There is in existence what purports to be a letter from Napoleon to Murat, dated March twenty-ninth.[22] It is undoubtedly by Napoleon, but it was either written at the time, for public effect, and not sent, or it was a later fabrication intended to mislead posterity, because its formal style is not used elsewhere in the correspondence. It explains to "His Imperial Highness" what was not known until ten years later, namely, that the Spaniards were a people with violent political pa.s.sions, capable of indefinite warfare; that the nation could and must be regenerated only by careful management; and that nothing must be done precipitately. At the same time it gives the Protector, as Murat is designated, his own option in regard to a recognition of Ferdinand, expresses disapproval of the precipitate seizure of Madrid, and warns him that he must not create an irrepressible opposition. Whether the letter be authentic or not, whether it was sent or not, really matters but little as regards our judgment of the facts. The disorganization of Spain had been its own work; the court intrigues were already burning before they were fanned by Napoleon"s agents in the hope that, like the royal house of Portugal, the incapable Spanish Bourbons would fly to America. The revolution of Aranjuez was a bitter disappointment to the great schemer, and disconcerted his plans. But Murat"s conduct and Ferdinand"s character rendered difficult, if not impossible, any course which would combine the consummation of his fixed designs with even the slightest degree of popular good will in Spain. Nothing was to be gained at such a supreme moment by the ordinary brutal abuse which the Emperor was accustomed to heap on his brother-in-law for commonplace offenses; moreover, in view of the disappointing revolution, Murat"s course was perhaps as good as any other. He must, however, bear whatever responsibility attached to it, and that responsibility would have been his even without the supposit.i.tious letter which he never received. The contempt of the people for the boy-soldiers at whose head he had marched into Madrid, combined with disdain for his own pompousness and with fury at his subsequent cruelty, goes far to account for much that was disastrous to French prestige and to France in the sequel.
In order to secure the Spanish crown it was now necessary that both the quarreling factions should be removed from the scene of their scandalous intrigues. Perhaps it would be possible, perhaps not. Napoleon set out on April second for Bayonne, accompanied by his Empress with a stately suite, and the adroit Savary was despatched to Madrid. Savary"s memoirs indicate that his instructions for this memorable journey were very vague: the Emperor wished to see whether the Bourbons merited dethronement; in other words, whether they could be uncrowned. For himself, Savary naively declared that much of his own partic.i.p.ation in the subsequent events was mere accident. Murat had obeyed both his verbal and his implied instructions. According to the former, Charles and his consort were in the Escorial, treated with all honor, but prisoners. G.o.doy, also, was aware that he must soon appear at Bayonne. But Murat had gone further, for he had slyly suggested to Napoleon that Ferdinand should appear at the same rendezvous. Beauharnais told Ferdinand to his face that he ought to meet Napoleon half-way on his journey, in order the better to make his peace.
This hint was quietly conveyed to Savary before his departure, and he was at the same time intrusted with a letter to Murat expressing a desire that the Prince of Asturias should either remain at Madrid or come out to meet the Emperor, who intended not to enter Spain for the present, but to wait at Bayonne. The careful plan worked admirably. No one knows on conclusive evidence what Savary said to Ferdinand, what hopes he held out, what promises he made in his master"s name; but on April tenth the young King placed Madrid under the administration of a junta and set out, expecting to meet Napoleon at Burgos. He had been easily moved to this course, for Murat had so far coldly refused to recognize him, while Savary was prodigal of obsequiousness and addressed him as king. His ministers Escoiquiz and Cavallos declare, in their justificatory writings, that in addition to the impression produced by his conduct, Savary actually said, as if in a burst of military frankness, that the Emperor was already on his way to a.s.sure himself whether Ferdinand"s dispositions toward the French system were as sincere as his father"s had been, and would of course be favorably impressed if a personal interview should be sought by the young King before his guest could reach Madrid.
At Burgos Ferdinand learned that Napoleon was not yet within the Spanish borders; at Vitoria he was informed that the Emperor had not yet even pa.s.sed Bordeaux. His people had utterly disapproved of the journey, but they acclaimed him joyously on the two days" progress to Burgos. Thereafter he remarked a change, and the nearer he approached the frontier the more they showed their irritation at his insensate folly. At Vitoria, therefore, he summoned Savary, whose carriage was "accidentally in the King"s convoy," and reproached him with deceit. It was too late; divisions of French soldiers were scattered all about, among them the splendid cavalry of Bessieres. To wheel and return would have been an open insult to the Emperor, which French soldiers would not have tolerated. The uneasy young King thereupon penned and despatched by a special courier a long letter recalling the facts, and begging the Emperor to terminate the equivocal position in which he found himself placed.
