CHAPTER XXVIII
Events of the year 1811--Birth of the King of Rome--Disgrace of Fouche--Discontents in France--Relations with Russia--Licence System--Napoleon prepares for War with Russia--The Campaign in the Peninsula--Ma.s.sena"s Retreat--Battle of Fuentes d"Onor--Lord Wellington blockades Ciudad Rodrigo--Retreats--Joseph wishes to Abdicate.
On the 20th of April, 1811, Napoleon"s wishes were crowned by the birth of a son. The birth was a difficult one, and the nerves of the medical attendant were shaken. "She is but a woman," said the Emperor, who was present: "treat her as you would a _Bourgeoise_ of the _Rue St. Denis_."
The accoucheur at a subsequent moment withdrew Napoleon from the couch, and demanded whether, in case one life must be sacrificed, he should prefer the mother"s or the child"s. "The mother"s," he answered; "it is her right!" At length the child appeared, but without any sign of life.
After the lapse of some minutes a feeble cry was heard, and Napoleon entering the ante-chamber in which the high functionaries of the state were a.s.sembled, announced the event in these words: "It is a King of Rome."
The birth of the heir of Napoleon was received with as many demonstrations of loyal enthusiasm as had ever attended that of a Dauphin; yet, from what has been said as to the light in which various parties of men in France from the beginning viewed the Austrian alliance, it may be sufficiently inferred that the joy on this occasion was far from universal. The royalists considered the event as fatal to the last hopes of the Bourbons; the ambitious generals despaired of any future dismemberment of the empire: the old republicans, who had endured Buonaparte"s despotic power as the progeny of the revolution, looked forward with deep disgust to the rule of a dynasty proud of sharing the blood of the haughtiest of all the royal houses of Europe, and consequently more likely to make common cause with the little band of hereditary sovereigns than with the people. Finally, the t.i.tle, "King of Rome," put an end to the fond hopes of the Italians, who had been taught by Napoleon to expect that, after his death, their country should possess a government separate from France; nor could the same t.i.tle fail to excite some bitter feelings in the Austrian court, whose heir-apparent under the old empire had been styled commonly "The King of the Romans." For the present, however, both at home and abroad, the event was naturally looked on as adding much strength to the throne of Napoleon.
He, thus called on to review with new seriousness the whole condition and prospects of his empire, appears to have felt very distinctly that neither could be secure, unless an end were, by some means, put to the war with England. However he might permit himself to sneer at his great enemy in his public addresses from the throne, and in his bulletins, Napoleon had too much strength of mind not to despise those who, in any of their private communications, had the meanness to affect acquiescence in such views. When Denon brought him, after the battle of Wagram, the design of a medal representing an eagle strangling a leopard, Buonaparte rebuked and dismissed the flatterer. "What," said he, "strangling the leopard! There is not a spot of the sea on which the eagle dares show himself. This is base adulation. It would have been nearer the truth to represent the eagle as choked by the leopard."
He sent a private messenger to London to ascertain from personal communication with the Marquess Wellesley, then minister for foreign affairs, on what terms the English government would consent to open a formal negotiation; but this attempt was baffled by a singular circ.u.mstance. Fouche, having derived new audacity from the results of his extraordinary conversation with Josephine, on the subject of the divorce, had ventured to send a dependent of his own to London, for the purpose of sounding Lord Wellesley on the question of preliminaries; not doubting that could he give distinct information on this head to his master, without having in any degree compromised the imperial dignity, the service would be considered as most valuable. But Lord Wellesley, beset, at the same time, and on the same very delicate topic, by two different persons, neither of whom produced any proper credentials, and who denied all knowledge of each other, conceived, very naturally, that they were mere adventurers if not spies, and at once broke off his communications with both. Napoleon, on discovering this intrigue, summoned Fouche to his presence. "So, sir," said he, "I find you make peace and war without consulting me." He was dismissed from the ministry of police, and sent into an honourable banishment, as Governor of Rome.
Fouche"s presumption had been great: but long ere now Napoleon was weary, not of him only, but of Talleyrand, and indeed of all those ministers who, having reached eminent stations before he himself acquired the supreme power, preserved, in their manner of transacting business, and especially of offering advice, any traces of that period in which Frenchmen flattered themselves they were free. The warnings which he had received, when about to commence his atrocious proceedings against Spain, were remembered with the higher resentment, as the course of events in that country, month after month, and year after year, confirmed the accuracy of the foresight which he had contemned. This haughty spirit could not endure the presence of the man who could be supposed to fancy that even on one point, he had the better of his master.
