These popular movements, however, could not be regarded with indifference by him who had witnessed and appreciated the character of the Spanish insurrection. Napoleon well knew, that unless he concluded the main contest soon, the spirit of Schill and Hofer would kindle a general flame from the Rhine to the Elbe; and he therefore desired fervently that the Austrian generalissimo might be tempted to quit the fastnesses of Bohemia, and try once more the fortune of a battle.
The Archduke, having re-established the order and recruited the numbers of his army, had antic.i.p.ated these wishes of his enemy, and was already posted on the opposite bank of the Danube, which river, being greatly swollen, and all the bridges destroyed, seemed to divide the two camps, as by an impa.s.sable barrier.
Napoleon determined to pa.s.s it; and after an unsuccessful attempt at Nussdorff, met with better fortune at Ebersdorff, where the river is broad and intersected by a number of low and woody islands, the largest of which bears the name of Lobau. On these islands Napoleon established the greater part of his army, on the 19th of May, and on the following day made good his pa.s.sage, by means of a bridge of boats, to the left bank of the Danube; where he took possession of the villages of Asperne and Essling, with so little show of opposition, that it became evident the Archduke wished the inevitable battle to take place with the river between his enemy and Vienna.
On the 21st, at daybreak, the Archduke appeared on a rising ground, separated from the French position by an extensive plain; his whole force divided into five heavy columns, and protected by not less than 200 pieces of artillery. The battle began at four p.m., with a furious a.s.sault on the village of Asperne; which was taken and retaken several times, and remained at nightfall in the occupation, partly of the French, and partly of the a.s.sailants, who had established themselves in the church and churchyard. Essling sustained three attacks also; but there the French remained in complete possession. Night interrupted the action; the Austrians exulting in their partial success; Napoleon surprised that he should not have been wholly victorious. On either side the carnage had been terrible, and the pathways of the villages were literally choked with the dead.
Next morning the battle recommenced with equal fury; the French recovered the church of Asperne; but the Austrian right wing renewed their a.s.saults on that point with more and more vigour, and in such numbers, that Napoleon guessed the centre and left had been weakened for the purpose of strengthening the right. Upon this he instantly moved such ma.s.ses, _en echelon_, on the Austrian centre, that the Archduke"s line was shaken; and for a moment it seemed as if victory was secure.
At this critical moment, by means of Austrian fireships suddenly sent down the swollen and rapid river, the bridge connecting the island of Lobau with the right bank was wholly swept away. Buonaparte perceived that if he wished to preserve his communications with the right of the Danube, where his reserve still lay, he must instantly fall back on Lobau; and no sooner did his troops commence their backward movement, than the Austrians recovered their order and zeal, charged in turn and finally made themselves masters of Asperne. Essling, where Ma.s.sena commanded, held firm, and under the protection of that village and numerous batteries erected near it, Napoleon succeeded in withdrawing his whole force during the night. On the morning of the 23rd the French were cooped up in Lobau and the adjacant islands--Asperne, Essling, the whole left bank of the river, remaining in the possession of the Austrians. On either side a great victory was claimed; and with equal injustice. But the situation of the French Emperor was imminently hazardous: he was separated from Davoust and his reserve; and had the enemy either attacked him in the islands, or pa.s.sed the river higher up, and so overwhelmed Davoust and relieved Vienna, the results might have been fatal. But the Archduke"s loss in these two days had been great; and, in place of risking any offensive movement, he contented himself with strengthening the position of Asperne and Essling, and awaiting quietly the moment when his enemy should choose to attempt once more the pa.s.sage to the left bank, and the re-occupation of these hardly contested villages.
Napoleon availed himself of this pause with his usual skill. That he had been checked was true, and that the news would be heard with enthusiasm through Germany he well knew. It was necessary to revive the tarnished magic of his name by another decisive battle: and he made every exertion to prepare for it. Some weeks, however, elapsed ere he ventured to resume the offensive. On the 4th of July he had at last re-established thoroughly his communication with the right bank, and arranged the means of pa.s.sing to the left at a point where the Archduke had made hardly any preparation for receiving him. The Austrians, having rashly calculated that Asperne and Essling must needs be the objects of the next contest as of the preceding, were taken almost unawares by his appearance in another quarter. They changed their line on the instant; and occupied a position, the centre and key of which was the little town of Wagram.
Here, on the 6th of July, the final and decisive battle was fought. The Archduke had extended his line over too wide a s.p.a.ce; and this old error enabled Napoleon to ruin him by his old device of pouring the full shock of his strength on the centre. The action was long and b.l.o.o.d.y: at its close there remained 20,000 prisoners, besides all the artillery and baggage, in the hands of Napoleon. The Archduke fled in great confusion as far as Znaim, in Moravia. The Imperial Council perceived that further resistance was vain: an armistice was agreed to at Znaim; and Napoleon, returning to Schoenbrunn, continued occupied with the negotiation until October.
