier Prince 
 of Neuchatel and Prince of Wagram ; and the Duke- 
 doms of Dalmatia, of Elchingen, of Castiglione, of 
 Istria, of Belluno, of Friuli, and several others, were 
 bestowed on great soldiers of the Revolution, and 
 on the chief companions-in-arms of the Emperor. 
 Eminence in the service of the State, in civil affairs, 
 was however rewarded with like distinctions ; Cam- 
 bac^rfes and Lebrun had been made Princes ; the 
 Dukedoms of Vicenza, of Cadore, of Bassano, were 
 given in recognition of diplomatic merit ; Guadin 
 was made Duke of Gaeta for his financial skill, 
 Regnier Duke of Massa, as Head of the Law, and 
 Fouch^ Duke of Otranto, as Head of the Police. A 
 crowd of counts and barons filled the lower ranks of 
 a nobility which was held out to France as the 
 complement of the Legion of Honour. 
 
 Nor was the Empire in foreign lands the mere 
 tyranny of conquest, and an unmixed evil. Italy, 
 still a separate kingdom in name, had increased 
 rapidly in wealth and prosperity. Genoa and 
 Venice became great ports of construction ; and the 
 Peninsula was enriched by its commerce with 
 France. Even the vassal States of the Confedera- 
 tion of the Rhine, drew advantages from Imperial 
 rule ; in some of the inland towns manufactures im- 
 proved ; and industry made strides in many prov- 
 inces. This material good, moreover, was small 
 compared to the great social and popular benefits 
 undoubtedly conferred by French supremacy. The 
 institutions of the Revolution and of the Empire 
 
1812] Torres Vedras. Borodino. Moscow. 267 
 
 had been planted in most of the lands, subject to 
 Napoleon's control and influence ; the Code brought 
 with it a just system of law ; the iniquities of 
 privilege almost disappeared, the domination of the 
 Church was curtailed ; society was established on 
 the basis of equal rights, without impassable differ- 
 ences of class ; even the system of recruiting military 
 force, if more onerous, in fact, than it had ever been, 
 was in principle fairer and less severe. The chief, 
 however, of these advantages was the abolition of 
 Feudalism, and of all that resulted from it. The 
 extinction of the old German Empire put an end to 
 a multitude of restrictions that injured agriculture 
 and impeded commerce ; and the diffusion of the 
 laws and of the ideas of France set the soil free, 
 tended to increase wealth, and raised the peasantry 
 everywhere to a better state of existence. The 
 despotism, in a word, of Napoleon produced effects 
 beyond the Rhine and the Alps very similar to 
 those produced in France by the despotism of 
 Richelieu and of Louis XIV. It was levelling and 
 oppressive, but it swept away abuses ; it placed the 
 humbler orders of men on a higher level ; it, in 
 some measure, improved humanity. And, for this 
 reason, the name of the Conqueror is still held in 
 reverence in the very lands, once trodden down by 
 the feet of his many legions ; his sword nations have 
 felt was a tremendous scourge, but it was an instru- 
 ment, too, of civilising power. 
 
 The Empire, nevertheless, was undermined ; and 
 the huge structure was already in decay. The 
 prosperity of the Consulate was a thing of the past ; 
 
268 Napoleon. [1810- 
 
 and the material resources of France were being 
 greatly diminished. Her maritime cities were al- 
 most ruined ; grass grew in the streets of Marseilles 
 and Bordeaux ; and her industry was sapped by the 
 Continental System. Even the magnificence of the 
 capital and of the great towns was mainly upheld 
 by the spoils of war ; and the national wealth de- 
 pended largely on a conqueror's sword. The 
 military strength of France, too, the only real sup- 
 port of her power, had been for a considerable time 
 in decline ; the soldiers of Austerlitz were perishing 
 in Spain ; and the armies were being more and 
 more composed of young levies and of lukewarm 
 auxiliaries. And if Napoleon's empire was, at best, 
 a precarious creation, when first founded, how could 
 it endure beyond his life, when it spread its arms 
 almost to the Niemen ; and if it collapsed, was it not 
 probable that the institutions of the Consular era, 
 nay, the order of things ever since established, 
 would vanish in the chaos of a new Revolution? 
 The birth of a son to Napoleon, it deserves notice, 
 was received at this time in France with indiffer- 
 ence ; it did not seem to the national mind to add 
 to the strength of the Imperial throne. His des- 
 potism, too, had undergone a great change, of late 
 years, for the worse ; the Senate and Legislature had 
 become a mere herd of flatterers, to register his 
 edicts, and to carry out his mandates ; the adminis- 
 tration of justice had been much injured by special 
 tribunals, and by the weakening of judicial inde- 
 pendence, under various pretexts ; the finances were 
 upheld partly by the exactions of war, partly by 
 
1812] Torres Vedras. Borodino. Moscow. 269 
 
 new and oppressive taxes, and, to a great extent, 
 by illegitimate means ; and, above all, ministers 
 who in any way crossed the will of an imperious 
 master were summarily removed from the very 
 highest offices. Talleyrand had fallen and, also, 
 Fouch6, the one usually a prudent counsellor, 
 the other a bad intriguer, but astute and cau- 
 tious ; the foreign policy of the Empire had be- 
 come more extravagant, and the system of delation, 
 and of keeping opinion down — the certain signs 
 of despotic power — had been made more than 
 ever odious. 
 
 Yet the worst symptom, perhaps, of peril at hand 
 was the attitude to the Empire of large parts of the 
 people. Discontent and passion were widely seeth- 
 ing beneath a surface of order and repose ; Napo- 
 leon had ceased to be even popular, and was 
 denounced by whole classes as a harsh tyrant ; the 
 devouring waste of the war in Spain carried desola- 
 tion into thousands of hearths ; opposition to the 
 imposts was growing ; the Conscription was cursed 
 as a tax of blood ; and many youths wounded them- 
 selves, and fled from their houses, to avoid " going," 
 as it was said, " to the shambles." In this condition 
 of things, it is needless to say, the new noblesse 
 could not strengthen their master, and in fact they 
 were a mere throng of functionaries, with high- 
 sounding names, but without a single quality of a 
 really noble order. 
 
 Nor could the benefits of Napoleon's rule console 
 nations forthe many evils and humiUations it brought 
 in its train. Man does not live upon bread alone ; 
 
270 Napoleon. [1810- 
 
 the yoke of France was lighter than that of Austria, 
 and might even be deemed an ornament ; but Italy 
 had not forgotten her hopes of hberty ; and gilded 
 as it was, she remained in bondage. As for Ger- 
 many, the conqueror's vassal princes still licked his 
 hand, and received his largesses ; but she chafed in 
 indignation in her French chains ; and the move- 
 ment by which she had been, for some time, stirred, 
 was, though beneath the surface as yet, becoming 
 by degrees a mighty effort to attain independence 
 and national unity. Meanwhile, Prussia was secretly 
 arming, deceiving her oppressor by the arts of the 
 weak ; even Wagram had only made her more cau- 
 tious ; and she was preparing herself for a great part 
 she was to play in a not distant future. If French 
 supremacy, too, effected reforms attended with real 
 and lasting good, this was more than effaced by the 
 innumerable wrongs, iniquities, and miseries caused 
 by it. The law of the conscription was more just 
 than the old German laws of service in war ; but in a 
 single year it forced into the ranks of the armies of 
 a foreign dominant race, more youths than hitherto 
 had been forced in twenty. Social improvements 
 were, in themselves, excellent ; but what were they 
 compared to the evils of provinces robbed by French 
 ofificials, of cruel exactions reduced to a system, of 
 the insolence of alien and hated conquerors ? No- 
 thing, besides, could compensate for the hardships 
 and ill-will due to the Continental System ; the 
 Hanse Towns and the cities of Holland had become 
 centres of distress and bankruptcy, and from the 
 Rhine to the Vistula all classes were harassed and 
 
1812] Torres Vedr as. Borodino. Moscow. 271 
 
 impoverished by this scheme of injustice. And if 
 the Empire within and beyond France was being 
 thus weakened in all its parts, what was the position 
 as regards Europe, of that edifice raised by conquest 
 alone in defiance of the nature of things, and of the 
 order of the world for centuries ? It was encom- 
 passed on every side by enemies, vanquished, but 
 watching an opportunity to strike ; Austria might 
 seem friendly, Prussia submissive, Russia bound by 
 the policy of Tilsit; but they could not endure the 
 existing state of things ; deeds, such as the execu- 
 tion of the Due d'Enghien, the invasion of Spain, 
 the annexation of Holland, the creation of the Grand 
 Duchy of Warsaw, kept their leading men in con- 
 tinual fear ; and the domination of Napoleon always 
 tended to second the baffled, but powerful. Leagues 
 of the Continent. And outside these Powers, we 
 repeat, was England, triumphant and secure in her 
 island fortress, invincible, and growing in strength 
 and wealth, despite a year or two of passing distress, 
 already, since recent events in Spain, looked up to 
 as the rising hope of mankind, steady in her resist- 
 ance to her implacable foe, and eager to form and to 
 support alliances against France and her menacing 
 Empire. And Napoleon's power, we repeat also, 
 was a mere despotism of the sword, founded on suc- 
 cess, and depending on a people proud of its renown, 
 but passionate, unstable, and prone to change ; con- 
 tent to submit for years to a master, and then ready 
 suddenly to rise up against him, — above all a people, 
 deeply corrupted by a Revolution most injurious to 
 the national character. 
 
272 Napoleon. [1810- 
 
 Another ominous sign of the time was an appar- 
 ent decline in French intellect. The Empire boasted 
 great names in Science ; and it had representatives 
 in the domain of Art, of merit, if not of peculiar 
 excellence. But if we except Napoleon himself, a 
 master of thought, expressed in almost perfect lan- 
 guage, no great philosopher, and no great men of 
 letters, emerged in the generation that had grown 
 up when the Revolution began its course. The 
 causes of this were, no doubt, general ; an age of 
 national discord and trouble was unfavourable to 
 reflection, and to the cultivation of the mind ; and 
 the intellectual strength of France had been largely 
 directed to the military art, and the pursuits of the 
 camp. But Napoleon had much to do with this 
 dearth ; he was the mould of opinion in France for 
 years ; his powerful understanding and keen sense 
 revolted from the speculations, the shallow theories, 
 the flippant Hterature of the eighteenth century ; he 
 had seen what evils had flowed from them ; he 
 scoffed at the philosophy of the day as " ideology," 
 pernicious, barren, and mischievous to the State; 
 and he had no faith in its historical research, or in 
 its achievements in the sphere of letters. These 
 views, often expressed, had a great effect ; Napoleon, 
 too, had the despot's dislike of all that deals with 
 man on his moral side, or with the free growth of 
 human ideas ; and the whole system of education 
 formed by him discouraged studies of nearly every 
 kind except " mathematics," for him, " the Queen 
 of Sciences." The Empire had no Descartes, Male- 
 branche, or Bossuet ; Napoleon "longed for a Cor- 
 
1812] Torres Vedras. Borodino. Moscow. 273 
 
 neille, to make him a Prince " ; and the glory shed 
 on the throne of Louis XIV. by Hterature and 
 thought of the highest excellence, was wanting to 
 the reign of his mighty successor. 
 
 It deserves notice, too, that a young generation 
 of men of letters and of philosophic tastes had be- 
 gun to make its influence felt ; and this was bitterly 
 hostile to the Imperial autocrat, who discouraged 
 it by all means in his power. The manners and 
 fashions of the Empire, also, are perhaps worthy of 
 passing notice. There was a gorgeous show of mili- 
 tary splendour and of magnificence of every kind ; 
 the banquets and festivals at the Tuileries exhibited 
 a pomp never witnessed before ; and the high life 
 of Paris imitated the ways of a stately, lavish, and 
 luxurious Court, strict in its ceremonial and its 
 well-ordered display. But the charm and grace of 
 Versailles were wanting ; the awkwardness and rude- 
 ness of the new noblesse were ridiculed by the sur- 
 vivors of the old, too few to make their influence 
 felt ; the bearing of Napoleon was very different 
 from the perfect urbanity of the great King ; there 
 was something tawdry and vulgar in the grandeur 
 around. The tendencies of society, in all its grades, 
 were those of a revolutionary age ; there was a 
 feverish eagerness to amass riches ; morality was at 
 the lowest ebb ; there was little principle or public 
 virtue; and the general idea was to live from hand 
 to mouth, ostentatiously, and without a thought of 
 the morrow. 
 
 The quarrel with Russia, impending for years, by 
 this time had become imminent. The sworn friends 
 
2 74 Napoleon. [1810- 
 
 of Tilsit had been long estranged ; and their feel- 
 ings and interests had come into conflict. Napoleon 
 complained of what he called the bad faith of the 
 Czar, in 1809; and he was indignant that his ally 
 would not carry out the Continental System, to its 
 extreme limits. Alexander secretly resented the 
 slight cast on his sister ; was more than ever alarmed 
 at the Saxon Poland, especially since he had tried 
 in vain to induce Napoleon to sign a treaty, that 
 the Poles in no event should be made a nation ; 
 and denounced the late annexations to the Empire, 
 and notably that of the Grand Duchy of Olden- 
 burg, the patrimony of a near kinsman. The 
 party hostile to the French alliance, besides, had 
 become ascendent at St. Petersburg ; and the Rus- 
 sian aristocracy, nay the people, had cruelly suffered 
 from the war with England, and from an immense 
 diminution of Russian commerce. Napoleon had 
 resolved to invade Russia, as early as the spring of 
 181 1 ; this had been the chief reason that he had 
 been unable to reinforce Mass^na from France ; and 
 neglecting the ruinous war in Spain, he determined 
 to attack the great Power of the North, here again 
 false to his distinctive strategy. 
 
 The preparations for the enterprise surpassed all 
 that he had conceived or attempted before, and 
 once more illustrated his organising powers and his 
 extraordinary art of stratagem. He had learned 
 from the experience of 1807, how Herculean were 
 the labours before him ; yet he addressed himself 
 to the task with the most perfect confidence. 
 Aware that his troops would have to move through 
 
^^-»ry 
 
 WILNA ^ ( 
 
 o 
 
 
 rfjjl>> 
 
 /^' 
 
 R u 
 
 Cracow 
 
 NORTHERN RUSSIA IN EUROPE— 1810. 
 
1812] Torres Vedras. Borodino. Moscow. 275 
 
 barren regions where they could not find supplies, 
 he gradually formed immense magazines, in the 
 tracts between the Elbe and the Vistula; all the 
 resources needed to support armies were slowly 
 transported towards the Russian frontier, by an 
 admirable system of water-carriage ; and waggons 
 and carts were built in thousands to convey the food 
 required for a gigantic host. Meanwhile the fort- 
 resses on the lines of march were strongly occupied 
 and placed in readiness ; and Davoust was sent for- 
 ward with a powerful force to make all necessary 
 arrangements, and to observe the enemy. Orders, 
 too, were secretly despatched to Murat and Jerome, 
 and to Eugene Beauharnais, to collect their forces ; 
 the Confederates of the Rhine were told to prepare 
 their contingents ; another conscription was levied 
 in France ; thousands of men were summoned from 
 the contest in Spain, where Joseph had been named 
 commander-in-chief, and made responsible for all 
 that might occur; immense bodies of troops were 
 arrayed on the Rhine ; and the military strength 
 of Western Europe was combined for a crusade to 
 the East. 
 
 The great movement, however, was skilfully 
 masked by every expedient that could be devised ; 
 the Czar was kept in uncertainty by diplomatic 
 feints ; and the gathering arrays did not begin their 
 march until the spring of 1812, Napoleon's purpose 
 being to deceive his adversary, as to his intentions, 
 until the last moment, and when the plains of 
 Poland could yield herbage sufficient for his myriads 
 of horses, to advance rapidly across the Niemen. 
 
276 Napoleon. [I8I0- 
 
 Austria and Prussia, when all was nearly ready, 
 were invited, or forced, to send contingents to the 
 colossal hosts of the Lord of the West, who at this 
 conjuncture had at his disposition eleven hundred 
 thousand men in arms, a number that might be well 
 deemed fabulous. 
 
 As in 1807, the preparations of the Czar fell far 
 short of those of Napoleon. He clung to the hope 
 of peace, until it was almost too late ; he was per- 
 haps misled by his enemy's wiles ; and, as he had in- 
 vaded Turkey some months before,in order to conquer 
 the Danubian Provinces, he had a large force engaged 
 in the South of the Empire. By the spring of 1812 
 he had only assembled about two hundred and fifty 
 thousand men, in Lithuanian Poland, behind the Nie- 
 men ; he seems to have formed no settled projects ; 
 and, as had been the case with Prussia before Jena, this 
 force was dangerously thrown forward, and exposed 
 to attack. Napoleon left Paris in May, 1812, accom- 
 panied by the young Empress, to control and direct 
 the mighty enterprise ; and all that he saw and heard 
 might have led him to pause. He passed through 
 the capital almost in silence ; France was murmuring 
 as he beheld her provinces ; even his docile marshals 
 dreaded the contest ; his troops up to the Rhine 
 were, for the most part, boys ; beyond the Rhine, 
 they were half despised auxiliaries. 
 
 Yet he saw a different sight when he reached 
 Dresden ; once more, and for the last time, the van- 
 quished Continent bowed to its Lord ; the Head of 
 the Hapsburgs led the train ; the humbled King of 
 Prussia was present ; and princes and nobles from 
 
1812] Torres Vedras. Borodino. Moscow. 277 
 
 many lands flocked to do homage to their mighty 
 Paramount. After a few days passed in brilHant 
 festivities, at which queens waited on Marie Louise, 
 and crowned heads attended the Conqueror's bid- 
 ding, Napoleon set off to join his armies; and lordly 
 flatterers cried out with one voice that Alexander was 
 a fool to resist, and that the war would be an excur- 
 sion of summer. The Emperor was near the Niemen 
 by the third week of June ; and by this time the 
 huge first line of the Grand Army, given the name 
 again, arrayed in the magnificence of war, equipped 
 for long marches and a difificult campaign, and fol- 
 lowed by impedimenta on a prodigious scale, had 
 drawn, unmolested, towards the Russian frontier. 
 It numbered about four hundred and twenty thou- 
 sand men, including seventy thousand horsemen and 
 one thousand guns ; the masses were divided into 
 nine corps d'arm^e, with two corps in reserve behind ; 
 and reckoning the Prussian and Austrian forces, it 
 spread from near the sea to the verge of Galicia. 
 The sight might have turned Napoleon's head ; and 
 yet it presented ominous signs. In that enormous 
 assemblage of many races, the good French troops 
 were comparatively few ; and nearly two-thirds of 
 the host probably were composed of weak con- 
 scripts, of unwilling allies, and, as in the case of the 
 Prussians, of concealed enemies. Companions in 
 arms of Napoleon's, too, were absent, whose absence 
 suggested grave thoughts ; Mass^na, the chief of the 
 marshals, was in disgrace ; and Bernadotte, made 
 heir to the crown of Sweden, was meditating defec- 
 tion and treason. 
 
2 78 Napoleon. [1810- 
 
 On the 24th of June, 1812, Napoleon crossed the 
 Niemen, at the point where Kowno projects, Hke an 
 angle, into the Lithuanian plains. Far to the left 
 were the Prussians, under Macdonald, far to the 
 right, the Austrians, led by Schwartzenberg ; and 
 the intermediate masses, along the immense line, had 
 Oudinot, Ney, Davoust, Murat, Eugene, Poniatowski, 
 and Jer6me, as their chiefs. The object of the 
 Emperor was to advance from Kowno, as if from a 
 salient, into old Poland, and to cut off the two 
 Russian armies of Barclay de Tolly and Bagration, 
 which separated from each other, at wide distances, 
 were falling back towards the Dwina and Dnieper. 
 This was in accord with his accustomed strategy ; 
 but the Grand Army did not carry out his concep- 
 tion. The troops, delayed by impedimenta, and 
 thousands of carriages, were unable to move quickly 
 through vast tracts without roads ; they were already 
 suffering from disease and privations ; and the scenes 
 of Pultusk reappeared in midsummer. Napoleon 
 reached Wilna in a few days ; and the phantom of 
 Poland rose again before him, in the ancient chief 
 town of Lithuania. A National Diet had been 
 assembled ; but he repeated the temporising con- 
 duct of 1807 ; he asked for levies, spoke fair words, 
 and set up a kind of municipal government, in order 
 chiefly to provide for his armies ; but he would not 
 speak the magic word " liberty " ; and, indeed, he 
 announced that this was not his policy.* 
 
 * The real sentiments of Napoleon, as regards Poland, appear in 
 this significant phrase : " Je suis tres loin de vouloir etre le Don 
 Quichotte de la Pologne." — Correspondance, tome xxii., 17. 
 
1812] Torres Vedras. Borodino. Moscow. 279 
 
 He halted at Wilna for a considerable time, hav- 
 ing blighted the hopes of the ardent Poles, who 
 thenceforward looked coldly on the French; and, 
 meanwhile, Davoust and Jerome on the right had 
 completely failed to strike down Bagration, and the 
 first great operation of the war had been frustrated. 
 This discomfiture was in part due to disputes 
 between the young King of Westphalia, raised to 
 high command by dynastic favour, and the veteran 
 and experienced marshal ; but largely too, to the 
 state of their troops ; and the Russian general made 
 good his retreat by Nesvij and Mohilew, to the 
 Dnieper. The Emperor broke up from Wilna in 
 the middle of July, in the hope of reaching and 
 overwhelming Barclay, who, directed by a pedantic 
 theorist, had been ordered to defend a great en- 
 trenched camp, near Drissa, upon the middle 
 Dwina; and had Barclay adopted this course, in a 
 false imitation of Torres Vedras, he probably would 
 have been surrounded and enclosed, and Europe 
 have witnessed another Friedland. But the Rus- 
 sian chief, a very able man, escaped from the 
 ensnaring shackles ; and he marched behind the 
 Dwina to Witepsk, seeking to join hands with his 
 still distant colleague. Napoleon pursued, but the 
 pursuit was fruitless ; the Grand Army could not 
 second his efforts ; he was compelled to make another 
 long halt at Witepsk ; and he was there informed of 
 the appalling fact, that of the four hundred and 
 twenty thousand men of the invading host, one 
 hundred and fifty thousand were missing, killed by 
 sickness and want, deserters or stragglers, though 
 
28o Napoleon. [i8io- 
 
 a few skirmishes only had, as yet, been fought. The 
 conqueror, however, still advanced ; he was at 
 Smolensk, the " sacred gate of Muscovy," with part 
 of his army on the 17th of August ; a bloody and 
 indecisive battle followed ; and the French found 
 the town a heap of charred ruins. Meanwhile Bar- 
 clay and Bagration had effected their junction, had 
 passed between the heads of the Dwina and Dnieper, 
 and had penetrated into the immense interior. 
 
 Napoleon was now on the verge of old Russia; 
 his operations had been admirably designed ; but 
 the condition of his army, nay Nature herself, had 
 prevented their being accomplished with success. 
 His lieutenants urged him to remain at Smolensk, 
 to place his army in winter quarters, and, extending 
 his wings on either side, to occupy the adjoining 
 provinces ; and obviously these were the counsels of 
 prudence. But there were military reasons against 
 this course ; the great tempter of fortune was con- 
 vinced that peace awaited him at Moscow, compar- 
 atively near ; and a battle at Valoutina, in which 
 the French only missed by accident a real victory, 
 confirmed him in his purpose to advance. Yet, as 
 usual, he took the most careful precautions to pro- 
 tect his communications, his flanks and his rear ; for, 
 we repeat. Napoleon was, as a rule, as methodical 
 in war as he was grand in conception. 
 
 His position, at this juncture, appeared secure. 
 Macdonald held Courland to the left, and Oudinot 
 kept the Russian Wittgenstein in check; and 
 Schwartzenberg had defeated Tormazoff, who had 
 marched from the Pruth, with part of the army of 
 
18121 Torres Vedras. Borodino. Moscow. 281 
 
 the South. Yet the conqueror would make assurance 
 doubly sure ; he directed Victor to approach Smo- 
 lensk ; he ordered Augereau to march towards the 
 Niemen — these were the two corps of the immediate 
 reserves — ; he moved levies forward from the Elbe 
 to the Oder; and he gave reiterated commands that 
 immense magazines should be formed at Smolensk, 
 Wilna, and along the lines of march. He left Smo- 
 lensk, in the last week of August, at the head 
 of about one hundred and sixty thousand men, 
 the best part of the Grand Army ; the troops 
 had been largely provided with supplies ; and for 
 some days the invading host moved without delays 
 along the broad watershed of the streams flowing 
 to the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Caspian. 
 
 The Russians, however, after the example of 
 Wellington, wasted and harried the regions they 
 passed through ; and desertion and straggling so 
 weakened the French, that the Emperor thought, 
 for a moment, of retracing his steps. Intelligence 
 reached him, nevertheless, which induced him to 
 proceed on his march. The Russian army had 
 chafed furiously at what seemed an interminable 
 and timid retreat ; the Czar had been obliged to 
 replace Barclay, the author of this judicious strategy, 
 by Rutusoff, the veteran of 1805 ; and the old 
 chief, in order to please his troops, had promised 
 them to stand, and to offer battle. The encounter 
 took place on the 7th of September, in the tract 
 round the village of Borodino ; and it was the most 
 sanguinary of an age of incessant war. The armies 
 were each about one hundred and forty thousand 
 
282 Napoleon. t18l0- 
 
 strong; but Kutusoff had weakened and exposed 
 his left wing, and had crowded his right with useless 
 masses ; and the French gained a marked ascend- 
 ency from the first, though the position of the Rus- 
 sians had been strengthened by a formidable array of 
 field-works and entrenchments. Napoleon, however, 
 was not well ; he refused to engage the Guard in at- 
 tacks, which probably would have been decisive ; the 
 Russians, if undoubtedly worsted, drew off from 
 the field in good order; and the battle ended in 
 a long artillery contest, in which Kutusoff's masses 
 suffered terribly. The losses of the French were 
 about thirty thousand men ; those of the defeated 
 army nearly fifty thousand ; but Kutusoff's forces 
 were not destroyed, and Borodino was only a 
 greater Eylau. 
 
 The Emperor did not give proof on this great 
 occasion of his wonted activity and skill on the 
 field ; this may have been the effect of illness ; but 
 he had declared that he would not imperil his best 
 reserve when hundreds of miles away from the 
 Niemen ; and if this admission accounts for his con- 
 duct it also condemns his whole enterprise. The 
 Russians however, were for the time paralysed ; and 
 on the 14th of September, 181 2, the Grand Army 
 had entered Moscow, the furthest limit of the march 
 of the Tricolor, the extreme range of the flight of 
 the eagles. Napoleon confidently thought that peace 
 was certain ; but in a few hours the City, self-de- 
 stroyed, was engulphed in an appalling tempest of 
 fire ; and this might have warned the conqueror that 
 there was no prospect of a repetition of Friedland 
 
1812] Torres Vedras. Borodino. Moscow. 283 
 
 and Tilsit. Yet he nursed this illusion for a consider- 
 able time ; he addressed flattering letters to the Czar ; 
 he sleeked the pride of his troops in splendid reviews ; 
 and unquestionably he was deceived by Kutusoff, 
 who had fallen back from Moscow and held positions 
 on the flank of the Grand Army, at no great 
 distance, into a belief that Alexander was eager 
 to treat. 
 
 Weeks passed in this way, until at last the pro- 
 longed silence of the Russian sovereign, the rapid 
 decline of the French in strength, caused by ex- 
 haustion, disease, and death, and the large reinforce- 
 ments, which flowed in to Kutusoff, removed the 
 scales from Napoleon's eyes ; and, after endeavouring 
 in vain to persuade his marshals to attempt a great 
 movement towards St. Petersburg, he reluctantly 
 gave orders to retreat. The movement began on the 
 19th of October ; and the Grand Army presented 
 an ominous spectacle. It was still fully one hundred 
 thousand strong ; but it was burdened with the spoils 
 of a great city ; and it was so weak in horsemen, 
 and so encumbered with guns and impedimenta of 
 every kind, that it moved with extreme slowness, 
 and could hardly manoeuvre. Napoleon endeavoured 
 to make for Kalouga, a fertile province not yet 
 ravaged ; but he recoiled, baffled, at Malo Jaroslavetz ; 
 he gave up a project that appeared hopeful ; and he 
 resolved to retreat by the direct way to Smolensk, 
 on the lines on which he had advanced to Moscow. 
 The Grand Army was now forced back, into regions 
 turned into a barren wilderness ; the necessary 
 supplies, ere long, failed ; famine fell on the rapidly 
 
284 Napoleon. [I8I0- 
 
 perishing host ; and its destruction was quickened 
 by the sudden advent of winter. Horses died in 
 heaps, and men sank down in thousands ; Kutusoff 
 hung on the flank and rear of columns becoming 
 helpless and hopeless multitudes ; the Cossack light 
 horsemen preyed on the wrecks of an army scarcely 
 able to resist ; and whole bodies of the invaders 
 threw down their arms. Smolensk was reached in 
 the second week of November ; but scarcely more 
 than forty thousand fugitives, confused masses, with- 
 out military worth, were the only remains of the army 
 of Moscow. All discipline and order, too, had been 
 lost ; and the great magazines which had been 
 formed at the place, were sacked and pillaged by 
 the half frantic soldiery. 
 
 Napoleon had hoped to find a haven at Smolensk 
 where he could restore and increase his ruined army. 
 But he had been lately informed of events which 
 forced him to continue the retreat at once. The 
 Czar had made peace with England and the Porte; 
 Tchitchakoff, a Russian admiral, had advanced from 
 the South, at the head of about fifty thousand men, 
 had eluded Schwartzenberg, and had entered Vol- 
 hynia ; Wittgenstein had borne Oudinot back, with a 
 superior force ; and Victor, who had made his way 
 to Smolensk, had been compelled hastily to leave 
 the place, and to fly to the aid of his brother marshal. 
 To the left and right, therefore, a great tempest of 
 war was gathering on the flanks and rear of Napo- 
 leon ; and he had no choice but to leave Smolensk. 
 The retreating army had been reinforced ; but it 
 had been separated into many parts ; the scenes of 
 
1812] Torres Vedras. Borodino. Moscow. 285 
 
 the previous march were repeated ; and it was soon 
 once more a mere fugitive horde, breaking up and 
 strewing its path with the dead and the dying. 
 KutusofI followed with his swarms of Cossacks ; but 
 the pursuit was feeble and ill directed ; and the 
 heroism of Ney, who covered the retreat, was the 
 one gleam of light on a succession of horrors. 
 
 Towards the close of November, the invading 
 army, reduced to a few thousand men, learned with 
 terror that Tchitchakoff and Wittgenstein had drawn 
 towards each other, on the Beresina ; that Oudinot 
 and Victor had fallen back ; and that the retreat was 
 barred by converging enemies, uniting on a scarcely 
 passable river. Napoleon had not been himself since 
 he had left Moscow, perhaps owing to illness, but, 
 more probably, because, in the extreme of adversity, 
 this great warrior did not possess the invincible reso- 
 lution of Turenne or Frederick ; but his genius sud- 
 denly shone out again, and he extricated his army 
 from desperate straits, with a skill worthy of the chief 
 of Areola. Deceiving his enemy with admirable art, 
 he threw two bridges over the Beresina, at a ford ; 
 Oudinot and Victor repelled the attacks of the 
 baffled and divided Russian commanders, and the 
 passage was effected, though thousands of men were 
 lost and a whole host of stragglers was cut off. The 
 united French forces were still perhaps from forty 
 to fifty thousand strong ; but they soon yielded 
 to famine and cold, and before many marches were 
 over, they were not twenty thousand.* Napoleon 
 
 * The state of the French army is thus described by Napoleon at 
 this juncture. ' ' Le froid et les privations ont debande cette annee. 
 
286 Napoleon. tl8l0- 
 
 left the remains of his troops at Smorgoni, on the 
 plea that his presence in France was necessary ; con- 
 siderable reinforcements came up from Wilna; but 
 these were involved in the common ruin ; and the 
 young auxiliaries, of which they were chiefly formed, 
 almost disappeared in a few days. Murat, who had 
 been left in chief command, lost heart and fled in 
 despair from Wilna ; the magazines of that place 
 were plundered, a second instance of self-destroying 
 frenzy, and the wreck of the Grand Army, deserted 
 by its chief, reached the Niemen in little knots and 
 bands of gaunt spectres, which had lost the look of 
 soldiers. Such an awful destruction had not been 
 seen in war since the host of the Assyrian had been 
 made "dead corpses," smitten by the hand of the 
 avenging angel. Half a million of men, including 
 reserves, had crossed the frontier of Russia a few 
 months before, and probably not eighty thousand 
 of these ever fought under the eagles again. 
 
 The causes of this tremendous ruin — the prelude 
 to the fall of the French Empire — deserve the notice 
 of impartial history.* Napoleon made several mili- 
 tary mistakes ; he ought not, perhaps, to have ad- 
 vanced from Smolensk ; he was certainly inactive at 
 Borodino ; he stayed far too long a time at Moscow ; 
 he was remiss during the greater part of the retreat ; 
 and he ought not to have left his troops at Smorgoni. 
 
 Nous serous sur Vilna ; pourrons nous y tenir ? . . . Des vivres, 
 des vivres, des vivres ! Sans cela il n'y a pas d'horreurs aux quelles 
 cette masse indisciplinee ne se porte contra cette villa." — Correspon- 
 dance, tome xxiv., 322. 
 
 * An exceedingly able criticism of the campaign of i8i2, will be 
 found in the third volume of Wellington's Supplementary Despatches, 
 
1812] Torres Vedras. Borodino. Moscow. 287 
 
 But these were not the paramount causes ; and we 
 may disregard the plea that it was " all the cold," 
 for the Russians suffered even more than the French 
 from this ; and certainly Napoleon is not justified in 
 his assertion that " but for the burning of Moscow 
 he would have emerged like a ship from the ice in 
 the spring," for the army could not have held the 
 city for months. The disaster may be ascribed to 
 two main facts : the Grand Army was a bad army, 
 composed of untrustworthy and weak elements; it 
 failed even at the outset of the campaign ; and it 
 could not accomplish Napoleon's designs. Had the 
 Emperor commanded the troops of Austerlitz, he 
 might have crushed Barclay and Bagration in July, 
 and the troops of Austerlitz would not have perished 
 and deserted in thousands in a few weeks. Again, 
 Napoleon's system of war was almost impracticable 
 in the wilds of Russia; as in 1807, his brilliant ma- 
 noeuvres — and they were admirable in conception at 
 least — could not be carried out, with the celerity 
 required, because his soldiers could not live on the 
 spot, and had no good and durable highways ; and 
 the great moveable magazines he took care to pre- 
 pare, which made his impedimenta enormous, at- 
 tested even beforehand, this truth. The whole 
 enterprise, it should be added, was probably beyond 
 the power of man, in the known conditions of war 
 at the time ; the extravagance of Napoleon, in the 
 domain of politics, appeared in the domain of his 
 peculiar art, as was seen in the latter part of his 
 career; and the General of 1796 never gave proof of 
 the arrogance and imaginative excess of 18 12. 
 