The disgrace of Fouche was certainly a very unpopular measure. The immediate cause of it could not be divulged, and the minister was considered as having fallen a sacrifice to the honesty of his remonstrances on the Spanish invasion and the increased rigour of the Emperor"s domestic administration. It was about this time that, in addition to the castle of Vincennes, nine new state-prisons were established in France; and the number of persons confined in these receptacles, on warrants signed by the Emperor and his slavish privy council, far exceeded those condemned to similar usage in any recent period of the Bourbon monarchy, under the _lettres de cachet_ of the sovereign. These were proofs, not to be mistaken, of the growth of political disaffection. In truth the "continental system," the terrible waste of life occasioned by the late campaigns in Poland and Austria, and the constant demands, both on the treasure and the blood of France, rendered necessary by the apparently interminable war in the Peninsula--these were evils which could not exist without alienating the hearts of the people. The police filled the ears of the Emperor with reports of men"s private conversation. Citizens were daily removed from their families, and buried in remote and inaccessible dungeons, for no reason but that they had dared to speak what the immense majority of their neighbours thought. His quarrels with Lucien, who had contracted a marriage unsuitable, in the Emperor"s opinion, to his rank, were so indecently violent, that that ablest of his brothers at length sought a refuge in England, where he remained during several years. The total slavery of the press, its audacious lies, and more audacious silence, insulted the common sense of all men. Disaffection was secretly, but rapidly, eating into the heart of his power; and yet, as if blinded to all consequences by some angry infliction of heaven, the irritable ambition of Napoleon was already tempting another great foreign enemy into the field.
When the Emperor of Russia was informed of Buonaparte"s approaching nuptials with the Austrian princess, his first exclamation was, "Then the next thing will be to drive us back into our forests." In truth the conferences of Erfurt had but skinned over a wound, which nothing could have cured but a total alteration of Napoleon"s policy. The Russian nation suffered so much from the "continental system," that the sovereign soon found himself compelled to relax the decrees drawn up at Tilsit in the spirit of those of Berlin and Milan. Certain harbours were opened partially for the admission of colonial produce, and the export of native productions; and there ensued a series of indignant reclamations on the part of Napoleon, and haughty evasions on that of the Czar, which, ere long, satisfied all near observers that Russia would not be slow to avail herself of any favourable opportunity of once more appealing to arms. The Spanish insurrection, backed by the victories of Lord Wellington, must have roused alike the hope and the pride of a young and ambitious prince, placed at the head of so great a nation; the inference naturally drawn from Napoleon"s marriage into the house of Austria was, that the whole power of that monarchy would, henceforth, act in unison with his views--in other words, that were the Peninsula once thoroughly subdued, the whole of Western Europe would be at his command, for any service he might please to dictate. It would have been astonishing if, under such circ.u.mstances, the ministers of Alexander had not desired to bring their disputes with Paris to a close, before Napoleon should have leisure to consummate the conquest of Spain.
During the summer of 1811, then, the relations of these two governments were becoming every day more dubious; and when, towards the close of it, the Emperor of Austria published a rescript, granting a free pa.s.sage through his territories to the troops of his son-in-law, England, ever watchful of the movements of her great enemy, perceived clearly that she was about to have an ally.
From the moment in which the Russian government began to reclaim seriously against certain parts of his conduct, Buonaparte increased by degrees his military force in the north of Germany and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and advanced considerable bodies of troops nearer and nearer to the Czar"s Polish frontier. These preparations were met by some similar movements on the other side; yet, during many months, the hope of terminating the differences by negotiation was not abandoned. The Russian complaints, at length, a.s.sumed a regular shape, and embraced three distinct heads, viz.:--
First, the extension of the territories of the Duchy of Warsaw, under the treaty of Schoenbrunn. This alarmed the court of St. Petersburg, by reviving the notion of Polish independence, and Buonaparte was in vain urged to give his public guarantee that no national government should be re-established in the dismembered kingdom:
Second, the annexation of the Duchy of Oldenburg to the French empire, by that edict of Napoleon which proclaimed his seizure of the whole sea-coast of Germany, between Holland and the Baltic. Oldenburg, the hereditary territory of the Emperor Alexander"s brother-in-law, had been expressly guaranteed to that prince by the treaty of Tilsit. Napoleon was asked to indemnify the ejected duke by the cession of Dantzick, or some other territory in the neighbourhood of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw; but this he declined, though he professed his willingness to give some compensation elsewhere:
Thirdly, the Czar alleged, and most truly, that the state of his country made it altogether necessary that the regulations of the "continental system" should be dispensed with in his instance, and declared that he could no longer submit to see the commerce of an independent empire trammelled for the purpose of serving the policy of a foreign power.