In this fierce campaign none more distinguished himself than Lannes, Duke of Montebello. At Ratisbonne he headed in person the storming party, exclaiming, "Soldiers, your general has not forgotten that he was once a grenadier." At the battle of Asperne his exertions were extraordinary. He was struck, towards the close of the day, by a cannon-shot, which carried off both his legs. The surgeons, on examining the wound, declared it mortal. He answered them with angry imprecations, and called with frantic vehemence for the Emperor. Napoleon came up, and witnessed the agonies of the dying marshal, who blasphemed heaven and earth that he should be denied to see the end of the campaign. Thus fell Lannes, whom, for his romantic valour, the French soldiery delighted to call the Roland of the camp.
The war, meanwhile, had been pursued with mixed fortune in the Peninsula. Zaragossa, after sustaining another siege with fort.i.tude not unworthy of the first, was at length compelled to surrender in the month of February. Sir Arthur Wellesley, being restored to the command of the British army in Portugal, landed at Lisbon on the 22nd of April, and immediately marched upon Oporto, which Soult had occupied early in the year. Soult was defeated under the walls of the town, and forthwith began his retreat towards Galicia, which he effected under circ.u.mstances as miserable as had attended Sir John Moore"s march on Coruna in the preceding campaign. Sir Arthur was prevented from urging the pursuit of Soult by the intelligence that Marshal Victor was laying Andalusia waste, being opposed only by Cuesta, a bigoted old general, and an army which had lost heart by repeated disasters. The English leader perceived that if he marched into Galicia, Victor must possess the means of instantly re-occupying Portugal; and resolved, in place of following Soult, to advance towards this more formidable enemy. He effected a junction with Cuesta at Oropesa, on the 20th of July, and marched along the Tagus towards the position of Victor. He, however, having a force at least double that of Wellesley, a.s.sumed the offensive, and attacked the allies, on the 28th, at Talaveyra de la Reyna. The battle ended in the total defeat and repulsion of Victor; but Wellesley found it impossible to advance further into Spain, because Ney, Soult and Mortier were a.s.sembling their divisions, with the view of coming between him and Portugal. The English retired, therefore, to Badajos, and thence to the Portuguese frontier.
On the eastern side of the Peninsula, Blake, advancing with the view of recovering Zaragossa, was met on the 19th of June by Marshal Suchet, Duke of Albufera, and totally routed. The central Spanish army, under Ariezaga, attempted, with equal ill-fortune, to relieve Madrid. King Joseph, accompanied by Soult, Victor, and Mortier, met them at Ocana on the 19th November, and broke them utterly. In December Girona surrendered to Augereau; and the intrusive King appeared to be in possession of far the greater part of Spain. But his command extended no further than the actual presence of his brother"s legions. Wherever they were posted, all was submission; beyond their lines the country remained as hostile as ever. The soldiery of the defeated armies dispersed themselves in small bands, watching every opportunity to surprise detachments and cut off supplies; and, in spite of all their victories, the situation of the invaders became every hour more embarra.s.sing. In Portugal, meanwhile, the English general (created Lord Wellington after the battle of Talaveyra) was gradually organising a native force not unworthy of acting under his banners; and on that side it was obvious that, unless Napoleon made some extraordinary exertions, the French cause was wholly undone.
Portugal was safe; and the character of the British army had been raised by another splendid victory in Spain; but these were trivial advantages compared with what Lord Wellington might have achieved, had his government placed him, as they could easily have done, at the head of an army of 80,000 or 100,000 men, while Napoleon was occupied with the campaign of Essling and Wagram. Instead of strengthening Wellington"s hands in an efficient manner, the English cabinet sent 40,000 troops, under the command of the Earl of Chatham, an indolent or incompetent general, to seize the isle of Walcheren, and destroy the shipping and works at the mouth of the Scheld; nor was this ill-judged expedition despatched from Britain until the first of August, three weeks after the decisive battle of Wagram had been fought and won. Lord Chatham took Flushing, and fixed his headquarters at Middleburg; but Bernadotte (Prince of Ponte Corvo) put Antwerp into such a state of defence that the plan of besieging that city was, ere long, abandoned. A pestilence, meantime, raged among the marches of Walcheren; the English soldiers were dying by thousands. The news of the armistice of Znaim arrived; and Lord Chatham abandoned his conquests. A mere skeleton of his army returned to their own country, from the most disastrous expedition which England had undertaken since that of Carthagena, seventy years before.