Napoleon. [1810-12 
 
 As for the Russian commanders, Kutusoff was 
 a national hero for many years, but his operations 
 were weak and imperfect; the same may be said, of 
 most of his colleagues ; if Wellington's strategy was 
 a model for them, the imitation was not skilful, even 
 if in their country it had great results ; and Barclay 
 alone deserves high praise. The tenacity and patri- 
 otism of Russia was most admirable ; here again 
 Napoleon, as in Spain, was beset by forces he un- 
 wisely scorned ; and these contributed, too, to his 
 overthrow. Two circumstances, perhaps, require 
 special attention : the conqueror might have dis- 
 armed the Czar, on the frontier, had he set the Poles 
 free ; and probably he would have saved his army, 
 had he followed the advice of more than one of his 
 marshals, and proclaimed the liberation of the serfs 
 of Russia at Moscow. In this, however, as in every 
 instance, he remained true to his despotic instincts ; 
 and rather than let popular passions loose, he ac- 
 cepted the extreme perils of war. Undoubtedly the 
 disaster of 1812 led, in a short time, to the fall of 
 Napoleon, but had the catastrophe never occurred, 
 his fall in the future must have been certain. The 
 Empire was undermined before the war in Russia ; 
 that edifice of force could not have endured. Prome- 
 theus in vain defies the word of Zeus ; Genius con- 
 tends in vain against Supreme Fact ; the ministers 
 of vengeance reach their victim. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Return of Napoleon from Russia — The conspiracy of Malet — Im- 
 mense exertions of Napoleon to restore his armies — Defection of 
 York — Rising of Germany against France — Efforts made by 
 France to retain her n-ilitary supremacy — Battles of Lutzen and 
 Bautzen — Policy of Austria — Metternich — The Armistice of 
 Pleisnitz — The Peninsular War — Battle of Vitoria — Its import- 
 ance — Negotiations between the Allies and Napoleon — His mili- 
 tary preparations and those of the Allies — Renewal of hostilities — 
 Strategy of the Allies — Battle of Dresden — Battle of Culm — 
 Battles of the Katzbach, Gross Beeren, and Dennewitz — Napoleon 
 draws in his forces, and places them on the Elbe — He advances 
 against BlUcher and Bernadotte — Defection of Bavaria — Napo- 
 leon compelled to march on Leipzig — Battle of Leipzig — 
 Disastrous retreat of the French — Battle of Hanau — Reflections. 
 
 AVING travelled in disguise 
 through Poland and Germany 
 — the conqueror feared assas- 
 sins in his path — Napoleon 
 was in Paris in the third week 
 of December. Events had 
 occurred which proved the 
 unstable nature of his Revolu- 
 tionary throne, despite its 
 grandeur, since he had ceased 
 to be the national idol. An obscure Republican ofifi- 
 cer, of the name of Malet, had forged orders in the 
 19 289 
 
ago Napoleon. [1813 
 
 style of the Senate, had escaped from a madhouse, 
 where he was confined, had seized Savary, the head 
 of the police, and had announced that the Emperor 
 had died in Russia ; and though the conspiracy was 
 nipped in the bud, the prospect of a Repubhc, it was 
 observed, seemed to find more favour in the sight of 
 the capital, than the succession of the infant King of 
 Rome. Napoleon made this untoward incident an 
 occasion to denounce the " ideology " of the day, as 
 a main source of danger to the State, in an address 
 to his obsequious Council ; and he pretended that 
 the immense disaster of Russia was less really im- 
 portant than the lately suppressed plot. 
 
 He was soon engaged in a nobler work than dis- 
 simulation and paltering with facts ; and his com- 
 manding genius was again seen in his efforts to 
 restore his military power, shaken to its foundations 
 since the retreat from Moscow. He had promised 
 his marshals at Smorgoni that he would soon rejoin 
 them, with three hundred thousand men; and as his 
 Austrian and Prussian allies, to the right and the left, 
 had not suffered much, as large reinforcements had 
 reached Wilna, and as numerous reserves had been as- 
 sembled between the Rhine, the Elbe, and the Oder, 
 he had calculated at the time that the Grand Army 
 would be still at least two hundred thousand strong, 
 and that he would be in the field, in spring, with half 
 a million of men, without tasking to the utmost the 
 resources of France. These previsions, however, had 
 been frustrated by a series of events of the worst 
 omen. Schwartzenberg and his Austrians had fallen 
 back, offering no resistance to the advancing enemy. 
 
1813] Europe in Arms against Napoleon. 291 
 
 and making for Galicia, through the wastes of 
 Poland ; the levies of Wilna had melted away ; and 
 even the reserves had suffered much from privations 
 and the hardships of winter. The worst, however, 
 had come from down-trodden Prussia ; York, one of 
 the chiefs of the Prussian forces, had revolted, and, 
 defying Macdonald, had carried with him the whole 
 contingent, exulting at the fall of its conquerors ; 
 and this sudden defection had proved the avalanche 
 changing, in a moment, the face of the landscape. 
 
 The national movement against French tyranny, 
 which for some years had been stirring Germany, 
 came at once to a head, and swept all before it ; 
 Prussia led the whole race, and called it to arms ; 
 the King, fearing Napoleon, fled to Breslau ; and 
 even the vassals of the Confederation of the Rhine 
 were unable or unwilling to oppose the mighty im- 
 pulse spreading from the Oder to the Rhine. In 
 these circumstances, Eugene Beauharnais, who had 
 taken the command of the ruined army since Murat 
 had left it in weak despair, found himself without 
 his expected supports ; Macdonald escaped with 
 difificulty, through a host of enemies; the French 
 troops which had recrossed the Niemen did not ex- 
 ceed ten or twelve thousand men ; the reserves had 
 dwindled down to seventy or eighty thousand ; and 
 the Prince found it impossible, as the Emperor had 
 hoped, to maintain himself on the line of the Vistula. 
 Having strengthened the garrisons of Thorn and 
 Dantzig — there were large French garrisons, it will 
 be borne in mind, in the fortresses of the Oder and 
 Vistula — Eugene was compelled to retreat to the 
 
292 Napoleon. [I813 
 
 Elbe, surrounded by a huge popular rising, and 
 pursued by a victorious enemy. He brought with 
 him at most forty-five thousand men, all that re- 
 mained, in the field, of the Grand Army, once six 
 hundred thousand strong, including reserves ; and 
 this was very different from the two hundred thou- 
 sand, the number on which Napoleon had confidently 
 relied. 
 
 These disasters, however, did not shake the 
 Emperor ; they only nerved him to redoubled efforts. 
 He had called out the Conscription of 18 13, and had 
 summoned the militia of the National Guards, to 
 join the tricolor for a campaign in Germany, and 
 these levies would have given him the three hundred 
 thousand men, alone considered, at first, necessary. 
 He now called out the Conscription of 1814, once 
 more anticipating the regular supply, made another 
 appeal to the National Guards, drew thousands of 
 troops from the armies in Spain, collected fine regi- 
 ments from the marines of the fleets, and arrayed 
 numbers of youths of the wealthier orders in France, 
 into bodies of choice horsemen, called guards of 
 honour ; and, by these exertions, he was not only 
 able to place two hundred thousand men, in three 
 months, into line, but ultimately succeeded in raising 
 his forces to the prodigious total of five hundred 
 thousand, assembled between the Rhine and the 
 Vistula. Unaided despotism, powerful as it still was, 
 could never have accomplished results like these ; 
 and France passionately seconded her ruler's enter- 
 prise. Discontented, in truth, as the nation was, and 
 suffering from wars that never ceased, it was bent on 
 
18131 Europe in Arms against Napoleon. 293 
 
 being still the Queen of the Continent ; and on keep- 
 ing its supremacy in arms intact ; and it sent its sons 
 in tens of thousands to the field, and lavished its 
 resources to renew the struggle, with the patriotic 
 and universal energy it has shown in many a passage 
 of its checkered history. The great cities and towns 
 voted gifts of money, and undertook to furnish 
 bodies of horsemen ; the murmurs against the Con- 
 scription ceased, and the National Guards, though 
 not bound to serve abroad, flocked, in multitudes, 
 to the Imperial standards. A great national rising, 
 in a word, was seen ; and Napoleon turned to the best 
 advantage the immense military means placed freely 
 in his hands, and made admirable use of the aptitude 
 for war, of a race, often the wonder and terror of 
 Europe. 
 
 He restored his lost artillery from his great 
 arsenals ; to a certain extent replaced the cavalry, 
 which had perished in the frozen steppes of Russia ; 
 and had soon arrayed enormous masses of infantry, 
 the young troops being blended with old soldiers, 
 and trained by experienced and skilful officers drawn 
 from Spain and from every part of the Empire. By 
 April, 1813, two hundred thousand men, we have 
 said, had answered Napoleon's summons ; and these 
 enormous masses, formed into seven corps d'armde, 
 were ready to advance to the Rhine and the Elbe. 
 The new Grand Army which had risen, as it were, 
 out of the earth, was very different, as an instrument 
 of war, from the army of Austerlitz, Jena, and Fried- 
 land ; but it was a marvellous creation of genius and 
 power, and it presented a martial and grand appear- 
 
294 Napoleon. [1813 
 
 ance. The Emperor had defrayed the immense 
 expenditure, required for tliis gigantic effort, by a 
 treasury paper charged on the lands of the Communes, 
 a resource sufficient for immediate needs, but too 
 like the assignats of 1792-4. 
 
 Napoleon had reached Mayence by the third week 
 of April, endeavouring to rally the Confederation of 
 the Rhine ; and he was soon on his way, through the 
 scenes of Jena, at the head of more than one hundred 
 thousand men. Screening the movement skilfully 
 behind the Saale, he effected his junction with 
 Eugene, who had approached him from the western 
 bank of the Elbe ; and the war-worn veterans of the 
 retreat, and the young soldiers of France, met each 
 other with mingled awe and emotion. By this time 
 Prussia had declared war, and a combined Russian 
 and Prussian army, from 100,000 to 110,000 strong — 
 large detachments had been left to besiege or to 
 mask the fortresses on the Oder and Vistula — had 
 hastened, unresisted, beyond the Elbe, encouraging 
 the great German rising ; false strategy from the 
 mere military point of view, for it exposed the Allies 
 to a formidable attack, but giving increased strength 
 to the general national movement. The Emperor 
 resolved to fall on his enemies, thrown forward, as 
 they had so often been, to cut them off from 
 the Elbe, and to force them against the Bohemian 
 hills ; and he marched on Leipzig, through the broad 
 plains of Liitzen, where Gustavus had fallen in the 
 arms of victory. A chance shot had deprived him 
 of Bessiferes, one of his best lieutenants of the old 
 days of Italy ; but he set at naught an inauspicious 
 
1813! Europe in Arms against Napoleon. 295 
 
 omen, and, as he had fully one hundred and forty 
 thousand men in his hands, he looked forward con- 
 fidently to a decisive triumph. 
 
 The Allies, however, overborne by the energy of 
 Bliicher, fast becoming the head and master-spirit of 
 the Prussian army, attacked the French on the 2d 
 of May, relying on the power of their numerous cav- 
 alry, on ground favourable in the extreme to that 
 arm ; and they hazarded the attack, though very infe- 
 rior in numbers, and though one of their principal 
 masses was leagues distant. They probably would 
 have gained important success, had not Napoleon, 
 with prescient skill, taken precautions for the speedy 
 concentration of his troops, and distributed them in 
 part, on a few defensive points ; and, as it was, the 
 furious onset of Bliicher, and especially the fine 
 charges of the Prussian cavalry, though admirably 
 repelled for hours by Ney, placed the Emperor's 
 centre in the gravest peril. By degrees, however, 
 the French masses converged on the enemy, on 
 either wing ; the Imperial Guard, still largely com- 
 posed of veterans, drew off the pressure from the dis- 
 banding levies, and the Allies slowly retired from the 
 field. Napoleon continued his onward march, but 
 painful thoughts must have crossed his mind. His 
 army was far more numerous than that of the Allies, 
 but he had narrowly escaped a real disaster, and in 
 fact, had lost more men than his enemy ; he was so 
 weak in cavalry that he had no means of following 
 up his partial success ; and Russians and Prussians 
 had shown a savage constancy, exceeding all that he 
 had seen before. Nor was he able to carry out his 
 
296 Napoleon. 11813 
 
 design to intercept and destroy his foes. Defective 
 as had been the generalship of his chiefs, the defeated 
 army made good its way over the Elbe, and the 
 Emperor was unable to molest its retreat. 
 
 Lutzen restored the glory of Napoleon's arms, 
 though a barren, and even a doubtful victory ; and the 
 Conqueror entered Dresden in triumph. He had 
 soon recalled his vassal, the King of Saxony, who 
 had fled from his approach, to his capital on the 
 Elbe ; he devoted some days to bringing up rein- 
 forcements from the Saale and the Rhine, and he 
 summoned the German contingents to his aid. The 
 Allies, meanwhile, had effected their retreat towards 
 the verge of Bohemia, hoping to gain the adhe- 
 sion of Austria to their cause, and their united armies 
 had taken defensive positions, which had been forti- 
 fied with assiduous care, between Bautzen and Hoch- 
 kirk along the Spree, — a. scene memorable for the 
 defeat of Frederick the Great by the Austrian Daun, 
 in the Seven Years' War. The Emperor had reached 
 his enemy on the 20th of May, and attacked with a 
 large superiority of force, perhaps one hundred and 
 fifty to one hundred thousand men ; neglecting 
 the allied left, on the heights of the Tronberg, he 
 fell on the centre and right in the marshes of the 
 Spree, and Bautzen was captured after protracted 
 efforts. 
 
 The Russians and Prussians fell back on a second 
 position more formidable, perhaps, than the first, and 
 Napoleon prepared, next day, for a decisive battle. 
 He had directed Ney, with about fifty thousand 
 men, to make a long circuitous march to the left. 
 
1813] Europe in Arms against Napoleon. 297 
 
 and to close on the flank and rear of his foes ; and, 
 while this grand manoeuvre was being carried out, 
 he assailed the Allies furiously in front. The resist- 
 ance, however, was stern and heroic ; Ney, either 
 because his march was slow, or, more probably, 
 because he had lost the confidence given by unbroken 
 success, failed to intercept the retreat of the enemy; 
 and Prussians and Russians drew ofif by Wiirchen 
 and Hochkirk, defeated indeed, but not cowed or 
 routed. The great movement of Ney, which had 
 promised results almost equal to those of Ulm and 
 Jena, had not fulfilled the Emperor's hopes ; the 
 quarry had escaped the toils he had laid ; Bautzen, 
 like Liitzen, had been a fruitless triumph ; and the 
 losses, on both sides, had been nearly equal — fifteen 
 thousand to eighteen thousand men. " What a mas- 
 sacre for nothing," was the angry cry of the baffled 
 and disconcerted Conqueror. 
 
 Napoleon was soon on the verge of the Oder, 
 almost within reach of his strongholds on the stream, 
 the Allies steadily falling back before him. Another 
 of his old friends of the camp, Duroc, Duke of 
 Friuli, had fallen by his side ; one after the other 
 the stars were setting in the constellation of his first 
 years of glory. It might have been supposed that 
 he would spare no effort to complete the success he 
 had certainly gained ; but he had ere long formed a 
 momentous purpose, which proved a turning-point 
 in his wonderful career. The position of Austria 
 had become one of growing importance, on the theatre 
 of events, since Russia and Prussia had declared war ; 
 it resembled that of Prussia in 1805, and, in fact, 
 
298 Napoleon. [1813 
 
 Austria had begun to hold the balance between 
 enemies, obviously not unequally matched. But the 
 policy of Austria, for some time directed by the art- 
 ful and prudent Metternich, had had nothing in 
 common with the reckless levity which had brought 
 about the disaster of Jena. 
 
 Austria, reduced by Napoleon to a second-rate 
 Power, and necessarily hostile to the French Empire, 
 had certainly wished to seek her own advantage in 
 the frightful catastrophe of 18 12 ; and her sympathies 
 were with the great German rising, and especially 
 with old monarchic Europe. But she was formally 
 an ally of France ; she had given Napoleon a child 
 of her rulers ; she had felt the whole weight of 
 his terrible sword ; if, not improbably, she had 
 dropped a hint to Schwartzenberg to let Tchitcha- 
 koff pass in the memorable contest on the Beresina, 
 and she had, we believe, directed Schwartzenberg to 
 retire from Poland into Galicia, her attitude was 
 one of attention to events during the first months of 
 1813. Napoleon perfectly understood this conduct; 
 and thinking that he could gain Austria by a bribe, 
 as he had gained Prussia just after Austerlitz, he 
 offered her Silesia, the great province torn from 
 Maria Theresa by Frederick the Great, and invited 
 her to join him in force in the field. Metternich 
 seized the occasion with consummate .skill : he placed 
 the armaments of Austria on a war footing, pretend- 
 ing to accept the Emperor's terms ; he negotiated 
 secretly with the Allies, and especially with the Con- 
 federates of the Rhine, in the interest of a great 
 European settlement ; and thus having by degrees 
 
1813] Europe in Arms against Napoleon. 299 
 
 passed from the position of a dependent ally to that 
 of a leading Power that could control events, he 
 proposed to Napoleon to make Austria a mediator 
 in the existing contest. 
 
 The conditions of peace he suggested, rather than 
 urged, would have left the Conqueror still the Lord 
 of the Continent ; Metternich thought only of de- 
 taching from the overgrown empire the Hanse 
 Towns and the Illyrian Provinces, of the dissolution 
 of the Confederation of the Rhine, and of the ces- 
 sion of most of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw to 
 Prussia ; and he announced that even England would 
 perhaps be satisfied if Sicily and Spain were 
 bestowed on the House of Bourbon. Very possibly 
 Metternich had not acted in good faith, in all this, to 
 France ; he was the weak fox dealing with the lion ; 
 but it is extraordinary, and an additional proof of 
 Napoleon's boundless ambition and pride, that he 
 did not instantly accept these terms, after Moscow, 
 and even Liitzen and Bautzen. He felt, however, 
 that he had been outwitted, and haughtily rejected, 
 as beneath his notice, the magnificent offers of the 
 Austrian statesman ; and he actually made overtures 
 to Prussia and the Czar, to treat for a separate peace 
 for themselves, which would have left Austria ex- 
 posed to his strokes. The Allies, perhaps already 
 assured of Austria, refused to negotiate on this 
 basis ; and Napoleon, on this, came to a resolve which 
 has been called the capital mistake of his life. His 
 deficiency in cavalry, and the weakness of his rude 
 levies, had become manifest ; and he persuaded him- 
 self, that, if he could gain time, he would be able so 
 
300 Napoleon. [1813 
 
 to strengthen his forces as to crush Prussia and 
 Russia in the field, and should Austria appear in the 
 lists against him, to punish her for what he deemed 
 her perfidy. With these convictions, belied as they 
 were by all that was passing before his eyes, he 
 signed an armistice on the 4th of June, not far from 
 the little town of Pleisnitz ; and if he contemplated 
 a peace after his own fashion,* his correspondence 
 discloses his real intentions. 
 
 Negotiations had only just begun, when events, on 
 a distant theatre of war, quickened the consumma- 
 tion, to which things were tending. After Fuentes 
 de Onoro the contest in Spain had languished in 
 181 1, though Marmont and Soult missed a great 
 chance of assailing Wellington, with very superior 
 numbers. In the following year the British com- 
 mander pounced on Ciudad Rodrigo, and Badajoz, 
 the keys of Spain from the Portuguese frontier, com- 
 pletely deceiving the distant Emperor, who would 
 direct operations from Paris ; and he defeated Mar- 
 mont in a great battle, at Salamanca, beside the 
 Tormes, which threw open to him the gates of Madrid. 
 Yet, in an effort made against the communications 
 of the French, the object he steadily kept in view, 
 he was baffled by the resistance of Burgos, and be- 
 fore long he was in retreat on Portugal, having just 
 
 * The purpose of Napoleon at this juncture is clearly revealed in 
 many of his letters. Two passages may be briefly referred to : " Je 
 desire la paix, je la desire solide, mais il faut qu'elle soit negociee, 
 et honorable." — Corr., tome xxv., 344. " L' insolence de I'Autriche 
 n'a pas de terme, avec son style mielleux, je dirais meme, senti- 
 mental elle voudrait m'oter la Dalmatie," etc., etc. " II est impos- 
 sible d'etre plus perfide que cette cour." — Ibid,, 347, 348. 
 
1813] Europe in Arms against Napoleon. 30 1 
 
 escaped from a great French army, so various were 
 the fortunes of this most instructive war. 
 
 In 1813 the situation of affairs had changed, and 
 Wellington gained the decisive success, largely due, 
 no doubt, to the errors of his foes, but, also, to his 
 patient and far-sighted strategy. By this time the 
 insurrection in Spain, though raging fiercely, in most 
 of the provinces, had passed under the control of a 
 central government ; the Cortes at Cadiz had done 
 much in organising and preparing a real army ; and 
 this force, large in numbers, and far from contempti- 
 ble, had been placed in Wellington's hands. The 
 British general, too, had all England at his back, 
 enthusiastic at his repeated triumphs ; he had formed 
 his army into a magnificent array, " able to go any- 
 where, and to do anything," and he had made the 
 Portuguese levies formidable in the extreme, and, 
 indeed, almost as good soldiers as his own. On the 
 other hand, the Imperial armies, though still power- 
 ful, had they been well directed, had been greatly 
 weakened by drafts for Germany ; the soldiery, too, 
 were discouraged by defeat ; and the chiefs were 
 jealous of each other, and without a superior 
 head. 
 
 Wellington disposed of nearly two hundred thou- 
 sand men ; one army held Suchet in check in 
 Valencia ; another threatened Joseph from the South ; 
 British squadrons hung on the Biscayan seaboard; 
 a guerilla warfare made another La Vendue of the 
 tracts between Asturias and Navarre ; and Wellington 
 himself was at the head of an invincible force nearly 
 ninety thousand strong. He had soon mastered the 
 
302 Napoleon. [1813 
 
 line of the Douro ; and then drawing together his 
 collected forces, co-operating with the Spanish levies 
 in the North, and finding a secure base in the sup- 
 porting fleet, he advanced against the long line of 
 the communications of the French, strangling, so to 
 speak, the invasion at the neck. The French armies, 
 scattered and almost surprised, fell back in precipitate 
 haste to the Ebro ; and they were huddled at last, 
 in confused masses, into the plains of Vitoria, near 
 the foot of the Pyrenees. Wellington attacked, in 
 great strength, on the 2 1st of June; the battle was 
 stern and well contested ; but nothing could stand 
 against his British troops ; the enemy, too, was 
 inferior in numbers ; and the French army became a 
 shattered wreck, strewing its flight with the accumu- 
 lated spoils of provinces and cities, plundered for 
 years. Except where Suchet still held sway in the 
 East, the power of Napoleon in Spain had ceased to 
 exist ; and the " Spanish ulcer," as he called it him- 
 self, had consumed the best part of his military 
 strength. 
 
 Vitoria strengthened the courage of Russia and 
 Prussia, and inclined Austria to throw in her lot 
 with them. Considerable obscurity still hangs on 
 the negotiations that followed the armistice. Napo- 
 leon accepted the mediation of Austria, though the 
 acceptance, doubtless, was a mere pretence; and 
 Metternich had an interview with him, perhaps be- 
 fore the Allies had heard of Vitoria. All that took 
 place at that historic meeting has never yet been 
 fully revealed ; but Metternich appears to have of- 
 fered the favourable conditions he had suggested 
 
1813] Europe in Arms against Napoleon. 303 
 
 before ; Napoleon certainly lost his temper, and he 
 declared that the object of Austria was to deprive 
 him of large parts of his Empire, and finally to 
 remodel the map of the Continent. By this time 
 Austria had assembled a great army behind the 
 Bohemian ranges ; she had perhaps secretly agreed 
 to join the Allies, who were straining every nerve to 
 renew hostilities ; her interests and feelings were 
 wholly with them ; she was striving to regain her 
 position in Europe ; and possibly she was playing 
 Napoleon false, and had resolved to fight once more 
 whatever the hazard. 
 
 It is certain, however, that, at the last moment, 
 whether from a real wish for the repose of Europe, 
 or through the fear that Napoleon still inspired, she 
 formally proposed, as a final settlement, terms that 
 would have left the Empire almost intact. She only 
 demanded the cession of the Illyrian Provinces, and 
 of the Hanse Towns, but lately annexed, the aboli- 
 tion of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and of the 
 protectorate of the Confederation of the Rhine, and 
 a just reconstruction of the Prussian monarchy ; and 
 these conditions, which, it will be borne in mind, 
 differed but slightly from what had been indicated 
 before, would have left France not only her " natural 
 boundaries," but Holland, Italy, and the vassal king- 
 dom of Naples. Even, if, as Napoleon always in- 
 sisted, these proposals were merely diplomatic feints, 
 he ought at once to have agreed to them, if it was 
 only to put Austria in the wrong ; and that he ever 
 hesitated only shows how his commanding intellect 
 had been perverted by arrogance and the lust of 
 
304 Napoleon. [1813 
 
 empire.* His purpose, however, had been formed ; 
 he rejected, for the second time, the immense offers, 
 which, sincerely or not, had been made to him ; and 
 he resolved once more to appeal to the sword, 
 and to contend, whatever the risk, even against all 
 Europe, for the absolute domination he had already 
 lost. 
 
 By this time his preparations were complete. He 
 had increased his cavalry to fifty thousand sabres ; 
 he had greatly improved his rude levies ; and, in- 
 cluding his garrisons, he had raised his forces, in 
 Germany, to five hundred thousand men, the num- 
 ber, we have seen, he had hoped to muster. Sur- 
 veying the theatre of war with his matchless insight, 
 he had formed a plan of operations singularly like 
 that which he had formed in 1796, and equally 
 certain, he thought, to assure him success. The hills 
 of Bohemia resembled the Tyrol ; the Elbe corre- 
 sponded to the Adige ; and he had resolved to 
 occupy the line of the Elbe, to resist, from this posi- 
 tion of vantage, the converging attacks of the hosts 
 of his enemies, and to revive the glories of Mantua 
 and Rivoh. For this purpose he had fortified 
 Dresden, taken possession of all the passages of the 
 Elbe, and its fortresses from Koenigstein to Ham- 
 
 * Thiers in his great work on The Consulate and Empire (chap. 49) 
 has followed Metternich's version of these celebrated negotiations, 
 which is not altogether trustworthy. Prince Napoleon in his book, 
 NapoUon ct Ses Dtiracieurs (75, 83), has argued ably on the other 
 side. Probably Austria, who was seizing a great occasion to recover 
 part of her lost power, was not acting in perfect good faith ; certainly 
 Napoleon had resolved to make peace on his own terms, or to fight to 
 the last. 
 
18131 Europe in Arms against Napoleon. 305 
 
 burg ; and this was his main position on the whole 
 field of manoeuvre. He threw out, however, second- 
 ary armies, towards the Oder, and even near to Ber- 
 lin, in order to stretch a hand to his double line of 
 garrisons on the Oder and Vistula, and to maintain 
 his grasp on the whole of Germany ; and, in this im- 
 portant respect, his strategy differed from that which 
 had wrought wonders in 1796. In this situation he 
 stood defiant : he had, after deducting the troops in 
 the strongholds of the three great German rivers, 
 about three hundred and sixty thousand men in the 
 field, formed into thirteen corps d'armce, a fourteenth 
 being in and round Hamburg; and contemplating 
 the situation, with a conqueror's eye, he looked for- 
 ward to the result with the most perfect confidence. 
 Yet signs of ill omen had thickened around*; 
 some of Napoleon's lieutenants were almost untried ; 
 all without exception, had been fashioned to unthink- 
 ing obedience to his will, and when placed in inde- 
 pendent command, as necessarily would be the case 
 at present, might prove unequal to the tasks before 
 them ; and the hand of the great master could not be 
 seen everywhere. The Grand Army, too, improved 
 as it was, was still largely composed of young French 
 levies ; Napoleon had tried to add to the speed of 
 its movements, but the infantry was feeble, and the 
 guns too numerous, a defect on the increase since 
 Wagram ; above all, its ranks were filled with auxil- 
 
 * Napoleon's letters of this period abound in expressions of distrust 
 in tlie capacity of his generals. General Marbot's Mimoires, tome 
 iii., 259, expresses the dissatisfaction felt by the army towards many 
 of its chiefs. 
 
3o6 Napoleon. [1813 
 
 iaries, carried away by the great German movement, 
 and not only willing, but eager to revolt. Two 
 incidents were of marked significance * ; Moreau in 
 exile since the plot of George Cadoudal, had gone 
 into the camp of the Allies, and been received with 
 the highest honours ; and Bernadotte, bought by a 
 promise of Norway, had become an obsequious vas- 
 sal of the Czar. 
 
 The armistice was denounced on the loth of 
 August ; Austria ready to strike, joined the allied 
 cause ; and hostilities began a few days afterwards. 
 Napoleon was assailed by Europe in arms ; and had 
 to confront a Coalition, in every respect, more for- 
 midable than he had ever confronted before. The 
 Allies had more than five hundred thousand men in 
 the field, divided into three great armies, one, under 
 Schwartzenberg in Bohemia ; the second led by 
 Bliicher, on the Upper Oder ; the third under Berna- 
 dotte, covering Berlin ; and they had fully three 
 hundred thousand in reserve, — a force to which 
 Napoleon had nothing to oppose. The Emperor, 
 therefore, was utterly overmatched ; he had miscal- 
 culated the resources of his foes ; and it is this cir- 
 cumstance which shows that his policy, in agreeing 
 to the armistice, was a fatal error. His miscalcula- 
 tion had been mainly due to his want of knowledge 
 
 * The student of Shakespeare will compare Napoleon, at this crisis 
 of his fate, to Macbeth at bay. Act 5, Scene 3. 
 
 ' ' Fly, false thanes, 
 And mingle with the English epicures ; 
 The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear. 
 Shall never sagg with doubt, or shake with fear." 
 
1813] Europe in Arms against Napoleon. 307 
 
 of the real military strength of Prussia. That power, 
 we have seen, had been compelled by her conqueror 
 to reduce her army, — it was, in no case, to exceed 
 forty-two thousand men, — but she had evaded this 
 harsh restriction ; under the inspiration of Scharn- 
 horst, a very able man, she had passed a succession 
 of youths through the ranks, had given them a partial 
 training for war, and had placed them, in an ever- 
 increasing reserve ; the foundation, in fact, of the 
 famous system, of which the present age has beheld 
 the results, was established, under the stress of mis- 
 fortune, and Prussia, in the autumn of 181 3, sent 
 two hundred thousand men into the field. 
 
 Apart, too, from the contest in Germany, England 
 had been completely victorious in Spain, and even 
 in Italy, Eugene Beauharnais was opposed by an 
 Austrian army, larger than his own ; it should be 
 added, that the allied armies were lavishly supported 
 by British subsidies, and kept in a better state 
 than in any previous war ; and thus on every side of 
 his imperilled Empire, Napoleon had to resist enemies 
 far superior in strength. Yet these material elements 
 were not, perhaps, the most formidable of the powers 
 now combined against him. The military position of 
 the Allies, spread as they were, on an immense arc, 
 of which he held, at all points, the chord, ^\as, cer- 
 tainly, not so good as his ; they had no chief ap- 
 proaching Napoleon in genius ; they were not wholly 
 free from internal divisions. But the Coalition, on 
 the main theatre of war, was held together by trea- 
 ties and bonds of a moral kind, of prodigious strength ; 
 and in Austria, Prussia, and Russia, for the first 
 
3o8 Napoleon. ti8i3 
 
 time, both governments and nations were banded 
 together, in a life and death struggle with their late 
 conqueror. The Czar had Friedland and Moscow to 
 avenge ; the Prussian monarchy had to rise out of 
 the dust ; the Austrian to regain its place on the 
 Continent ; and all the three Powers had a strong 
 common interest, — to get rid of a Saxon Poland, of 
 the Confederation of the Rhine, and of a France 
 seated on the Elbe and the Vistula. The three 
 peoples were one in mind with their rulers ; they had 
 suffered from the Continental system, and from all 
 kinds of humiliation, tyranny, and wrong ; and in 
 Germany especially, in which many dividing bar- 
 riers had been effaced with the old Empire, and in 
 which the whole Teutonic race had groaned under 
 French oppression, the feeling against its masters 
 was fierce and intense, and there was powerful ten- 
 dency to national unity. The great moral forces, 
 which, twenty years before, had given France invin- 
 cible might, patriotic passion, and a universal resolve 
 to drive the invader from the natal soil, had, in a 
 word, passed to the side of the Allies ; old feudal 
 and monarchic Europe was upheld by the Revolu- 
 tionary fervour of 1792-4; and in the opposite 
 scale were to be found only a despot of extraordi- 
 nary gifts, indeed, but half-blinded by extravagant 
 pride, an army, still formidable, but comparatively 
 weak, and a people heroic, no doubt, but exhausted. 
 Napoleon, however, cared for none of these things 
 — was he not the chief of Marengo and Jena? — and 
 he instantly assumed his wonted offensive. Oudinot, 
 with one of the secondary armies, marched against 
 
1813] Europe in Arms against Napoleon. 309 
 
 Berlin, the " focus " as his master called it, " of a Jaco- 
 bin canaille "; and this movement was to be supported 
 by Davoust from Hamburg. Meanwhile, the Emperor 
 advanced, in person, against the army of Silesia, in the 
 hands of Bliicher, perhaps from one hundred to one 
 hundred and twenty thousand strong, which had been 
 pushed forward to the line of the Bober. The Allies, 
 probably acting on the advice of Moreau, a judicious, 
 if not a great captain, had formed a general plan of 
 conducting the war, suggested, perhaps, by the wide 
 distance between Napoleon's secondary and main 
 forces, and wholly differing from the Austrian strat- 
 egy of 1796; they had resolved to retire before their 
 great antagonist, on every occasion, when he ap- 
 peared in the field, and to endeavour to defeat his 
 lieutenants in detail ; and they would seek to strike 
 down the Emperor only when his military resources 
 were plainly failing. Bliicher, accordingly, fell back 
 behind the Katzbach, after a series of combats of no 
 importance; and Napoleon was soon back on his way 
 to Dresden, to make head against another mass of 
 enemies. Still true to the common strategic scheme, 
 Schwartzenberg had moved from behind the Bo- 
 hemian hills, with an army of more than two 
 hundred thousand men ; and having threaded the 
 defiles of the Erzegebirge, he had approached Dres- 
 den in the last week of August. Napoleon 
 conceived a grand design of cutting off and de- 
 stroying this new enemy, worthy of the chief 
 of Areola and Rivoli. He occupied the passages on 
 the Elbe, and he decided for a moment, on crossing 
 the river at Koenigstein, perfectly bridged at this 
 
3IO Napoleon. [1813 
 
 point ; and to fall on the flank and rear of the allied 
 army, before it could get back to Bohemia again, as 
 he had fallen on Wiirmser, in the defiles of the Brenta. 
 Dresden, however, a German, and not a loyal town, 
 was not like the Italian towns on the Adige; it 
 showed signs of terror, perhaps of revolt ; it was held, 
 too, by a comparatively small French force ; and the 
 Emperor was compelled to abandon a project, which 
 might have given him decisive success. 
 