Buonaparte admitted that it might be necessary to modify the system complained of, and expressed his belief that it would be found possible to devise some middle course, by which the commercial interests of France and Russia might be reconciled. His meaning probably was, that, if their other differences could be arranged, this part of the dispute might be settled by admitting the Czar to adopt, to a certain extent, in the north of Europe, a device which he himself had already had recourse to on a large scale, for counteracting the baneful effects of his own favourite system, in his own immediate territories. Napoleon had soon discovered that, to exclude English goods and colonial produce entirely, was actually impossible; and seeing that, either with or without his a.s.sent, the decrees of Berlin and Milan would, in one way or other, continue to be violated, it occurred to him that he might at least engross the greater part of the profits of the forbidden traffic himself. This he accomplished by the establishment of a system of custom-house regulations, under which persons desirous to import English produce into France might purchase the imperial licence for so doing. A very considerable relaxation in the pernicious influence of the Berlin code was the result of this device; and a proportional increase of the Emperor"s revenue attended it. In after-days, however, he always spoke of this licence-system as one of the few great mistakes of his administration. Some petty riots among the manufacturing population of the county of Derby were magnified in his eyes into symptoms of an approaching revolution in England; the consequence, as he flattered himself, of the misery inflicted on his great enemy by the "continental system"; and to the end he continued to think that, had he resisted the temptation to enrich his own exchequer by the produce of licences, such must have been the ultimate issue of his original scheme. It was, however, by admitting Alexander to a share in the pecuniary advantages of the licence-system, that he seems to have thought the commercial part of his dispute with Russia might be accommodated.
And, indeed, had there been no cause of quarrel between these powers, except what appeared on the face of their negotiations, it is hardly to be doubted that an accommodation might have been effected. The simple truth was, that the Czar, from the hour of Maria Louisa"s marriage, felt a perfect conviction that the diminution of the Russian power in the north of Europe would form the next great object of Napoleon"s ambition.
His subsequent proceedings, in regard to Holland, Oldenburg, and other territories, and the distribution of his troops, in Pomerania and Poland, could not fail to strengthen Alexander in this view of the case; and if war must come, there could be no question as to the policy of bringing it on before Austria had entirely recovered from the effects of the campaign of Wagram, and, above all, while the Peninsula continued to occupy 200,000 of Buonaparte"s troops.
Before we return to the war in Portugal (the details of which belong to the history of Wellington, rather than of Napoleon), we may here notice very briefly one or two circ.u.mstances connected with the exiled family of Spain. It affords a melancholy picture of the degradation of the old king and queen, that these personages voluntarily travelled to Paris for the purpose of mingling in the crowd of courtiers congratulating their deceiver and spoiler on the birth of the king of Rome. Their daughter, the queen of Etruria, appears to have been the least degenerate of the race; and she accordingly met with the cruellest treatment from the hand which her parents were thus mean enough to kiss. She had been deprived of her kingdom at the period of the shameful scenes of Bayonne in 1807, on pretext that that kingdom would afford the most suitable indemnification for her brother Ferdinand on his cession to Buonaparte of his rights in Spain, and with the promise of being provided for elsewhere. This promise to the sister was no more thought of afterwards than the original scheme for the indemnification of the brother. Tuscany became a French department. Ferdinand was sent a prisoner to the castle of Valencay--a seat of Talleyrand--and she, after remaining for some time with her parents, took up her residence, as a private person, under _surveillance_, at Nice. Alarmed by the severity with which the police watched her, the queen at length made an attempt to escape to England.
Her agents were discovered, tried by a military commission, and shot; and the unfortunate lady herself confined in a Roman monastery. A plan for the liberation of Ferdinand was about the same time detected by the emissaries of the French police: the real agent being arrested, a pretender, a.s.suming his name and credentials, made his way into Valencay, but Ferdinand was either too cunning, or too timid to incur this danger; revealing to his jailers the proposals of the stranger, he escaped the snare laid for him, and thus cheated Napoleon of a pretext for removing him also to some Italian cell.