The announcement of the armistice with Austria put an end, in effect, to all hostile demonstrations on the continent, the Peninsula alone excepted. The brave Schill (as has already been said) was happy enough to fall in the field: his followers, being at last compelled to surrender at Stralsund, were treated as rebels, and died with the constancy of patriots. The Duke of Brunswick, who had by this time obtained considerable successes in Franconia, found himself abandoned, in like manner, to the undivided strength of Napoleon. At the head of a few regiments, whose black uniform announced their devotion to the one purpose of avenging their former sovereign, the Duke succeeded in cutting his way to the Baltic, where some English vessels received him.
Germany, in apparent tranquillity, awaited the result of the negotiations of Vienna.
Napoleon, a few days after he returned from Moravia to Schoenbrunn, escaped narrowly the dagger of a young man, who rushed upon him in the midst of all his staff, at a grand review of the Imperial Guard.
Berthier and Rapp threw themselves upon him, and disarmed him at the moment when his knife was about to enter the Emperor"s body. Napoleon demanded what motive had actuated the a.s.sa.s.sin. "What injury," said he, "have I done to you?" "To me, personally, none," answered the youth, "but you are the oppressor of my country, the tyrant of the world; and to have put you to death would have been the highest glory of a man of honour." This enthusiastic youth, by name Stabbs, son of a clergyman of Erfurt, was, justly--no doubt--condemned to death, and he suffered with the calmness of a martyr.
Buonaparte led at Schoenbrunn nearly the same course of life to which he was accustomed at the Tuileries; seldom appearing in public; occupied incessantly with his ministers and generals. The length to which the negotiations with Austria were protracted excited much wonder; but he had other business on hand besides his treaty with the Emperor Francis, and that treaty had taken a very unexpected shape.
It was during his residence at Schoenbrunn that a quarrel, of no short standing, with the Pope reached its crisis. The very language of the Consular Concordat sufficiently indicated the reluctance and pain with which the head of the Romish church acquiesced in the arrangements devised by Buonaparte, for the ecclesiastical settlement of France; and the subsequent course of events, but especially in Italy and in Spain, could hardly fail to aggravate those unpleasant feelings. In Spain and in Portugal, the resistance to French treachery and violence was mainly conducted by the priesthood; and the Pope could not contemplate their exertions without sympathy and favour. In Italy, meantime, the French Emperor had made himself master of Naples, and of all the territories lying to the north of the papal states; in a word, the whole of the peninsula was his, excepting only that, narrow central stripe which still acknowledged the temporal sovereignty of the Roman Pontiff. This state of things was necessarily followed by incessant efforts on the part of Napoleon to procure from the Pope a hearty acquiescence in the system of the Berlin and Milan decrees; and thus far he at length prevailed. But when he went on to demand that his holiness should take an active part in the war against England, he was met by a steady refusal. Irritated by this opposition, and, perhaps, still more by his suspicion that the patriots of the Spanish Peninsula received secret support from the Vatican, Buonaparte did not hesitate to issue a decree in the following words: "Whereas the temporal sovereign of Rome has refused to make war against England, and the interests of the two kingdoms of Italy and Naples ought not to be intercepted by a hostile power; and whereas the donation of Charlemagne, _our ill.u.s.trious predecessor_, of the countries which form the Holy See, was for the good of _Christianity_, and not for that of the _enemies of our holy religion_, we, therefore, decree that the duchies of Urbino, Ancona, Macerata, and Camarino, be for ever united to the kingdom of Italy."
The seaports of the papal territory were forthwith occupied by French troops, but Pius remained for some time in undisturbed possession of Rome itself. On his return from Spain, however, Napoleon determined to complete his work in Italy, ere he should begin the inevitable campaign with Austria. General Miollis, therefore, took military possession of Rome in February, 1809; the Pope, however, still remaining in the Vatican, and attended there as usual by his own guards.
On the 17th of May, Napoleon issued, from Vienna, his final decree declaring the temporal sovereignty of the Pope to be wholly at an end, incorporating Rome with the French empire, and declaring it to be _his_ second city; settling a pension on the holy father in his spiritual capacity--and appointing a committee of administration for the civil government of Rome. The Pope, on receiving the Parisian senatus-consultum, ratifying this imperial rescript, instantly fulminated a bull of excommunication against Napoleon. Shortly after some unauthentic news from Germany inspired new hopes into the adherents of the Pontiff; and, disturbances breaking out, Miollis, on pretence that a life sacred in the eyes of all Christians might be endangered, arrested Pius in his palace at midnight, and forthwith despatched him under a strong escort to Savona.