 He directed Vandamme, with about thirty thou- 
 sand men, to cross the Elbe, and to hold the line of 
 the enemy's retreat, in front of Pima ; and he ad- 
 vanced himself with about one hundred thousand 
 to Dresden, to relieve the place and to attack the 
 enemy ; a complex operation being substituted 
 for one more simple, and easier to carry out. 
 He had reached Dresden on the 26th of August ; 
 Schwartzenberg, unaware, perhaps, of his presence, or 
 possibly because it was too late to fall back, attacked 
 Dresden in force, and gained some success ; but the 
 Army of Bohemia was ultimately repelled ; the ap- 
 pearance of the Guard, a sign that its great chief was 
 at hand, creating an impression that approached a 
 panic* On the 27th the turn of Napoleon had come ; 
 , seizing the features of the ground with his unerring 
 glance, and making the best use of the fortifications 
 he had raised, he routed the allied left wing, cut off 
 from its supports, and made havoc of its exposed 
 centre ; and Schwartzenberg's army, severely 
 
 * See General Marbot's Mdmoires, tome iii., 271. With the single 
 exception of BlUcher, the Continental generals never completely 
 shook off the dread of Napoleon which had haunted them for years. 
 
1813] Europe in Arms against Napoleon. 3 1 1 
 
 stricken, was soon in precipitate retreat on its 
 way to Bohemia. Moreau had fallen by a shot 
 from a French battery — a sorry end for a great 
 French soldier. 
 
 Consummate military skill had once more pre- 
 vailed, and Napoleon believed that he had but to 
 extend his arms, and to march either to Berlin or to 
 Prague. Events, however, occurred in quick suc- 
 cession, which showed how the conditions of the 
 present contest had changed from those of 1796- 
 1807. The Emperor directed Murat, St. Cyr, and 
 Mortier to pursue Schwartzenberg's defeated army ; 
 he advanced to Pirna, with the same object in view ; 
 and he ordered Vandamme to move still farther, and 
 to close on the enemy in full retreat. The events 
 that followed are somewhat obscure ; Napoleon was 
 seized with illness, and returned to Dresden ; and 
 St. Cyr, and perhaps Mortier were remiss in co- 
 operating with Vandamme, a not distant colleague. 
 But Vandamme marched to Culm on the Bohemian 
 side of the hills ; he stood on the path of the retir- 
 ing Allies ; and an apparition like this, a few years 
 before, would have probably led to a Marengo or 
 Ulm. The army of Bohemia, however, had not lost 
 heart ; its chiefs had time to ascertain the strength 
 of their foe ; the troops fought well, and showed no 
 signs of yielding ; and at last a Prussian detachment, 
 which had eluded St. Cyr, descended upon the rear 
 of the French. Vandamme and nearly two thirds 
 of his men were surrounded, and compelled to lay 
 down their arms ; and a possible disaster had be- 
 come a complete victory. 
 
3 1 2 Napoleon. [1813 
 
 Meanwhile, on every other part of the theatre of 
 war, the tide of fortune set, with terrible results, 
 against the Conqueror, who thought that he was its 
 master. Oudinot had not received the expected 
 aid ; he met Bernadotte at the head of about ninety 
 thousand men at Gross Beeren, not far from Berlin, 
 and was driven back on the Elbe, with heavy loss, 
 the auxiliary troops disbanding in thousands. Mac- 
 donald, nearly at the same time, had been attacked 
 by Bliicher upon the Katzbach, and had suffered an 
 overwhelming -defeat ; and, a few days afterwards, 
 Ney, ordered to make another effort to reach Berlin, 
 was routed at Dennewitz with crushing effect, and 
 forced upon Torgau, his German troops, mutinous, 
 and running away, making, as he exclaimed, " a hell 
 of his army." During this series of events, the army 
 of Schwartzenberg, revived after Culm, and largely 
 reinforced, had been making demonstrations against 
 Dresden ; but it carefully avoided giving battle. 
 Napoleon toiled in vain to bring it to bay ; he 
 advanced more than once to the Bohemian range ; 
 but he was eluded by his foe, and gave up the 
 attempt at last. 
 
 It was now the middle of September, and the sit- 
 uation had become one of ever-increasing peril for 
 him. His lieutenants, unfit for great commands, had 
 been defeated one after the other ; he had lost fully 
 one hundred thousand men, and had scarcely any 
 available reserves ; his auxiliary troops had proved 
 worse than useless ; his immature Grand Army had 
 been fatally weakened ; Culm, so to speak, had 
 blotted out Dresden ; and he had not won a single 
 
1813] Europe in Arms against Napoleon. 3 1 3 
 
 decisive battle. By this time he seems to have felt 
 that he had made a mistake, in throwing out large 
 forces far from the Elbe ; so he drew in the remains 
 of these beaten armies, and placed them upon the 
 line of the river ; though his garrisons on the Oder 
 and Vistula were, obviously, all but abandoned by 
 this movement. Astride on the Elbe, as he had 
 been astride on the Adige, he was still convinced 
 that he could defy his enemies. 
 
 October was at hand, and the Allies, whose strategy, 
 timid but judicious, had been justified, had, at last, 
 resolved to make a great effort to attack, and to over- 
 whelm the Emperor. Benningsen, with another Rus- 
 sian army, was coming into line ; Schwartzenberg, 
 urged by Blucher, an heroic soldier, if no master of 
 the art of war, descended once more through the 
 Bohemian passes ; and, preceded by clouds of light 
 cavalry, and by insurrectionary levies of Germany, 
 endeavoured to make his way to Leipzig ; while 
 Blucher, decamping from near Dresden, marched to 
 the Elbe, summoning Bernadotte to his aid, and pre- 
 pared to cross the river in force, and, ultimately, to 
 join hands with his Austrian colleague. The object 
 of these manoeuvres was to seize the communications 
 of the French with the Rhine, to place a largely 
 superior force on Napoleon's rear, and to compel 
 him to fight, at great risk, at Leipzig ; and his posi- 
 tion somewhat favoured the project — for owing to 
 the want of sufficient reserves, his communications 
 were not well covered, and the line of the Elbe, 
 unlike that of the Adige, was long, and compara- 
 tively easy to pass, two important points which made 
 
314 Napoleon. Li 813 
 
 the situation of affairs unlike that of 1796. Yet the 
 operation of the Allies was very hazardous ; it ex- 
 posed them to the attacks, before they could unite, 
 of a warrior, who surpassed all warriors in defeating, 
 in detail, divided enemies ; and it strongly resem- 
 bled, though on a much greater scale, the operations 
 which had had, as results, Castiglione, Bassano, and 
 Rivoli. 
 
 Napoleon had soon penetrated the designs of his 
 foes, and he prepared to encounter them by the meth- 
 ods which had given him the most splendid success in 
 Italy. Detaching Murat, with about sixty thousand 
 men, to hold Schwartzenberg in check, and to keep 
 him away from Leipzig, he broke up from Dresden, 
 in the first days of October, with an army perhaps 
 eighty thousand strong, his purpose being to join 
 Ney and Marmont, and with a combined force of 
 fully one hundred thousand men, to fall on Bliicher 
 and Bernadotte before they could unite, to defeat 
 them, and to cut them off from Schwartzenberg. 
 The Emperor, however, left St. Cyr at Dresden, with 
 a garrison of nearly thirty thousand troops, as he 
 had continued the siege of Mantua before he attacked 
 Alvinzi ; his reason for taking a course which has 
 been severely censured, being, probably, that he 
 thought himself in sufficient strength, and that he 
 required Dresden for ulterior movements. Mean- 
 while, Blucher had effected the passage of the Elbe 
 at Elster, a place not far from Wittenberg, and Ber- 
 nadotte, too, but much lower down ; the two com- 
 manders were far apart ; and Napoleon, if not exactly 
 aware where they were — for the distances were very 
 
1813] Europe in Arms against Napoleon. 3 1 5 
 
 different from those of 1796 — marched against them, 
 hopeful of a great triumph. His purpose was to 
 strike his divided foes, should they await his attack, 
 on the western bank of the Elbe; but, if, as he 
 thought probable, they should recross the Elbe, he 
 had resolved to pursue them to Berlin, and then, 
 swiftly returning, to assail Schwartzenberg, beating 
 the hostile armies, one after the other, and " finishing 
 the war in a clap of thunder." This magnificent de- 
 sign, one of the grandest of his career, and practica- 
 ble in a contest of an ordinary kind, was frustrated 
 by a series of events which suddenly changed the 
 situation at the theatre of war. Bavaria, his vassal 
 of yesterday, declared against him, and was about to 
 place a force on his line of retreat ; Jerome's king- 
 dom of Westphalia had suddenly fallen ; the Confed- 
 eration of the Rhine was vanishing amidst the great 
 German national rising; and Napoleon's communi- 
 cations with the Rhine and with France were menaced 
 from all sides and in the gravest peril. Meanwhile, 
 Murat, wholly inferior in force, had been unable to 
 restrain Schwartzenberg, who was steadily making 
 his way to Leipzig ; and Bliicher, dragging Berna- 
 dotte, as it were, in his wake — the false marshal 
 dreaded his well-known master — was, disregarding 
 all obstacles in his path, pressing forward to reach 
 his approaching colleague. The Emperor was com- 
 pelled to abandon his project ; and, drawing towards 
 Murat, he fell back on Leipzig, to make head against 
 the hosts of his converging enemies. 
 
 The strategy of the Allies had thus far been suc- 
 cessful; Napoleon's grand offensive projects had 
 
3i6 Napoleon. li813 
 
 failed ; he had not reached and crushed his foes when 
 apart ; he had been unable to hold the line of the 
 Elbe, as he had held the Adige against all comers, 
 and had been gradually forced away from it ; and he 
 was well-nigh encircled by hostile armies, gathering 
 round in immensely superior numbers, with Germany 
 insurgent on his way to the Rhine. The greater part 
 of the French army was assembled round Leipzig by 
 the 1 5th day of October ; and Augereau had been 
 summoned from the Main to join it, almost the last 
 available reserve. It numbered about one hundred 
 and twenty-five thousand men ; and, including all 
 the remaining bodies of troops on the march, the 
 forces Napoleon could place in the field were proba- 
 bly less than two hundred thousand men, thousands 
 of these auxiliaries eager to desert. The enemies 
 were greatly superior in strength ; the army of Bo- 
 hemia, under Schwartzenberg, was still perhaps one 
 hundred and sixty thousand strong; Bliicher was 
 coming up with about sixty thousand ; Benningsen 
 was at hand with fifty thousand at least, and Berna- 
 dotte had about fifty thousand more, Austrians, 
 Russians, and Prussians, being, in a large measure, 
 troops inured to war, and all being devoted to their 
 cause. The Emperor, therefore, was completely 
 over-matched ; yet, he maintained his attitude of se- 
 rene confidence, and bade his marshals prepare for a 
 great battle, in which his skill, he believed, would 
 ensure him victory. 
 
 The Allies attacked on the morning of the i6th ; 
 and the army of Bohemia marked its advance by a 
 line of fire, extending to the south-west of Leipzig, 
 
1813] Europe in Arms against Napoleon. 3 1 7 
 
 from Dolitz far to the left to Gross Posnau on the 
 right. Napoleon's front, however, along this large 
 space, was covered by villages carefully fortified ; 
 the efforts of the assailants were, in a great degree, 
 frustrated by divided counsels of the allied chiefs ; 
 and the French maintained their positions intact, 
 and even threw their enemies back. The Emperor 
 now prepared for a grand counter-stroke ; the Impe- 
 rial Guard fell on Schwartzenberg's centre ; and Murat 
 very nearly swept away his right by a huge, tempes- 
 tuous charge of thousands of horsemen. The Allies, 
 however, knowing that reinforcements were at hand, 
 lavished all their reserves to maintain the contest ; 
 their troops, too, fought with heroic energy, and 
 though Napoleon had mastered part of the field, 
 this partial success was utterly fruitless. Meanwhile, 
 on other parts of the vast scene of conflict two 
 battles had been fought, with different results. 
 Napoleon had employed a detachment to guard his 
 line of retreat from Leipzig on Liitzen ; this had 
 been attacked by an Austrian force ; but the French 
 had held their ground with success. At the same 
 time Bliicher, coming into line, had furiously attacked 
 the extreme right of the Emperor to the north-east 
 of Leipzig ; and a savage encounter had raged for 
 hours between the hamlets of Breitenfeld and Mock- 
 em. Marmont and Ney had made a noble defence ; 
 but the fiery Prussian had had the better in the fight ; 
 and as evening closed, his columns had approached 
 the Partha, in the broad plain of Leipzig to the north, 
 and had nearly joined Schwartzenberg and the Bohe- 
 mian army. 
 
3i8 Napoleon. [1813 
 
 A great victory alone could have averted the 
 perils that encompassed Napoleon ; but the battle 
 of the i6th had been indecisive, and his position had 
 become almost desperate. His whole army was soon 
 round Leipzig ; but allowing for his losses in the 
 late conflict, it could not have exceeded one hundred 
 and seventy thousand men, whereas Benningsen and 
 Bernadotte had just added at least one hundred 
 thousand fresh troops to the Allies, and Bliicher and 
 Schwartzenberg had still more than two hundred 
 thousand. Apart, therefore, from the quality of many 
 of the Emperor's soldiers, the odds against him were 
 overwhelming ; and prudence enjoined a retreat on 
 the 17th of October, especially as Schwartzenberg — 
 a timid chief — would have afforded a golden bridge 
 of escape. But Napoleon was over-mastered by 
 pride ; he seems to have thought that no enemy 
 would dare to risk a death struggle with him ; and 
 he resolved to maintain an imposing attitude, and " 
 only to make a retrograde movement from Leipzig 
 after challenging battle. He increased the detach- 
 ment that held the line of his retreat open ; but 
 bridges were not thrown over the Pleisse and the 
 Elster, to give facilities to the march of a retiring 
 army ; the only avenue of passage was a long 
 causeway spanning the Elster and the surrounding 
 marshes ; and it is still unknown whether this fatal 
 neglect was due to Berthier, the chief of the staff, 
 who, like nearly all the Imperial lieutenants, could 
 not think or act for himself, and would do nothing 
 without a positive order, or was wholly the fault of 
 the Emperor himself. 
 
1813] Europe in Arms against Napoleon. 319 
 
 The Allies, fully three hundred thousand strong, 
 attacked their exhausted foes on the i8th ; and a 
 vast semicircle of fire enclosed Leipzig from Mock- 
 ern by Probstheyda to Dolitz, and narrowed inward 
 as the columns advanced. Yet the efforts of the 
 assailants were not resolute ; they were " the peck- 
 ings of crows round a dying eagle." The allied gen- 
 erals, in fact, were divided in mind, and Bliicher alone 
 was for a decisive onslaught ; and the Grand Army 
 fought heroically when brought to bay. The French, 
 indeed, maintained their positions to the last ; and 
 had not the Saxon contingent of Reynier gone over 
 to the enemy in the heat of the fight, and turned its 
 artillery against its old comrades — fierce patriotism 
 destroying military faith — they might have repelled 
 the masses of their foes. Retreat, however, was 
 necessary now ; and the Grand Army, frightfully re- 
 duced in strength, defiled all the night through the 
 streets of Leipzig, making for the plains of Liitzen to 
 the west, on its way to Mayence and the Rhine. The 
 march, however, was slow in the extreme ; the troops 
 were burdened by impedimenta of all kinds ; and the 
 columns were choked, so to speak, in their advance, 
 because the rivers had not been bridged, and they 
 were confined to the one long bridge on the Elster. 
 
 The Allies attacked on the 19th, falling on the rear 
 of the retiring army, and cutting off stragglers and 
 wounded men ; and panic was spreading through the 
 ranks of the French, when a sudden disaster involved 
 them in ruin. The single causeway was blown up 
 too soon ; the retreat was interrupted by this fatal 
 accident ; scenes like those of the Beresina were 
 
320 Napoleon. [1813 
 
 again witnessed ; Poniatowski and an untold multi- 
 tude perished in the waters of the flooded Elster; 
 whole divisions and regiments were made prisoners ; 
 and the triumph of the Allies was complete and deci- 
 sive.* The shattered army, scarcely ninety thousand 
 fugitives, made its way slowly through the plains of 
 Saxony ; a gleam of light shone on its arms for a 
 moment, for Napoleon routed the Bavarian Wrede, 
 who attempted to cross his path at Hanau ; but 
 probably not sixty thousand Frenchmen — the auxil- 
 iaries had disappeared by degrees — found a refuge at 
 last behind the Rhine. As a result of the catastrophe, 
 the large garrisons in the fortresses of the Elbe, the 
 Oder, and Vistula, were left isolated amidst hosts of 
 enemies ; and one hundred and fifty thousand f good 
 troops at least were lost to France in her hour of 
 defeat. 
 
 In this mighty and long-doubtful contest, Napoleon 
 made obvious military mistakes. He ought not to 
 have thrown out his secondary armies so far ; he 
 ought, probably, to have abandoned Dresden when 
 he marched against Blucher and Bernadotte ; 
 assuredly he should have begun to retreat immedi- 
 
 * Very interesting and valuable details about the retreat from 
 Leipzig will be found in General Marbot's Mimoires, tome iii. , 47, 
 327. See also Edinburgh Review, January and April, 1892, and the 
 Souvenirs of Marshal Macdonald. 
 
 fin passing from the campaigns of 1812 and 1813, the reader 
 should be informed, that the numbers of the armies engaged on both 
 sides can be only approximately ascertained. The truth has been 
 obscured from many causes. The figures in the text are calculated 
 from a comparison of several conflicting accounts. Boutourline 
 should be read for the War of 1812, on the Russian side. 
 
1813] Europe in Arms against Napoleon. 321 
 
 ately after the first battle of Leipzig ; as commander- 
 in-chief he must be held responsible for the catas- 
 trophe that occurred on the Elster. Yet his capacity 
 for organisation was never more conspicuous than in 
 181 3; some of his operations were quite faultless, 
 and marked with his ineffaceable genius ; and though 
 the long line of the Elbe was more difficult to defend 
 than the short line of the Adige, his choice of it, 
 given his plan for the campaign, reveals the strategist 
 of marvellous gifts ; and he would have probably 
 held it with the army of 1805. His bodily strength, 
 indeed, had begun to decline, and this may have led 
 to the disaster of Culm, and this physical weakness 
 was to become more apparent. Yet mere military 
 errors cannot account for the terrible overthrow of 
 his arms ; the causes were more general and deeply 
 seated; and, in the main, they were the same as those 
 which brought about the calamities of 1812. Cold, 
 and the difficulty of moving, were, doubtless, absent ; 
 but the Grand Army was, on the whole, even a worse 
 army than that which invaded Russia, and the 
 auxiliaries had become, not only faithless, but, in the 
 highest degree, a grave danger. The decisive cause, 
 however, was that, as in 1812, the enterprise was 
 beyond Napoleon's powers ; despising the forces 
 arrayed against him, which, moral and material alike, 
 were, in 181 3, far superior to his own, he defied 
 Europe, and fought for universal empire ; this was 
 the real reason why he placed his secondary armies 
 as far as the Oder, why he persisted in maintaining 
 his hold on Germany, why he shut up whole armies 
 in far distant fortresses. Had he been satisfied to 
 
322 Napoleon. [1813 
 
 take his stand on the Rhine, drawing his garrisons 
 in from the German rivers, he could have repelled 
 the Coalition with ease ; but this implied the surrender 
 of overgrown power, and the great gambler with 
 Fortune played for all or nothing. 
 
 Yet the most disastrous error of all was the refusal 
 to accept the terms of Austria, after the injudicious 
 armistice of Pleisnitz ; even if Austria was playing 
 false he might perhaps have divided the Allies, and 
 probably he would have saved, at least for a time, the 
 greater part of an Empire already far too vast. As 
 for the operations of the Allies, if not brilliant, they 
 were prudent, and sometimes well conceived; but 
 Bliicher alone, of the chiefs of the League, showed 
 the qualities of a great soldier ; the others were 
 timid and irresolute ; and the conduct of their troops 
 stands in marked contrast. The position of Napo- 
 leon was now like that of Lee when the gigantic 
 hosts of the North bore down on the exhausted 
 South in 1864-5 ; and, in the case of Napoleon, 
 as in that of Lee, and even with more amazing 
 results, genius in war was yet to achieve wonders. 
 But the end was at hand, and the great disturber of 
 the world was soon to feel the " iron scourge and 
 the torturing hour " of pitiless Fate, amidst the wreck 
 of Empire. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Preparations made by Napoleon to resist the invasion of France by 
 Europe — Proposals of peace made by the Allies — Their armies 
 cross the Rhine and enter France — The apparently hopeless 
 position of Napoleon — Battle of La Rothi^re — The allied armies 
 separate and advance towards Paris along the Marne and the 
 Seine — Battles of Champaubert, Montmirail, Vauchamps, 
 Nangis, and Montereau — Defeat of the Allies — Conferences at 
 Chatillon — New proposals of the Allies — Renewed operations 
 on the Marne and the Seine — Battles of Craonne, Laon, and 
 Arcis on the Aube — Defeat of Napoleon — He moves his army 
 eastwards — The Allies march to Paris — Negotiations ending in 
 the abdication of Napoleon — State of opinion in France — 
 Napoleon takes his departure for Elba — Reflections on the 
 events of 1814. 
 
 N his return to France, after 
 Leipzig and Hanau, Napoleon 
 had to hear of fresh disasters 
 on other parts of the vast 
 theatre of war. Eugene had 
 been driven from the Isonzo ; 
 and, confronted by a victori- 
 ous Austrian army, maintained 
 himself with difificulty on the 
 Adige. Events, too, on the Pyrenean frontier, had 
 recently assumed an alarming aspect ; Soult, sent 
 by the Emperor, after Vitoria, to restore his military 
 position in Spain, had reorganised the shattered 
 
 323 
 
324 Napoleon. tl6l4 
 
 armies of Joseph, and had skilfully attacked Wel- 
 lington, who was besieging Pampeluna and San 
 Sebastian, near the verge of France. The Marshal, 
 however, had failed in this effort ; the beleaguered 
 fortresses had, ere long, fallen ; and the British com- 
 mander having crossed the Bidassoa, and stormed 
 the lines of his adversary on the hills, above the 
 Nivelle, had penetrated into France, soon after 
 Leipzig, the herald of her invasion by Europe. The 
 Empire was already in grave peril ; yet its author 
 retained his faith in his genius and his sword ; and 
 in letters, still breathing unbroken confidence,* he 
 prepared to withstand the gathering floods of his 
 enemies. 
 
 He called out the Conscription of 181 5 ; but after 
 the experiences of 18 13, he declared that he would 
 not " make war again with children " ; and he calcu- 
 lated that, by summoning into the field all the avail- 
 able reserves which France could yet supply, he 
 would be able, within a few months, to place in line, 
 with the remains of his armies,! six hundred thou- 
 sand men to uphold his power. Two circumstances 
 encouraged his ambitious hopes ; he was convinced 
 that the Allies would not venture to cross the 
 Rhine until late in the spring, that he would be 
 afforded time to collect his levies, and even to give 
 
 * Napoleon wrote thus to Cambaceres, 3d November, 1813. Cor- 
 respondance^ tome xxvi., 395. *' Aussitot que je connaitrai bien les 
 ennemies aux quels j'ai affaire, et que je n'aurais plus i craindre des 
 trahisons, ni des crocs en jambe, je les battrai aussi vite que les 
 autres." 
 
 \ This estimate appears repeatedly in Napoleon's letters in Novem- 
 ber and December 1813. 
 
1814] Fall of Napoleon. 325 
 
 them some training for war ; he was certain that 
 France would second his efforts, as she had seconded 
 them before Liitzen and Bautzen ; and, indeed, the 
 obsequious Senate, the docile instrument of his will, 
 voted all the men and supplies he asked for, and 
 placed the whole resources of the nation at his feet. 
 Inspired with this belief he resolved, not only to 
 defend France on the Rhine and the Meuse, but 
 even to contend for empire on the Po and theAdige. 
 He considered Germany as wholly lost ; and he 
 entered into negotiations with his prisoner Ferdi- 
 nand, and promised to restore him to the throne of 
 Spain, if the new king could free him of his English 
 enemies. But he made preparations to send thou- 
 sands of troops to maintain his hold on Belgium, 
 and even on Holland ; he sought to reinforce 
 Eugene, and to keep Italy in his grasp ; and he left 
 Suchet with an army in Catalonia, to observe what 
 turn events would take in Spain. At the same time 
 he spared no efforts to resist the invasion, which, he 
 foresaw, was impending from the German side of 
 the Rhine, though his arrangements prove that he 
 still believed he could retain a large part of the late 
 conquests of France. 
 
 The Coalition, meanwhile, had approached the 
 Rhine ; and the Allies had sought to treat with Napo- 
 leon before braving the perils of an internecine 
 struggle. If not made through an official source, 
 these proposals, it is almost certain, were sincere ; 
 for the memories of Valmy and Jemmapes survived ; 
 the failure of 1793 was not forgotten, and the Em- 
 peror inspired terror even after Leipzig. These 
 
326 Napoleon. t1814 
 
 offers would have left France her " natural boun- 
 daries," that is, would have seated her on the Alps 
 and Pyrenees, and would have given her the whole 
 tract to the west of the Rhine, including Mayence, 
 Cologne, and Antwerp ; and the aspirations of 
 Frenchmen, it may truly be said, had never really 
 gone beyond limits which it was felt could not be 
 safely extended. Napoleon did not reject these 
 conditions ; but he adopted a policy at least too like 
 that which had proved fatal a few months before ; 
 believing, perhaps, that the Allies were playing false, 
 he put off a positive reply, and trifled with time ; 
 and, whether this conduct was simply distrust, or 
 was a device to mature his preparations for war, 
 he once more let the occasion pass, which, for a 
 season at least, would have left him empire. 
 
 Events soon happened which wrought a complete 
 change in the councils and feelings of the Allies, and 
 caused them boldly to continue the war. The con- 
 tagion of the great rising of Germany had spread into 
 Holland, and even Belgium, long harassed by the 
 Continental system and by Imperial oppression of 
 all kinds; and nearly all the Low Countries stirred 
 with revolt. At' the same time Murat, who after 
 Leipzig had returned to his new and imperilled 
 kingdom, had been lending an ear to the soft words 
 of Metternich, and, in order to save the throne of 
 Naples, was seeking a pretext to desert Napoleon, 
 and even to attack Eugene in Italy ; and the aristoc- 
 racies of the Swiss cantons were eager to throw off 
 the Protectorate of France, accepted soon after the 
 Peace of Lundville. The Empire, in a word, was 
 
1814] Fall of Napoleon. 327 
 
 breaking up from within, and the Coalition resolved 
 to invade France at once, and to endeavour to bring 
 the contest to a close. The allied armies, formed 
 into two great masses, crossed the Rhine near the 
 end of December, 181 3 ; Bliicher, at the head of about 
 eighty thousand men, advancing from Mannheim and 
 the adjoining fortresses ; Schwartzenberg, with per- 
 haps one hundred and sixty thousand, passing the 
 river at Basle, overrunning Switzerland, and entering 
 France on her eastern frontier. Immense reserves 
 were collected to sustain the movement ; and the Allies 
 hoped that, in a few weeks, even after the losses of 
 the late campaign, they would have half a million 
 of men beyond the Vosges. The conditions of 1812 
 were, in fact, reversed, and that in the briefest space 
 of time. It was no longer the Despot of the West 
 leading a subject Continent against the East ; it was 
 the monarchs and races of Eastern Europe moving 
 against the West in the name of liberty. With char- 
 acteristic insight Napoleon had perceived one of the 
 forces which had caused the change. " The Conti- 
 nent," he exclaimed, " marched last year with France ; 
 the Continent, this year, is marching with England." 
 This sudden attack took the Emperor by surprise, 
 and seemed to expose him, defenceless, to irresistible 
 foes. The armies, which he had left on the Rhine, 
 already merely the shadows of armies, had suffered 
 cruelly from want and disease ; and he had assembled 
 as yet but small bodies of levies, and a few thousand 
 trained soldiers, chiefly drawn from his late Penin- 
 sular forces. France, too, was showing no sign of 
 the energy and patriotism of 1 8 1 3. The spirit of dis- 
 
328 Napoleon. [1814 
 
 content, if as yet suppressed, was exhibiting itself 
 in several provinces ; and the nation was giving proof 
 of increasing exhaustion. Napoleon confronted the 
 situation as became a warrior ; he made Marie Louise, 
 for the second time, regent ; gave his brother, Joseph, 
 the command of the capital ; directed that all avail- 
 able troops should be sent forward to join his armies ; 
 and left Paris near the end of January, 18 14, in order 
 to stem the tide of invasion. An untoward incident 
 had lately occurred ; the Legislative Body, which 
 had been convened, had ventured to offer a feeble 
 remonstrance against recent instances of arbitrary 
 power ; but Napoleon had sternly rebuked the depu- 
 ties, and if the rebuke shows his despotic instincts, a 
 demonstration of the kind — a significant proof how 
 opinion even now was turning against him^made 
 in the presence of enemies, after years of silence, can 
 hardly obtain the applause of history. 
 
 He was in a few hours at Chalons on the Marne, 
 the scene of the memorable defeat of Attila; 
 and he was met by affrighted lieutenants, who had 
 endeavoured, in vain, to check the hosts of the Allies 
 advancing from the Rhine. By this time, Blucher 
 had reached the Upper Marne, having overrun 
 Alsace and Lorraine and masked their fortresses by 
 reserves from the rear ; Schwartzenberg had passed 
 through Franche Comt6, and held the tract between 
 the Upper Aube and the Upper Seine ; and as all 
 Napoleon's forces on the spot did not exceed eighty 
 thousand or ninety thousand men, to a considerable 
 extent inferior troops, the invaders, nearly three- 
 fold in numbers, believed that serious resistance was 
 
18141 Fall of Napoleon. 329 
 
 scarcely possible ; and that they would ere long make 
 their way to the capital. But a great captain stood 
 in their path, who had shown, by examples of supreme 
 excellence, how swift and terrible could be his strokes 
 in a central position between enemies apart, and the 
 contest in Champagne was, in a large measure, to 
 renew the marvels of the contest on the Adige. The 
 first incidents of the campaign, however, were of 
 evil omen for the arms of France. Having tried to 
 reassure the hearts of his marshals, Napoleon marched 
 from Chalons, up the stream, on Vitry, at the head 
 of about forty thousand men, his object being to 
 strike Bliicher, who was endeavouring to unite with 
 Schwartzenberg, and perhaps to attack Mortier on 
 the Upper Seine near Troyes. Blucher, however, 
 had time to retrace his steps ; an indecisive battle was 
 fought at Brienne, the scene of Napoleon's boyhood 
 in France, and though the Prussian chief was, on the 
 whole, worsted, he retreated only a short distance, 
 and was soon joined by his Austrian colleague. The 
 Emperor, meanwhile, had placed himself at La 
 Rothifere, with his rear to the Aube ; and whether it 
 was that he was surprised, or that with characteristic 
 pride, and overweening confidence, he would not fall 
 back before his foes, he was assailed by the Allies 
 in overwhelming strength, and narrowly escaped a 
 crushing defeat. 
 
 February had arrived, and Napoleon's position, 
 after this passage of arms, seemed utterly hopeless. 
 He had been beaten in a pitched battle ; the allied 
 armies were almost united ; and how could he resist 
 an advance on Paris, made by enemies in immensely 
 
330 Napoleon. [1814 
 
 superior numbers ? Yet in this hour of misfortune, 
 a consummate master found reasons for hope in the 
 secrets of his art, and refused to admit that success 
 was impossible. With perfect appreciation of the 
 theatre of war, of the position of the Allies upon it, 
 and of the character of the generals opposed to him, 
 he had formed a plan of operations, which, in events 
 that in all probability would occur, would yet, he 
 believed, turn the scale of fortune. 
 
 The object of the Allies was to reach Paris ; and 
 the main roads to Paris stretched along the Marne 
 and the Seine, lines already held in Champagne by 
 the enemy, and forming the natural ways to the 
 capital. Bliicher and Schwartzenberg, therefore, it 
 might be assumed, would, almost necessarily, follow 
 these avenues ; but if so, they would be compelled 
 to separate, and their separation might be expected 
 from special causes. Their armies rested on widely 
 divergent bases, the one on the Middle, the other on 
 the Upper Rhine ; like Beaulieu and Colli, in 1796, 
 they were, in some measure, divided by ancient 
 jealousies ; and the two chiefs, besides, were of oppo- 
 site natures, the one fiery and audacious, the other 
 timid. They would, therefore, advance along the 
 Marne and the Seine ; and, as they would be thus 
 kept apart by wide distances, which, it might be ex- 
 pected, would increase, they would inevitably afford 
 more than one occasion to a resolute foe, of sufficient 
 skill to strike them in succession, and to defeat them 
 in detail. Inspired with these thoughts. Napoleon 
 had ordered the passages on the Marne and the 
 Seine to be fortified, so as to increase his opportuni- 
 
1814] Fall of Napoleon. 331 
 
 ties of attack ; he had placed reinforcements, and all 
 that was required for the field, on an intermediate 
 line between the two rivers ; and, convinced that his 
 enemies would advance along them, he had resolved 
 to oppose a single front of defence, to the double 
 and separate front of invasion, and, operating from 
 a centre between the hostile armies, to assail and 
 beat them one after the other. The conception Wcis 
 exactly the same in kind as that which had proved 
 so fruitful in 1796, and it was one of the grandest 
 of an unrivalled strategist. 
 
 Napoleon's anticipations were soon realised, and 
 accidents of the situation promoted the result. 
 Macdonald, retreating from the frontier, had been 
 attacked by York, the well-known Prussian of 18 12, 
 and had been forced along the Marne towards the 
 capital ; and the army of Bliicher had been greatly 
 increased, by reinforcements approaching Chalons. 
 Bliicher disposed of about seventy thousand men ; 
 he believed that he had nothing to fear from Napo- 
 leon ; he saw in Macdonald an easy prey ; he was 
 eager to win in the great race to Paris ; so, leaving 
 the Aube, he made across the space which divides 
 the river from the line of the Marne, directing his 
 lieutenants to co-operate with him. By this time 
 Napoleon was at Troyes, on the Seine, with about 
 sixty thousand men in his hands ; and the army of 
 Bliicher and its supports exposed their flanks to him 
 in long divided columns, as they advanced toward 
 the southern bank of the Marne. The Emperor 
 saw, and seized the occasion ; he detached Oudinot 
 and Victor, perhaps thirty thousand strong, to hold 
 
332 Napoleon. t18l4 
 
 Schwartzenberg's forces in check, and then with 
 Ney, Marmont, and Mortier, he marched at the head 
 of some thirty thousand to attack Bliicher, already 
 in a position of grave danger. The movement was 
 one of extreme difificulty ; the cross-roads were bad, 
 and the weather most severe, but the genius and 
 ardour of Napoleon prevailed, though he was no 
 longer equal to days of fatigue ; and the results were 
 immense and well-nigh marvellous. Breaking in on 
 the side of his separated foes, he crushed Olsuvieff 
 and a large detachment at Champaubert ; he then 
 turned to the left, and routed Sacken returning from 
 the pursuit of Macdonald, at Montmirail, with enor- 
 mous loss ; he hastened after York, and drove him 
 across the Marne ; and finally he overthrew Bliicher 
 at Vauchamps, incautiously advancing to assist his 
 colleagues. In these magnificent operations, which 
 took place between the loth and 14th of February, 
 Napoleon had captured more than fifteen thousand 
 prisoners — not to speak of killed, wounded, and lost 
 guns — and, for the moment, had ruined Bliicher's 
 army, which recoiled along both banks of the Marne, 
 on Chalons ; and one front of the invasion was, for 
 the time, broken. 
 