During four months after Wellington"s famous retreat terminated in his occupation of the lines of Torres Vedras, Ma.s.sena lay encamped before that position, in vain practising every artifice which consummate skill could suggest for the purpose of drawing the British army back into the field. He attempted to turn first the one flank of the position and then the other; but at either point he found his antagonist"s preparations perfect. Meantime his communication with Spain was becoming every day more and more difficult, and the enmity of the peasantry was so inveterate that his troops began to suffer much from the want of provisions. Ma.s.sena at length found himself compelled to retreat; and, if he executed the military movement with masterly ability, he for ever disgraced his name by the horrible licence which he permitted to his soldiery. Every crime of which man is capable--every brutality which can dishonour rational beings--must be recorded in the narrative of that fearful march. Age, rank, s.e.x, character, were alike contemned; it seemed as if, maddened with a devilish rage, these ferocious bands were resolved to ruin the country which they could not possess, and to exterminate, as far as was in their power, the population which they could neither conciliate nor subdue.
Lord Wellington followed hard on their footsteps until they were beyond the Portuguese frontier; within it they had left only one garrison--at Almeida, and of this town the siege was immediately formed; while the British general himself invested the strong Spanish city and fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo. But Ma.s.sena, on regaining communication with the French armies in Castile, swelled his numbers so much, that he ventured to resume the offensive. Lord Wellington could not maintain the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in the face of such an army as Ma.s.sena had now a.s.sembled; but when the marshal indicated his wishes to bring on battle, he disdained to decline the invitation. The armies met at Fuentes d"Onor, on the 5th May 1811, and the French were once more defeated. The garrison of Almeida contrived to escape across the frontier, before the siege, which had been interrupted, could be renewed. Portugal remained in a miserable state of exhaustion indeed, but altogether delivered of her invaders; and Napoleon, as if resolved that each of his marshals in succession should have the opportunity of measuring himself against Wellington, now sent Marmont to displace Ma.s.sena.
Soult meanwhile had advanced on the southern frontier of Portugal from Estremadura, and obtained possession of Badajos, under circ.u.mstances which Lord Wellington considered as highly disgraceful to the Spanish garrison of that important place, and the armies which ought to have been ready to cover it. On the other hand, an English corps, under General Graham, sallied out of Cadiz, and were victorious in a brilliant affair on the heights of Barossa, in front of that besieged city.
As concerned the Spanish armies, the superiority of the French had been abundantly maintained during this campaign; and it might still be said that King Joseph was in military possession of all but some fragments of his kingdom. But the influence of the English victories was by no means limited to the Portuguese, whose territory they had delivered. They breathed new ardour into the Spanish people: the Guerilla warfare, trampled down in one spot only to start up in fifty others, raged more and more widely, as well as fiercely, over the surface of the country: the French troops lost more lives in this incessant struggle, wherein no glory could be achieved, than in any similar period spent in a regular campaign; and Joseph Buonaparte, while the question of peace or war with Russia was yet undecided, became so weary of his situation, that he earnestly entreated Napoleon to place the crown of Spain on some other head.
Such were the circ.u.mstances under which the eventful year 1812 began.
CHAPTER XXIX
Capture of Ciudad Rodrigo--and of Badajos--Battle of Salamanca--State of Napoleon"s Foreign Relations--His Military Resources--Napoleon at Dresden--Rupture with Russia--Napoleon"s conduct to the Poles--Distribution of the Armies--Pa.s.sage of the Niemen--Napoleon at Wilna.
Lord Wellington had now complete possession of Portugal; and lay on the frontiers of that kingdom, ready to act on the offensive within Spain, whenever the distribution of the French armies should seem to offer a fit opportunity. Learning that Marmont had sent considerable reinforcements to Suchet, in Valencia, he resolved to advance and once more besiege Ciudad Rodrigo. He re-appeared before that strong fortress on the 8th of January 1812, and carried it by storm on the 19th, four days before Marmont could collect a force adequate for its relief. He instantly repaired the fortifications, entrusted the place to a Spanish garrison, and repaired in person to the southern part of the Portuguese frontier, which required his attention in consequence of that miserable misconduct of the Spaniards which had enabled the French to make themselves masters of Badajos in the preceding year. He appeared before that city on the 16th March, and in twenty days took it also. The loss of life on both sides, in these rapid sieges, was very great; but they were gained by a general at the head of at most 50,000 men, in despite of an enemy mustering full 80,000; and the results were of the first importance to the English cause. Marmont, on hearing of the fall of the second fortress, immediately retreated from the neighbourhood of Ciudad Rodrigo, which he had made a vain attempt to regain; and Soult, who had arrived from before Cadiz just in time to see the British flag mounted on the towers of Badajos, retired in like manner. The English general hastened to make the best use of his advantage, by breaking up the only bridge by which Marmont and Soult could now communicate; and, having effected this object early in May, marched in June to Salamanca, took the forts there, and 800 prisoners, and--Marmont retiring as he advanced--hung on his rear until he reached the Douro.