The intelligence of this decisive step reached Napoleon soon after the battle of Wagram, and he was inclined to disapprove of the conduct of Miollis as too precipitate. It was now, however, impossible to recede; the Pope was ordered to be conveyed across the Alps to Gren.o.ble. But his reception there was more reverential than Napoleon had antic.i.p.ated, and he was soon reconducted to Savona.
This business would, in any other period, have been sufficient to set all Catholic Europe in a flame; and even now Buonaparte well knew that his conduct could not fail to nourish and support the feelings arrayed against him openly in Spain and in Southern Germany, and suppressed, not extinguished, in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of a great party of the French clergy at home. He made, therefore, many efforts to procure from the Pope some formal relinquishment of his temporal claims--but Pius VII. remained unshaken; and the negotiation at length terminated in the removal of His Holiness to Fontainebleau, where he continued a prisoner, though treated personally with respect, and even magnificence, during more than three years:--until, in the general darkening of his own fortunes, the imperial jailer was compelled to adopt another line of conduct.
The treaty with Austria was at last signed at Schoenbrunn on the 14th of October. The Emperor Francis purchased peace by the cession of Salzburg, and a part of Upper Austria, to the Confederation of the Rhine; of part of Bohemia to the King of Saxony, and of Cracow and western Galicia to the same Prince, as Grand Duke of Warsaw; of part of eastern Galicia to the Czar; and to France herself, of Trieste, Carniola, Fruili, Villach, and some part of Croatia and Dalmatia. By this act, Austria gave up in all territory to the amount of 45,000 square miles, with a population of nearly four millions; and Napoleon, besides gratifying his va.s.sals and allies, had completed the connection of the kingdom of Italy with his Illyrian possessions, obtained the whole coasts of the Adriatic, and deprived Austria of her last seaport. Yet, when compared with the signal triumphs of the campaign of Wagram, the terms on which the conqueror signed the peace were universally looked upon as remarkable for moderation; and he claimed merit with the Emperor of Russia on the score of having spared Austria in deference to his personal intercession.
Buonaparte quitted Vienna on the 16th of October; was congratulated by the public bodies of Paris, on the 14th of November, as "the greatest of heroes, who never achieved victories but for the happiness of the world"; and soon after, by one of the most extraordinary steps of his personal history, furnished abundant explanation of the motives which had guided his diplomacy at Schoenbrunn.
CHAPTER XXVII
Napoleon divorces Josephine--Marries the Archd.u.c.h.ess Maria Louisa--Deposes Louis Buonaparte--Annexes Holland and the whole Coast of Germany to France--Revolution in Sweden--Bernadotte elected Crown Prince of Sweden--Progress of the War in the Peninsula--Battle of Busaco--Lord Wellington retreats to the Lines of Torres Vedras.
The treacherous invasion of Spain, and the imprisonment of the Pope, were but the first of a series of grand political errors, destined to sap the foundations of this apparently irresistible power. On his return to Paris, Napoleon proudly proclaimed to his senate, that no enemy opposed him throughout the continent of Europe--except only a few fugitive-bands of Spanish rebels, and "the English leopard"[60] in Portugal, whom ere long he would cause to be chased into the sea. In the meantime, the Pensinula was too insignificant an object to demand either his own presence, or much of their concern: the general welfare of the empire called on them to fix their attention on a subject of a very different nature; namely, the situation of the imperial family. "I and my house," said Napoleon, "will ever be found ready to sacrifice everything, even our own dearest ties and feeling, to the welfare of the French people."
This was the first public intimation of a measure which had for a considerable period occupied much of Napoleon"s thoughts, and which, regarded at the time (almost universally) as the very master-stroke of his policy, proved in the issue no mean element of his ruin.
Josephine had loved Napoleon, and been beloved pa.s.sionately by him in his youth. She had shared his humbler fortune; by her connections in Paris, and especially by her skilful conduct during his Egyptian expedition, and immediately afterwards, she had most materially a.s.sisted him in the attainment of the sovereign dignity: she had subsequently adorned his court, and gratified his pride, by the elegance of her manners, and won to herself the attachment of his people, by her sincere good nature and active benevolence. Her power over him was known to be great, and no one ever doubted but that it had uniformly been exerted on the side of mercy. She was considered as the good angel who, more frequently and effectually than any influence besides, interfered to soothe the fierce pa.s.sions and temper the violent acts of her lord. Her devotion to him was perfect: she partook his labours as far as he would permit her to do so, submitted to all his caprices, and, with a dark presentiment that his ambition would one day cast her aside, continued to centre the whole of her existence in the contemplation of his glory.