 The Conqueror now turned against the second 
 front, the army, as it was still called, of Bohemia; 
 and his success, if not so decisive, was most brilliant. 
 After the departure of Napoleon to attack Bliicher, 
 Schwartzenberg had advanced along the Seine, on 
 his way to the capital ; and having borne Victor and 
 Oudinot back, had spread his army on both banks 
 of the river, in order probably to make its march 
 
1814] Fall of Napoleon. 333 
 
 more rapid. His flank, therefore, was exposed, as 
 that of Bliicher had been ; his forces, too, were 
 divided and scattered ; and had the Emperor had a 
 free choice, he would doubtless have descended on 
 this vulnerable side, and perhaps have gained extra- 
 ordinary success. But the approach of the enemy 
 had terrified Paris ; Napoleon was obliged to make 
 a circuit, which placed his army before the threatened 
 city, and he was compelled to fall on Schwartzen- 
 berg, in front, a movement that could not lead to 
 such fruitful results. His troops, nevertheless, had 
 been largely reinforced ; he was at the head of about 
 seventy thousand men ; and he defeated the army 
 of Bohemia at Nangis and Montereau, having only 
 just failed, through the delays of Victor, to cut off a 
 body of twenty thousand men. Though Schwartzen- 
 berg had still one hundred thousand within reach, 
 he was afraid to encounter his dreaded enemy, and, 
 baffled and beaten, he fell back to Troyes. The 
 Coalition, which, a few days before, believed that 
 Paris was in its grasp, had been driven back into the 
 midst of Champagne, by operations which will live 
 in history as among the finest masterpieces of war. 
 It is doubtful, indeed, if the difficult exploit of 
 moving an army between divided enemies, has been 
 illustrated by a grander example. 
 
 The second front of the invasion had, in turn, been 
 stricken, and an armistice was made as February 
 was about to close. Negotiations, meanwhile, had 
 been in progress for arranging the pacification of 
 Europe, though hostilities had not been allowed to 
 cease. Since the disgrace of Talleyrand, Napoleon 
 
334 Napoleon. [1814 
 
 had been his own Minister of Foreign Affairs, for 
 Champagny, Duke of Cadore, and Maret, Duke of 
 Bassano, who had successively filled the office, had, 
 though men of no ordinary powers, been mere 
 exponents of the will of their master ; but the 
 Emperor, in deference to the stress of opinion, had 
 lately appointed Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza, who 
 had always been an advocate of peace, and had done 
 his best to secure it in 1813. Conferences had been 
 held at Chatillon on the Seine ; but the conditions 
 proposed to Caulaincourt were very different from 
 those proposed before the Rhine had been crossed. 
 Instead of leaving France on her " natural bound- 
 aries," the Allies had insisted on making the Empire 
 the France only of Louis XVI., that is, on stripping 
 her of her Revolutionary conquests ; and they stipu- 
 lated besides, that France should have no voice in 
 the general rearrangement of the affairs of Europe, 
 though probably this was not their last word. These 
 conditions were certainly harsh in the extreme, nay, 
 intolerable from the point of view of patriotic French- 
 men, especially as France had not rejected the offers 
 made a few weeks before ; but Napoleon had given 
 Caulaincourt full powers to treat, when, after La 
 Rothifere, his cause seemed desperate, having however 
 left it on record that he would have set at naught a 
 peace extorted as a " capitulation " * by force. 
 
 After his extraordinary success on the Marne and 
 the Seine, the Emperor refused even to listen to 
 terms, which f " would cause the blood of French- 
 
 * Napoleon to Joseph, Correspondance, tome xxvii., igi. 
 
 \ Napoleon to Caulaincourt, Correspondance, tome xxvii., 205. 
 
1 81 41 Fall of Napoleon. 335 
 
 men to boil in their veins " ; he declared that he 
 would make his ultimatum himself ; and he preferred 
 to continue the struggle with Europe, and to stake 
 Empire and Crown on the issue, to renouncing the 
 France of Campo Formio at least. The Allies, how- 
 ever, were equally resolute ; and it soon became 
 evident that the sword would, be the only arbiter. 
 The conduct of the belligerents was characteristic in 
 the extreme. Napoleon's confidence had completely 
 returned ; he thought himself invincible once more ; 
 he had exclaimed that " he would soon be on the 
 Vistula again " ; and plainly he believed that he had 
 still a chance to regain large parts of his lost empire. 
 He did not, accordingly, draw in all his available 
 forces for the defence of France ; he left Eugene to 
 make a stand for Italy ; if Soult was required to 
 oppose Wellington, he left Suchet on the borders 
 of Spain ; and this must be borne in mind in judging 
 his strategy, in this memorable contest as a whole. 
 The Allies, on the contrary, confessed defeat ; they 
 were conscious of their inferiority to their mighty 
 enemy ; but Europe, they felt, was strong enough to 
 crush him, and they resolved to make force supply 
 the want of genius. At a great Council of War, it 
 was acknowledged that Bliicher and Schwartzenberg, 
 superior in number as they were, were not able to 
 overthrow Napoleon * ; and fifty thousand men, under 
 Wintzingerode and Biilow, were detached from the 
 army of Bernadotte, and directed towards the deci- 
 
 * Lord Castlereagh could not understand this, and ai paymaster of 
 the Coalition, demurred to the expense of these reinforcements. 
 " Milord" said a bystander, " vous ne connaissez pas cet homme 1" 
 
336 Napoleon. [I814 
 
 sive points on the theatre of war, the plains of 
 Champagne, on the way to Paris. At the same time 
 a treaty was made which drew the bonds of the 
 alhance close, and pledged the Coalition to renewed 
 efforts. The results of Napoleon's victories really 
 were to increase the constancy and even the strength 
 of his enemies. 
 
 Hostilities, meanwhile, had been going on in the 
 region between the Marne and the Seine. Bliicher 
 who had rallied his broken army, with characteristic 
 boldness and energy, and had soon reached the 
 Seine to give aid to Schwartzenberg, had again 
 set off for the Lower Marne, his object being to 
 attack Mortier, who had been despatched to observe 
 York and Marmont who stood on the intermediate 
 line from which Napoleon drew his supports, and 
 probably to make a dash on the capital. The Prus- 
 sian veteran had once more exposed his flank to 
 Napoleon, at this moment at Troyes ; and the Em- 
 peror leaving Macdonald and Oudinot to keep back 
 Schwartzenberg, should he advance by the Seine, 
 proceeded to repeat the fine manoeuvres which had 
 given him such great and unexpected success. Blii- 
 cher, sending a detachment as far as Meaux, en- 
 deavoured to cut off Mortier and Marmont, united 
 by this time, from the road to Paris ; but the marshals 
 had eluded the stroke ; and, crossing the Marne, 
 stood on the Ourcq, an affluent of the larger stream ; 
 and Bliicher, eager to seize his prey, hastened over 
 the Marne to bring them to bay, though Napoleon 
 was gathering on his rear. 
 
 The Emperor crossed the Marne in turn; and 
 
1814] Fall of Napoleon. 337 
 
 Blucher, now open to the double attack of Mortier, 
 Marmont, and Napoleon combined, had no choice 
 but to fly northwards, and to try to escape beyond 
 the Aisne at Soissons. The Prussian army, harassed 
 and over-matched, was in a situation of extreme 
 peril, when the cowardice and weakness of an infe- 
 rior French officer saved it from a disaster perhaps 
 more fatal than Champaubert, Montmirail, and Vau- 
 champs. Biilow and Wintzingerode had reached 
 the Aisne, and aware of the ruin hanging over Blii- 
 cher, had surrounded Soissons, and summoned the 
 place, threatening to storm it, and put the garrison 
 to the sword ; the commandant had shamefully 
 opened the gates, and the only passage on the Aisne 
 was thus secured for the enemy, hotly pursued by 
 Napoleon — and Blucher, Biilow, and Wintzingerode 
 had effected their junction ! The position of affairs 
 had been transformed by a misadventure terrible as 
 that of Culm ; Napoleon had seen his enemy escape, 
 and he had now hardly more than fifty thousand 
 men to oppose to ninety thousand at least. Pru- 
 dence counselled a return behind the Marne, for 
 Blucher and Schwartzenberg still could be held in 
 check ; but the Emperor would not leave his immedi- 
 ate foe, and with that impatient eagerness to strike 
 at once which appears in many parts of his career, 
 he resolved to follow Blucher, still in retreat. On 
 the 7th of March he attacked Wintzingerode at 
 Craonne in a very strong position ; and though Blii- 
 cher fell back, he was not defeated. Two days 
 afterwards the attack was renewed against very supe- 
 rior forces ; and Napoleon recoiled from the heights 
 
338 Napoleon. [1814 
 
 of Laon, discomfited, and losing thousands of men. 
 He crushed a small hostile detachment in his retreat, 
 but his operations had altogether failed ; Bliicher and 
 his colleagues alone were too strong for him ; and he 
 returned to the Marne with a heavy heart, having 
 lost nearly a fourth of his army, in the calamitous 
 battles of Craonne and Laon. 
 
 During these events on the Marne and the Aisne, 
 the army of Bohemia had not been idle ; and Schwart- 
 zenberg, who had fallen back to the Upper Aube, had 
 easily driven Oudinot and Macdonald back, and ad- 
 vancing along the Seine, had again drawn near Paris. 
 The position of Napoleon was now very critical ; 
 Bliicher and both his colleagues threatened his right ; 
 Schwartzenberg, on his left, was approaching the 
 capital ; and they might stifle him by sheer weight 
 of numbers. He descended, however, from the 
 Marne to the Aube, leaving Mortier and Marmont 
 to restrain Bliicher ; and once more Schwartzenberg, 
 menaced on his flank by his dreaded antagonist, be- 
 gan to retreat. The movement, however, to and fro, 
 between the Marne and the Seine, could not go on 
 forever, and Napoleon formed a new design, from 
 which he drew the augury of splendid success. He 
 had thousands of troops shut up in the fortresses of 
 Lorraine, Alsace, and the provinces of the North- 
 east ; these strong places were imperfectly masked ; 
 he resolved to set free the beleaguered garrisons, 
 to draw them to his army in the field ; and then to 
 sever the communications of the allies with the Rhine, 
 and to place them in the position of Melas, com- 
 pelled to fight, and struck down at Marengo. This 
 
1814] Fall of Napoleon. 339 
 
 movement, the counterpart of the march on Berlin, 
 which had been a project of the year before, and 
 magnificent in conception at least, was to be sup- 
 ported by Augereau, advancing from the South, by 
 Suchet and Eugene, at last called in, and Napoleon 
 had calculated that in a few days, he would be at 
 the head of one hundred and fifty thousand men 
 astride on the path of the retreat of his foes. 
 
 Intent on this plan, he summoned all his forces to 
 join him on the Aube, where he now was, leaving 
 small detachments only before the capital ; and if 
 the operation uncovered Paris, the Emperor was 
 convinced, either that the Allies would not venture to 
 advance so far, or that the city would hold out for a 
 time. He began the movement on the 20th of 
 March ; but, before his army had been drawn to- 
 gether he was assailed by Schwartzenberg at Arcis 
 on the Aube, having been surprised by a foe he 
 scorned ; and he only just contrived to avoid a 
 defeat. He now marched towards the Upper Marne 
 and the Meuse, his purpose being to advance to the 
 Moselle and to rally the garrison of Metz, in the first 
 instance. His columns had soon disappeared beyond 
 Vitry on the Marne, followed by a body of the 
 enemy's horsemen. 
 
 In an ordinary war this great move of Napoleon 
 would have certainly made the Allies pause, and 
 Schwartzenberg, at least, would not have advanced, 
 with a formidable tempest collecting on his rear. 
 But the present was not an ordinary war ; and con- 
 siderations higher than military rules led the Coali- 
 tion to form a purpose which, otherwise, they might 
 
340 Napoleon. [1814 
 
 have been afraid to form. A conspiracy had been 
 hatching against the Empire for some time, in Paris ; 
 its master-spirit was the sagacious Talleyrand, who 
 had never forgiven his late disgrace, and who scented 
 from afar the fall of Napoleon* ; and though it was 
 confined to a few leading men, discarded dignitaries 
 in most instances, it harmonised with the discontent 
 and alarm already pervading all parts of the capital. 
 The conspirators contrived to obtain the services of 
 an old Royalist, Vitrolles,f a very adroit plotter, 
 who, though he had eaten the bread of Napoleon, 
 thought it right to betray him in the holy Bourbon 
 cause ; and Vitrolles had found his way into the allied 
 camp, where he received a welcome every day more 
 cordial, and had set forth his views of the position of 
 affairs. France, he insisted, was sick of despotism and 
 war, and was eager to throw off the yoke of the 
 Empire ; and if the Coalition would march on Paris, 
 they would find that the colossus had feet of clay, 
 and that the nation would rise against a tyrant it 
 abhorred. 
 
 These ideas, were, in some measure, shared by two 
 very able followers of the Allies, Pozzo di Borgo and 
 
 * Napoleon was perfectly aware of Talleyrand's hatred. " Je vous 
 le repete " — he wrote to Joseph — " me'fiez vous de cet homme. Je le 
 pratique depuis seize annees ; j'ai meme eu de la faveur pour lui ; 
 mais c'est surement le plus grand ennemi de notre maison, i present 
 que la fortune I'abandonne." The whole letter shows how despair 
 could sometimes fall on that great mind. Correspondance, tome xxvii., 
 131, 132. 
 
 \ The Memoirs of Vitrolles should be carefully studied for all 
 these events. See also Edinburgh Review, July, 1884, and April, 
 1885. 
 
18H] Fall of Napoleon. 341 
 
 Stadion, the one a Corsican, the other a well-tried 
 Austrian statesmen, and both personal foes of Napo- 
 leon ; and everything, indeed, that was occurring on 
 the scene, confirmed, to a great extent, their opinions. 
 The Due d'Angouleme, a Bourbon prince, had been 
 welcomed with delight at Bordeaux ; Wellington had 
 been greeted as a deliverer in provinces ruined by the 
 exactions of Soult ; Murat had declared war against 
 his benefactor and kinsman — an instance of baseness 
 not easy to match — and the Empire in the Low 
 Countries had well-nigh vanished. France, too, was 
 evidently falling away from Napoleon ; the Conscrip- 
 tion had almost wholly failed ; the treasury paper 
 was becoming worthless ; all the severity of a despotic 
 government had proved abortive in collecting taxes ; 
 the functionaries of the Empire had begun to hide 
 their heads ; and the Emperor had no means to con- 
 tinue the war, save the remains of armies that could 
 hardly be reinforced. Nor was there a sign of the 
 heroic energy and patriotism of 1793-4, which 
 had hurled the invader beyond the frontiers. The 
 nation, fashioned for years to obedience, had been 
 enervated by success and despotic power, and Napo- 
 leon had said the truth to one of his generals, who 
 entreated him to summon the People to arms : " I 
 have destroyed the Revolution, and how can I call 
 on it ? " In view of the situation the Allies resolved 
 to march on Paris without more delay and to strike 
 the Empire down in the centre of its power ; and 
 intercepted letters of Marie Louise and Savary 
 which described the capital as likely to imitate 
 Bordeaux, confirmed a decision already made. 
 
342 Napoleon. [1814 
 
 On the 25th of March, 1814, the hosts of the 
 Coalition were on their way to Paris. Blucher 
 and Schwartzenberg gradually approached each 
 other, and Marmont and Mortier, who had failed 
 to join Napoleon, as he advanced towards Lorraine, 
 were swept away before the great sea of invasion. 
 Marie Louise, complying with her consort's * orders, 
 fled to Blois with the young King of Ronae ; a large 
 part of the Court followed ; and Joseph had before 
 long vanished. The capital was left without a govern- 
 ment, scarcely any preparations for defence were made, 
 the mass of the population had no arms, for it was never 
 imagined that these might be wanted ; and the upper 
 and middle classes were at best indifferent. On the 
 29th the armies of the League of Europe were seen 
 converging into the broad space, now bristling with 
 fortifications and gay with wealth, which extends to 
 the north-east of the city, and on the next morning 
 the attack began. Names to be known in history 
 were among the assailants, — Radetski, Paskevitch, 
 Diebitsch, Nugent — and the exultation of the Allies 
 knew no bounds, as they felt that their grasp was 
 at last laid on the proud seat of Revolution and all- 
 devouring Empire. Marmont and Mortier made an 
 honourable defence, but what could thirty thousand 
 do against one hundred and fifty thousand men? 
 and the citizens made little show of resistance ; the 
 
 * Napoleon to Joseph in the letter before quoted : " L'interlt 
 meme du pays est que I'lmperatrice et le Roi ne restent pas 4 
 Paris . . . Men fils regnant et I'lmperatrice regente doivent 
 pour I'honneur des Francais ne pas se laisser prendre et se retirer 
 an dernier village avec leurs derniers soldats." 
 
1814] Fall of Napoleon. 343 
 
 streets were not barricaded as they have often been ; 
 and apart from a few thousand National Guards, and 
 the gallant youth of the military schools, the people 
 gave scarcely a sign of life. Before long the uniting 
 tides of invasion had overflowed St. Denis, Romain- 
 ville, and Vincennes, and had surged round Mont- 
 martre and Belleville, and a further defence was pro- 
 nounced impossible, words that the cities of Spain 
 disdained to hear. The capitulation was signed at 
 nightfall, and Paris, saved by Villars in 171 2, and 
 saved by the Convention amidst the Reign of Terror, 
 had fallen before embattled Europe, while still under 
 the rule of a Sovereign, who, twenty months before, 
 had been Lord of the Continent. 
 
 While the Allies had thus been advancing on Paris, 
 Napoleon had been making his way towards the 
 Meuse. Ere long, however, he became aware that 
 he was only observed by a body of cavalry ; and he 
 learned, by an accident, that Bliicher and Schwartzen- 
 berg were marching on the capital in overwhelming 
 force. He seems to have wished, for a few hours, 
 to continue his daring movement eastwards ; but he 
 was overborne by frightened lieutenants ; and the 
 heads of his columns were turned back towards 
 Paris. The conference with the Allies had ceased for 
 some days ; Caulaincourt had returned to his master, 
 after a fruitless mission ; and the Emperor, accom- 
 panied by his faithful minister, preceded the army, in 
 haste, to obtain intelligence of what was occurring 
 around the great city. He was informed of the 
 capitulation by midnight on the 30th, at a village 
 not far from Fontainebleau ; and next morning he 
 
344 Napoleon. [1814 
 
 despatched the Duke of Vicenza to the heads of the 
 Coahtion with full powers to treat. This, however, 
 there is every reason to believe, was a stratagem to 
 gain time and to enable the French army to approach 
 Paris, for the known evidence points to but one 
 conclusion. 
 
 Napoleon had steadily refused to accept the terms 
 lately proposed by the Allies ; the Bourbons, he had 
 declared, might take the France of Louis XVI., but he 
 would fight to the death for the "natural boundaries " ; 
 and it was his fixed purpose, in this particular, that 
 had caused the recent negotiations to fail. On the 
 other hand, the position of the Allies round Paris was 
 such as to inspire a great captain with hope that 
 genius and skill might yet do much, nay, perhaps, 
 change the course of the war; and the errand of 
 Caulaincourt, therefore, seems to have been essen- 
 tially a military feint. The envoy of Napoleon, on 
 entering Paris, was a witness of a revolution, sudden 
 and complete, which, a few weeks before, would have 
 been deemed incredible. Imperial authority having 
 collapsed, Talleyrand and his knot of adherents, for 
 some time corresponding secretly with the Allies, 
 boldly seized the helm of the imperilled State ; and it 
 became their lot to treat with the conquerors for the 
 interests of Paris, and even of France. 
 
 The Czar, who, owing to the inemories of i8i2, 
 and to the preponderating strength of the Russian 
 armies, had become the Suzerain of the Coalition, 
 negotiated with men, already his satellites, and 
 indeed the only representatives of France for the 
 moment ; and measures of supreme importance were 
 
1814] Fall of Napoleon. 345 
 
 soon arranged. It was one of Talleyrand's distinctive 
 merits that he interpreted clearly the signs of the 
 time, and that any policy he counselled stood on a 
 principle ; he had little difficulty in proving to the 
 Czar that the cause of Napoleon was wholly lost, and 
 that France was weary of a rule of the sword, which 
 had brought frightful disasters in its train ; and he 
 skilfully added, that, in the existing crisis, the 
 restoration of the Bourbons was necessary to the 
 world, for the Bourbons would gladly accept old 
 France, and represented order, tradition, and the 
 rights of kings. All that the Allies had seen had 
 given weight to this judgment, their troops had 
 defiled through the streets of the capital ; scarcely a 
 voice had uttered the name of the Emperor ; the mass 
 of the population had preserved silence ; but bands of 
 Royalist partisans had shouted loudly for " Louis 
 XVIII. and the Ancient Monarchy," and these 
 demonstrations had not been unwelcome. After a 
 brief deliberation, the Coalition announced that they 
 would not " treat with Napoleon or one of his fam- 
 ily," leaving the question of the government of 
 France unsettled, and all that was next required was 
 to procure a kind of national assent to the will of the 
 conquerors. Talleyrand found in the Senate, for 
 many years, a mere tool in Napoleon's hands, a con- 
 venient agent to effect his purpose ; and the preroga- 
 tives which the Emperor had bestowed on the body 
 were made the means to compass his ruin. Some of 
 the Senators had not forgotten the old opposition 
 to the First Consul ; others had chafed under an 
 imperious master ; many thought only of yielding to 
 
346 Napoleon. [1814 
 
 events, and of securing profit and place for them- 
 selves, and all proved willing to lift up their heels 
 against the prostrate lion for their own ends. The 
 children of the Revolution did not belie their origin ; 
 loyalty and honour were dead in the land of Bayard ; 
 they proclaimed that Napoleon had forfeited his 
 crown, and, with ineffable meanness, laid acts to 
 his charge of arbitrary violence and despotic law- 
 lessness, to which, one and all, they had been 
 consenting. 
 
 Caulaincourt, who, probably, was not aware of his 
 master's secret, but real purpose, and who sought to 
 preserve the Empire at any cost, remonstrated against 
 the decision of the Allies ; but his remonstrances fell 
 on unheeding ears. He had returned to Napoleon 
 on the 2d of April, who had assembled his army 
 around Fontainebleau, and who had eighty or 
 ninety thousand men in his hands ; for the troops 
 who had fought with Marmont and Mortier had 
 been permitted to rejoin the Emperor. Napoleon 
 had resolved to attack the Allies ; and he had 
 planned operations which, to the last day of his 
 life, he insisted would have given him decisive suc- 
 cess. The armies of the Coalition were two hun- 
 dred thousand strong ; but sixty thousand were 
 within Paris, and the rest of their forces spread 
 round the city, disseminated upon a wide circum- 
 ference, and divided by the lines of the Marne and 
 the Seine. But Napoleon held the passages of both 
 rivers ; the citizens of Paris would not stand aloof if 
 a French army should fall on their conquerors ; and, 
 outnumbered as he was, the Emperor believed that 
 
1 8H] Fall of Napoleon. 347 
 
 he could crush one of the hostile masses by a well- 
 conceived effort, that this would involve the fate of 
 the other masses, and that the invaders, who occu- 
 pied the city, would be certainly destroyed. It is 
 vain to call the project insane, if we bear in mind 
 what this great warrior repeatedly achieved against 
 enormous odds ; his triumph was very far from 
 improbable ; and, in any event, the resolve was noble, 
 to risk everything in the cause of France. 
 
 Treating all that had occurred in Paris with scorn, 
 Napoleon directed his marshals to prepare to march ; 
 and he looked joyfully forward to a great battle, 
 which would enable him to insist on " the natural 
 boundaries." But Talleyrand had played on the 
 fears and the feelings of lieutenants weary of war, 
 and desponding ; the armed servitors of the Emperor 
 let fall hints of disobedience, and of mutiny in the 
 camp, and insinuated that Napoleon would do well 
 to abdicate and to save his throne for Marie Louise 
 and his son ; and their master, seeing that they would 
 not second his efforts, if he obstinately rejected what 
 had been proposed, signed a Conditional Abdication 
 on the terms they suggested, exclaiming at the same 
 time, " we could win if we chose." Napoleon desig- 
 nated Ney, Macdonald, and Marmont to represent 
 him before the Allies ; and Ney and Macdonald at 
 least sustained the cause of the young Empress and 
 of the King of Rome — their own cause and that of 
 the army — with earnestness, and sincere devotion. 
 The Czar, who leaned to the liberal doctrines of the 
 time, and had conceived a strong dislike to the Bour- 
 bons, was possibly not disinclined to yield ; when an 
 
348 Napoleon. [1814 
 
 unhappy incident changed the position of affairs, and 
 finally determined the Allies' purpose. 
 
 Marmont, trusted and loved by Napoleon for years, 
 had dealt with Schwartzenberg to betray his master ; 
 he had repented, like Judas, when it was too late, 
 and had even gone to Paris with his brother marshals ; 
 but his subordinates carried out his previous inten- 
 tions ; his corps d'arm^e, twenty thousand strong, 
 was marched into the camp of the Alhes, and Napo- 
 leon's military position was fatally exposed. On re- 
 ceiving the intelligence, Alexander declared that 
 the French army was evidently divided in mind ; and 
 Marie Louise and her son were pronounced impos- 
 sible. Perceiving that the contest could not be 
 prolonged, except by a desperate civil war, the fallen 
 Emperor abdicated, without conditions, on the 6th 
 of April, 1 8 14.* He made no stipulations for him- 
 self and his House; but in language of singular 
 grace and dignity, which evidently expressed his 
 real thoughts, he declared that he laid down his 
 crown, " and was ready to lay down life, if the sacri- 
 fice was for the welfare of France." 
 
 The conduct of Frenchmen, at this tremendous 
 crisis, was a striking illustration of the qualities of 
 the race, and of what Revolution and Despotism may 
 effect. The provinces invaded by the allied armies 
 were exasperated, and showed a patriotic spirit ; the 
 towns of the coast, blighted by the Continental sys- 
 tem, rejoiced at the fall of the Imperial government. 
 
 * The abdication seems to have been signed on the 6th and ratified 
 on the I ith. 
 
1814] Fall of Napoleon. 349 
 
 The nation, however, as a whole, was apathetic, and 
 listless ; it was indifferent to the defence of the natal 
 soil ; and if it resented the wrongs of Napoleon's 
 rule, its chief aspiration was a longing for repose. 
 The attitude ,of Paris was very significant ; though 
 the capital, probably, in this instance, exaggerated 
 the sentiments of the mass of the people. The 
 Restoration of the Bourbons had been announced ; 
 the Comte d'Artois, brother of the late Pretender, 
 soon to be proclaimed as Louis XVIII. , who had 
 followed in the wake of the Coalition, was about to 
 assume the reins of power; and the abdication of 
 Napoleon was an accomplished fact. In view of 
 these great and sudden events, the population of the 
 city seemed almost careless ; they showed no enthu- 
 siasm for the new order of things, but they did not 
 mourn for the vanished Empire ; they felt nothing of 
 the humiliation of defeat ; they did not stand sternly 
 aloof from their conquerors. On the other hand, the 
 liberal and moneyed classes, the moderate men of all 
 parties, and the representatives of the rising intellect 
 of France, the orders of citizens, who had sustained 
 Napoleon on the l8th Brumaire, and had rallied 
 round him when First Consul, rejoiced at the termi- 
 nation of universal war, and believed that peace 
 might bring liberty with it ; and if they did not hail 
 the Allies as deliverers, they did not regard them as 
 foes of their country. The exultation of the sur- 
 vivors of the old noblesse, who had crowded the 
 ante-chambers of the departed conqueror, was seen 
 in exhibitions of half frantic delight ; and marshals, 
 generals, and ministers of the late Empire vied with 
 
350 Napoleon. [1814 
 
 each other in hailing the rising sun, and in expiating 
 obedience to a usurper, by lip-service to a king. 
 
 Alexander caressed and flattered them all; and 
 amidst military displays, and festive pageants, Paris 
 went on in her round of pleasure, and was gay, as is 
 her wont, though in an invader's power. Yet these 
 were not, perhaps, the worst signs of the selfishness 
 and fickle levity of the hour. The fury of wounded 
 national vanity, and the passions suppressed by des- 
 potic power, found a free vent in universal clamour 
 against the great discrowned ruler of France. Napo- 
 leon's statue was torn down from the Column of 
 Austerlitz ; the tokens of his presence were every- 
 where effaced ; and he became the mark of invectives, 
 cruel and false, to which history affords no parallel. 
 France, proud as she was of her renown in arms, 
 had, doubtless, never felt real sympathy with Napo- 
 leon's system of European conquests ; she had shown 
 years before that she feared his ambition ; and his 
 reign had ended in immense disasters. But Napo- 
 leon had done her services above praise ; she had 
 made him an object of national worship; she had 
 acquiesced in the whole course of his policy ; and this 
 moral prostration in the face of her enemies, the 
 want of earnest and genuine feeling she exhibited in 
 the hour of misfortune, and her ingratitude to her 
 late great sovereign, point to inherent defects in the 
 national character, and show what are the evil results 
 of revolutionary excesses, and unchecked arbitrary 
 power. 
 
 While Paris had been dallying with the Allies, and 
 decking herself out for the Comte d'Artois, Napoleon 
 
1814] Fall of Napoleon. 351 
 
 had remained, almost alone, at Fontainebleau. His 
 army, spread around the spot, and the younger offi- 
 cers and the soldiery, gave repeated proofs of passion- 
 ate devotion to a still worshipped chief. But the 
 companions-in-arms he had raised to honour, had, on 
 various pretexts, fallen away ; of the dignitaries of 
 his throne and the throng of his courtiers, not one 
 had appeared to say farewell ; three or four only of 
 the leading men of the Empire waited on the voice 
 of their fallen master, in a palace which had become 
 a solitude. 
 
 Napoleon did not wholly yield to despair ; but 
 dark thoughts took possession of that deep-search- 
 ing intellect. He had built an empire out of a revo- 
 lutionary chaos ; he had surrounded it with the pomp 
 of the past, and had given it the glories of war and 
 of peace ; yet it had toppled down with an appalling 
 crash ; and he sat, like the Roman, amidst its ruins. 
 He had raised France to the topmost height of 
 grandeur ; she had blessed him as her lord and her 
 saviour, but she was now cursing him as a destroyer ; 
 and she was demanding at his hands the blood of 
 thousands of her sons shed in the march of conquest 
 from Madrid to Moscow. Not for him were the con- 
 solations of the life of home ; he had been betrayed 
 by kinsmen and friends ; his foes had been those of 
 his own household ; his wife and child were now 
 hostages in the power of enemies who felt the hatred 
 of fear. Yet his first thoughts were of France in 
 this hour of agony ; he mourned with Caulaincourt 
 on her departed greatness ; he lamented that she had 
 not seconded his efforts to maintain her place in 
 
352 Napoleon. [18H 
 
 Europe ; he grieved for the wrongs he felt he had 
 done her. Forsaken, held up to the execration of 
 mankind, and tormented by the reproaches of an 
 accusing conscience. Napoleon felt existence an in- 
 tolerable load, and, in a moment of weakness, he 
 swallowed poison. The act indicates that this 
 mighty spirit could not always rise superior to for- 
 tune ; but Hannibal was, perhaps, even a greater 
 man, and Hannibal had wrought his own destruction. 
 
 The noxious draught, however, did not prove 
 fatal ; and Napoleon was reserved for other destinies. 
 The Allies had given him the island of Elba, and he 
 was soon on his way to his new dominions. At 
 Fontainebleau he bade a memorable farewell to the 
 veterans of his Guard, which will live in history ; and 
 the war-worn soldiery wept like children, when he 
 held their unconquered eagle in his embrace, and 
 promised to " write the great deeds they had done 
 together." On his journey he had ample and cruel 
 experience of the mutability of human things, and of 
 the Nemesis which dogs unbridled ambition. He 
 was well received in the central parts of France ; but 
 as he appi^oached the provinces which had most 
 resented the Conscription and had not seen the 
 enemy, and passed through the towns ruined by the 
 Continental system, he was denounced by raving 
 multitudes as a monster of crime, and his life was 
 more than once in the gravest danger. 
 
 The exploits of Napoleon on the Marne and the 
 Seine, justly rank among his most splendid achieve- 
 ments. Yet if we consider the contest of 1 8 14 as a 
 whole, we see that his calculations were often false ; 
 
1814] Fall of Napoleon. 353 
 
 he underrated the energy of his foes, and was sur- 
 prised by them, in the first instance ; he was not 
 strong enough to contend for his lost Empire, and 
 yet he evidently fought for large parts of it ; he left 
 Eugene in Italy, and Suchet in Spain, and did not 
 concentrate his forces at the decisive points of the 
 theatre of war, when this was still possible. The 
 extravagance of the conqueror once more interfered 
 with the strategy of the general, in this passage of 
 arms ; and we see in it, too, very clearly,* the over- 
 confident eagerness which advancing years had rather 
 increased than lessened. Craonne and Laon were 
 worse than useless battles, and had a marked effect 
 on the scene of events ; and Napoleon in 18 14 was 
 not equal to the youthful warrior of 1796. As for 
 the Allies, their operations were faulty and ill-con- 
 ceived ; they really accomplished less than Welling- 
 ton, who drove Soult from the Adourto the Garonne, 
 and paralysed the best army of France ; and they 
 conquered only by an immense superiority of force. 
 Nevertheless, they knew they were no match for 
 Napoleon ; they gave proof of firmness and stead- 
 fast patience ; and their triumph was complete, if for 
 a time most doubtful. 
 
 The military side of these memorable events is, 
 however, not their most important feature. The 
 
 * The opinion of Wellington on Napoleon in the campaign of 1814 
 will be found in the Journals of GrevilU, vol. i., 73. Wellington 
 was an admirable military critic. " His last campaign (before the 
 capture of Paris) was very brilliant, probably the ablest of all his 
 performances.'' The Duke was of opinion that " if he had possessed 
 greater patience, he would have succeeded in compelling the Allies 
 to retreat." 
 23 
 
354 Napoleon. [1814 
 
 energy of the Coalition, and of the hosts they led, 
 and the ideas and principles that marched with 
 them, contrast most strikingly with the moral apathy 
 and indifference of France at this crisis of her fate, 
 with the levity and frivolity seen in Paris, with the 
 passions let loose against the fallen Emperor, with 
 the baseness of the satellites who fell away from 
 him. The national character, in some measure, ac- 
 counts for these things ; but they were more largely 
 due to the ruinous effects of revolutionary passions 
 and despotic power, and this is the real lesson taught 
 by this period. The great superiority of Napoleon, 
 over the men around him, is also, we think, made 
 clearly manifest. Admit all that can be urged 
 against the faults of his reign, the extravagance 
 of his ambition, and the violence of his power ; ad- 
 mit, too, that he was in the wrong, and even reck- 
 less, in trifling with the Coalition when they offered 
 peace, still he stood almost alone in his fixed pur- 
 pose to contend for what the great body of thought- 
 ful Frenchmen believed to be essential to the national 
 welfare, and it is vain to assert that his cause was 
 hopeless. Nor was his conduct, as has been often 
 said, dictated by mere self-deceiving egotism. Even 
 after La Rothifere he might have retained empire if 
 he would only give up " the natural boundaries " ; and 
 he lost his crown in the quarrel of France. He had 
 sinned against her, and had sinned against Europe ; 
 he paid the penalty in a tremendous fall ; and his over- 
 grown power could never have been lasting. But 
 all through his reign Napoleon had had what he 
 conceived to be the grandeur of France, at heart, mis- 
 
1814] Fall of Napoleon. 355 
 
 taken as his conception of it was ; he associated self 
 with the national greatness ; it was not merely, or even 
 chiefly, for his own supposed interests, that he had 
 overrun and vanquished the Continent. In the hour 
 of his ruin the uncontrolled despot disappears in the 
 heroic champion of France ; he towers supreme over 
 all other Frenchmen ; he stands, separated from the 
 low-minded rulers who look only to their own ends, 
 and is placed among the great names of history. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 End of the war — Growing dislike to the Bourbons in France — The 
 Congress of Vienna — Policy of Talleyrand — Discontent in 
 France — Napoleon at Elba — His escape — His landing in France 
 — Defection of the army and of Ney from the Bourbons — The 
 Coalition denounces Napoleon as a public enemy — His prepara- 
 tions for war — State of opinion in France — The Hundred Days 
 — The new Constitution — The Champ de Mai — Battles of Ligny, 
 Quatre Bras, and Waterloo — Defeat of Napoleon — His second 
 abdication — He embarks on the Bellerophon and is sent to St. 
 Helena — Reflections. 
 