Marmont was now joined by Bonnet"s army from Asturias, and thus once more recovered a decided superiority in numbers. Wellington accordingly retired in his turn; and for some days the two hostile armies moved in parallel lines, often within half cannon shot, each waiting for some mistake of which advantage might be taken. The weather was all the while intensely hot; numbers fainted on the march; and when any rivulet was in view, it was difficult to keep the men in their ranks. On the evening of the 21st of July, Wellington and Marmont lay in full view of each other, on two opposite rising grounds near Salamanca; a great storm of thunder and rain came on, and during the whole night the sky was bright with lightning. Wellington was at table when he received intelligence that his adversary was extending his left,--with the purpose of coming between him and Ciudad Rodrigo. He rose in haste, exclaiming, "Marmont"s good genius has forsaken him," and was instantly on horseback. The great battle of Salamanca was fought on the 22nd of July. The French were attacked on the point which Marmont"s movement leftwards had weakened, and sustained a signal defeat. The commander-in-chief himself lost an arm: 7000 prisoners, eleven guns, and two eagles were taken; and it was only the coming on of night that saved the army from utter destruction.
Wellington pursued the flying enemy as far as Valladolid, and then, re-crossing the Douro, marched upon Madrid. King Joseph fled once more at his approach, and the English were received with enthusiasm in the capital of Spain.
Lord Wellington had thus ventured to place himself in the heart of Spain, with, at most, 60,000 men, well-knowing that the French armies in the Peninsula still mustered at the least 150,000 in the expectation that so spirited a movement, coming after the glorious successes of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajos, and Salamanca, would effectually stimulate the Spanish generals. Ballasteros in particular, he doubted not, would at least take care to occupy all the attention of Soult, and prevent that able leader from advancing out of the south. But the Spaniard"s egregious pride took fire at the notion of being directed by an Englishman, and he suffered Soult to break up the siege of Cadiz, and retire with all his army undisturbed towards the Sierra Morena. Lord Wellington, incensed at this folly, was constrained to divide his army.
Leaving half at Madrid under Sir R. Hill, to check Soult, he himself marched with the other for Burgos, by taking which great city he judged he should have it in his power to overawe effectually the remains of the army of Marmont. He invested Burgos accordingly on the 19th of September, and continued the siege during five weeks, until Soult, with a superior force, began to threaten Hill, and (Marmont"s successor) Clausel, having also received great reinforcements, appeared ready to resume the offensive. Lord Wellington then abandoned the siege of Burgos and commenced his retreat. He was joined in the course of it by Hill, and Soult and Clausel then effected their junction also, in his rear--their troops being nearly double his numbers. He retired leisurely and deliberately as far as Ciudad Rodrigo--and thus closed the Peninsular campaign of 1812. But in sketching its progress we have lost sight for a moment of the still mightier movements in which Napoleon was personally engaged upon another scene of action.
It has already been mentioned, that before the year 1811 reached its close, the approach of a rupture with Russia was sufficiently indicated in an edict of the Emperor of Austria, granting a free pa.s.sage through his territories to the armies of his son-in-law. However, during several months following, the negotiations between the Czar and Napoleon continued; and more than once there appeared considerable likelihood of their finding an amicable termination. The tidings of Lord Wellington"s successes at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos were calculated to temper the ardour of Buonaparte"s presumption; and for a moment he seems to have felt the necessity of bringing the affairs of the Peninsula to a point, ere he should venture to involve himself in another warfare. He, in effect, opened a communication with the English government, when the fall of Badajos was announced to him; but before the negotiation had proceeded many steps, his pride returned on him in its original obstinacy, and the renewed demand, that Joseph should be recognised as King of Spain, abruptly closed the intercourse of the diplomatists.