Long before Napoleon a.s.sumed the imperial t.i.tle, his hopes of offspring from this union were at an end; and, at least from the hour in which his authority was declared to be hereditary, Josephine must have begun to suspect that, in his case also, the ties of domestic life might be sacrificed to those views of political advantage, which had so often dissolved the marriages of princes. For a moment she seems to have flattered herself that Napoleon would be contented to adopt her son: and Eugene, as we have seen, was indeed announced, at the period of his alliance with the royal family of Bavaria, as the successor to the throne of Italy, in case his father-in-law should leave no second son to inherit it. Louis Buonaparte afterwards wedded Hortense de Beauharnois, and an infant son, the only pledge of their ill-a.s.sorted union, became so much the favourite of Napoleon, that Josephine, as well as others, regarded this boy as the heir of France. But the child died early; and the Emperor began to familiarise himself with the idea of dissolving his own marriage.
There is now no doubt that, as early as the conferences of Tilsit, the scheme of such a connection with the imperial family of Russia was broached; and as little that Alexander treated the proposal with coldness, in consequence of the insuperable aversion with which the empress-mother (a princess whose influence was always commanding) persisted in regarding the character of Buonaparte. At Erfurt this matter was once more touched upon; and a second rejection of his personal alliance was probably the chief of not a few incidents at that meeting, which satisfied Napoleon as to the uncertain condition of his relations with the Russian court. Then, however, he had abundant reasons for dissembling his displeasure: and the pretext of difficulties arising from difference of religion was permitted to pa.s.s.
Fouche was one of the first to penetrate the secret thoughts of Buonaparte: and he, with audacity equal to his cunning, ventured to take on himself the dangerous office of sounding the Empress as to this most delicate of all subjects. One evening, before Napoleon left Paris on his unhallowed expedition to Spain, the minister of police drew Josephine aside into a corner of her saloon, and, after a preface of abundant commonplaces, touching the necessities of the empire and the painful position of the Emperor, asked her in plain terms whether she were not capable of sacrificing all private feelings to these? Josephine heard him with at least the appearance of utter surprise, ordered him to quit her presence, and went immediately to demand of Napoleon whether the minister had had any authority for this proceeding. The Emperor answered in the negative, and with high demonstrations of displeasure: but when Josephine went on to ask the dismissal of Fouche, as the only fit punishment for so great an outrage, he refused to comply. He remained steadfast, in spite of the urgencies and lamentations of an insulted woman; and from that hour Josephine must have felt that her fate was fixed.
The apartments of Napoleon, and those of his wife, which were immediately over them, at the Tuileries, had communication by means of a private staircase; and it was the custom of the Emperor himself to signify, by a tap on the door of Josephine"s sitting-room, his desire to converse with her in his cabinet below. In the days of their cordial union the signal was often made, most commonly in the evening, and it was not unusual for them to remain shut up together in conversation for hours. Soon after his return from Schoenbrunn, the ladies in attendance began to remark that the Emperor"s knock was heard more frequently than it had ever used to be, that their mistress seemed to listen for it at certain hours with a new and painful anxiety, and that she did not obey the signal with her accustomed alacrity. One evening Napoleon surprised them by carrying Josephine into the midst of them, pale, apparently lifeless. She was but awaking from a long swoon into which she had fallen on hearing him at last p.r.o.nounce the decree which terminated their connection.
This was on the 5th of December. On the 15th the Emperor summoned his council, and announced to them, that at the expense of all his personal feelings, he, devoted wholly to the welfare of the state, had resolved to separate himself from his most dear consort. Josephine then appeared among them, and, not without tears, expressed her acquiescence in the decree. The council, after haranguing the imperial spouses on the n.o.bleness of their mutual sacrifice, accepted and ratified the dissolution of the marriage. The t.i.tle of Empress was to continue with Josephine for life, and a pension of two millions of francs (to which Napoleon afterwards added a third million from his privy purse) was allotted to her. She retired from the Tuileries, residing thenceforth mostly at the villa of Malmaison; and in the course of a few weeks it was signified that Napoleon had demanded the hand of the Archd.u.c.h.ess Maria Louisa, daughter to the Emperor Francis, the same youthful princess who has been mentioned as remaining in Vienna, on account of illness, during the second occupation of that capital.