 HEN leaving for Elba, Napo- 
 leon had said, "France will 
 soon be relieved from foreign 
 war, but she will have civil 
 war, in six months, with the 
 Bourbons." Events quickly 
 verified a prediction which, 
 perhaps, did not require pe- 
 culiar insight. Carnot made 
 a brilliant defence at Ant- 
 werp ; Davoust stood out to the last at Hamburg ; 
 Soult fought an indecisive battle at Toulouse ; 
 Augereau crowned a feeble resistance in the South, 
 by betraying his master with perfidious insolence; 
 
 356 
 
NAPOLEON IN 1814-15. 
 
 FROM THE PAINTING BY PAUL OELAROChE. 
 
1814-15] The Hundred Days. Waterloo. 357 
 
 but hostilities had soon ceased on the immense 
 space between the Scheldt, the Seine, and the 
 Adige. 
 
 It was otherwise in France, where the fallen mon- 
 archy, half forgotten for years, and strangely re- 
 stored, had to confront the Revolution, and all that 
 belonged to it. The Comte d'Artois had been 
 greeted by the high life of Paris, and had eluded the 
 conditions which the Senate had endeavoured to 
 impose on the new Sovereign, and Louis XVIII. 
 had of " his own free grace " bestowed a liberal Con- 
 stitution on France, and had formed a government, 
 in some measure, composed of eminent men of the 
 Empire. Extraordinary moderation and wisdom, 
 however, would have been required to give stability 
 and durableness to this order of things ; and the rule 
 of the Bourbons showed none of these qualities. 
 The King, indeed, was an able man, and, apart from 
 his pretensions to his right divine, had some claims 
 to rank as a statesman ; and several of his ministers 
 were adroit and experienced. But Louis XVIII. 
 was swayed by a favourite, full of the ideas of the 
 old regime ; the Comte d'Artois was a tool of a little 
 knot oiimigrh, who " had learned, and had forgotten 
 nothing " ; and he had himself the traditions and 
 the follies of the camp of Cond6. Besides, the 
 Government was beset by partisans demanding the 
 rewards of past services, and by whole classes, 
 which had suffered from revolutionary change, and 
 thought that the hour of retribution had come ; and 
 ruined gentlemen clamoured for the restitution of 
 lands torn from them in 1792-4, and hundreds of 
 
358 Napoleon. [1814- 
 
 exiles sought for offices in the State, if it " were only 
 to keep disloyalty down." 
 
 A counter-revolution soon appeared at hand; it 
 became so violent that extreme churchmen prayed 
 for the abolition of the Concordat, and for the 
 restoration of the old Church of France ; and it was 
 openly spread abroad that a few months would see 
 the return of feudalism and of absolute monarchy. 
 All the interests created by the Revolution, all the 
 rights which had been established by it, were ap- 
 parently, or really, placed in danger; the conformist 
 clergy became the mark of insult ; and especially the 
 hundreds of thousands of peasants who had acquired 
 the lands of the imigr^s, sold by the State, were 
 terrified at the prospect before them. The most 
 anxious sign of the time, however, was seen in the 
 attitude of the army. Soldiers had returned to 
 France in multitudes, from fortresses which they 
 had lately held, or as prisoners of war set free ; and 
 these retained, unchanged, their love for their Em- 
 peror, and heartily detested "the King of the 
 foreigner." It probably was a necessity of State to 
 disband these formidable and angry masses ; but the 
 measure was, not the less, one of extreme peril. In 
 every other respect, besides, the military policy of 
 the Government was unwise and hurtful. It flattered 
 marshals and generals who had deserted their chief ; 
 but it had completely broken his old army up ; it had 
 taken from it its revered eagles ; it forbade the Im- 
 perial Guard to approach the King ; and it had com- 
 mitted the care of Louis XVIII. to a body of young 
 nobles, who had never seen a battle, and whose 
 
1815] The Hundred Days. Waterloo. 359 
 
 petulance affronted war-worn veterans bearing the 
 honourable scars of many a well-fought field. 
 
 France, therefore, was vexed and alarmed at 
 home ; and the force which, in a revolutionary state, 
 is almost the only support of Government, was turn- 
 ing decisively against the Bourbons. The nation, 
 too, found many causes of discontent in the position 
 it held as a vanquished Power, and in the settle- 
 ment of the affairs of Europe, effected after the fall 
 of Napoleon. It can hardly be said that the vic- 
 torious Allies abused the rights of conquerors, as 
 regards France ; she was deprived, indeed, of her 
 " natural boundaries " ; but she remained the France 
 of the later Bourbons, with frontiers enlarged at 
 some points ; she was subject to few of the exactions 
 of war ; and she was allowed to retain the trophies of 
 art torn from plundered cities and taken off to Paris. 
 Talleyrand, too, represented France most ably at 
 the great Congress, which met at Vienna, to remodel 
 the map of a changed continent. Upholding the 
 principle of public right, against brute force and 
 lawless ambition, he became the acknowledged 
 champion of the Lesser States, and acquired extra- 
 ordinary ascendency ; and he succeeded in dividing 
 the Coalition, and in uniting Austria, England, and 
 France in a league against the voracious greed of 
 Prussia, which sought to swallow Saxony up, and of 
 the Czar, who tried to extend his empire to the 
 Oder, on a hypocritical pretence of setting up a 
 national kingdom of Poland. This policy raised 
 France from her fallen state, and strongly promoted 
 her best interests ; and if Talleyrand, in a contest 
 
360 Napoleon. [1814- 
 
 with overwhelming force, was unable to accomplish 
 all that he had wished, he proved himself to be* a 
 worthy successor of the Sullys and Richelieus of the 
 seventeenth century. 
 
 Considerations, however, like these, had little weight 
 with the mass of Frenchmen. The nation bitterly 
 resented the subordinate place it necessarily held 
 among the great Powers ; it saw real danger to its 
 security, in the arrangement of the new order of 
 Europe ; and its ambition and pride were deeply 
 wounded. France, but yesterday Queen of the 
 Continent, beheld the spoils of her gigantic empire, 
 divided among exulting enemies, and stood humbled 
 amidst domineering rivals. She acquired only a 
 strip of territory ; England obtained possessions of 
 first importance, Malta, the Cape of Good Hope, and 
 the Isle of France ; while Russia advanced in her 
 march westward, Prussia received far more than all 
 she had lost, Austria was made more powerful than 
 she had ever been, regaining Lombardy and re- 
 annexing Venice, while every trace of French power 
 and influence was carefully effaced, as far as was 
 possible ; and it was but too evident, as was specially 
 seen in the union of Belgium and Holland into a sin- 
 gle state, that the European system, as it had been 
 moulded, was designed to create barriers against 
 French ambition. The balance of power, in a word, 
 had been turned against France, in a decisive way ; 
 and thoughtful Frenchmen might reasonably com- 
 
 *Fresh and clear light is thrown on Talleyrand's conduct at 
 Vienna, and, indeed, on the general proceedings of the Congress, in 
 his Memoirs recently published. 
 
1815] The Hundred Days. Waterloo. 361 
 
 plain that France had been reduced to a second-rate 
 Power, surrounded by enemies with largely increased 
 dominions. Yet what the nation, perhaps, most 
 acutely felt, was the loss of its supremacy in arms ; 
 the Army of the Empire overawed the Continent ; the 
 Army of the Monarchy was the shadow of a name. 
 
 These events were not lost on the extraordinary 
 man, who, from his island speck in the Mediterranean, 
 contemplated the state of France and the Continent. 
 For a short time after he had reached Elba, Napoleon 
 had devoted his great faculties to the improvement 
 and administration of his petty realm ; and traditions 
 still survive of what he accomplished. By degrees, 
 however, the dream of Empire flitted again across 
 that far-reaching mind, and in the growing discredit 
 of the rule of the Bourbons, in the irritation and 
 alarm prevailing in France, in the exasperation and 
 passions of the French army, and in the division of 
 the Allies at Vienna, he saw signs that he might re- 
 appear, a commanding figure on the stage of the 
 world. Ere long he formed the most audacious of 
 the projects of his marvellous life ; he resolved to 
 leave Elba, and to endeavour to regain the throne he 
 had lost in the face of Europe. It is not true, as 
 has often been said, that this was an unprovoked 
 violation of public right ; the government of Louis 
 XVIII. had, in different ways, broken the treaty 
 made on his abdication, and had refused him the 
 funds they had promised to pay ; and the question 
 had been seriously raised at Vienna, of removing 
 him from Elba to a safe place of banishment. He 
 disposed of a small army of about one thousand men, 
 
362 Napoleon. [1815 
 
 for the most part veterans of the Imperial Guard, and 
 of a few insignificant vessels ; and he set off, on his 
 almost fabulous enterprise, on the 26th of February, 
 1 8 1 5 . The flotilla was seen by more than one war ship, 
 and was delayed by calms and contrary winds ; but 
 treacherous Fortune beckoned on her favourite ; and 
 Napoleon moved on the Mediterranean wastes, in 
 the serene confidence which, sixteen years before, 
 he had exhibited on his return from Egypt. The 
 expedition landed near Cannes on the ist of March ; 
 the exile issued proclamations which, in impassioned 
 language, called on France and the army to rally to 
 his cause ; and, in a few hours, the little band of 
 invaders was in full march from the shores of 
 Provence. Napoleon's movements gave proof of his 
 wonted insight ; he avoided the mihtary stations of 
 his old marshals, and the great cities along the coast ; 
 and he threaded his way, with extreme celerity, 
 through the rugged defiles of the hills of Dauphin^, 
 a province true to the Revolution, and attached to 
 the Empire. 
 
 A single incident almost decided events ; a regi- 
 ment had been sent to stop the advancing column, 
 but Napoleon bared his breast and asked, " Where is 
 the man, who will draw a trigger against his father?" 
 and the soldiery at the sight of their loved com- 
 mander, broke from the ranks and gave him an 
 enthusiastic greeting. The march of the exile, from 
 this time, was like the spread of a mighty influence 
 which nothing can resist. Regiment after regiment 
 hastened to meet their Emperor ; the lilies of the 
 Bourbons were trampled in the dust ; the tricolour 
 
1815] The Hundred Days. Waterloo. 363 
 
 and the eagle appeared again ; and in a few days 
 Napoleon was at the head of an army growing apace 
 in numbers. Grenoble was entered, and Lyons next ; 
 at that important city Napoleon declared the Bour- 
 bons fallen, and his throne restored ; and he swept on 
 through the plains of Burgundy, attended by thou- 
 sands of the tillers of the soil, who saw in him the 
 champion of their imperilled rights, and by multi- 
 tudes mixing in joy with the troops. Ney, who had 
 loyally intended to support the King, was carried away 
 in the general revolt ; and, as the Emperor advanced, 
 the swelling tide of his adherents overthrew every 
 obstacle, and effaced the vanishing traces of the pros- 
 trate monarchy. By the time he had reached the 
 valley of the Seine, his army was more than twenty 
 thousand strong, and he entered Paris on the 20th of 
 March, the anniversary of the birth of the King of 
 Rome, his " eagle," in his picturesque words, " having 
 flown, from steeple to steeple, with the national flag, 
 and lighted on the towers of Notre Dame." Louis 
 XVin. had, in vain, convoked the Chambers, which, 
 under the new Constitution, represented France, and 
 had made promises of large reforms ; his authority 
 disappeared in country and town ; even in the capital 
 there were few to say " God bless him " ; and he fled 
 over the frontier, his Body-Guard of nobles disband- 
 ing and fearing to cross swords with the horsemen, 
 who watched the flight of their master. 
 
 Napoleon said that it was the happiest hour of his 
 life, when his faithful adherents crowded round him, 
 at the Tuileries, on this great occasion. The Empire 
 was re-established in a few days ; and the author of 
 
364 Napoleon. [1815 
 
 this astonishing exploit boasted truly that it had not 
 cost a single drop of blood. Yet he could scarcely 
 have imagined that he was again to become the idol 
 of an united people, and to renew the glorious days 
 of the Consulate ; he was separated by an impassable 
 gulf from that period. The Revolution, which had 
 restored him to the throne, was essentially due to a 
 military revolt, and to the animosities and fears of 
 great classes of Frenchmen, but the nation accepted 
 him as a ruler, not so much because it wished him to 
 rule, as because it disliked and dreaded the Bourbons. 
 There was no stability, in fact, in French opinion. 
 France, enervated by Revolution, Despotism, and War, 
 and ever prone to run into extremes, rather seemed 
 to welcome a strong master, as the alternative of a 
 discredited Government, than loyally rallied around 
 Napoleon ; and the brief hour of enthusiasm soon 
 passed away. The deep divisions in the structure 
 of French society, the discords of classes, more than 
 ever hostile, quickly reappeared with disastrous 
 results ; there were Royalist risings in the South and 
 the West, the aspect of La Vendue became menacing ; 
 and, though civil war did not actually break out, the 
 authority of the new Empire was greatly weakened. 
 At the same time, the growing force of the Liberalism 
 of France, which had not forgotten the despotism of 
 the past, the moneyed orders, which had begun to 
 feel that the Empire involved another contest with 
 Europe, nay, the majority, perhaps, of enlightened 
 Frenchmen, could not cordially support Napoleon : 
 and, for different reasons, these powerful interests 
 fell away from him, and became cold or unfriendly. 
 
1815] The Hundred Days. Waterloo. 365 
 
 In a short time France presented the spectacle of 
 a disunited and terrified nation, at the very moment 
 when all its energies were required to uphold the 
 Imperial government ; and the prospect before it 
 increased its disunion and fears. Napoleon, after his 
 return from Elba, had offered to accept the France 
 of 1 8 14, to observe the treaties made with the Bour- 
 bons, nay, to acquiesce in what had been done at 
 Vienna ; and he had assured the Allies that his first 
 thought was of peace. These overtures were, no 
 doubt, sincere, but we can hardly wonder that they 
 only provoked the scorn and distrust of his late con- 
 querors, and it became soon apparent that Europe 
 had resolved on another crusade against France, and 
 the Empire. The discords of the Coalition ceased ; 
 the envoys of Napoleon were stopped at the frontier ; 
 his letters were intercepted, and treated with con- 
 tempt, he was described as a public enemy, outside 
 the pale of the law; and war, deadly and universal, 
 was proclaimed against him. If Napoleon was justly 
 deemed a disturber of the world, nay, if his ostracism 
 was, in part, deserved, the extravagant fury, and the 
 thirst for revenge, which this conduct of the Allies 
 reveals, can be explained only by their passions and 
 fears, and by their apprehensions for the spoils they 
 had made their own ; and the clemency shown by the 
 Emperor to the Due d'Angouleme, set free, though 
 taken in arms against him, stands in marked contrast 
 with the cruel spirit and vindictiveness of the heads 
 of old Europe. 
 
 The efforts of Napoleon to guide the State, through 
 this sea of troubles, were worthy of him ; and, as 
 
366 Napoleon. [I815 
 
 usual, he towered over all other Frenchmen. A 
 Dictatorship was his real object, for this was a neces- 
 sity of the time, and the nation, which had sanctioned 
 his return to the throne, and had had ample proof of 
 his genius in war, ought to have trusted him at this 
 terrible crisis. The state of opinion, however, largely, 
 due to his faults in the past, made this impossible ; 
 and the Emperor gave a Constitution to France 
 much more liberal than that of Louis XVIII. , and 
 ratified by a popular vote. The " Additional Act 
 of the Empire," as it was called, was, nevertheless, an 
 inauspicious name ; it obtained comparatively few 
 suffrages ; it was generally regarded as a mere piece 
 of the furniture of unchanged despotism, and it did 
 not awake patriotism, or inspire confidence. The 
 Upper House, under this scheme of polity, was 
 chiefly composed of the noblesse of the Empire, who 
 had proved what their loyalty was worth ; and the 
 Lower was an assembly of mere talkers, of Republi- 
 cans of the Girondin type, of speculative men of new 
 ideas, all more or less ill inclined to Napoleon. Such 
 bodies were unfitted to support the Head of the 
 State in a death struggle with incensed Europe ; and 
 what he thought of them may be gathered from his 
 significant words, " Let us not imitate the Greeks of 
 the Lower Empire, babbling about abstract theories, 
 with the battering-ram at their gates." 
 
 Yet, though the situation seemed almost desperate, 
 and France was divided, lukewarm, and, in part, hos- 
 tile. Napoleon addressed himself to the task of con- 
 tending against a world in arms, with some of the 
 confidence of his better days ; and, notwithstanding 
 
1815] The Hundred Days. Waterloo. 367 
 
 increasing physical weakness, his genius, his energy, 
 his unrivalled power of administration were made 
 grandly manifest. He did not summon the nation 
 to arms, true in this to his despotic instincts, and 
 also because the appeal would have failed ; nor did 
 he make use, in the first instance, of the Conscription 
 of 1 81 5 in his hands, though he collected it as an 
 ultimate reserve. But he turned to the very best 
 advantage the ample and proved elements of military 
 power, which, at this moment, abounded in France ; 
 and considering his position, the results were won- 
 derful. The army was given its old organisation 
 again ; the regiments, the colours, the eagles were 
 restored ; and it was raised out of the state of impo- 
 tence, in which it had been left under the fallen 
 monarchy, by the addition of thousands of the 
 trained soldiers, who had been disbanded by the late 
 government, and of the flower of the National 
 Guard. The exact figures will probably never be 
 ascertained ; but it appears certain that, in March, 
 181 5, the army of France could not have mustered 
 fifty thousand soldiers, ready for the field, whereas 
 by the middle of June, it had one hundred and 
 ninety thousand at least. This force was supported 
 by two hundred thousand in reserve ; and in a few 
 months the armed strength of the State would have 
 exceeded six hundred thousand men.* Meanwhile 
 
 * Owing to the vicissitudes of events in 1815, it is impossible to de- 
 termine accurately the real state of the military forces of France 
 between March and June in that year. The figures given by Napoleon, 
 Comment., tome v., 83, 95, ed. 1867, seem to exaggerate what he 
 actually accomplished; those of Charras, tome i., 40, 47, are not 
 
368 Napoleon. [1815 
 
 Paris and Lyons had been partly fortified ; extraor- 
 dinary exertions had been made to manufacture 
 arms, to procure horses, and to prepare the material 
 of war ; and if we bear in mind what the condition of 
 France was, the effort, as a whole, must be deemed 
 gigantic, a marvellous example of organising skill. 
 Of the one hundred and ninety thousand men, actu- 
 ally under arms, and forming his first available line, 
 the Emperor had distributed about forty thousand 
 to observe the eastern and southern frontiers; and 
 he hoped to have one hundred and fifty thousand in 
 his own hands, for the operations of the campaign 
 he had planned. 
 
 The Champ de Mai, a solemn yet mournful pa- 
 geant, at which, in the face of assembled Paris, Na- 
 poleon swore fealty to the Constitution and the Law, 
 received deputations from the Departments of France, 
 and gave the National and Imperial Guards their 
 eagles, was remembered, for years, as his farewell to 
 the nation. His military preparations were, for the 
 time, complete, and he was ready for his last struggle 
 with Europe. Had France been more loyal, and less 
 divided, he would have awaited the Coalition on the 
 Marne and the Seine with fortified Paris, an en- 
 trenched camp, in his rear ; and if we recollect what 
 he accomplished a year before, under conditions infi- 
 nitely less promising, his success in 1815 would have 
 been not improbable. This strategy, however, had 
 
 trustworthy, and illustrate his systematic and unscrupulous detraction. 
 Thiers carefully studied official, and innumerable other documents ; 
 his account is probably not far from the truth. See also Prince La 
 Tourd'Auvergne's Waterloo^ 20, 23. 
 
1815] The Hundred Days. Waterloo. 369 
 
 become impossible ; and he had conceived a plan of 
 operations, altogether different, in which he saw hopes 
 of splendid success. 
 
 The Allies had nearly a million of men under arms ; 
 their first line was fully five hundred thousand strong ; 
 but these gigantic arrays, intended to converge on 
 the capital in their final movements, were widely 
 divided, at immense distances ; and at the extreme 
 right of the vast front of invasion stood the two 
 armies of Bliicher and Wellington, disseminated over 
 Belgium, and approaching the frontier. Napoleon 
 had resolved to make a sudden spring on this de- 
 tached array of the Coalition's forces, to endeavour 
 to surprise and defeat it in detail ; and he had hoped 
 to employ the one hundred and fifty thousand men 
 he had reserved for his command in person, in this 
 daring but well-conceived enterprise. A sudden 
 insurrection in La Vendue, however, deprived him 
 of twenty thousand of these troops ; and marred cal- 
 culations, which, judging from events, would proba- 
 bly have assured him victory ; but it was too late to 
 pause, and draw back ; and he set off from the capi- 
 tal, on the 1 2th of June. His army had been assem- 
 bled with exquisite skill, drawn together from Lille 
 and Metz, and to the South, from Paris ; and, on the 
 evening of the 14th, Napoleon was at the head of one 
 hundred and twenty-eight thousand Frenchmen, in- 
 cluding twenty-two thousand horse and three hundred 
 and fifty guns, nearly concentrated on the edge of the 
 frontier, where the Sambre approaches the old town of 
 Charleroi. The advance began at daybreak on the 
 15th, the purpose of the Emperor being to cross the 
 
^t'jo Napoleon. [1815 
 
 Sambre, to occupy Charleroi and the adjoining 
 country, and to hold Quatre Bras and Sombreffe in 
 force, points on the great cross-road from Nivelles to 
 Namur, which formed the main communication of 
 the AlHes, so that the success of this operation would, 
 in a single march, place him between the armies of 
 Bliicher and Wellington, which, as we have seen, 
 were widely scattered, and would give him an oppor- 
 tunity to strike both, when divided. 
 
 Napoleon did not accomplish all that he hoped ; 
 Ziethen, one of Bliicher's lieutenants, checked the 
 march of the French columns, with real skill ; delays 
 and misadventures occurred ; but, if Quatre Bras 
 and Sombreffe were not reached, the mass of the 
 Imperial army, by nightfall on the 15th, was not far 
 distant from both places, if a large fraction of it had 
 not passed the Sambre ; it had already drawn near 
 the main line, by which its adversaries should unite ; 
 and it threatened their exposed and scattered forces. 
 The Emperor had gained an immense advantage; 
 and the conduct of his opponents, which he had 
 foreseen, for he perfectly understood their distinctive 
 qualities, had already placed them in grave peril. 
 Bliicher, daring and hasty, had reached Sombreffe, 
 leaving at least a fourth of his army far off ; Welling- 
 ton, cautious and circumspect, and without experi- 
 ence of the extraordinary rapidity of his foe, had, 
 when informed of Napoleon's advance, paused, hesi- 
 tated, and lost precious hours * ; and, when he had 
 
 * Attempts have been made to justify the strategy of Bliicher and 
 Wellington, especially of the last, on the 15th of June, but they do 
 not bear examination. It is impossible to refute the irresistible logic 
 
1815] The Hundred Days. Waterloo. 371 
 
 made up his mind at last to move, not far from mid- 
 night on the 15th, he had directed part of his army, 
 not towards Quatre Bras, the spot whence he could 
 reach his colleague at SombrefTe, but, considerably 
 to the west, towards Enghien and Nivelles. A broad 
 gap, therefore, was left open between the Prussian 
 and British forces ; Napoleon, even now near the 
 road from Nivelles to Namur, had almost seized his 
 adversaries' line of junction ; and it had become prob- 
 able in the extreme that they would be compelled 
 to separate, and would even be defeated, one after 
 the other, though their armies were nearly double 
 the French in numbers. 
 
 The morning of the i6th found Napoleon's army 
 in positions which well-nigh ensured success. The 
 Emperor had not accurately ascertained the opera- 
 tions of Bliicher and Wellington ; and he expected 
 that the Allies would not attempt " to unite under 
 the guns of their enemy," but would retreat and 
 open for him the way to Brussels, to the occupation 
 of which he attached great importance. He directed 
 Ney, almost on the spot, to advance from Frasnes, 
 to seize Quatre Bras, with his left wing placed in the 
 Marshal's hands, and to send a considerable detach- 
 ment to Marbais, a village between Quatre Bras and 
 Sombreffe ; and had this grand manoeuvre been ably 
 
 of Napoleon, on the subject. Commentaries, tome v., 206, 207. 
 ed. 1867. The Duke knew that he was out-generalled, and all but 
 admitted this to the late Mr. Greville. Journals, vol. i., 40, ed. 1888. 
 It is a tradition that Wellington exclaimed, when informed of Napo- 
 leon's advance, "The d d fellow has gained twenty-four hours 
 
372 Napoleon. [1815 
 
 carried out, Bliicher, at Sombreffe, would have been 
 crushed and destroyed, and Wellington placed in 
 extreme danger. The operation was not at all diffi- 
 cult ; Ney had nine thousand good troops at Frasnes, 
 and had more than thirty thousand in his immediate 
 rear ; Quatre Bras was held only by a weak division, 
 sent forward without the Duke's knowledge; and, 
 had Ney been the warrior of 1805-7, he could have 
 accomplished a movement which, not improbably, 
 would have changed, for a time, the fortunes of 
 Europe. But Ney, like most of the French chiefs, 
 had lost the confidence of the days of triumphs ; he 
 fought, too, with a halter round his neck, after his 
 open desertion of the Bourbon cause ; he was afraid 
 to press forward, and he did not hasten the march of 
 Reille and D'Erlon, his subordinates behind ; and he 
 failed to occupy Quatre Bras and Marbais, and to 
 carry out the Emperor's orders. These delays gave 
 Wellington just enough time to repair the grave 
 mistakes of the 15th; his troops reached Quatre 
 Bras, by degrees, in force ; an indecisive combat 
 took place ; and Ney ultimately fell back on Frasnes, 
 having not even approached Sombreffe, though he 
 had prevented Wellington from joining hands with 
 Bliicher. 
 
 Meanwhile Napoleon had attacked the Prussian 
 army, assembled around SombrefTe, with his centre 
 and right ; and the battle raged furiously for several 
 hours, the strength of the contending forces being 
 not far from equal, and the superiority of the tactics 
 of the French being very apparent. The Emperor 
 waited, for a time, expecting the advance of Ney's 
 
1815] The Hundred Days. Waterloo. 373 
 
 division from Marbais, which would have placed a 
 considerable force on the rear of Bliicher, and made 
 the i6th of June a second Jena ; but seeing that the 
 movement was not being made, he devised another 
 plan to overwhelm his enemy. He sent a message 
 to D'Erlon, still behind Ney, to march upon St. 
 Amand, on the right flank of Bliicher, who, at the 
 same time, was to be attacked in front ; and once 
 more the audacious Prussian chief was in a situation 
 of extreme peril. This admirable manoeuvre, how- 
 ever, failed : D'Erlon advanced slowly and in the 
 wrong direction,* and when he had approached St. 
 Amand at last, he was recalled by Ney, now hard 
 pressed by Wellington, Napoleon, probably, at least 
 consenting, f D'Erlon, therefore, did nothing on 
 this eventful day ; his twenty thousand men were 
 completely useless; and the indecision of Ney, and 
 a series of mistakes, preserved the Allies from an im- 
 mense disaster. Yet Napoleon was far from alto- 
 gether foiled ; he broke the centre of Bliicher, at 
 Ligny, and drove the Prussians in defeat from the 
 field, with a loss of nearly a third of their numbers, 
 the losses of the French being comparatively small. 
 
 * Napoleon's message to D'Erlon was probably addressed to Ney, 
 but was sent by one of Napoleon's most trusted aid-de-caraps with 
 directions to show it to D'Erlon, and to arrange the intended move- 
 ment with that general. 
 
 \ The operations of D'Erlon on the i6th of June have given rise 
 to endless controversy, for his failure saved BlUcher, and had a deci- 
 sive effect on the final issue of the contest. This important subject 
 cannot be discussed here ; the reader may consult Thiers on Waterloo ; 
 Charras, tome i., 170; La Tour d'Auvergne's Waterloo, 169, and 
 there are many other authorities. 
 
374 Napoleon. Li 81 5 
 
 Napoleon had not gained, on the i6th of June, the 
 success which might have been easily won. But for 
 the weakness of Ney, and the mistakes about 
 D'Erlon, Bliicher certainly would have been routed 
 at Ligny ; and, in that event, Wellington could hardly 
 have escaped a disaster. The strategy of the Allies, 
 in a word, was bad ; that of the Emperor was perfect 
 in design ; and a great triumph was only just missed. 
 But, if the swoop of his eagle had not been fatal. 
 Napoleon had still a marked advantage ; he had in- 
 flicted a heavy defeat on the Prussian army ; the 
 Duke had been kept apart from his colleague ; the 
 French, after Ligny, were in full possession of the 
 true line of communication of their foes, the great 
 road from Nivelles to Namur ; and the Allies were 
 forced back into a difficult country, the hills, forests, 
 and lowlands watered by the Dyle. It would not 
 be easy for them, therefore, to effect their junction ; 
 and if they did not fall back on their respective 
 bases, and did resolve to try to unite, the course 
 they ought to have followed can be hardly doubtful. 
 
 Bliicher, beaten at Ligny, should without delay 
 have marched to join Wellington by the nearest 
 line, that is, on Quatre Bras, Genappe, or Waterloo ; 
 or both commanders ought to have moved on Brus- 
 sels, concentrating their united forces ; in which event 
 they could have opposed two hundred thousand to 
 one hundred thousand men, and would have out- 
 manoeuvred their great antagonist. The allied 
 generals followed a different plan, and, once more, 
 exposed themselves to defeat. Bliicher, probably 
 because he wished to rally the part of his forces, 
 
1815] The Hundred Days. Waterloo. 375 
 
 which had not fought at Ligny, within the shortest 
 possible time, retreated, with his shattered columns, 
 on Wavre. Wellington, probably because he had 
 chosen the spot as a position for a great defensive 
 battle, fell back from Quatre Bras, on Waterloo ; and 
 the two chiefs agreed to unite on this second line, 
 and to await, on it, the attack of Napoleon. It was 
 most unlikely, however, that they could join hands; 
 and their separate retreat involved the greatest 
 dangers. Napoleon was within reach of both, with 
 his victorious army ; Wavre was nearly a march from 
 Waterloo, and was divided from it by a most intri- 
 cate country ; the movements of the Allies could not 
 be concealed ; and the chances were that they would 
 remain divided, and be defeated in quick succession. 
 The Emperor, on the 17th of June, might have called 
 on his troops to make a great effort, and have fallen 
 either on Bliicher or on Wellington, retreating and 
 unable to assist each other ; and had he done this, he 
 must have gained a victory. Two other operations, 
 besides, were open to him ; he might have united 
 nearly all his forces, and attacked Bliicher at Wavre, 
 or the Duke at Waterloo, on the i8th, before they 
 could unite ; or, finally, in accordance with true 
 strategy he might have sent off a detachment to hold 
 Bliicher in check, completely preventing his joining 
 Wellington, and have assailed the British chief with 
 three fourths of his army ; and in either instance, he 
 must have been successful. In the presence, there- 
 fore, of such a man as Napoleon* the march on 
 
 * German and English writers have tried hard to justify the divided 
 march of Bliicher and Wellington on Wavre and Waterloo ; but had 
 
376 Napoleon. [1815 
 
 Wavre and Waterloo was a false movement, and the 
 General of 1796 would have made it fatal.* 
 
 Events, however, occurring in the camp of the 
 French, combined to favour the projects of the Allies, 
 and saved them from what might have been ruin. 
 Napoleon's health, we have seen, had been long in 
 decay ; he went to Fleurus, in his rear, on the night 
 of the i6th ; and he was so unwell on the morning of 
 the 17th, that he was unable to issue a single order. f 
 Meanwhile, his lieutenants on the spot, trained to 
 mere obedience, took no step, to follow, or to observe 
 their enemies. Ney, on the left, remained at Quatre 
 Bras inactive ; Soult, the chief of the staff, did simply 
 nothing ; and Grouchy, in command of Napoleon's 
 
 they not been vindicated by the event — no justification at all — they 
 would not have found a hearing. No answer has been, or ever will 
 be made, to Napoleon's remarks, which carry conviction to minds not 
 bewildered by success. Comment., tome v., 510. Ed. 1867. This 
 irrefutable criticism should be carefully studied. 
 
 * Charras, who praises the Allies, because he hated Napoleon, does 
 not, in so many words, condemn the march on Wavre and Waterloo ; 
 he approves of it indeed, in one passage ; but he points out the ruinous 
 consequences which might have followed. Tome i., 203, ii., 128. 
 Clausewitz, indeed, and Colonel Chesney and General Shaw Kennedy 
 are by implication nearly of the same opinion. The comments of 
 Clausewitz, a German, but' a great military writer, are very significant. 
 
 f The evidence of the state of Napoleon's health, a most important 
 factor in the events of the campaign of 1815, is well summed up by 
 Dorsey Gardner in his useful volume on Waterloo, p. 36. How ill 
 Napoleon was on the 17th appears from the following: "In the 
 evening of the i6th he went to bed immediately after the close of the 
 battle of Ligny, and was in such a condition that none of his staff 
 dared enter his chamber . . . On the morning of the 17th, there 
 was the same impossibility of getting access to him to receive orders 
 that ought to have gone out at daybreak.'' 
 
1815] The Hundred Days. Waterloo. 377 
 
 right, sent a few horsemen towards Namur, in the 
 wrong direction. Bliicher slowly marched on his 
 way to Wavre, no hostile cavalry hanging on his 
 track ; and Wellington fell back from Quatre Bras to 
 Waterloo, on the morning of the 17th, unmolested by 
 Ney. The Emperor had returned to Ligny before 
 noon ; his first intention was to give a day's rest to 
 his troops weaied with marching and fighting ; and 
 the reason was that, with wonted confidence, he be- 
 lieved Bliicher's army was utterly routed ; that it was 
 recoiling upon its base towards the Rhine, and that 
 there would be time to turn against and to overpower 
 Wellington. On learning, however, that a consider- 
 able part of the Duke's army was still at Quatre 
 Bras, he resolved to join hands with Ney and attack 
 it, his hope being that he might bring his enemy to 
 bay, and beat him in detail, while far away from 
 Bliicher. 
 