Such being the state of the Peninsula, and all hope of an accommodation with England at an end, it might have been expected that Napoleon would have spared no effort to accommodate his differences with Russia, or, if a struggle must come, to prepare for it, by placing his relations with the other powers, capable of interfering on one side or the other, on a footing favourable to himself. But here also the haughty temper, which adversity itself could never bend, formed an insurmountable and fatal obstacle. To gain the cordial friendship of Sweden was obviously, from the geographical position of that country, and the high military talents of Bernadotte, an object of the most urgent importance; yet the Crown Prince, instead of being treated with as the head of an independent state, was personally insulted by the French resident at Stockholm, who, in Bernadotte"s own language, "demeaned himself on every occasion as if he had been a Roman proconsul, dictating absolutely in a province." In his anxiety to avoid a rupture, Bernadotte at length agreed to enforce the "continental system," and to proclaim war against England. But these concessions, instead of producing hearty goodwill, had a directly contrary effect. England, considering Sweden as an involuntary enemy, disdained to make any attempt against her; and the adoption of the anti-commercial edicts of Napoleon was followed by a multiplicity of collisions between the Swedish coasters and the Imperial _douaniers_, out of which arose legal questions without number. These, in most cases, were terminated at Paris, with summary injustice, and the provocations and reclamations of Bernadotte multiplied daily. Amazed that one who had served under his banners should dare to dispute his will, Napoleon suffered himself to speak openly of causing Bernadotte to finish his Swedish studies in Vincennes. Nay, he condescended to organise a conspiracy for the purpose of putting this threat into execution. The Crown Prince escaped, through the zeal of a private friend at Paris, the imminent danger of being carried off after the fashion of the D"Enghiens and the Rumbolds: and thenceforth his part was fixed.
On the other flank of the Czar"s dominion--his hereditary enemy, the Grand Seignior, was at this time actually at war with him. Napoleon had neglected his relations with Constantinople for some years past; but he now perceived the importance of keeping this quarrel alive, and employed his agents to stimulate the Grand Seignior to take the field in person at the head of 100,000 men, for the purpose of co-operating with himself in a general invasion of the Russian empire. But here he encountered a new and an unforeseen difficulty. Lord Castlereagh, the English minister for foreign affairs, succeeded in convincing the Porte, that, if Russia were once subdued, there would remain no power in Europe capable of shielding her against the universal ambition of Napoleon. And wisely considering this prospective danger as immeasurably more important than any immediate advantage which she could possibly reap from the humiliation of her old rival, the Porte commenced a negotiation, which, exactly at the most critical moment (as we shall see hereafter) ended in a peace with Russia.
The whole forces of Italy--Switzerland, Bavaria, and the princes of the Rhenish League,--including the Elector of Saxony,--were at Napoleon"s disposal. Denmark hated England too much to have leisure for fear of him. Prussia, surrounded and studded with French garrisons, was more than ever hostile to France; and the king was willing, in spite of all that he had suffered, to throw himself at once into the arms of Russia.
But this must have inferred his immediate and total ruin, unless the Czar chose to march at once into Germany. Such a movement was wholly inconsistent with the plan of operations contemplated, in case of a war with Buonaparte, by the military advisers of Alexander; and Frederick William saw himself compelled to place 20,000 troops, the poor relics of his army, at the disposal of the common oppressor.
Austria was bound by treaty to a.s.sist Napoleon with 30,000 men, whenever he chose to demand them; but this same treaty included Buonaparte"s guarantee of Austria"s Polish provinces. Could he have got rid of this pledge, he distinctly perceived the advantages which he might derive from the enthusiasm of the Poles; to proclaim their independence would have been, he well knew, to array a whole gallant nation under his banners; and of such objections to their independence as might be started by his own creature, the Grand Duke of Warsaw, he made little account. But Austria would not consent to give up his guarantee of Galicia, unless he consented to yield back the Illyrian territory which she had lost at Schoenbrunn; and this was a condition to which Napoleon would not for a moment listen. He would take whatever he could gain by force or by art; but he would sacrifice nothing. The evil consequences of this piece of obstinacy were twofold. Austria remained an ally indeed, but at best a cold one; and the opportunity of placing the whole of Poland in insurrection, between him and the Czar, was for ever lost.
But if Napoleon, in the fulness of his presumption, thus neglected or scorned the timely conciliation of foreign powers-some of whom he might have arrayed heartily on his side, and others at least retained neutral-he certainly omitted nothing as to the preparation of the military forces of his own empire. Before yet all hopes of an accommodation with St. Petersburg where at an end, he demanded and obtained two new conscriptions in France; and moreover established a law by which he was enabled to call out 100,000 men at a time, of those whom the conscriptions had spared, for service _at home_. This limitation of their service he soon disregarded; and in effect the new system-that of _the Ban_, as he affected to call it-became a mere extension of the old scheme. The amount of the _French_ army at the period in question (exclusive of _the Ban_) is calculated at 850,000 men; the army of the kingdom of Italy mustered 50,000; that of Naples, 30,000; that of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, 60,000; the Bavarian, 40,000; the Westphalian, 30,000; the Saxon, 30,000; Wirtemberg, 15,000; Baden, 9,000; and the minor powers of the Rhenish League, 23,000. Of these armies Napoleon had the entire control. In addition, Austria was bound to furnish him with 30,000, and Prussia with 20,000 auxiliaries. The sum-total is 1,187,000.