Having given her hand, at Vienna, to Berthier, who had the honour to represent the person of his master, the young archd.u.c.h.ess came into France in March, 1810. On the 28th, as her carriage was proceeding towards Soissons, Napoleon rode up to it, in a plain dress, altogether unattended; and, at once breaking through all the etiquettes of such occasions, introduced himself to his bride. She had never seen his person till then, and it is said that her first exclamation was, "Your majesty"s pictures have not done you justice." Buonaparte was at this time forty years of age; his countenance had acquired a certain fulness, and that statue-like calmness of expression with which posterity will always be familiar; but his figure betrayed as yet nothing more than a tendency towards corpulence. He was considered as a handsomer man at this period than he had been in her earlier days. They spent the evening at the chateau of Compiegne, and were remarried, on the 2nd of April, at Paris, amidst every circ.u.mstance of splendour. Among other imperial gallantries, Napoleon had provided a set of apartments at the Tuileries in which, down to the minutest article of furniture, Maria-Louisa found a facsimile of those which she had been accustomed to occupy in her father"s palace of Schoenbrunn. For some time he seemed to devote himself, like a mere lover, to the society of his new partner; and was really, according to his own account at St. Helena, enchanted with the contrast which her youthful simplicity of character and manners presented to the finished and elaborate graces of Josephine. Of the uniform attachment and affection of both his wives, he spoke afterwards with equal praises. But he in vain endeavoured to prevail on Maria-Louisa to make a personal acquaintance with her predecessor; and, at length, found it necessary to give up his own visits to Malmaison, which for a time were not unfrequent.
Napoleon, in his exile, said that "the Spanish ulcer" and the Austrian match were the two main causes of his ruin;--and they both contributed to it largely, though by no means equally. His alliance with the haughtiest of the old sovereign houses gave deep offence indeed to that great party in France, who, though willing to submit to a Dictator, still loathed the name of hereditary monarchy. Nothing, perhaps, could have shocked those men more grievously than to see the victorious heir and representative of their revolution seeking to mix his blood with that of its inveterate enemies, and making himself free, as it were, of what they had been accustomed to call the old-established "corporation of tyrants." Another, and, it is to be hoped, as large a cla.s.s of his subjects, were disgusted with his abandonment of the wife of his youth, for the sake of gratifying his vanity and ambition. There were also, we may easily believe, not a few royalists of the old school who had hitherto acquiesced in his sway the more easily, because he seemed destined to die childless, and in a contest for the throne of France, they flattered themselves the legitimate heir of the monarchy might outweigh any of his remoter kindred. And, lastly, it is not improvable that some of Napoleon"s marshals had accustomed themselves to dream of events such as occurred on the death of Alexander the Great. But making all allowance for these exceptions, it is hardly possible to doubt that a vast proportion of the upper cla.s.ses of society in France must have been disposed to hail the Emperor"s alliance with the house of Austria, as a pledge of his desire to adopt, henceforth, a more moderate line of policy as to his foreign relations; or that his throne must have been strengthened in the eyes of the nation at large by the prospect--soon realised--of a son of his own blood to fill it after him. Napoleon"s own opinion was, that the error lay, not in seeking a bride of imperial birth, but in choosing her at Vienna. Had he persisted in his demands, the Czar, he doubted not, would have granted him his sister; the proud dreams of Tilsit would have been realised, and Paris and St. Petersburg become the only two capitals of Europe.
The Emperor"s new marriage was speedily followed by another event, which showed how little the ordinary ties and feelings of domestic life now weighed with him in the scale against ambition. His brother Louis, a weak, but benevolent man, had in vain been cautioned by Napoleon, on his promotion to the Dutch throne, that, in his administration of this subaltern monarchy, "the first object of his care must ever be _the Emperor_, the second _France_, and the third _Holland_." Louis, surrounded by native ministers, men of great talents and experience, and enlightened lovers of their country, had his sympathies ere long enlisted on the side of those whom he might be pardoned for wishing to consider as really his subjects. His queen, on the other hand, the daughter of Josephine, and the favourite of Napoleon, made her court, as far as she could, a French one, and was popularly regarded as heading the party who looked in all things to the Tuileries. The meek-spirited Louis, thwarted by this intriguing woman, and grossly insulted by his brother, struggled for some time with the difficulties of his situation; but his patience availed nothing: his supposed connivance at the violations of the Berlin and Milan decrees, in the same proportion as it tended to raise him more and more in the affections of the Dutch, fixed and heightened the displeasure of Napoleon. He was at length summoned to Paris, and without a moment"s hesitation obeyed. On arriving there he took up his residence in the house of his mother, and next morning found himself a prisoner. Having abdicated his throne, Louis retired to Gratz, in Styria, and to that private mode of life for which his character fitted him: his name continues to be affectionately remembered in Holland. His beautiful wife, despite the fall of her mother, chose to fix her residence in Paris, where she once more shone the brightest ornament of the court. On the 9th of July, 1810, the kingdom of Holland was formally annexed to the French empire; Amsterdam taking rank among the cities next after Rome.