 The Imperial army was divided into two groups, 
 the one composed of the centre and left, about 
 seventy-two thousand strong, and designed, in Na- 
 poleon's hands, to assail Wellington ; the other, 
 some thirty-four thousand men, a restraining wing, 
 to hold Bliicher in check. The Emperor entrusted 
 this wing to Grouchy ; he directed him to pursue 
 and keep back the Prussians ; he added that he 
 would attack Wellington, should that general stand 
 before the forest of Soignies, a great wood be- 
 tween Waterloo and Brussels ; and he made the 
 Marshal aware that his mission was to interpose be- 
 tween Bliicher and Welhngton, and effectually to 
 prevent their junction. This strategy was perfectly 
 
378 Napoleon. [1815 
 
 correct in principle ; it was in accordance with grand 
 precedents repeatedly seen in Napoleon's career ; 
 but a great opportunity had been lost ; invaluable 
 hours had been thrown away ; Bliicher had made 
 his escape, and was leagues distant ; the army of 
 Wellington was quite safe ; and already it was no easy 
 task to carry out, with success, the Emperor's orders.* 
 
 Napoleon reached Quatre Bras in the early after- 
 noon ; but Wellington had by this time assembled 
 the great mass of his army at Waterloo ; the French 
 only harassed a rear-guard in retreat, and a tempest 
 of rain that broke over the country made military 
 operations almost useless. As evening fell, the 
 heads of the Emperor's columns reached the low 
 hills near La Belle Alliance, in front of the uplands 
 that lead to Waterloo ; and the fire of many batteries 
 gave Napoleon warning that a large army was in 
 position before him. 
 
 We turn from the Emperor, to Grouchy and his 
 wing, detached, we have seen, to follow up Bliicher. 
 Napoleon had continued to believe that the Prus- 
 sians were falling back towards the Rhine ; but, on 
 his way from Ligny to Quatre Bras, he had ascer- 
 tained that a Prussian force had been seen on the 
 Orneau, one of the Sambre's feeders ; and he sent a 
 message to Grouchy, directing the Marshal, to ad- 
 vance to Gembloux, a small town on the stream, 
 
 * Jomini is an invaluable authority on Napoleon, for he knew more 
 about him than any other commentator. He seems to have been 
 unaware of the state of the Emperor's health in 1815 ; but he was 
 forcibly struck by the delays of the 17th June. Precis de la Cam- 
 fagne de iSij, 185. " Ce nouveau temps perdu sera toujours une 
 chose inexplicable de la part de Napoleon." 
 
1815] The Hundred Days, Waterloo. 379 
 
 about thirteen or fourteen miles from Wavre. Gem- 
 bloux was not the best position for the restraining 
 wing ; but, despite all that detractors have urged, 
 these arrangements of the Emperor were sufficiently 
 correct to have enabled Grouchy to fulfil his mission, 
 had he been an active and capable chief. The Mar- 
 shal reached Gembloux before nightfall on the 17th ; 
 his army, however, had not come into line, the 
 weather was so severe, until some hours afterwards ; 
 and, it appears certain, that for some time he was not 
 made acquainted with the direction taken by the 
 Prussians in their retreat on Wavre. 
 
 During the night, however, and before daybreak, 
 he received intelligence, which, if not accurate, ought 
 to have made his purpose for the i8th fixed ; and he 
 wrote to Napoleon to the effect that the Prussians 
 had retired in two main columns, the one on Wavre, 
 the other towards Lifege — that is, towards its base 
 on the Rhine ; that a third column was on the way 
 to Namur ; that he would march by Sart-les-Walhain 
 on the enemy's track ; and that "if the great body 
 of the Prussians had fallen back on Wavre he would 
 pursue it, in that direction, in order to separate 
 Bliicher from Wellington." 
 
 These despatches prove that Grouchy understood 
 his task — that is, to keep the allied commanders 
 apart ; and the knowledge he had acquired ought to 
 have made him resolve to move at daybreak from 
 Gembloux towards Wavre, and to hold any enemy, 
 at that place, in check, for a Prussian column retreat- 
 ing on Li^ge was out of the account, and need not 
 be noticed, whereas a Prussian column, which had 
 
380 Napoleon. [1815 
 
 reached Wavre, was not far from Wellington, and 
 might join him. This was the more essential because 
 Grouchy knew that the Emperor intended to attack 
 the Duke, should he offer battle before the forest 
 of Soignies, a few miles distant only from Wavre ; 
 and, also, because the Marshal's letters were calcu- 
 lated to assure Napoleon that he had nothing to fear 
 from Blucher on the i8th. The Marshal's duty, 
 therefore, was plain and simple ; and when his master 
 had received his first message. Napoleon beheved 
 that he was safe from a Prussian attack, and thought 
 only of bringing Wellington to bay. Yet he did not 
 neglect to send cavalry to reconnoitre nearly as far 
 as Wavre ; and it is at least doubtful * if he did not 
 order Grouchy, during the night of the 17th, to draw 
 near Waterloo, and to send a detachment to fall on 
 the flank of the Duke. Napoleon, as the situation 
 appeared to him, felt confident of a decisive victory 
 on the i8th. 
 
 The Allies, meanwhile, had their arrangements 
 made for meeting the Emperor's attack at Waterloo. 
 Wellington had assembled about seventy thousand 
 men, drawn together from Quatre Bras, Nivelles, 
 and other points, to fight in a position, he had, we 
 have seen, chosen ; but his army was very inferior to 
 that of his enemy, being largely composed of mere 
 auxiliaries, who had served, too, under the Imperial 
 
 * This is one of the most obscure passages of the campaign of 1815. 
 The reasons for the opposite views on the subject will be found in 
 Thiers on Waterloo, and in Charras, tome ii., 126. The Memoir es 
 de General Marbot, just published, tome iii., 404, certainly indicate 
 that the order was given to Grouchy. The movement, it should be 
 added, was in Napoleon's manner. 
 
1815] The Hundred Days. Waterloo. 38 1 
 
 eagles. He might have considerably increased this 
 force, but he had left seventeen thousand men, far 
 off to his right, at Hal ; and a strategic error, which 
 cannot be excused, was destined to place him in 
 grave danger. On the other side of the field of ma- 
 noeuvre, Blucher had had his army for many hours at 
 Wavre ; he had been joined by Billow with thirty 
 thousand men, who had not been able to reach 
 Sombreffe ; his troops had had rest, and were well 
 supplied, and he was at the head of ninety thou- 
 sand men, burning to avenge their late defeat. 
 The purpose of the veteran, who though hurt at 
 Ligny, rose superior to pain, and had the ardour of 
 youth, was to march from Wavre, on Waterloo, on 
 the i8th; to effect his junction, on the field, with 
 Wellington ; and to overwhelm Napoleon, with their 
 united forces, enormously superior to the French in 
 numbers. He had pledged his word to that effect 
 to the Duke ; the British general, indeed, would not 
 have attempted to stand at Waterloo, without this 
 pledge, and no doubt can exist that he was con- 
 vinced the Prussian army would be in line, by the 
 forenoon of the i8th of June. 
 
 The allied commanders, therefore, had resolved 
 to await the onset of Napoleon, in the first instance, 
 with Wellington, standing alone with an inferior 
 army, and, on the assumption, in the second instance, 
 that Blucher would reach Waterloo, in a short time, 
 from Wavre ; and they reckoned on victory, on the 
 supposition, that their forces would unite during the 
 course of the battle. The event justified these cal- 
 culations ; but they were ill founded, and might have 
 
382 Napoleon. [1815 
 
 proved fatal. In the first place, the Allies believed 
 that nearly the whole French army was before Water- 
 loo, on the morning of the i8th ; they argued, there- 
 fore, that Wellington, with seventy thousand men, 
 of whom about forty thousand were good troops, 
 would hold his ground against Napoleon, with 
 perhaps ninety thousand or even one hundred 
 thousand for some hours; and this reasoning was 
 a palpable error. In the second place, Bliicher had 
 underrated the difficulty of the march from Wavre 
 to Waterloo, through a country bristling with all 
 kinds of obstacles, and had expected to reach his 
 colleague much sooner than was actually the case ; 
 and this was a mistake that was well-nigh ruinous. 
 And in the third place, most important of all, the 
 allied generals seem to have believed that Bliicher 
 would be able to complete his march, without serious 
 molestation on the part of the French ; in other 
 words that Napoleon, false to the strategy he had 
 illustrated by a hundred examples, would have ne- 
 glected to employ a restraining wing, strong enough 
 to keep the Prussians in check, and to make it sure 
 that they would not join WelHngton. The combina- 
 tions of Bliicher and Wellington, it has been truly said, 
 made the defeat of either, on the i8th, a likely event ; 
 and, in truth, the false movement on Wavre and 
 Waterloo was still producing injurious results. 
 Napoleon had intended to attack Wellington* at 
 
 * This is proved from official documents by Prince La Tour 
 d'Auvergne's Waterloo, 251, and disposes of the charges of Charras 
 who condemns the lateness of Napoleon's attack. The delay was an 
 immense accidental advantage to Wellington. 
 
LINES OF BATTLE AT WATERLOO. 
 
1815] The Hundred Days. Waterloo. 383 
 
 nine in the morning of the i8th of June, but the 
 torrents of rain that had hardly ceased to fall, had 
 made the ground difificult for manoeuvring ; and at 
 the instance of Drouot, one of his best officers, the 
 Emperor deferred the attack until near noon. The 
 battle began by a feint against Wellington's right, and 
 thedivisions of Reille pressed onward boldly, to storm 
 Hougoumont, a strong and well-guarded outpost. 
 Before long the batteries of Ney, massed in a long 
 line in front of the outpost of La Haye Sainte, gave 
 presage of the Emperor's real purpose, when an un- 
 expected and alarming accident occurred. Part of 
 the corps of Billow was descried on the extreme 
 French right ; it was ascertained that the Prussians 
 were at hand, in force, and no sign of Grouchy 
 appeared ; so Napoleon was compelled to detach 
 Lobau, with about ten thousand men to hold Billow 
 in check ; and a message was despatched by Soult 
 to summon Grouchy to the field. Meanwhile Ney 
 had begun the grand attack ; the corps of D'Erlon 
 advanced to turn the British left, and to force its 
 centre, but the formation of the French columns 
 was dense and vicious ; their onset failed after a 
 fierce struggle ; and a magnificent charge of the 
 heavy British cavalry, though ultimately repulsed, 
 had a terrible effect. 
 
 The Emperor's first great effort had thus been 
 bafifled ; and the prospect around him had begun 
 to darken, for Billow was making his presence felt ; 
 Lobau, utterly outnumbered, was falling back ; and 
 nothing whatever had been heard of Grouchy, who, 
 evidently, had not stopped his immediate enemy. 
 
384 Napoleon. [1815 
 
 Napoleon abandoned the attack on Wellington's 
 left, which would have imperilled his own right, 
 Bulow being at hand ; he turned fiercely against 
 the British centre ; and, at about* four in the after- 
 noon, La Haye Sainte was captured. A gap was 
 now opened in Wellington's defence ; a mass of 
 French cavalry reached the main British position, 
 and swept away thousands of the weak auxiliaries; 
 and Napoleon intended, it appears certain, to follow 
 up this success, by an attack of the Guard. The 
 situation of Wellington had become critical ; but 
 Bliicher, by this time had joined Biilow; and the 
 daring veteran ordered his lieutenant, at all hazards, 
 to fall on Napoleon's right flank. The onset of the 
 Prussians was well sustained ; the Emperor sus- 
 pended the movement of the Guard ; and, indeed, 
 Biilow made such alarming progress, that a large 
 part of the Guard was required to stop him. Ney, 
 meanwhile, had been making furious efforts to break 
 Wellington's centre with the French horsemen ; he 
 engaged them almost to the last man ; but nothing 
 could shake the British and German squares, which 
 stood " rooted," it was said, " in the earth " ; and 
 the proud squadrons, not supported by foot, were 
 compelled at last to recoil, beaten. 
 
 The battle, however, was not decided ; Biilow had 
 been repulsed by seven in the afternoon, and Welling- 
 ton's army had been so stricken, so wasted by death, 
 desertion, and flight, that it seemed unequal to a 
 great final effort. Napoleon formed the Imperial 
 
 * General Shaw Kennedy makes the time much later ; but he is 
 contradicted by innumerable authorities. 
 

 eAMPAIGN 
 
 WATERLOO 
 
 MILES'', .i,.. :i 
 
1815] The Hundred Days. Waterloo. 385 
 
 Guard into two great columns ; and keeping one 
 back as a necessary reserve, directed the other, with 
 the wrecks of his remaining forces, against the im- 
 perilled centre of his foe. The Duke, however, had 
 strengthened the menaced point ; and though, doubt- 
 less, he felt how wrong he had been in leaving a great 
 detachment at Hal, as he looked on his thinned and 
 diminished line, his admirable constancy never gave 
 way, and he had still a reserve for the decisive moment. 
 The attack of the Guard was, for a time, most weighty ; 
 but it was repulsed at last, and the defeated column 
 fell slowly back to join its reserve. Just at this 
 moment, a tremendous change passed suddenly over 
 the whole scene. Parts of the corps of Ziethen and 
 Pirch made their way to the field ; a mass of British 
 cavalry was let loose ; and Wellington moved forward 
 his shattered army, a few hundred yards, to prove 
 that he had won the battle. Bulow, Ziethen, and 
 Pirch pursued the French, and turned a retreat into 
 a hideous rout ; and, in three or four hours, the noble 
 host of Napoleon was a fugitive horde flying towards 
 the Sambre. 
 
 On this terrible day Napoleon was again unwell* ; 
 and though the plan of his attack, on his last field, 
 was perfect, he showed none of the vigour of Jena 
 and Austerlitz. The tactics of his lieutenants, too, 
 were bad ; they exhibited impatience and want of 
 caution ; and Ney, the hot fit succeeding the cold, 
 threw away recklessly his master's cavalry. On the 
 other hand, Wellington was the soul of the defence ; 
 he expected Bliicher, we have seen, at an early hour, 
 
 * Dorsey Gardner, Waterloo, 36. 
 as 
 
386 Napoleon. [1815 
 
 and yet he successfully resisted his much more 
 powerful enemy, though he received no assistance 
 from the Prussians until five in the afternoon. Still 
 the result of Waterloo was due to deeper causes ; 
 and the ruin of the Emperor, and the triumph of 
 the Allies, must be chiefly ascribed to the conduct of 
 Grouchy. The evident duty of the Marshal, we 
 have said, was to have left Gembloux at daybreak 
 on the i8th of June; and he should have made for 
 Wavre, as quickly as possible, to stop the Prussians 
 if they were at that place. His best course obvi- 
 ously, too, would have been to cross the Dyle, and to 
 draw near Napoleon, while taking care to approach 
 Wavre, for in this way, he would reach the flank of 
 his foes, on the assumption that they were on the 
 march towards Waterloo, and he would be in a posi- 
 tion to support the Emperor. The task required 
 boldness, insight, and energy ; but it was not 
 beyond the powers of a good soldier ; and had 
 Grouchy done what the occasion required, he 
 would,* it is morally certain, have intercepted 
 Bliicher, and not a Prussian division would have 
 fought at Waterloo. 
 
 The Marshal, however, neglected his duty ; he did 
 not leave Gembloux until eight or nine in the morn- 
 ing ; he marched towards Wavre in one huge column, 
 retarding the march by several hours ; he never 
 thought of crossing the Dyle ; and when he heard at 
 Sart-les-Walhain the thunder of Waterloo he rejected 
 the admirable advice of G6rard to hasten over the 
 
 * Jomini, Precis de la Camfagne de i8ij, 261. The opinion of 
 Jomini on this question outweighs that of all later commentators. 
 
1815] The Hundred Days. Waterloo. 387 
 
 Dyle, and to move on Waterloo. The result of this 
 fatal weakness and delay wsis that Bliicher was not 
 molested on his march from Wavre, and yet the 
 difficulties and obstacles in his way were so great, 
 that Biilow did not reach Napoleon until five in the 
 afternoon, and that Ziethen and Pirch were not in 
 line with Wellington, until between eight and nine. 
 The advancing Prussians, too, did not expect an at- 
 tack, and were separated into longstraggling columns; 
 and had an enemy, therefore, appeared on their flank, 
 they would not only have been in great danger, but 
 they would have lost hours in drawing together, and 
 they could not have been at Waterloo in time. Had 
 Grouchy, then, left Gembloux, at three or four in the 
 morning, and crossed the Dyle at the bridges of Mous- 
 tiersand Ottignies, Bliicher, hero as he was, would not 
 have joined Wellington ; and Napoleon would have de- 
 feated his much weaker foe. The same result, the Em- 
 peror believed, would have followed had Grouchy only 
 broken up in time, and marched from Gembloux to 
 Wavre, without crossing the Dyle ; and events of the 
 1 8th point to this conclusion. Grouchy had ap- 
 proached Wavre by one in the afternoon ; his appari- 
 tion checked the march of the Prussians ; and of an 
 army of ninety thousand men, not fifty thousand made 
 their way to Waterloo. Even if Grouchy, at the elev- 
 enth hour, had followed the excellent counsels of Ge- 
 rard, he might have kept Ziethen and Pirch back, and 
 have conjured away a complete catastrophe. Excuses 
 have been made for the Marshal, in vain ; it was due 
 to him that Napoleon succumbed, and that Bliicher 
 was enabled to join Wellington, and to secure the 
 
388 Napoleon. [1815 
 
 Allies victory. This incapable soldier,* in fact, 
 marred the combinations of his great master, and 
 assisted the faulty combinations of his foes. 
 
 Napoleon hastened to Paris, after the rout of 
 Waterloo, in order to make an appeal to the Cham- 
 bers, and, if possible, to repair a crushing disaster. 
 This conduct has been denounced by detractors ; but 
 his presence at the seat of government was a neces- 
 sity of state ; and, for the moment, he had no army 
 to rally. He wished the Chambers to make him a 
 Dictator for the time, and this was the only hope of 
 safety for France, if indeed, she could be saved from 
 the hosts of her enemies. These bodies, however, 
 never friendly to him, and panic-stricken after his 
 late defeat, insisted on his abdication, with thought- 
 less passion ; and though his brother Lucien, the 
 former President of the Five Hundred, on the i8th 
 Brumaire, who had been lately reconciled to him,' 
 entreated him to seize the reins of power. Napoleon, 
 after some hesitation, refused. It may be that, on 
 this, as on other occasions, the Emperor was not 
 equal to himself, when brought face to face with 
 the extreme of misfortune ; it may be, too, that, 
 as fifteen years before, a National Assembly and 
 its moral influence inspired him with a kind of 
 awe ; but more probably he felt, as he has recorded, 
 that if he made himself Dictator, civil war would 
 
 * Grouchy, too, failed atBantry Bay in 1796, and probably prevented 
 Ireland from becoming a French province. His name is still a bye- 
 word for incapacity among the Irish peasantry. Not long ago I tried 
 a case, in which the password of the conspirators was, ' ' Let there 
 be no Grouchys among you." 
 
1815] The Hundred Days. Waterloo. 389 
 
 follow, and civil war would have involved the 
 national ruin. 
 
 Napoleon announced his abdication in the dignified 
 words he knew how to use on great occasions, and 
 proclaimed his son Napoleon II., but the Empire 
 perished with its restorer's fall; and a provisional 
 government was named by the Chambers. The dis- 
 crowned ruler of France retired to Malmaison, the 
 favourite abode of his lost Josephine; and, as at Fon- 
 tainebleau the year before, he was forsaken, and held 
 up to execration and contempt. His thoughts, how- 
 ever, were still with France ; the allied armies had 
 approached Paris ; Blucher had pressed forward in 
 advance of Wellington ; and Napoleon offered to 
 attack their divided forces, at the head of the troops 
 gathered around the capital, pledging his word that 
 he would resign his command, after winning a victory 
 he considered certain. The offer was made at the 
 peril of his life, for it rendered his chance of escap- 
 ing from France most doubtful ; but it was rejected 
 by the suspicious men in power; and the fallen 
 Emperor took his departure for the coast in the hope 
 of reaching the shores of America. Various projects 
 for the voyage were discussed at Rochefort, but it 
 was deemed impossible to elude the British cruisers ; 
 and on the 1 5th of July, 1 8 1 5, Napoleon placed himself 
 under the flag of England, and was received on board 
 the Bellerophon with high honours, having just written 
 a letter to the Prince Regent, announcing, in touching 
 and noble language, that he " committed himself to 
 the protection of the laws of the most powerful, the 
 most persevering, and the most generous of his foes." 
 
390 Napoleon. [1815 
 
 But the Coalition had him in its grasp, and 
 Napoleon pleaded in vain that " like Themistocles 
 he had come to sit at the hearth of the British peo- 
 ple." He was a few days at Torbay and Plymouth ; 
 the sentence of England was soon pronounced ; he 
 was to be sent to St. Helena, a close prisoner, with 
 circumstances of humiliation degrading and need- 
 less. A dignified protest was disregarded, and by 
 the second week of August the great exile was on 
 his way to the last scene of his history. 
 
 It is unnecessary to dwell on the events which 
 took place after France had lost her mighty defender. 
 The Chambers were hostile to the Bourbons, and 
 the provisional government was largely composed of 
 Regicides. But both became the dupes and the in- 
 struments of a venal intriguer of the basest kind, 
 who had betrayed Napoleon and Louis XVUL, and 
 who sought, in the existing confusion, to play the 
 part played by Talleyrand in 1814. Fouch6, the 
 real head of the State, for the moment, professed 
 intense patriotic zeal, and his determination to de- 
 fend the capital ;■ but he had long been in communi- 
 cation with the Allies ; he persuaded the military 
 chiefs on the spot that the Coalition could not be 
 resisted ; he checked all exhibitions of popular feel- 
 ing; and, as was said, "he drugged everyone to 
 make way for the Bourbons." Events strongly 
 favoured this policy of deceit ; nothing but Napo- 
 leon and the energy of 1793 could, in existing cir- 
 cumstances, have rescued France ; and, in the absence 
 of both, her cause was hopeless. In a short time 
 Louis XVIII. was on the throne again, and, the 
 
1815] The Hundred Days. Waterloo. 391 
 
 Chambers, which had overthrown the Emperor, had 
 disappeared, mere phantoms of folly and weakness. 
 
 The Hundred Days, as Napoleon's second reign 
 was called, form a dark page in the annals of Europe. 
 The variableness of Frenchmen in throwing off the 
 Bourbons, in accepting Napoleon with seeming de- 
 light, and in falling away from him, even before 
 Waterloo, reveal the defects of the national charac- 
 ter, and indicate, as in 18 14, what are the fruits of 
 Revolution and of arbitrary power ; and the aban- 
 donment of the Emperor, in the hour of defeat, was 
 an exhibition of unwise weakness. The Allies, too, 
 must be condemned by history ; admitting they had 
 a right to go to war with Napoleon, they had no 
 right to denounce him as a kind of pirate ; admit- 
 ting they had a right to deprive him of liberty, they 
 had no right to subject him to insult and wrong; 
 and St. Helena is a blot on the fair fame of England. 
 
 The military events of this brief period are those 
 which give it its chief interest. An impartial judg- 
 ment on the campaign of 1815, after the lapse of 
 years, ought not to be difficult. Bellona is justified 
 in her children ; and the superiority of Napoleon in 
 the great combinations of war was distinctly mani- 
 fest throughout the contest. With his tendency to 
 over-confidence, indeed, he certainly fell into one 
 grave error ; he thought that Blucher, after Ligny, 
 was falling back on the Rhine ; but this was not a 
 principal cause of the result. The state of his health, 
 too, told greatly against him ; this led to the fatal 
 delays of the 17th and contributed to the bad tac- 
 tics of the French at Waterloo ; and possibly he 
 
392 Napoleon. [1815 
 
 showed, on one or two occasions, that he had lost 
 his perfect confidence in himself. But the extrava- 
 gance of the conqueror does not appear; and the 
 genius of the strategist was grandly displayed. His 
 comprehension of the situation as a whole, his 
 selection of the decisive points on the theatre, his 
 admirable skill in assembling his forces, his power 
 of stratagem, his scientific method of attack, were 
 exhibited almost in the highest perfection. He out- 
 manoeuvred his enemies on the 15th ; all but check- 
 mated them the next day ; and, but for the faults of 
 Grouchy, would have gained Waterloo. This was 
 done, too, though he had only one hundred and 
 twenty-eight thousand men to oppose to two hun- 
 dred and twenty-four thousand ; and though, what- 
 ever has been confidently said, his army at Waterloo 
 was not the old Grand Army. His instruments, 
 however, failed in his hands ; Ney and D'Erlon were 
 unequal to their tasks, on the i6th ; Grouchy on the 
 1 8th was worse than useless; and his lieutenants 
 really caused the loss of the campaign. 
 
 Bliicher and Wellington, on the other hand, 
 showed badly as strategists, from first to last ; and, 
 strategically were unfit to cope with Napoleon. 
 They were nearly surprised and wholly out-generalled, 
 in the early operations of the campaign ; Bliicher 
 exposed himself to crushing defeat at Ligny ; the 
 delays of Wellington were perilous in the extreme ; 
 the double retreat on Wavre and Waterloo gave 
 their adversary a chance missed by accident only ; 
 they fought Waterloo on assumptions which would 
 have caused their defeat, but for the extraordinary 
 
{S/lvinr's "///i/ix-r .•/"/.'/.■ ll'.t/.-rho Gim/.i/Vx "1 
 
1815] The Hundred Days. Waterloo. 393 
 
 remissness of Grouchy. Yet as soldiers, justice 
 should be done to both ; and they deserved their 
 triumph for the great qualities they displayed. 
 Bliicher proved himself to be a hero in conquering 
 defeat, and in rallying his army after Ligny ; Wel- 
 lington exhibited real genius in defence, and most 
 admirable constancy on the great day of Waterloo ; 
 and no other chiefs of the Coalition can be com- 
 pared to them. Some of the minor causes of the 
 defeat of Napoleon ought not, moreover, to be kept 
 out of sight. The Emperor's army was too small ; 
 one hundred and twenty-eight thousand men could 
 with difficulty be opposed to two hundred and 
 twenty-four thousand ; and sufficient allowance 
 could not be made for accidents. Napoleon, too, 
 underrated the moral power and energy of the 
 Prussian army of 18 15 ; and this led him to believe 
 that, after Ligny, it was out of the account for some 
 days, an error which Grouchy might have rectified, 
 but which was not the less an error. The Emperor, 
 besides, there are grounds to believe, did not un- 
 derstand the strength of the British infantry ; he 
 launched his cavalry against it too freely, after La 
 Haye Sainte had fallen into his hands ; and he himself 
 attributed the loss of Waterloo, in some measure, 
 to this unyielding constancy.* 
 
 * Correspondance, tome xxxi. , 240 : ' ' Les Franf ais, quoique si in- 
 ferieurs en nombre auraient remporte la victoire ; et ce ne f ut que la 
 bravoure obstinee et indomptable des troupes Anglaises seules qui 
 les en a empechee." 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Policy and conduct of the Allies after Waterloo — Napoleon at St. 
 ■ Helena — The indignities he suffered — Sir Hudson Lowe — Napo- 
 leon's writings — The last years of his captivity — His fatal illness 
 and death — His will — His remains are raoved ultimately to 
 France — Reflections on his career, as a warrior, a ruler, and in 
 private life — Conclusion. 
 
 FTER Waterloo, and the re- 
 turn of the Bourbons, the 
 AlHes sated their revenge on 
 France and their enemies. 
 Bliicher certainly would have 
 shot Napoleon, had the dis- 
 crowned Emperor fallen into 
 his hands; he passionately- 
 wished to sack Paris ; he did 
 his best to destroy the bridge 
 which commemorates the defeat of Jena. Louis 
 XVIII., probably against his will, was carried away 
 by the dmigr^ faction ; under the pretence of a deep- 
 laid plot in the army, the reality being the faults of 
 the government, an odious proscription was set on 
 foot ; Ney was immolated in defiance of a solemn 
 compact, which had enabled the King to enter the 
 capital ; and a Royalist White Terror reigned in the 
 
 394 
 
1815-21] Exile and Death. 395 
 
 provinces. France, too, paid the penalty of weakness 
 and levity ; she lost part of her frontiers of 1814; she 
 was trampled under foot by the hosts of Europe ; 
 she was occupied, for three years, by a foreign army ; 
 but for the jealousies of the Coalition, she would 
 have been deprived of Alsace and Lorraine, the 
 trophies of conquest torn from her in 1870-71. 
 The one personage, indeed, among the allied leaders, 
 who did not lose his head, was the calm-minded 
 Wellington ; he has been condemned for not saving 
 Ney ; but if this was a mistake, it was a mistake due 
 to a characteristic, and excellent quality — a dislike 
 to meddle with what concerned others. 
 
 The destiny of Napoleon was not a sudden death 
 of violence, like that of more than one of his com- 
 panions in arms ; but it was scarcely less cruel, and it 
 was more lamentable. The Allies confirmed the doom 
 pronounced by England ; and England, his * great and 
 invincible enemy, consented to become the gaoler of 
 the fallen conqueror, on behalf of the still affrighted 
 kings, who had grovelled at his feet. Napoleon 
 reached St. Helena in the autumn of 181 5 ; and he 
 soon learned what his fate was to be in exile. His 
 sword — the sword of Rivoli, of Jena, of Austerlitz — 
 had been already demanded of him, though the out- 
 rageous demand was not pressed ; and he had been 
 
 * Napoleon felt from first to last that England was the real head 
 of the Coalition against France, and by many degrees her most 
 formidable enemy. A prouder testimony to her power was never given 
 than in these remarks of the Emperor on Waterloo. Commentaries, 
 v., p. 208, Ed. 1867. " Si I'armee Anglaise, eut ete detruite 4 Water- 
 loo, i quoi eut servi aux allies ce grand nombre d'armees qui se 
 disposaient 4 franchir le Rhin, les Alpes at les Pyrenees ? " 
 
396 Napoleon. [1815- 
 
 refused his Imperial title by the government of a 
 nation which, in all ages, has acknowledged the 
 rights of de facto sovereigns. He knew, too, that he 
 was to be a prisoner; and his detention at St. 
 Helena, for high reasons of state, was justifiable in 
 the existing condition of the world. But his cap- 
 tivity ought not to have been made a martyrdom, a 
 humiliating agony to a mighty spirit. Escape from 
 St. Helena, an Atlantic islet, seldom visited by ships, 
 with but one harbour, and girt for the most part by 
 cliffs and rocks, would, in any circumstances, have 
 been difificult in the extreme ; and simple precau- 
 tions would have made it impossible. But it was 
 not enough to have a garrison on the spot ; to keep 
 light vessels cruising around ; to place stations and 
 watches on every eminence, in order to challenge a 
 suspicious sail, and effectually to stop the approach 
 of strangers. The arts of the inquisitor and the spy 
 were employed to embitter Napoleon's bondage ; 
 and he was denied the rights that belong to misfor- 
 tune. He was not permitted to move outside a 
 narrow limit, without the attendance of a British 
 officer ; * his habitation was hemmed in by sentries 
 at night ; his simplest conversations were jealously 
 watched ; he could not send or receive a letter, 
 except opened, and through the Governor's hands — 
 a barbarous and degrading restriction — and he was 
 called General Bonaparte, with studied insolence, as 
 
 * A near kinsman of my own was often orderly officer to Napoleon 
 at St. Helena. The great exile never addressed a word to him, when 
 on an odious duty, which he naturally disliked ; but was most affable 
 and courteous, at Longwood. 
 
1821] Exile and Death. 397 
 
 if France had not made him her ruler. The ani- 
 mosities, the passions, and the fears of the time 
 account for if they cannot excuse, indignities, stupid 
 aHke, and revolting. But history has condemned 
 Rome for her conduct to Hannibal ; and history 
 condemns England for her persecution, ignoble, 
 galling, and weak, of Napoleon. 
 
 We turn from this sorry sight to a very different 
 subject. Napoleon had several companions in exile, 
 and the names of Las Cases, Montholon, Gourgaud, 
 and Bertrand, have a place in history, as his friends 
 in misfortune. The Emperor dictated a great deal 
 to his followers ; and they treasured many of the 
 observations of their great master. These writings 
 and reminiscences are happily extant ; and they are 
 of very high, if of unequal, value. Napoleon's Essays 
 on Caesar, Turenne, and Frederick, are military 
 sketches of remarkable power ; the narrative is lucid, 
 succinct, and rapid ; the criticism is profound and 
 masterly ; and Caesar's work has been surpassed by 
 his chronicler. The Commentaries of Napoleon 
 contain an account of some of his most important 
 campaigns ; but, written as they were without suffi- 
 cient books of reference, they abound in errors of 
 detail, more or less grave ; and like those of Caesar, 
 their evident model, they are sometimes unfair, and 
 not trustworthy. But, in common with all that 
 Napoleon has written on war, they are monuments 
 of supreme genius ; their distinctive excellence is that 
 the author detaches the cardinal from the subordi- 
 nate facts, and places them clearly before the reader, 
 just as he seized the decisive points on the' field of 
 
398 Napoleon. [1815- 
 
 manoeuvre, and the field of battle ; and they are un- 
 rivalled on questions of pure strategy, which are 
 treated with perfect insight and logic. Napoleon, 
 too, is admirable, and far before his time, when 
 he deals with military organisation ; and, if we 
 except what belongs to material inventions, and to 
 the changes these have necessarily involved, he has 
 anticipated what German genius has achieved. 
 
 As regards what the Emperor has left behind, on 
 politics, and affairs of state, this is inferior to his 
 work in his peculiar art. His sketch of the history 
 of the Republic, before the i8th Brumaire, con- 
 tains thoughtful and eloquent passages ; but it is 
 obviously composed as a foil to the Consulate. As 
 to his own acts and policy as a ruler, and, generally, 
 as to the times of the Empire, Napoleon's remarks 
 always deserve study ; they are sometimes singularly 
 just and profound ; more than once they penetrate 
 the depths of the future. But they convey the im- 
 pression that a great artist is draping himself, so to 
 speak, for posterity ; they are occasionally mere adroit 
 sophistry ; in some respects they are not truthful. 
 Napoleon treated his slanderers with just scorn ; 
 dwells with proper emphasis on all that he did to 
 promote the grandeur and welfare of France ; claims 
 truly that he had always identified his own interests 
 with those of the nation, at least as he understood 
 these, and argued that, up to 18 14, certainly, France 
 sanctioned his career of war and conquest. He con- 
 tends, also, with much truth, that France was unfit 
 for political freedom, when he became her ruler in 
 1 800- 1 ; and he fairly lays claim to the highest 
 
1821] Exile and Death. 399 
 
 praise as an administrator in civil affairs, as a founder 
 of social order and peace, as a legislator of supreme 
 merit, as a great sovereign who put down anarchy. 
 Some of his observations are strangely prophetic ; he 
 predicted that the regime of the Bourbons would 
 give way to the Monarchy of July, and be succeeded 
 by a return to the Empire ; he foresaw that Russia 
 would gain a bad ascendency on the Continent, after 
 1 8 14-15 ; he anticipated the break-up of the Holy 
 Alliance; he foretold the risings of 1848-49, he 
 declared that nothing could arrest the democratic 
 movement, which may yet, as he said, make a Republic 
 of Europe. But the insatiable conqueror was trifling 
 with fact, when he asserted that he overran the Con- 
 tinent in the ultimate interest of civilisation and 
 peace ; that the domination of France was designed 
 to make her the head of a Federation of States, 
 emancipated from the feudalism of the past ; and that 
 he remodelled the map of Europe with his sword, in 
 order, simply, to improve its boundaries. And the 
 greatest of despots was mocking at truth, when he 
 called himself "the Messiah of a popular gospel " ; 
 when he declared that he always had it in view to 
 give free institutions to France ; when he tried to 
 make out that his chief object, as a conqueror, was to 
 fuse races, kept hitherto apart, into true nations ; 
 when he argued that he had always been the champion 
 of the independence and rights of the people. 
 