Deducting 387,000--a large allowance for hospitals, furloughs, and incomplete regiments-there remained 800,000 effective men at his immediate command. The Spanish peninsula might perhaps occupy, even now, 150,000; but still Napoleon could bring into the field against Russia, in case all negotiation failed, an army of 650,000 men; numbers such as Alexander could have no chance of equalling; numbers such as had never before followed an European banner.
Notwithstanding all this display of military strength, the French statesmen who had in former days possessed the highest place in the Emperor"s confidence, and who had been shaken in his favour by their bold prophecies of the result of his attempts on Spain and Portugal, did not hesitate to come forward on this new occasion, and offer warnings, for which the course of events in the Peninsula might have been expected to procure a patient hearing. Talleyrand, still in office, exhausted all his efforts in vain. Fouche, who on pretence of ill health had thrown up his Roman government, and was now resident at his country seat near Paris, drew up a memorial, in which the probable consequences of a march into Russia were detailed with masterly skill and eloquence; and demanded an audience of the Emperor, that he might present it in person. Napoleon, whose police now watched no one so closely as their former chief, was prepared for this. He received Fouche with an air of cool indifference. "I am no stranger to your errand," said he. "The war with Russia pleases you as little as that of Spain." Fouche answered, that he hoped to be pardoned for having drawn up some reflections on so important a crisis. "It is no crisis at all," resumed Buonaparte, "but a mere war of politics. Spain falls whenever I have destroyed the English influence at St. Petersburg. I have 800,000 soldiers in readiness: with such an army I consider Europe as an old prost.i.tute, who must obey my pleasure. Did not you yourself once tell me that the word _impossible_ is not French? You grandees are now too rich, and though you pretend to be anxious about my interests, you are only thinking of what might happen to yourselves in case of my death, and the dismemberment of my empire. I regulate my conduct much more by the sentiments of my army than by yours. Is it my fault that the height of power which I have attained compels me to ascend to the dictatorship of the world? My destiny is not yet accomplished-the picture exists as yet only in outline. There must be one code, one court of appeal, and one coinage for all Europe. The states of Europe must be melted into one nation, and Paris be its capital." It deserves to be mentioned that neither the statesman thus contemptously dismissed, nor any of his brethren, ever even alluded to the injustice of making war on Russia for the mere gratification of ambition. Their arguments were all drawn from the extent of Alexander"s resources-his 400,000 regulars, and 50,000 Cossacks, already known to be in arms-and the enormous population on which he had the means of drawing for recruits; the enthusiastic national feelings of the Muscovites; the distance of their country; the severity of their climate; the opportunity which such a war would afford to England of urging her successes in Spain; and the chance of Germany rising in insurrection in case of any reverses.
There was, however, one person who appealed to the Emperor on other grounds. His uncle, the Cardinal Fesch, had been greatly afflicted by the treatment of the Pope, and he contemplated this new war with dread, as likely to bring down the vengeance of Heaven on the head of one who had dared to trample on its vicegerent. He besought Napoleon not to provoke at once the wrath of man and the fury of the elements; and expressed his belief that he must one day sink under the weight of that universal hatred with which his actions were surrounding his throne.
Buonaparte led the churchman to the window, opened it, and pointing upwards, said, "Do you see yonder star?" "No, sire," replied the Cardinal. "But I see it," answered Napoleon; and abruptly dismissed him.
Trusting to this star, on which one spot of fatal dimness had already gathered, Napoleon, without waiting for any formal rupture with the Russian diplomatists at Paris, now directed the march of very great bodies of troops into Prussia and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Alexander"s minister was ordered, in the beginning of April, to demand the withdrawal of these troops, together with the evacuation of the fortresses in Pomerania, in case the French government still entertained a wish to negotiate. Buonaparte instantly replied that he was not accustomed to regulate the distribution of his forces by the suggestions of a foreign power. The amba.s.sador demanded his pa.s.sports, and quitted Paris.
On the 9th of May, Napoleon left Paris with his Empress, and arrived on the 16th at Dresden, where the Emperor of Austria, the Kings of Prussia, Naples, Wirtemberg, and Westphalia, and almost every German sovereign of inferior rank, had been invited, or commanded, to met him. He had sent to request the Czar also to appear in this brilliant a.s.semblage, as affording a last chance of an amicable arrangement; but the messenger could not obtain admission to Alexander"s presence.
Buonaparte continued for some days to play the part of undisputed master amidst this congregation of royalties. He at once a.s.sumed for himself and his wife precedence over the Emperor and Empress of Austria; and, in the blaze of successive festivals, the King of Saxony appeared but as some chamberlain, or master of the ceremonies, to his imperious guest.