In pursuance of the same stern resolution to allow no consideration to interfere with the complete and effectual establishment of the "continental system," Buonaparte shortly afterwards annexed the Hanse towns, Oldenburg, and the whole sea-coast of Germany, from the frontier of Holland to that of Denmark, to the French empire. The King of Prussia was as yet in no condition to remonstrate against this new act of rapacity: opposition from any other German state was wholly out of the question.
In truth there had been, for several years, but one power in the North of Europe at once decidedly adverse in spirit, and in any degree independent; and now, to all appearance, this last exception also was removed. Gustavus IV., King of Sweden, had persisted in his original hatred of the French Revolution, and of Buonaparte, in opposition to a powerful party in that country, who considered the conduct of their sovereign, in standing out against so gigantic an enemy, as mere obstinacy--in fact as insane. In consequence of his pertinacious refusal to submit to the supreme will of Napoleon, the Pomeranian provinces and Finland had been lost to the kingdom. The monarch"s personal behaviour unfortunately was so extravagant as to furnish some grounds for suspecting him of mental aberration. He was arrested in his palace, and, an act of abdication for himself and his children being extorted, deposed: his uncle, the Duke of Sudermania, was called to the throne in his room, as Charles XIII.; and, amicable relations being soon established between the Courts of Stockholm and the Tuileries, Pomerania was restored, and the English flag and commerce banished from the ports of Sweden in December, 1809.
In May, 1810, the Prince of Augustenburg, who had been recognised as heir to Charles XIII., died suddenly: and the choice of a successor was, according to the Const.i.tution of Sweden, to depend on the vote of the Diet, which a.s.sembled accordingly as Orebro, in the month of August following.
The royal house (except the immediate line of the deposed king) being extinct, many candidates were proposed; and among others the King of Denmark and Norway, upon whom, in true policy, the choice should have fallen, as in that case a state capable of balancing the power of Russia on the Baltic might have been consolidated. But the eyes of men were turned almost exclusively at this time to Napoleon; and in the hope of securing his friendship and protection, the succession was at last proposed to Marshal Bernadotte, Prince of Ponte Corvo, and brother-in-law to Joseph Buonaparte, as married to that Mademoiselle Clery, who in early days had received Napoleon"s own addresses. The Marshal had gained goodwill by his moderation and justice, when entrusted with the government of Hanover and Swedish Pomerania, after these countries fell into the hands of the French in consequence of the campaign of 1806-7. His military reputation was high; there was no stain on his private character: and there was one circ.u.mstance especially in his favour, that he had been bred a Protestant, and might therefore be expected to conform, without scruple, to the established church of Sweden. But the chief recommendation was, without doubt, the belief of the Swedish Diet that Bernadotte stood in the first rank of Napoleon"s favour.
Napoleon, however, had never forgiven Bernadotte for his refusal to act on his side on the 18th Brumaire. He thenceforth considered this great soldier of the Republic as one who might serve the Emperor well, because in doing so he served France, but who looked to himself with none of those feelings of personal devotion which could alone ent.i.tle a subject to his favour. Bernadotte had been distinguished in the army before Napoleon himself appeared on the great theatre of events; he could never be cla.s.sed with those who had earned all their distinction and pre-eminence under the banners of the Emperor; he had an existence separate and his own; he had stood aloof at the great and decisive crisis of Napoleon"s fate; he might be entrusted and employed afterwards--he could never be loved. The proposal of the Diet, therefore, was the reverse of agreeable to him whose favour it was expressly designed to conciliate. Bernadotte, however, was powerful in the esteem of a great party in the French army, as well as among the old republicans of the state: to have interfered against him would have been to kindle high wrath and hatred among all those officers who belonged to the ante-Buonapartean period; and, on the other hand, to oppose the free-will of the Swedes would have appeared extraordinary conduct indeed on the part of a sovereign who studiously represented himself as owing everything to the free-will of the French. Sweden, finally, was still an independent state; and the events of the Peninsula were likely to impress the Emperor with a lively sense of the dangers of exciting a spirit of national aversion at the other extremity of Europe. Napoleon consented to the acceptance of the proffered dignity by Bernadotte. The Marshal was called on to sign a declaration, before he left Paris, that he would never bear arms against France. He rejected this condition as incompatible with the connexion which Napoleon himself had just sanctioned him in forming with another state, and said he was sure the suggestion came not from the Emperor, who knew what were the duties of a sovereign, but from some lawyer. Napoleon frowned darkly, and answered with an air of embarra.s.sment, "Go; our destinies are about to be fulfilled." Bernadotte said he had not heard his words distinctly: Napoleon repeated them; and they parted. Bernadotte was received with an enthusiastic welcome in Stockholm; and, notwithstanding the unpleasant circ.u.mstances under which Napoleon had dismissed him, the French alliance continued to be maintained. The private history of the transaction was not likely to be divulged at the time; and the natural as well as universal notion was, that Sweden, governed in effect by Marshal Bernadotte as crown prince, had become almost as mere a dependence of France as Naples under King Joachim Murat, or Westphalia under King Jerome Buonaparte.