 The years of captivity rolled slowly on, and added 
 to the weight of the exile's sufferings. The superior 
 naval officers, who had had Napoleon in their charge, 
 for some time had been succeeded by a regular 
 
400 Napoleon. [1815- 
 
 governor ; and this appointment had proved un- 
 fortunate. Sir Hudson Lowe was not a bad man ; 
 but he was coarse-minded and devoid of tact ; and he 
 seemed to take pleasure in trying to make the will 
 of his prisoner bend to his own. The restrictions 
 placed on Napoleon were made more severe ; with 
 his followers he was exposed to petty insults ; and 
 miserable bickerings arose about such trifles as the 
 cost of the discrowned Emperor's table, as if the 
 bread of exile was not sufficiently bitter. The 
 captive fiercely kicked against the pricks ; it has 
 been said that he would have shown more dignity 
 had he borne vexation and wrong in silence ; and yet 
 the poet is true to his art, when he makes Prometheus, 
 held down by Force, complain from his barren rock 
 to Humanity. Napoleon by degrees gave up exer- 
 cise, or refused to quit his abode, Longwood ; and 
 growing disease increased the pain and irritation 
 of a nature wounded to the quick. 
 
 Additional circumstances made his life a succes- 
 sion of sorrows from which hope had vanished. His 
 cause was, for the present, lost ; his friends and ad- 
 herents had been proscribed ; his family, to which 
 he was strongly attached, and which returned the 
 affection he deserved — mother, sisters, and brothers 
 — were the waifs and strays of the tempest which 
 had wrought his destruction. Yet, probably, what 
 he felt most keenly was the conduct of his unworthy 
 wife ; Marie Louise had long been a stranger to him, 
 and had found happiness in the vows of her cham- 
 berlain ; and she had not sent her husband a mes- 
 sage to tell him of the child, once heir to august 
 
18211 Exile and Death. 401 
 
 Empire, now the Astyanax of a fallen House, though 
 she knew well how his father loved him. The cap- 
 tive, nevertheless, might have found, if not conso- 
 lation, a sad sense of relief, as he learned from afar, 
 what was the state of Europe. He had trampled 
 the Continent under his heel ; he had made France 
 weary of war and of arbitrary power. But the evil 
 he did had not been without good ; he had desolated 
 and disturbed the world ; but civilisation had follow- 
 ed in his path of conquest. All this had changed ; 
 and, amidst seeming peace, three fourths of Europe 
 were suffering from ignoble tyranny. The counter- 
 revolution was supreme in France ; the kings and 
 princes who had turned to account the patriotic 
 rising of Germany, had broken their pledges to give 
 her liberty, and had meshed her, again, in the 
 shackles of the past ; Italy was in the degrading 
 bonds of Austria ; Rome had passed, again, under 
 the rule of priests ; Ferdinand was exasperating 
 Spain, and her people. The hope of freedom and 
 progress seemed gone, while the Holy Alliance 
 spread over the Continent ; and, terrible as the sword 
 of Napoleon had been, it was less injurious to the 
 estate of man, than the deadening and destructive 
 sceptre of Metternich, the strong representative of 
 the ideas of the past. 
 
 It became apparent, by the close of 1820, that the 
 end of this extraordinary life was at hand. Though 
 his energies had seemed to defy fatigue, Napoleon's 
 constitution had never been strong ; his health had 
 begun to fail when he was only forty-three ; and he 
 had long suffered from two distressing maladies. At 
 
402 Napoleon. [1815- 
 
 St. Helena symptoms of cancer, which had caused 
 his father's death, were developed by degrees ; the 
 climate of the island is not unwholesome ; but se- 
 clusion, suffering, and mental agony accelerated the 
 progress of mortal disease. The wretched squabbles 
 with the Governor had never ceased ; threats had 
 been made to break in on the exile's privacy, in 
 order to secure proof that he was at Longwood ; and 
 Las Cases and Gourgaud had left the island. 
 
 Napoleon calmly prepared for death ; and the 
 profound religious sympathies seen in his character, 
 became strongly manifest, as he bade life farewell. 
 He spent hours in studying the Sacred Writings, 
 showing a keen perception of their moral grandeur ; 
 had mass regularly performed in the chief room at 
 Longwood ; more than once rebuked the scoffs of a 
 young physician, and told him to keep his atheism 
 to himself; and spoke eloquently on Christianity 
 and the Faith. In the first months of 1821 his 
 strength gave way ; he was racked with almost un- 
 ceasing pain ; and the food he tried to swallow 
 yielded no nourishment. As April was closing 
 Napoleon made his will ; and the document is one 
 of singular interest. The offspring and master of 
 the French Revolution declared that he died in com- 
 munion with the Holy Church, which had " taken 
 him to her bosom since the day of his birth." A 
 few kind words were bestowed on Marie Louise ; but 
 the child of many hopes and of an unknown future, 
 was the centre of the exile's deepest affection. The 
 munificence, which was one of the Emperor's quali- 
 ties, was seen in a great number of legacies, distri- 
 
Q H 
 
 O £ 
 
1821] Exile and Death. 403 
 
 buted with forethought and pious care ; and their 
 benefactor did not forget his family, his friends, his 
 adherents, and his devoted soldiery. One bequest 
 was unworthy of so great a man ; Napoleon gave a 
 sum of money to an inferior officer, who had been 
 tried for an attempt to kill Wellington ; but he 
 believed that the Duke was a personal enemy ; and 
 allowance should be made for the agony of death. 
 By the 3d of May the captive had become uncon- 
 scious ; the last words that fell from his lips were 
 " mon fits . . . Varm^e . . . Desaix" ; and on 
 the 5th his parting spirit was released, after many 
 hours of intense suffering. Napoleon was buried 
 beneath a willow tree, which rose over one of the 
 haunts of his solitude ; and he was borne to the 
 grave by the mourning soldiers of the nation he had 
 tried in vain to subdue. Yet St. Helena was not to 
 be his last place of rest ; he had written in his will 
 that " he wished to repose along the banks of the 
 Seine, amidst the French people he loved "; and Eng- 
 land gave back the mighty dead to France. Napoleon 
 sleeps beneath the dome of the Invalides, not far 
 from the spot where Turenne lies ; and no place in 
 Europe, perhaps, is of more profound interest. Yet 
 the coming ages may regret that the rock in the 
 Atlantic was not a permanent sepulchre. We do 
 not know where Hannibal and Alexander lie ; St. 
 Helena would have been the tomb, for all time, 
 of Napoleon. 
 
 The survivors are very few, who have seen Napo- 
 leon ; but innumerable portraits preserve his image. 
 He was thin, and of delicate aspect, in youth ; his 
 
404 Napoleon. [1815- 
 
 frame and his features seemed to expand with his 
 fortunes, and he became heavy and obese as age 
 advanced. But the character of his countenance 
 underwent no change ; and it was remarkable for its 
 grandeur and beauty. The outhne of the face was 
 of the best Itahan type, that which we see in the 
 first Caesars ; the firmly-set jaw, and the somewhat 
 rigid mouth expressed a strong and resolute nature ; 
 but Napoleon's smile was singularly sweet ; and his 
 glance, ardent with genius, or fired with passion, yet 
 often possessing a fascinating spell, deeply impressed 
 everyone who felt its power. The Emperor was 
 short in stature, but well formed ; and the historic 
 figure of the " Little Corporal," in his grey coat, 
 and his plain uniform, amidst the glittering staff of 
 his plumed marshals, will go down to a remote 
 posterity. 
 
 The spirit that informed this shape of majesty 
 was one of the most extraordinary ever bestowed on 
 man. The chief intellectual gifts of Napoleon were 
 an imagination of wonderful force ; a power of cal- 
 culation that embraced everything, and yet grasped 
 the smallest details ; the master-faculty of always 
 perceiving the dominant fact in what was before 
 him, of separating from it what was subordinate, and 
 of seeing how it could be turned to account ; and 
 admirable celerity and keenness of thought. His 
 moral faculties were not less remarkable ; ambition 
 that nothing seemed to satisfy ; self-confidence that 
 received no check from experience; indefatigable 
 energy that never tired ; a devouring passion to 
 achieve greatness, to do mighty deeds, to acquire 
 
THE DYING NAPOLEON. 
 
 BY VELA, AN fTALfAN SCULPTOR. 
 
 Exhibited at the Paris 1S75 exhibition, and -subsequently purchased by the French 
 government, and removed to Palace of \ ersailles. 
 
1821] Exile and Death. 405 
 
 renown ; decision, firmness, and strength of character ; 
 dexterity and adroitness in difficult crises, extra- 
 ordinary craft, and the power of concealing whatever 
 designs or purpose were formed ; and, very distinctly, 
 a profound contempt for the great mass of ordinary 
 men, a belief that the world is ruled by force, a con- 
 viction that genius can accomplish anything. To 
 this should be added unbending pride ; inexorable 
 resolution in compassing ends, with little scruple as 
 regards means ; and yet, with all this, a deep sense 
 of the Divine, a temper kindly, if sometimes vehe- 
 ment ; generosity, lavish almost to excess, a strong 
 attachment to the ties of family ; and a disposition 
 that shrank from cruelty, and yet that seemed indif- 
 ferent to human suffering when ambition was striv- 
 ing to gain its objects. 
 
 A being, with gifts such as these, would have 
 probably risen to high eminence in any age. But 
 the time of Napoleon was that of the French 
 Revolution, that is, of a period of incessant war, 
 when the boundaries of states were suddenly shifted, 
 when France rushed into a strife with old Europe, 
 when ideas, portending immense changes in the 
 estate of man, came in fierce conflict with the effete 
 feudalism and kingship of the past, and when the 
 military art was, so to speak, given wings, under new 
 conditions that had become developed. Supreme 
 genius, in such an age of trouble, rose by its own force 
 to the heights of fortune, and for years amazed and 
 affrighted mankind. Napoleon's faculties were first 
 absorbed in war, and war was his chosen and peculiar 
 sphere. As a leader of armies he grandly displayed 
 
4o6 Napoleon. [1815- 
 
 most of the intellectual and moral qualities, which 
 were the ground-work, as it were, of his character ; 
 and we trace them in his career from Montenotte to 
 Waterloo. He was pre-eminent for his splendid 
 conceptions in war ; for his mastery of the situation 
 before him ; for his administrative and organising 
 power ; for his capacity to see how to move with 
 effect, on the theatre of operations, and on the field 
 of battle ; for his command over the troops he 
 directed ; for his readiness and resource at grave con- 
 junctures. It is unnecessary to say what he was as 
 a conqueror ; what his daring and audacity were ; 
 how he marched from the Adige to the Nile, and 
 from Madrid to Moscow ; how he confronted the 
 world in arms for almost useless provinces ; how 
 wonderful he was in deceiving an enemy ; how he 
 shed the blood of his soldiers like water, and treated 
 them as mere pawns in his game, and yet how he 
 won their hearts, and attracted their sympathies. 
 Taken altogether Napoleon was, by far, the first of 
 the masters of war in the modern world ; in great 
 military combinations he has no equal ; his move- 
 ments were at once scientific, grand, and method- 
 ical ; he carried out the principles of his art with an 
 originahty and brilliancy never seen again ; and he 
 was unrivalled in the difficult tasks, of reaching the 
 communications and rear of an enemy, of manoeu- 
 vring between divided armies, of attacking, and 
 beating them in detail, and, above all, perhaps, in 
 the genius of stratagem. 
 
 Yet the extraordinary faculties of this consum- 
 mate warrior did not always retain their true bal- 
 
1821] Exile and Death. 407 
 
 ance ; and his triumphs were followed by immense 
 disasters. Napoleon's imagination sometimes over- 
 came his judgment ; his confidence in himself became 
 arrogance ; his indomitable pride marred his com- 
 mon-sense ; his intense eagerness to strike down his 
 enemy more than once exposed him to peril and 
 defeat ; the extravagance of the conqueror in his 
 later campaigns perverted the views of the military 
 chief. The time on which he fell had, in two 
 respects, a marked influence on his career as a war- 
 rior. The French Revolution had given a strong 
 impulse to the human mind in every sphere of 
 action, and had made it bold and aspiring alike ; and 
 possibly Napoleon in a less troubled age would not 
 have conceived such grand projects as the march 
 across the Alps that led to Marengo, and the march 
 from the Channel, on Ulm and Vienna. The multi- 
 plication of roads, too, and the progress of hus- 
 bandry, which had marked the last thirty years of 
 the eighteenth century, enabled Napoleon to move 
 armies across with a rapidity never before known, 
 and largely to dispense with the impedimenta of 
 war; and this was an immense advantage to his 
 offensive strategy. But it must be borne in mind 
 that, when these conditions failed, the methods, 
 which depended on them, were not successful, as 
 was seen in the campaign of 1806-7, and especially 
 in the invasion of Russia. 
 
 Napoleon, however, was a universal genius, great- 
 est as a warrior, but great as a ruler. The obscure 
 son of a Corsican lawyer became the sovereign of 
 Revolutionary France, and founded an Empire which 
 
4o8 Napoleon. [1815- 
 
 overspread the Continent. Here, again, he owed 
 much to the influences of his time ; and these alone, 
 indeed, made his achievements possible. He found 
 France exhausted after the frenzy of 1793, wearied 
 of a feeble and worthless government, affrighted at 
 defeat, and torn by anarchy ; and the nation was in 
 a state to accept the lead of a master-mind of com- 
 manding power, especially as Napoleon had stood 
 aloof from the strife of factions, and the intrigues of 
 parties. France was literally wax in the hands of 
 her chief ; and her institutions and social order were 
 almost permanently moulded by the First Consul. 
 Many of his faculties were engaged in this gigantic 
 work ; his powerful imagination saw in the forms of 
 the past the models on which to shape the present ; 
 his administrative gifts and incessant industry were 
 never more magnificently displayed ; his ambition 
 gathered the State into his strong hands ; his reli- 
 gious sympathies became manifest in the restoration 
 of the Church in France, and in the policy of the 
 Concordat, and of all that belonged to it. The 
 good he accomplished was immense and evident ; 
 he bound up the wounds of the nation, and to a 
 certain extent, reconciled classes ; he checked the 
 extravagance of the Revolution, and protected the 
 interests that had grown up with it ; he secured 
 the equality before the law, and the liberation of the 
 soil, which had been the best triumphs of 1789 ; the 
 institutions he founded, which Time has hallowed, 
 the noble public works, which are the glory of his 
 reign, remain monuments of his supreme genius. 
 Political liberty, indeed, he jealously withheld ; and 
 
1821] Exile and Death. 409 
 
 he became the uncontrolled Despot of France, if an 
 enlightened and a beneficent Despot. Undoubtedly, 
 however, in the first years of his power, Frenchmen 
 had no thought of political rights ; they yearned for 
 rest, security, and strong government, and these 
 they obtained in full measure ; and it may well be 
 doubted whether the generation which had taken 
 part in the Reign of Terror, was capable of political 
 liberty. Still, had Napoleon been a statesman of 
 the highest order, had he had a clear and perfect 
 conception of what is best for the estate of man, he 
 would have made his despotism less harsh and abso- 
 lute ; and he would have trained France to become 
 fit for freedom by cultivating peace, self-government, 
 and social progress. But this was utterly alien to 
 Napoleon's nature ; he had a settled contempt for 
 the great mass of mankind ; he disliked, and did not 
 countenance popular instincts, passions, movements, 
 and tendencies ; he scorned liberal principles as 
 " ideology "; and if this conviction was not unnatural, 
 in the case of one who abhorred the Revolutionary 
 crimes, he certainly had no sympathy with political 
 liberty. 
 
 The First Consul became the Emperor, and found- 
 ed a domination which made France the undisputed 
 Queen of the Continent. The Empire extended 
 beyond the France of the "natural boundaries," 
 over Italy, Holland, and the North Sea coasts ; it 
 placed vassal kings in Germany, Naples, and Spain ; 
 its supremacy was felt as far as the Niemen. The 
 age, not less than the sword of Napoleon, contributed 
 to form this creation of force ; the Monarchies and 
 
4IO Napoleon. [1815- 
 
 Aristocracies of old Europe had decayed in the 
 course of the eighteenth century ; they were at first 
 weakened by the French Revolution ; and they were 
 overcome by its mighty champion. This edifice of 
 conquest, it is unnecessary to say, revealed the 
 character of its builder in its grandeur and its de- 
 fects. Napoleon, his imagination fired by the glories 
 of the past, endeavoured to reproduce the work of 
 Charlemagne in the civilisation of the modern world ; 
 his ambition sent him from the Rhine and the Po to 
 the Vistula ; his energy, his statecraft, his genius in 
 war, were tasked for years, to maintain the dominion, 
 which expanded as he moved on his path of victory. 
 When the fabric had fallen, he tried, in vain, to 
 show that he had reared it only in self-defence ; that 
 it grew almost in spite of himself; that, in any 
 event, he never intended that it should retain its 
 vast proportions, after a general peace. These pleas, 
 if plausible, are not borne out by the facts ; and 
 history records her impartial verdict, that Napoleon, 
 finding the Continent easy to subdue, overran it in 
 the pride of his power, and in his faith in his genius, 
 and his invincible sword, and that he believed the 
 Empire would be a lasting possession, a permanent 
 monument of its great founder. This conviction 
 was obviously false and baseless ; and it proves that 
 Napoleon, splendid as were his gifts, was essentially 
 wanting in the far-seeing wisdom, the self-restraint, 
 the caution, the prudence, which distinguish states- 
 men of the first order. His supremacy was a defi- 
 ance to History, Law, and Tradition ; and it seems 
 extraordinary that a conqueror should ever imagine 
 
1821] Exile and Death. 411 
 
 that ancient states, and great civilised races, would 
 patiently submit to his unnatural yoke. The policy, 
 too, of the Emperor, as his power advanced, almost 
 inevitably led to the events which ultimately caused 
 his tremendous overthrow. Tilsit was pregnant with 
 a European conflict ; the invasion of Spain was a 
 gigantic mistake ; the Continental system meant uni- 
 versal conquest. And what can be said of the nego- 
 tiations of 1813, but that obstinacy and arrogance 
 blinded Napoleon ? In certain passages of his career 
 this extraordinary man almost sinks to the level of 
 one of the conquerors of the East. 
 
 The career of Napoleon thus separates into two 
 parts, which present a strange and astonishing con- 
 trast. In the first part he is simply a victorious 
 general ; but he uses with moderation the great 
 power which his position gives him, as he deals with 
 old Europe. He then becomes the undisputed 
 master of France ; and though he gives proof of 
 despotic tendencies, he is one of the ablest, and 
 most successful of rulers. In the second part, we 
 see the uncontrolled despot, wielding irresistible 
 military force ; he makes France the centre of a 
 colossal Empire ; he subjugates and bestrides the 
 Continent ; and he proceeds on his blood-stained 
 path of conquest, until millions of men are destroyed 
 by the sword, the civilised world is leagued against 
 him, and France succumbs, defeated, exhausted, 
 prostrate. Yet there is nothing surprising in this 
 antithesis, Napoleon's character and the circum- 
 stances being taken into account ; commanding 
 genius and unbridled ambition overleap the bounds 
 
412 Napoleon. [1815- 
 
 of prudence and wisdom, and usually work out their 
 own ruin, as history shows in a hundred examples. 
 Under conditions like these the nature of man seems 
 to undergo a complete transformation ; and modera- 
 tion and reason by degrees give place to the excesses 
 of the lawless and arbitrary will. 
 
 And here it is that detraction has found the means 
 of unjustly attacking Napoleon. His slanderers 
 insist that his conduct was always of a piece, and 
 that, from first to last, there was no real change in 
 him. To maintain this theory, they either keep out 
 of sight, or misrepresent the achievements of his 
 early manhood ; they interpret his splendid prime 
 by his later years, and exaggerate all that was worst 
 in these, in order effectually to pervert the truth ; and, 
 then, by accumulating calumnies of every kind, and 
 defaming his life in public and private, they have set 
 up an odious and revolting counterfeit that has little 
 in common with the true original. Despite his 
 imperfections, errors, and misdeeds. Napoleon was 
 one of the greatest of men ; and it is vain to describe 
 him as a kind of Attila in war, a Borgia in govern- 
 ment and affairs of state, a Nero in cruelty and 
 licentious wickedness, a reckless, inhuman, and selfish 
 tyrant. And as we look back at that career of won- 
 ders, Justice takes into account the facts which explain 
 much that was devious and wrong ; and the good 
 largely exceeds the evil. Few conquerors have been 
 tempted as Napoleon was ; France ministered to his 
 ambition for years ; and if he easily subdued the 
 Continent, the Continent was ever plotting against 
 him. The benefits, too, he conferred on France, 
 
1821] Exile and Death. 413 
 
 were immense ; and if destruction followed in their 
 train, civilisation attended the march of his armies. 
 In lands ravaged by his sword, his memory lives 
 as the destroyer of Feudalism and unjust privilege ; 
 and his name has sunk deep into the heart of races 
 which rightly spurned his oppressive yoke. 
 
 The best of Napoleon's work will live ; but his 
 Empire, that, like the Satanic Temple, rose as an 
 exhalation, as quickly vanished. In his case, the 
 manifestation of the Divine Will, called in our ignor- 
 ance the irony of Fate, exhibited itself with peculiar 
 clearness. That devouring ambition which tried to 
 make Europe its domain, and never found rest in its 
 march of conquest, was confined to the precincts of 
 an Atlantic rock, and fretted in vain in ignoble 
 bondage. That prodigious energy which engrossed 
 the administration of a gigantic Empire, in its main 
 parts, and its smallest details, and of military force 
 which overawed the world, was kept within the nar- 
 row bounds of the life of a captive. Power was 
 destroyed by its own excess ; genius in war was con- 
 founded by its own greatness ; the policy which 
 seemed to assure the results of conquest, Tilsit, 
 Bayonne, and the Austrian marriage, became the 
 means that led to defeat and ruin. It was the same 
 if we look, beyond Napoleon, to the fortunes of the 
 nation he ruled. He made France the foremost 
 state of the Continent ; he believed her supremacy 
 would be enduring. But he contributed to the fall 
 of the old German Empire, which kept Germany in 
 the shackles of the past ; he encouraged the dream 
 of an independent Italy ; his oppression fused to- 
 
414 Napoleon. n 81 5- 
 
 gether the Teutonic race, and effaced the divisions 
 which made it powerless ; and all this has tended to 
 surround France with great and growing nations, 
 which have become her rivals, and to deprive her of 
 the ascendency she once possessed. The Unity of 
 Italy, and of Germany, may, to some extent, be 
 ascribed to Napoleon ; and it is a significant fact 
 that Austria, Germany, Italy, have, for some time, 
 been combined in a league unquestionably hostile to 
 France and her interests. And so it has been with 
 that instrument of power, which, in a special manner, 
 expressed his genius. He made the French army 
 the terror of Europe ; he encircled it with a halo of 
 renown, which Leipzig and Waterloo hardly dimmed. 
 And the result was that the glory of the past proved 
 a fatal deception as time rolled on ; that army lived 
 on its grand traditions, did not adapt itself to 
 changed conditions of war, gradually lost its strength, 
 and military worth ; and was finally engulphed in an 
 immense catastrophe. Had that army, and its chiefs, 
 thought less of Jena, they might not have mourned 
 for Metz and Sedan. 
 
 As Ruler of the State and a chief of armies, Napo- 
 leon was a kind and most generous master, of the 
 ministers and generals he directed and led. He was 
 intolerant of deception, misconduct, and waste, like 
 all administrators of a high order ; but no one made 
 more allowances for mere errors ; he was usually con- 
 siderate and sympathetic ; and his munificence to his 
 inferiors was almost excessive. He was, however, 
 imperious and exacting ; and his personality was so 
 overwhelming, that he bowed his subordinates to 
 
1821] Exile and Death. 415 
 
 meek submission, and fashioned them on a type of 
 servitude. He really was his own Foreign Minister; 
 he controlled the Finances and even the Tribunals 
 in France ; he often treated Talleyrand as a high 
 kind of clerk ; he made Champagny and Maret his 
 mere docile instruments. This was injurious in 
 government and in affairs of state, and had evil 
 results in the conduct of war. Napoleon's generals 
 and marshals were simply his satellites ; if we except 
 Mass^na, Davoust, and Soult, not one was fit for a 
 great independent command ; they were so trained 
 to look up to the Emperor, that they wanted self- 
 reliance, and true capacity ; they were able soldiers, 
 but not leaders. They were inferior, as a rule, to the 
 best chiefs of the Republican armies of 1794-1800, 
 and the disastrous consequences were often manifest. 
 The energy of Desaix saved Marengo ; the feebleness 
 of Grouchy caused the loss of Waterloo. The in- 
 fluence, on the other hand, of Napoleon over the 
 mass of his army, made wholly for good ; it was ex- 
 traordinary, and almost passed belief. He was prodi- 
 gal of the blood of his soldiers ; he sacrificed them 
 to attain his ends ; he immolated them, in tens of 
 thousands, in his wars ; but he was careful of their 
 wants, and mastered their hearts. They instinctively 
 felt the power of his genius ; they were carried away 
 by the impassioned words he addressed to them on 
 the eve of his battles ; and he obtained efforts from 
 them, which no other chiefs have ever obtained from 
 French soldiers, not even Cond6, Turenne, or Villars. 
 Napoleon is less known as the head of a family, 
 and in the life of home, which he hardly knew in 
 
41 6 Napoleon. [1815- 
 
 manhood. In this province, calumny has run riot ; 
 and history turns away from revolting charges, 
 heaped up by defamers without a sense of shame, 
 and not sustained by evidence that will bear the 
 light. Nor should we judge Napoleon by angry 
 letters occasionally written to his crowned brothers ; 
 they reveal his domineering and impatient temper ; 
 but what they really prove is that these vassal kings 
 were placed in a position false to himself, and that 
 they were' unequal to carry out a policy, extrava- 
 gant and well-nigh impossible. There are blots on 
 Napoleon's private life, but he * was devotedly 
 attached to his surviving parent ; he was an indul- 
 gent, nay, an uxorious husband ; he raised his 
 brothers and sisters to great positions, as he rose 
 himself to supreme eminence, and this, too, sometimes 
 against his interest ; his affection for his son was 
 heartfelt and tender ; he had a deep sense of the 
 ties and duties of family. His letters to Josephine 
 and Marie Louise, to Eugene and Hortense Beau- 
 harnais, to Joseph, Jer6me, and Louis Bonaparte, in 
 all that relates to domestic affairs, give proof of a 
 kindly and sympathetic nature ; and they are some- 
 times charming in their delicate grace. Nor — apart 
 
 * Napoleon at St. Helena described his family in these words : 
 Corr., tome xxxii., 295 : "Joseph, par tout pays, serait I'ornement de 
 la societe ; Lucien celui de toute assemblee politique. Jerome, 
 en murissant, eflt ete propre a gouverner ; je decouvrais en lui de 
 veritables esperances. Louis eflt plu et se fut fait remarquer partout. 
 Ma soeur Elisa etait une tete male, une ame forte ; elle aura montre 
 beaucoup de philosophie dans I'adversite. Caroline est fort habile et 
 tres capable. Pauline, la plus belle femme de son temps peut-etre, a 
 ete et demeurera jusqu'a a la fin la meilleure creature vivante. 
 Quant i ma mere, elle est digne de tous les genres de veneration." 
 
1821] Exile and Death. 417 
 
 from transient squabbles and jealousies — were his 
 kindred ungrateful or untrue ; they did not abandon 
 him in adverse fortune ; and if Marie Louise basely 
 threw him off, the wife* of Jerome, though a stranger 
 in blood, tried to be his solace and support in exile. 
 
 As is the case with all men, however great they may 
 be, Napoleon, we repeat, reflected the spirit of his age ; 
 he was the grandest embodiment of it ; and his age 
 was that of the French Revolution. He was not free 
 from its immoral licence ; though in this particular, he 
 favourably compares, with most of the kings and 
 princes of the Europe of his day. Its want of 
 principle, and absence of scruple, was very distinctly 
 apparent in him, and fell in with his immense ambi- 
 tion, and with his vehement daring and impetuous 
 nature. But he abhorred the bloody deeds to which 
 the Revolution gave birth ; and many as were his 
 faults, as a ruler, few men have climbed to a throne, 
 in an age of anarchy, and have been guilty of so few 
 acts, that, properly speaking, can be deemed crimes. 
 If he was pitiless in carrying out his purposes, he 
 was not cruel, or even revengeful ; and the instances 
 of his clemency are many and striking. The callous 
 selfishness which has been laid to his charge was, 
 essentially, quite a different quality ; it was like the 
 feeling which prompted Louis XIV. to exclaim that 
 he was himself the State ; and Napoleon thought 
 more of France, than of his own grandeur, and staked 
 and lost all in the national interests. 
 
 The bearing of this extraordinary man in the daily 
 round of his life, may deserve the passing notice of 
 
 * See a touching letter from this remarkable woman to the Prince 
 Regent of England. Corr., tome xxxii., 461. 
 
41 8 Napoleon. [I815-21 
 
 history. Napoleon, we have seen, was taciturn and 
 morose in youth ; his nature seemed stern and self- 
 contained ; and this was probably largely due to his 
 life of privations. Under the influence of ever- 
 favouring Fortune, this reticence and austerity 
 vanished ; his tastes and sympathies seemed to ex- 
 pand ; and Napoleon became joyous, talkative, fond 
 of companionship, brilliant in social intercourse, and 
 yet secure of the ascendency which is the peculiar 
 mark of genius. When he had risen to the summit 
 of earthly grandeur he did not always gracefully 
 wear his dignities ; the stiffness and awkwardness of 
 the parvenu occasionally peeped out behind his 
 state ; he had not the princely charm and ease of the 
 Bourbon kings. And yet these were but spots on 
 the surface, and the extraordinary fascination, which 
 Napoleon exercised over the most illustrious and 
 distinguished men, and the keenness and pregnancy 
 of his conversation, delighted the real observers in 
 his Court. For the rest the Emperor was quick in 
 temper and brusque in manner ; he was not always 
 pleasing in his address to women ; he never quite 
 lost the ways of the camp ; he had not the urbanity 
 of the finished patrician. Too much, however, has 
 been made of these blemishes ; Napoleon was long 
 the centre of an admiration almost universal, and by 
 no means feigned ; and few great men have appeared 
 in history who have retained in misfortune such 
 devoted followers. 
 
NAPOLEON'S SIGNATURES* 
 
 From a letter dated 1793, addressed to the " Directory." 
 
 From a document dated, the t3th Fructidor, year IV., written at 
 the headquarters of the French army, Italy. 
 
 Napoleon, Emperor of the French, 1804. 
 
 * These signatures are reproduced from the North A merican 
 Review with the kind permission of the publishers. 
 
 419 
 
420 
 
 Napoleon. 
 
 From a proclamation after the battle of Austerlitz. 
 
 After the campaign of 1806. 
 
 Written during the burning of Moscow, September 21st, 1812, 
 
 Dated November 6th, 1812, during the retreat from Russia. 
 
Napoleon! s Signatures. 421 
 
 Erfurt, October 23d, 1813, after defeat at Leipzig. 
 
 Fontainebleau, 4th of April, 1814. 
 
 St. Helena. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 Abensberg, battle of, 238 
 
 Aboukir, battle of, 68 ; landing 
 of British army at, loi 
 
 Acre, siege of, 68 
 
 Addington, the ministry of, loi 
 
 Adige, operations of Napoleon 
 on, 32, ei seq. 
 
 Ajaccio, birthplace of Napoleon, 2 
 
 Alexander, the Czar, successor 
 of Paul, 100 ; co-operates with 
 Napoleon in arranging the af- 
 fairs of Germany, 1 24 ; at Aus- 
 terlitz, 177 ; continues the war. 
 190 ; interview of, with Napo- 
 leon on the Niemen, 214 ; ac- 
 cepts the treaties of Tilsit, 214 ; 
 interview of, with Napoleon 
 at Erfurt, 232 ; growing dis- 
 putes of, with Napoleon, 274 ; 
 rupture with Napoleon in i8l2, 
 274; chief of the allies in 181 3- 
 14, 344; negotiates with Talley- 
 rand and the envoys of Napo- 
 leon, 347 
 
 Alps, Napoleon crosses the, 94 
 
 Alvinzi, general, defeated by 
 Napoleon, 37, et seq. 
 
 Amiens, peace of, 102 ; rupture 
 of peace of, 130, et seq. 
 
 Ancients, council of, 65, et seq. 
 
 Angouleme, Due de, 341 
 
 Arcis on the Aube, battle of, 339 
 
 Areola, battle of, 38 
 
 Aspern, battle of, 241 
 Augereau, general and marshal, 
 47 ; sent to Paris by Napoleon 
 before the i8th Fructidor, 47 
 Auerstadt, battle of, 195 
 Austerlitz, battle of, 178, 181 
 Austria, efforts of, in Italy in 
 1796-97, 35, et seq.; joins the 
 Coalition against France 1799, 
 63 ; bears the brunt of the war 
 in 1800, 91 ; compelled to 
 make peace at Luneville, 97 ; 
 joins the Coalition against 
 France in 1805, 162 ; defeated 
 in 1805, 182 ; compelled to 
 accept the peace of Presburg, 
 183 ; declares war against 
 France in 1809, 236, et seq. ; 
 defeated and compelled to ac- 
 cept the peace of Vienna, 247 ; 
 ally of Napoleon in 1812, 276 ; 
 policy of, in 1 8 13, 297, et seq. ; 
 joins the Allies in 1813, 306 ; 
 power of, increased in 1814-15, 
 360 
 
 Bagration, Russian general in 
 l8l2, 278 
 
 Barclay de Tolly, Russian general, 
 retreat of, 278, et seq. 
 
 Barras, a lover of Josephine, 23 ; 
 one of the directors, 74 ; sup- 
 ports the 1 8th Brumaire, 74 
 
 423 
 
424 
 
 Index. 
 
 Bassano, battle of, 36 
 
 Beauharnais, Eugene, made Vice- 
 roy of the kingdom of Italy, 
 184 ; marries a princess of 
 Bavaria, 185 ; in command in 
 Italy in 1809, 239 ; joins Na- 
 poleon before Wagram, 243 ; 
 leads the march of the grand 
 army to the Elbe, 2gi ; in Italy 
 in 1813-14, 323, 335 
 
 Beauharnais, Josephine, marries 
 Napoleon, 23 ; joins him in 
 Italy in 1797, 48 ; crowned 
 with him, 152, 153 ; divorce 
 of, 251 ; death of, 252 
 
 Beaulieu, Austrian general de- 
 feated by Napoleon, 26, et seq. 
 