Having sufficiently indicated to his allies and va.s.sals the conduct which they were respectively to adopt, in case the war should break out, Napoleon, already weary of his splendid idleness, sent on the Abbe de Pradt to Warsaw, to prepare for his reception among the Poles, dismissed Maria Louisa on her return to Paris, and broke up the Court in which he had, for the last time, figured as "the King of Kings." Marshal Ney, with one great division of the army, had already pa.s.sed the Vistula; Junot, with another, occupied both sides of the Oder. The Czar was known to be at Wilna, his Lithuanian capital, there collecting the forces of his immense empire, and entrusting the general arrangements of the approaching campaign to Marshal Barclay de Tolly.[61] The season was advancing; and it was time that the question of peace or war should be forced to a decision.
Napoleon arrived at Dantzick on the 7th of June; and during the fortnight which ensued, it was known that the final communications between him and Alexander were taking place. The attention of mankind was never more entirely fixed on one spot than it was, during these fourteen days, upon Dantzick. On the 22nd, Buonaparte broke silence in a bulletin. "Soldiers," said he, "Russia is dragged on by her fate: her destiny must be accomplished. Let us march! let us cross the Niemen: let us carry war into her territories. Our second campaign of Poland will be as glorious as our first: but our second peace shall carry with it its own guarantee: it shall put an end for ever to that haughty influence which Russia has exercised for fifty years on the affairs of Europe."
The address, in which the Czar announced the termination of his negotiations, was in a far different tone. After stating the innumerable efforts he had made to preserve peace, without losing for Russia the character of an independent state, he invoked the aid of Almighty Providence as "the witness and the defender of the true cause;" and concluded in these words--"Soldiers, you fight for your religion, your liberty, and your native land. Your Emperor is amongst you; and G.o.d is the enemy of the aggressor."
Buonaparte reviewed the greater part of his troops on the field of Friedland; and having a.s.sured them of still more splendid victories over the same enemy, issued his final orders to the chief officers of his vast army. Hitherto the Poles had had no certain intelligence of the object which Napoleon proposed to himself. As soon as no doubt remained on that score, the Diet at Warsaw sent both to him and to the King of Saxony, to announce their resolution to seize this opportunity of re-establishing the ancient national independence of their dismembered country. We have already mentioned the circ.u.mstance which compelled the Emperor to receive this message with coldness. He was forced to acknowledge that he had guaranteed to Austria the whole of her Polish provinces. It was therefore impossible for him to take part in the re-establishment of Old Poland:--"Nevertheless," added he, with audacious craft, "I admire your efforts; I even authorise them. Persist; and it is to be hoped your wishes will be crowned with success."
This answer effectually damped the ardour of the Poles; and thenceforth, with a few exceptions, the eminent and influential men of the nation were mere observers of the war. If any doubt as to Napoleon"s treachery could have remained after his answer to the Diet, it must have been wholly removed when the plan of his campaign transpired, and the Austrian auxiliaries were known to be stationed on the right of his whole line. On them, as it seemed, the march through Volhynia was thus devolved, and no clearer proof could have been afforded that it was Napoleon"s desire to repress every symptom of a national insurrection in Lithuania. The inhabitants, had French soldiers come amongst them, might have been expected to rise in enthusiasm; the white uniform of Austria was known to be hateful in their eyes, in the same degree, and for precisely the same reason, as the Russian green.
The disposition of the French army when the campaign commenced was as follows:--The left wing, commanded by Macdonald, and amounting to 30,000 men, had orders to march through Courland, with the view of, if possible, outflanking the Russian right, and gaining possession of the sea coast, in the direction of Riga. The right wing, composed almost wholly of the Austrians, 30,000 in number, and commanded by Schwartzenberg, were stationed, as has been already mentioned, on the Volhynian frontier. Between these moved the various corps forming the grand central army, under the general superintendence of Napoleon himself, viz. those of Davoust, Ney, the King of Westphalia, the Viceroy of Italy, Poniatowski, Junot and Victor; and in numbers not falling below 250,000. The communication of the centre and left was maintained by the corps of Oudinot, and that of the centre and the extreme right by the corps of Regnier, who had with him the Saxon auxiliaries and the Polish legion of Dombrowski. The chief command of the whole cavalry of the host was a.s.signed to Murat, King of Naples; but he was in person at the headquarters of the Emperor, having immediately under his order three divisions of horse, those of Grouchy, Montbrun, and Nansouty.