The war, meanwhile, continued without interruption in the Peninsula; whither, but for his marriage, Napoleon would certainly have repaired in person after the peace of Schoenbrunn left him at ease on his German frontier. Although the new alliance had charms enough to detain him in France, it by no means withdrew his attention from the state of that fair kingdom which still mocked Joseph with the shadow of a crown. In the open field, indeed, the French appeared everywhere triumphant, except only where the British force from Portugal interfered, and in almost every district of Spain the fortresses were in their hands; yet the spirit of the people remained wholly unsubdued. The invaders could not count an inch of soil their own beyond their outposts. Their troops continued to be hara.s.sed and thinned by the indomitable _guerillas_ or partisan companies; and, even in the immediate neighbourhood of their strongest garrisons, the people a.s.sembled to vote for representatives in the Cortes, which had at last been summoned to meet in Cadiz, there to settle the national government, during the King"s absence, on a regular footing.
The battle of Ocana left the central part of Spain wholly undefended; and Soult, Victor and Mortier, forcing the pa.s.ses of the Sierra Morena, made themselves masters, early in the year of Jaen, Cordova, Grenada, Malaga, and Seville itself. Cadiz, to which the Central Junta had ere this retired, was now garrisoned by a large Spanish force, including the army of Estremadura, under the Duke D"Albuquerque, and a considerable detachment of English troops from Gibraltar; and Soult sat down before the place in form. Could he have taken Cadiz, no fortress of importance would have remained with the patriots in the south of Spain: but the strength of the situation and the ready access to the sea and Gibraltar, rendered all his efforts vain.
On the eastern side of Spain Suchet defeated the Spanish General O"Donnell under the walls of Ostalric; and took afterwards that town, Lerida, Mequineza, and Tortosa. But Valencia once more repelled the invaders. After a b.l.o.o.d.y sally of the inhabitants Suchet withdrew from before the walls.
It was on the Portuguese side, however, that the events of most importance occurred. It was there that the disgraces of Vimiero and Talaveyra must be avenged; and there accordingly Napoleon had directed his chief force to be set in motion. Ma.s.sena (Prince of Essling), second only to himself in reputation, took the command, early in the season, of "the army of Portugal," at least 100,000 strong, and whose commission it was to drive the English _leopards_, and the _Seapoy General_ (as, ignorant of the future, Buonaparte at this time called Wellington) into the sea. To this gigantic army that leader could oppose at most 20,000 British troops; but 30,000 Portuguese had by this time been so well trained by General Beresford, that they were held not unworthy of fighting by the side of Englishmen. Still Lord Wellington"s whole force was barely half that of Ma.s.sena: and his operations were necessarily confined to the defensive. He had no means to prevent the French Marshal from taking Oviedo and Ciudad Rodrigo--almost in his sight; but commenced his retreat, and conducted it with a coolness and precision which not a little disconcerted the pursuers. They at length ventured to attack the English on their march. On the 27th September, 1810, they charged in five columns, on the heights of Busaco, and were driven back with such terrible carnage that no further a.s.sault was threatened.
Ma.s.sena kept advancing, step by step, as Wellington withdrew, not doubting that his enemy would embark as soon as he reached Lisbon, and leave him in quiet possession of that capital and the rich country around. His surprise was great when Lord Wellington at last halted on the lines of the Torres Vedras, which had by this time been so strengthened, that even in inferior hands they might have been considered impregnable.
This formidable position, extending about twelve leagues between the sea and the Tagus, placed the port of Lisbon and the adjacent territory in the secure possession of the English general. Ma.s.sena might flatter his master with the announcement that he was besieging Lisbon; but in reality his own army very soon suffered all the inconveniences and privations of a besieged garrison. The country around him had been laid waste: every Portuguese peasant was a deadly enemy. To advance was impossible, and there was infinite difficulty in keeping his communications open behind. Thus, during many months, the two armies lay face to face in inaction.
[Footnote 60: The leopards had been changed into lions in the English shield five hundred years before this! To such small matters could Buonaparte"s rancour stoop.]