 Benningsen, Russian general, in 
 command at Eylau, 207, and 
 Friedland, 213 
 
 Beresina, passage of, 285 
 
 Bernadotte, general and marshal, 
 169, 179 ; before Jena, 195 ; 
 deserts Napoleon in 1812-13, 
 277, 306 ; with the Allies in 
 1813-14, 306, 335 
 
 Berthier, general and marshal, 
 266 
 
 Bessiires, general and marshal, 
 killed before Liitzen, 294 
 
 Bliicher, Prussian general, 197 ; 
 involved in the rout of Jena, 
 197 ; rises to eminence in 1813, 
 295, et seq.; defeated by Na- 
 poleon in 1814, 332, et seq.; 
 conduct of, in the campaign of 
 1815, 370, etseq. 
 
 Bonaparte, Charles, father of 
 Napoleon, 2 
 
 Bonaparte, Eliza, made Duchess 
 of Lucca, 154 
 
 Bonaparte, Jerome, made King 
 of Westphalia, 215 ; loses his 
 throne in 1813, 315 
 
 Bonaparte, Joseph, negotiates 
 peace of Luneville, 97 ; and 
 peace of Amiens, loi ; made 
 King of Naples, 184 ; and of 
 Spain, 227 ; driven from Spain, 
 302 ; leaves Paris in 1 8 14, 342 
 
 Bonaparte, Letizia Ramolino, 
 mother of Napoleon, 2 
 
 Bonaparte, Louis, made King of 
 Holland, 184 ; deprived of his 
 kingdom, 254 
 
 Bonaparte, Lucien, President of 
 the Five Hundred on i8th Bru- 
 maire, 73, et seq.; in 1815, 388 
 
 Bonaparte, Napoleon (see Na- 
 poleon) 
 
 Borodino, battle of, 281, 282 
 
 Bourrienne, anecdotes of Napo- 
 leon by, 5 
 
 Brueys, admiral, defeated by 
 Nelson, 61 
 
 Brunswick, Duke of, defeat of, 
 195 
 
 Billow, Prussian general, his at- 
 tack at Waterloo, 383 
 
 Burgos, retreat from, 300 
 
 Busaco, battle of, 259 
 
 Buxhowden, Russian general, 
 168 
 
 C. 
 
 Cadoudal, George, conspiracy and 
 execution of, 143, 144 
 
 Calder, admiral, indecisive action 
 of, 159 
 
 Caldiero, battle of, 37 
 
 Cambacer^s, consul with Napo- 
 leon, 84 ; discovers opposition 
 to him, 120 
 
 Campo, Formio, treaty of, 50 
 
 Carnot, director, banished i8th 
 Fructidor, 48 
 
 Carteaux, a painter, in command 
 at Toulon, 14 
 
 Castiglione, battle of, 36 
 
 Caulaincourt, French diplomatist, 
 employed to negotiate in 1814, 
 334 ; pleads the cause of Napo- 
 leon, 344 
 
 Champagny, French diplomatist, 
 334 
 
 Champaubert, battle of, 337 
 
 Charles, the Archduke, defeats 
 Jourdan and Moreau in 1796, 
 40 ; defeated by Napoleon in 
 1797, 44 ; defeats the French 
 
Index. 
 
 425 
 
 in 1799, 64 ; in Italy in 1805, 
 117 ; defeated at Abensberg 
 and Eckmiihl, 238, 239 ; fights 
 an undecisive battle at Aspern 
 and Essling, 241 ; defeated at 
 Wagram, 246 ; represents Na- 
 poleon at the marriage of Marie 
 Louise, 252 
 
 Charles IV., King of Spain, abdi- 
 cates, 227 
 
 Chatillon, conferences of, 334 
 
 Cisalpine Republic, creation of, 
 51 
 
 Clarke, sent to negotiate and 
 watch Napoleon, 48 
 
 Cobentzel, Austrian diplomatist 
 at Luneville, 97 
 
 Code, Napoleon the, in ; its 
 characteristics, in 
 
 Colli, General, defeated by Na- 
 poleon, 27 
 
 Collingwood, admiral, 162, 172 
 
 Comte d'Artois, joins in conspir- 
 acy of George Cadoudal, 143 ; 
 enters Paris in 1814, 349 
 
 Confederation of the Rhine, the, 
 186 
 
 Conscription, the, 65 ; anticipated 
 by Napoleon, 209, 238, 292 
 
 Constitution of Year VIII., the, 
 80, et seq. 
 
 Consuls, the, 76 
 
 Continental system, the, 200, 252 
 
 Convention, the, 20 
 
 Copenhagen, bombardment of, 222 
 
 Corunna, battle of, 235 
 
 Council of bishops, to arrange 
 dispute between Napoleon and 
 the Pope, 256 
 
 Craonne, battle of, 338 
 
 Culm, battle of, 311 
 
 Vi. 
 
 Dantzig, siege of, 211 
 
 Davidovich, general, defeated in 
 1796, 36 
 
 Davoust, general and marshal, 
 wins the battle of Auerstadt, 
 195 ; at Hamburg in 1813, 309 
 
 Dego, combat of, 27 
 
 D'Enghien, Due de, arrest and 
 execution of, 146 
 
 Dennewitz, battle of, 312 
 
 D'Erlon, general, his condition 
 1815, 373 
 
 Desaix, general, killed at Ma- 
 rengo, 95 
 
 Directory, the French, misgov- 
 ernment of, 64, et seq. 
 
 Doppet, a doctor-general at Tou- 
 lon, 15 
 
 Dresden, battle of, 310 
 
 Drouot, general, advice of, to 
 delay the attack of Waterloo, 
 
 383 
 Dugommier, general, at Toulon, 
 
 15 
 Dumerbion, general on the Italian 
 
 frontier in 1794, 17 
 Dupont, general, disgrace of, 231 
 Duroc, general, killed at the 
 
 Bautzen, 297 
 
 Ebersberg, battle of, 240 
 
 Eckmiihl, battle of, 239 
 
 Education, system of. under Na- 
 poleon, 112, 113 
 
 Egypt, French descent in, 59, 
 et seq.; lost to France, Ici 
 
 Elba, Napoleon at, 361 
 
 Emigres, clemency of Napoleon 
 to, 87 ; amnesty of, 121 
 
 Empire, the French, establish- 
 ment of, 150 ; its institutions 
 and characteristics, 151, 152 ; 
 sketch of, in 1810-11, 261, 273 
 
 Empire, tale of the German, i86 
 
 England, Napoleon determined 
 enemy of, from the first, 57 : 
 continues the war after the 
 peace of Luneville, 99 ; makes 
 peace with France in 1802, 
 102 ; breaks with France in 
 1803, 130 ; feeling of, in view 
 of the French preparations of 
 invasion, 141 ; negotiations 
 with Napoleon in 1806, 190 ; 
 
426 
 
 Index. 
 
 absolutely supreme at sea, 217, 
 271 ; Napoleon's attempts to 
 destroy her commerce, igg, 
 252, 253 ; the orders in coun- 
 cil, 200 ; the chief object of 
 Napoleon's hostility at Tilsit, 
 215 ; growing strength of, 
 271 ; security of, 271; proud 
 position of, in 1810, and the 
 following year, 271 
 
 Erfurt, interview of Napoleon 
 and the Czar at, 232 
 
 Essling, battle of, 241 
 
 Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias, 
 disputes of, with his father, 
 
 225 ; proclaimed King of Spain, 
 
 226 ; lured by Napoleon to 
 Bayonne, 227 ; renounces his 
 claim to the crown, 227 ; 
 made King of Spain after 
 1814-15, 401 
 
 Financial reforms of the Con- 
 sulate, 85, 86 
 
 Five Hundred, the Council of, 
 conduct of, at the i8th Bru- 
 maire, 73-5 
 
 Fouche, minister of police, 
 266 ; disgraced, 269 ; conspires 
 against Napoleon in 1815, 390; 
 intrigues for the return of the 
 Bourbons, 390 
 
 Fox, real head of the English 
 Ministry in 1806, 189; directs 
 negotiations with Napoleon, 
 190 ; death of, 190 
 
 France {see Napoleon) 
 
 Friedland, battle of, 213 
 
 Fructidor, coup dUtat of, 48 
 
 Fuentes de Onoro, battle of, 260 
 
 G. 
 
 Ganteaume, admiral, intended 
 to carry out the descent on 
 England with Villeneuve, 157 ; 
 blockaded at Brest, 158 
 
 Genoa, policy of Napoleon to, 
 in 1796, 7, 34, 52 ; revolution 
 in, 52 ; made the Ligurian Re- 
 public, 63 ; annexed to France, 
 
 154 
 
 Germany, growing indignation 
 of, against France, 236, 270 ; 
 rising of, in 1813, 291 
 
 Godoy, Minister of Spain, 225 
 
 Gohier, one of the directors, op- 
 poses the 1 8th Brumaire, 74 
 
 Grand Armv the, description of, 
 168 
 
 Gross Beeren, battle of, 312 
 
 Grouchy, general and marshal, 
 his operations before Waterloo, 
 386, 387 ; real cause of the de- 
 feat of Napoleon, 388 
 
 Guadin, Minister of Finance, 85 
 
 H. 
 
 Hanau, battle of, 320 
 
 Hawkesbury, Foreign Minister of 
 England, 131 
 
 Hoche, general, supports the 
 Directory before the i8th 
 Fructidor, 47 
 
 Hohenlinden, battle of, 97 
 
 Hohenloe, Prince, defeated at 
 Jena, 194 
 
 Holland, made the Batavian Re- 
 public, 63 ; and a monarchy 
 under Louis Bonaparte, 184 ; 
 annexed to the French Empire, 
 
 254 
 Hundred Days, the, 391 
 
 I. 
 
 Italian Republic, the, created, 
 122, changed into monarchy, 
 
 153 
 Italy, state of, opinion in 1796, 
 
 41 
 
 Jaffa, massacre of prisoners at, 68 
 Jena, battle of, 194 
 
Index. 
 
 427 
 
 John, the Archduke, loses the 
 battle of Hohenlinden, 97; in 
 the campaign of 1805, 167, of 
 i8og, 239 ; fails to join the 
 Archduke Charles before Wa- 
 gram, 246, 247 
 
 Jourdan, general and marshal, 
 defeated by the Archduke 
 Charles, 40 
 
 Judicial system of France, reform 
 of, 109, et seq. 
 
 K. 
 
 Katzbach, battle of, 312 
 
 Kleber, general, killed in Egypt, 
 100 
 
 Kray, Austrian general, opera- 
 tions of, against Moreau, 92, 
 et seq. 
 
 Kutusoff, Russian general, ob- 
 jects to the allied attack at 
 Austerlitz, 178 ; commands the 
 Russian army at Borodino, 282 ; 
 craft of, 283 ; pursues the 
 French in the retreat from 
 Moscow, 285 
 
 L. 
 
 Lannes, general and marshal, 
 
 killed at Essling, 241 
 Laon, battle of, 338 
 La Rothi^re, battle of, 329 
 La Vendee, pacification of, 87 
 Lebrun, consul, 84 
 Legion of Honour, established in 
 
 France, 113 
 Legislative Body, the French, 81 ; 
 
 it opposes Napoleon in 18 14, 
 
 328 
 Leipzig, battle of, 316, et seq. 
 Ligny, battle of, 373 
 Loano, battle of, 24 
 Local administration, reform of, 
 
 in France, 108 
 Lodi, the bridge of, 29 
 Lombardy, invasion of, 29, et seq. 
 Lonato, battle of, 36 
 
 Louis XVIII., King of France, 
 restoration of, 345-8 ; govern- 
 ment of, 357-9 ; restored to the 
 throne in 1815, 394 
 
 Lowe, Sir Hudson, 400 
 
 Luneville, peace of, 97 
 
 Lutzen, battle of, 294, 295 
 
 M. 
 
 Macdonald, general and marshal, 
 at Wagram, 246 
 
 Mack, Austrian general, surren- 
 ders at Ulm, 171 
 
 Maida, battle of, 190 
 
 Malet, conspiracy of, 289 
 
 Malta, taken by the French in 
 1798, 59 ; the occasion of the 
 rupture of the peace of Amiens, 
 130 
 
 Mantua, siege and fall of, 32, 39 
 
 Marengo, campaign and battle 
 of, 92, 96 
 
 Maret, French diplomatist, 126 
 
 Marie Louise, the second wife of 
 Napoleon, 252 ; she deserts 
 him, 252, 400 
 
 Marmont, general and marshal, 
 defeated by Wellington at Sala- 
 manca, 300 ; defeats Napo- 
 leon in 1814, 348 
 
 Massena, general and marshal, 
 in Italy in 1794, 17 ; wins the 
 battle of Zurich, 70 ; defends 
 Genoa in 1800, 93 ; commands 
 in Italy in 1805, 168 ; in Po- 
 land in 1807, 210 ; in Germany 
 in 1809, 241-6 ; directs the 
 campaign of i8lo in Portugal. 
 259 ; defeated at Busaco, 259 ; 
 falls back from the lines of 
 Torres Vedras, 259 ; fights an 
 individual battle at Fuentes de 
 Onoro, 260 ; is unjustly dis- 
 graced, 260 
 
 Melas, Austrian general, defeated 
 at Marengo, 95 
 
 Menou, general, fails in the re- 
 volt of the Sections, 21 ; in 
 Egypt, 100 
 
428 
 
 Index. 
 
 Metternich, diplomatist and 
 Minister of Austria, his rapa- 
 cious and artful policy in 1813, 
 298, el seq.; interview of, with 
 Napoleon, 302 ; directs the 
 Holy Alliance, 401 
 
 Milan, the French enter it in 
 1796, 29 
 
 Millesimo, battle of, 27 
 
 Moncey, general and marshal, 
 in Spain, 230 
 
 Mondovi, battle of, 27 
 
 Montenotte, battle of, 27 
 
 Montmirail, battle of, 332 
 
 Moore, general, killed after a 
 victory at Corunna, 235 
 
 Moreau, general, defeated by the 
 Archduke Charles, 40 ; sup- 
 ports the 1 8th Brumaire, 73 ; 
 operations of, in 1800, 92, et 
 seq.; wins the battle of Hohen- 
 linden, 97 ; is involved in the 
 conspiracy of Cadoudal, 144 ; 
 is banished from France, 144 ; 
 killed at Dresden in the ranks 
 of the Allies, 311 
 
 Mortier, general and marshal, 
 210 
 
 Moscow, the French enter, 282 ; 
 conflagration of, 282 ; retreat 
 from, 283, et seq. 
 
 Moulins, one of the directors, 
 refuses to support the i8th 
 Brumaire, 74 
 
 Mourad Bey, Mameluke chief, 
 defeated at the battle of the 
 Pyramids, 60 
 
 Murat, general. King of Naples, 
 227 ; his conduct in Spain, 226, 
 227, and in the retreat from 
 Moscow, 286 ; he betrays Na- 
 poleon, 326 
 
 N. 
 
 Naples, policy of Napoleon to 
 court of, in 1796-7, 34, 42 ; 
 made the Parthenopean Re- 
 public, 64 ; the King of, re- 
 stored to the throne, 98 ; after- 
 
 wards loses it, 183 ; Joseph 
 Bonaparte made King of, 184 ; 
 succeeded by Murat, 227 
 Napoleon, birth and parentage 
 of, 1, 2 ; early associations of, 
 and their influence, 3, 4 ; sent 
 to Brienne, 4 ; anecdotes of 
 his boyhood, 5 ; early educa- 
 tion, 6 ; at the military school 
 of Paris, 6 ; his pursuits and 
 studies, 7 ; development of his 
 character, 7 ; his youthful wri- 
 tings, 7, 8 ; takes the side of the 
 French Revolution, .8, g ; at- 
 tracts the notice of Paoli, 9 ; 
 "Letter to Buttafuoco," 9; 
 causes the arrest of a French 
 commissioner in order to ob- 
 tain a command in Corsica, 9, 
 10 ; loses his place in the army, 
 10 ; and is restored, 1 1 ; serves 
 in an expedition against Sar- 
 dinia, 1 1 ; expelled from Cor- 
 sica, 12 ; at the siege of Lyons, 
 13 ; at Avignon, 13 ; his mili- 
 tary genius first displayed at 
 Toulon, 14-16 ; he causes the 
 fall of the place, 16 ; he re- 
 stores the defences of the coast 
 of Provence, 16 ; denounced as 
 a Jacobin, 16 ; friend of a 
 brother of Robespierre but al- 
 ways hostile to the Terrorists, 
 18 ; denounced and exiled to 
 Paris, 19 ; set free, 19 ; refuses 
 a subordinate command and is 
 removed from the list of gen- 
 erals, 19 ; offers to go to the 
 East, 19 ; proposes a plan of 
 operations in Italy, 19 ; puts 
 down the revolt of the Sec- 
 tions, 21, 22; marries Josephine 
 Beauharnais, 23 ; given the 
 command of the Army of Italy, 
 24 ; he invades Piedmont and 
 Lombardy, 26-30 ; advances to 
 the Adige, 32 ; defeats Wivrm- 
 ser and Alvinzi in succession, 
 35-39 ; policy of, in Italy, 42 ; 
 conduct of, before the l8th 
 
Index. 
 
 429 
 
 Fructidor, 47 ; negotiates treaty 
 of Campo I'ormio, 50-52 ; re- 
 turns to Pa ris, 5 3 ; receives an en- 
 thusiastic greeting, 53 ; advises 
 against a descent on England 
 in 1798, 57 ; leads an expedi- 
 tion to Egypt, 58 ; seizes Mal- 
 t^> 59 ; gains the battle of the 
 Pyramids, 60 ; conquers Egypt, 
 62 ; his policy in that country, 
 62 ; invades Syria, 68 ; fails at 
 Acre, 68 ; defeats the Turks, 
 68 ; returns to France, 69 ; 
 plans and accomplishes the 
 i8th Brumaire, 71-76 ; enthu- 
 siasm felt for him in Paris and 
 France, 77 ; made First Consul 
 and really a Dictator, 84 ; spirit 
 of his government, 84-8 ; finan- 
 ces, 86 ; he pacifies La Ven- 
 dee, 87 ; he amnesties dmigr^s, 
 87 ; restores churches, 88 ; 
 prepares for war, 90; he cross- 
 es the Alps and defeats Me- 
 las at Marengo, 92-96 ; he 
 compels Austria to accept 
 the peace of Luneville, 97 ; 
 remains at war with England, 
 99 ; combines the League of 
 the North, 99 ; makes peace 
 with England at Amiens, 102 ; 
 the centre of observation in 
 Europe, 103 ; he reorganises 
 society in France when First 
 Consul, 105 ; makes reforms 
 of, in church and state, 107- 
 18; opposition to these, 119; 
 his growing ambition, 120— 
 130 ; he annexes Piedmont to 
 France, 122 ; becomes Presi- 
 dent of the Italian Republic, 
 122 ; arranges the affairs of 
 Switzerland and makes French 
 influence supreme, 123 ; sends 
 a fleet and army to St. 
 Domingo, 123 ; mediation of, 
 in Germany and increase of 
 power of France, 124 ; made 
 First Consul for life, 127 ; 
 breaks with England in 1803, 
 
 128, 129 ; prepares to make a 
 descent on England, 135 ; his 
 unusual exertions to attain 
 this object, 139, el seq. ; he 
 causes the arrest and execution 
 of the Due d'Enghien, 145, 
 146 ; is made Emperor of the 
 French, 150 ; is crowned in 
 Paris by the Pope, 152, 153; 
 made King of Italy, I54;arrives 
 at Boulogne toeffect the descent, 
 
 161 ; his passionate eagerness 
 and exasperation when baffled, 
 
 162 ; he marches into Germany 
 and commands attack at Ulm, 
 170, 171 ; hastens to Vienna, 
 174 ; marches into Prussia, 176; 
 gains the battle of Austerlitz, 
 178-81 ; establishes Imperial 
 fiefs, 185 ; made Protector of 
 the Confederation of the Rhine, 
 186 ; position of, after Auster- 
 litz, 187 ; negotiations with 
 England in 1806, 190 ; refuses 
 to give up Sicily, 190 ; he quar- 
 rels with Prussia, 192 ; gains 
 the battle of Jena, 204 ; over- 
 throws the Prussian monarchy, 
 198 ; Berlin and Milan de- 
 crees of, 199 ; continental 
 system of, 200 ; he advances 
 into Poland, 201 ; checked on 
 the march, 204 ; causes of this, 
 205 ; fights an indecisive battle 
 at Eylau, 207 ; increases and 
 reorganises his army, 2og ; in- 
 defatigable energy of, 210 ; 
 he gains the battle of Friedland , 
 213 ; interview of, with the 
 Czar on the Niemen, 214 ; 
 the treaties of Tilsit, 215-17 ; 
 unusual efforts of, to subdue 
 England, 221 ; perfidious feel- 
 ing of, to Spain, 224-7 ; de- 
 thrones the Spanish Bourbons 
 and places Joseph Bonaparte 
 in their stead, 227 ; interview 
 of, with the Czar at Erfurt, 
 232, 233 ; invades Spain, 233; 
 returns to France, 235 ; at war 
 
430 
 
 Index. 
 
 with Austria, 238 ; great skill 
 of, in 1809, 238 ; marches on 
 Vienna, 240 ; check of, at As- 
 pern and Essling, 241 ; he 
 crosses the Danube and gains 
 the battle of Wagram, 243- 
 246 ; divorces Josephine and 
 marries Marie Louise, 251, 252 ; 
 extends the continental sys- 
 tem, 252 ; quarrels with 
 the Pope, 255 ; convenes 
 a council of bishops, 256 ; 
 sends Massena into Portugal, 
 259 ; quarrels with the Czar, 
 274 ; reception of, at Dresden, 
 276 ; prepares to invade Rus- 
 sia, 277 ; crosses the Niemen 
 and advances to Moscow, 277- 
 82 ; delays at Moscow, 283 ; 
 retreats from Moscow, 283-6 ; 
 leaves the wreck of his army 
 at Smolensk, 286 ; returns to 
 Paris, 289 ; makes prodigious 
 exertions to restore the mili- 
 tary power of France, 290, et 
 seq. J wins the battles of Lilt- 
 zen and Bautzen, 294-7 : 
 agrees to an armistice, 300 ; 
 refuses the terms proposed by 
 Austria, 304 ; military posi- 
 tion of, 305 ; he gains the bat- 
 tle of Dresden, 310 ; ill before 
 that of Culm, 311 ; he concen- 
 trates his forces on the Elbe, 
 313 ; his subsequent opera- 
 tions, 314, 315 ; he loses the 
 battle of Leipzig, retreats, 316- 
 20 ; gains that of Hanau, 320 ; 
 he proposes to resist all Europe, 
 324 ; trifles with proposals of 
 the Allies, 326 ; surprised by 
 their sudden attack, 327 ; 
 leaves Paris, 328 ; scene of, 
 with the Legislative Body, 
 328 ; he fights an indecisive 
 battle at Brienne, 329 ; is de- 
 feated at La Rothiire, 329 ; 
 defeats Blucher completely, 
 
 332 ; defeats Schwartzenberg, 
 
 333 ; withdraws his ultimatum 
 
 and continues the war, 334 ; 
 pursues Blucher, who escapes 
 at Soissons, 337 ; fights at Cra- 
 onne and is defeated at Laon, 
 
 338 ; turns eastward to fall in 
 the rear of the Allies, 339 ; is 
 defeated at Arcis on the Aube, 
 
 339 ; retraces his steps on 
 learning that the Allies had 
 marched on Paris, 343 ; at Fon- 
 tainebleau, 343 ; his throne de- 
 clared forfeited by the French 
 Senate, 346 ; he proposes to 
 attack the Allies, 347 ; abdi- 
 cates, 348 ; taken prisoner, 
 352 ; bids farewell to his 
 Guard, 352 ; departs for Elba, 
 352 ; escapes from Elba, 361 ; 
 lands near Cannes, 362 ; tri- 
 umphant march of, to Paris, 
 
 363 ; he restores the Empire, 
 
 364 ; is outlawed by the Allies, 
 
 365 ; gives a liberal constitu- 
 tion to France, 366 ; convokes 
 the Champ de Mai, 368 ; pro- 
 poses to attack Wellington and 
 Blucher, 370 ; reaches the fron- 
 tier, 370 ; defeats BlUcher at 
 Ligny, 373 ; fails to defeat 
 Wellington at Quatre Bras, 
 372, 373 ; loses a great opportu- 
 nity on the 17th of June owing 
 probably to illness, 376 ; di- 
 vides his army, 377 ; marches 
 against Wellington and gives a 
 wing to Grouchy, 377 ; is com- 
 pletely defeated at Waterloo, 
 385 ; offers after his abdica- 
 tion for the second time to at- 
 tack the Allies, 389 ; gives 
 himself up to England, 389 ; 
 is sent to St. Helena, 390 ; in- 
 cidents of his captivity, 395, 
 et seq, ; his writings, 397-9 ; 
 his fatal illness, 401, 402 ; 
 his will, 402 ; his death, 403 ; 
 his remains are given back 
 to France, 403 ; reflections 
 on his character and career, 
 405-18 
 
Index. 
 
 431 
 
 Nelson, admiral, gains tlie battle 
 of the Nile, 6i ; of Copen- 
 hagen, 100 ; pursuit of Ville- 
 neuve, 157, et seq.; gains the 
 battle of Trafalgar, 172, 173 ; 
 his death, 173 
 
 Ney, general and marshal, hero- 
 ism of, in the retreat from 
 Moscow, 285 ; conduct of, 
 when Napoleon abdicates, 347 ; 
 joins Napoleon in 1815, 363 ; 
 operations of, in the campaign 
 of 1815, 372, et seq.; execution 
 of, 394 
 
 Nile, battle of, 61 
 
 North, the League of the, gg 
 
 Olmlitz, council of war at, 178 
 Oudinot, general and marshal, 
 in Russia, 284, 285 ; in Ger- 
 many, 312 
 
 Paoli, ruler of Corsica, 3 ; an 
 admirer of Napoleon, g ; breaks 
 with him, 12 
 
 Paris, welcomes Napoleon in 
 1797, 53 ; supports the i8th 
 Brumaire, Ti\,etseq.; appear- 
 ance of, in 1802, 103-5 ; i" 
 1811-12, 262, 263 ; fall of, in 
 1814, 343 ; attitude of, in 
 1814, 345 ; in 1815, 363 
 
 Parma, Duke of, 30 
 
 Paul, the Czar, makes peace with 
 France, gg ; is murdered, 100 
 
 Pavia, revolt of, 81 
 
 Pichegru, general, banished after 
 the 18th Fructidor, 48 ; in- 
 volved in the conspiracy of 
 Cadoudal, 144 ; commits sui- 
 cide, 144 
 
 Piedmont, invasion of, in 1796, 
 27 ; annexed to France, 122 
 
 Pirch, Prussian general, reaches 
 Waterloo with Ziethen, 385 
 
 Pitt, Prime-Minister of England, 
 his policy, I2g ; chief author 
 of the Coalition of 1804-5, 1 55 ; 
 death of, l8g 
 
 Pius VI., Pope, policy of Napo- 
 leon to the Papal Court, 42 ; 
 death of, 88 
 
 Pius VII., Pope, sanctions the 
 Concordat, 116 ; crowns Na- 
 poleon, 152 ; quarrels with 
 Napoleon, 254, et seq. 
 
 Pleisnitz, armistice of, 300 
 
 Poland, policy of Napoleon to 
 the Poles in 1807, 201 ; in 
 1812, 278 
 
 Portland, Duke of, Prime-Minis- 
 ter of England, 222 
 
 Portugal, French invasion of, by 
 Junot, 223 ; by Massena, 25g, 
 et seq. 
 
 Presburg, treaty of, 183 
 
 Pretender, afterwards Louis 
 XVIII., 8g 
 
 Prussia, friendly relations of, with 
 France, go ; aggrandised in 
 Germany, 124 ; secret treaty 
 of, with Allies in 1805, 175 ; 
 negotiations of, with Napoleon 
 in 1805-6, 184, igl ; bribed by 
 the gift of Hanover, 184 ; per- 
 fidious and weak policy of, ig2 ; 
 at war with England, rgi ; 
 quarrel of, with France, ig2 ; 
 overcome and conquered, ig8 ; 
 army of, arbitrarily reduced, 
 198, 307 ; ally of Napoleon in 
 1812, 276 ; heads the rising of 
 Germany in 1813, 2gi ; great 
 increase of military power of, 
 307 ; aggrandised in 1814, 360 
 
 Public works, of the Consulate, 
 8g ; of the Empire, 262, 263 
 
 Pyramids, battle of, 60 
 
 Quasdanovich, Austrian general, 
 defeated by Napoleon, 35, 36 
 Quatre Bras, battle of, 372 
 
432 
 
 Index. 
 
 R. 
 
 Rastadt, congress of, 53 ; murder 
 of French plenipotentiaries at, 
 
 99 
 
 Reille, general, conduct of, in 
 the campaign of 18 15, 372 
 
 Rio Seco, battle of, 230 
 
 Rivoli, battle of, 39 
 
 Robespierres, the, 17, 18 
 
 Rome, made the Roman Re- 
 public, 63 ; Pope restored to, 
 go ; annexed to the French 
 Empire, 255 ; King of Rome 
 title of Napoleon's son, 290 
 
 Russia, joins Coalition against 
 France in 1799, 63 ; and in 
 1805, 155 ; continues war with 
 France in 1807, 201 ; invasion 
 of, in 1812, 277 ; joins the 
 Allies in 1813, 294 ; and 1814, 
 327 
 
 S. 
 
 St. Helena, captivity of Napoleon 
 at, 395 el seq. 
 
 Salamanca, battle of, 300 
 
 Salicetti, commissioner of the 
 French Government in 1796, 
 27 
 
 Saragossa, siege of, 234 
 
 Sardinia, French invasion of, 11 ; 
 kingdom of (see Piedmont) 
 
 Schwartzenberg, Austrian gen- 
 eral, commands the Austrians 
 in the invasion of Russia in 
 1812, 278 ; retreats into Galicia, 
 290 ; commands the army of 
 Bohemia in 1813, 306 ; in 1814, 
 327 
 
 Sections, revolt of the, o.x et seq. 
 
 Senate, the French, given nearly 
 absolute power by Sieyes, 82 ; 
 this put an end to by Napoleon, 
 83 ; its powers increased, 128 ; 
 it declares against Napoleon 
 in 1814, 345, 346 
 
 Sieyes, one of the Directory, 
 prepares iSth Brumaire, 7t 
 
 et seq. ; author of the constitu- 
 tion of the Year VIII., 80 
 
 Smolensk, battle of, 280 
 
 Soissons, surrender of, in 1814, 
 
 337 
 Soult, general and marshal, sur- 
 prised at the Douro, 242 ; 
 opposes Wellington in 1814, 
 
 335 
 
 Spain, vassal of France, 224 ; 
 perfidious policy of Napoleon 
 to, 228 ; rising of, 229 ; Joseph 
 Bonaparte made King of, 227, 
 et seq.; oppressed by Ferdi- 
 nand, 401 
 
 Suvoroff, Russian general, over- 
 runs Italy, 69 ; driven out of 
 Switzerland, 70 
 
 Switzerland, made the Helvetian 
 Republic, 63 ; settlement of, by 
 Napoleon, 123 
 
 Syria, invasion of, 68 
 
 T. 
 
 Talavera, battle of, 256 
 
 Talleyrand, French diplomatist, 
 conduct of, in the affair of the 
 Due d'Enghien, 147 ; advises 
 moderation after Austerlitz, 
 183 ; his conduct as regards 
 Spain, 228 ; is disgraced, 269 ; 
 conspires against Napoleon in 
 1814, 340 ; head of the provi- 
 sional government in 1814, 
 345, ei seq. ; policy of, at the 
 Congress of Vienna, 359 
 
 Terrorists, Napoleon's abhorrence 
 of, 18 
 
 Tchitchakoff, admiral, at the 
 Beresina, 284, et seq. 
 
 Tilsit, treaties of, 214, et seq. 
 
 Tolentino, treaty of, 42 
 
 Toulon, siege of, 14-16 
 
 Toulouse, battle of, 356 
 
 Trafalgar, battle of, 172, 173 
 
 Trebbia, battle of, 64 
 
 Tuscany, Grand Duke of, 34 ; 
 his duchy given to the heir of 
 the Duke of Parma, 98 
 
Index. 
 
 433 
 
 u. 
 
 Ulm, the capitulation of, 171 
 United States, sale of Louisiana 
 to, 137 ; resent the continen- 
 tal system and the orders in 
 council, 253 
 
 V. 
 
 Valtaline, the, joined to the Cis- 
 alpine Republic, 53 
 
 Valoutina, battle of, 280 
 
 Vandamme, general, loses the 
 battle of Culm, 311 
 
 Vauchamps, battle of, 332 
 
 Vendemiaire, coup d'etat of, 
 21-23 
 
 Venice, Republic of, its ambigu- 
 ous and perfidious policy in 
 1796-7, 45, ei seq. ; negotia- 
 tions about, 49-51 ; fall of, in 
 •797i 52 ; annexed to Austria, 
 52 ; becomes a part of the 
 kingdom of Italy, 184 ; an- 
 nexed to Austria in 1814, 360 
 
 Victor, ' general and marshal in 
 1807, 213; in 1814, 333 
 
 Vienna, treaty of, 248 ; congress 
 of, 359, 360 
 
 Villeneuve, admiral, his cruise 
 to the West Indies, 157, et seq.; 
 action of, with Calder, puts 
 into Ferrol, 159 ; sails for 
 Cadiz, 160 ; defeated at the 
 battle of Trafalgar, 172, 173 
 
 Vimiero, battle of, 231 
 
 Vitoria, battle of, 302 
 
 W. 
 
 Walcheren, expedition of, 247 
 Waterloo, battle of, 382, 385 
 
 Wellesley, Arthur, Duke of Well- 
 ington, gains the battle of 
 Vimiero, 231 ; surprises Soult 
 at the Douro, 242 ; gains the 
 battle of Talavera, 256 ; con- 
 structs the lines of Torres 
 Vedras, 258 ; gains the battle 
 of Busaco, 259 ; ability of, 
 259, 260 ; at Fuentes de Onoro, 
 260 ; gains the battle of Sala- 
 manca, 300 ; retreats from 
 Burgos, 300 ; gains the battle 
 of Vitoria, 302 ; expels the 
 French from Spain, 302 ; in- 
 vades France, 324 ; fights the 
 battle of Toulouse, 356 ; his 
 operations in the campaign of 
 1815, 370, et seq. ; masterly 
 defence of, at Waterloo, 383- 
 393 ; his wisdom in 181 5, 395 
 
 Wintzingerode, general, joined 
 Blucher in 1 8 14, 337 
 
 Wittgenstein, Russian general, 
 at the Beresina, 285 
 
 WUrmser, Austrian general, de- 
 feated by Napoleon in 1796, 
 35, et seq. ; surrenders Man- 
 tua, 39 
 
 York, Duke of, in 1799, 69 
 York, Prussian general, defection 
 of, in 1813, 291 
 
 Z. 
 
 Ziethen, Prussian general, skill 
 of, in the campaign of 1815, 
 370 ; reaches Waterloo with 
 Pirch, 385 
 
 Zurich, battle of, 70 
 
Iberoes of the IRations. 
 
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