The reply was speedy and most insulting, for it studiously avoided the recognition of Ferdinand"s sovereignty. The Emperor had expected before this to visit Madrid in person and inst.i.tute some necessary reforms, but affairs in the North had delayed him, and the revolution at Aranjuez had changed the situation. He hoped Ferdinand would quickly put an end to any attempt at a trial of G.o.doy, for its revelations must necessarily dishonor the Queen. "Your Royal Highness," he wrote, "has no other rights to the throne than those transmitted through your mother." Had the abdication been a free act or not? He would like to talk to Ferdinand as to whether or not it was forced by the riots of Aranjuez. His "Royal Highness" had behaved ill about his marriage, for he should not have acted without the King"s knowledge, and every such approach to a foreign sovereign made by an heir apparent is a criminal act. If there had not been force at Aranjuez, there would be no difficulty in recognizing Ferdinand; moreover, a French marriage for him would be not merely advantageous to the Spaniards, but to the interest of the French.
The following day, April seventeenth, orders were issued to Bessieres that if the prince should continue his journey there should be no interference; but if, however, he turned back toward Burgos, he was to be arrested and brought by force to Bayonne. Ferdinand hesitated as he read the insults, promises, and compliments which made up Napoleon"s letter. His Spanish counselors advised a return; Savary laughed at such scruples, and was not only voluble in verbal commentaries on the ambiguous text, but profuse in promises. On the twentieth Ferdinand VII of Spain, as his supporters called him, was at the gates of Bayonne. He was received, not with royal honors, but by his own legates, the three grandees whom he had sent to Napoleon; and they told him with mournful accents that the Emperor with his own lips had declared that the Bourbons could no longer reign in Spain. It was with dejected mien and shaky steps that the young monarch and his suite followed Duroc and Berthier to the wretched quarters provided for their residence. The Empress was, throughout the three months spent at Bayonne, both gracious and conciliatory, playing her part as hostess with grace, and alleviating with kindness the bitterness of her compulsory guests. On the evening of Ferdinand"s arrival a handsome dinner was given at the chateau where the court was lodged, and the visiting prince was most decorously treated. His train grew more joyous and hopeful as the hours pa.s.sed, although they noted that the Emperor did not address his guest as king. Still, that was a slight matter, and they returned in gaiety to their poor lodgings-all but one: Canon Escoiquiz had been asked to remain for a short private interview, while Savary escorted his master. It was an identical communication which was then made in the same hour to both minister and prince; short, terse, and brutal: to wit, the Bourbons had ceased to reign in Spain, and Ferdinand would be indemnified by Etruria if he would formally renounce a crown which was not even technically his, since Charles declared that he had abdicated through fear. The doc.u.ment in which this was announced had already been printed and published at Madrid by Napoleon"s command. He now summoned Charles, Louisa, and G.o.doy to Bayonne.
Murat had found trouble in liberating the Prince of the Peace, for the junta feared the populace if they should remember the object of their hate and scorn. But he finally succeeded, and in the last days of April G.o.doy reached Bayonne, where by the thirtieth all the puppets were a.s.sembled. Dejected and broken-spirited, the minister agreed to play the part a.s.signed to him. The honors of a royal progress had been paid to Charles, and he posed for a few days as the King. Ferdinand, whose character and behavior awakened the contemptuous scorn even of Talleyrand, was the culprit at the bar, charged with dishonoring his parents. The trial scene was a shocking exhibition of human frailty. Ferdinand was summoned before a bench composed of his parents, who claimed to be still sovereigns, and the French emperor; G.o.doy, looking like a bull, as Talleyrand thought, sat sullenly by. The old King demanded his crown. Ferdinand persistently refused to surrender it. Finally the trembling and invalid father rose on his shaky, rheumatic legs and brandished his staff; the undutiful son remained unmoved. A second demand was made by letter; it was to the same effect, but the answer was different. Ferdinand agreed that he would renounce his throne before the a.s.sembled Cortes at Madrid, but there only, and to Charles IV alone. At Napoleon"s command Charles refused to consider the proposal, giving as a reason that Spain could be saved only by the Emperor. This was Napoleon"s opportunity. Two days later an imperial decree was promulgated, which appointed Murat dictator of Spain, under the style "lieutenant-general of the kingdom."
In the collection of the Countess of Sandwich.
NAPOLEON IN HIS STUDY.
From the painting by Paul Hippolyte Delaroche.
Meantime that intriguer had been making for himself a tortuous approach to royalty. Nothing could more hasten the progress of events than a riot in Madrid. The sensibility of the inhabitants of that city had been rasped by the French occupation; they had seen the departure of their idol with irritation, and had been further exasperated by G.o.doy"s liberation. Murat set fire to the train of their pa.s.sions first by a new disposition of his forces, which so menaced the place as to make it clear that he was no longer an ally, but a conqueror, and then by the announcement that the infante Don Francisco was to be despatched to Bayonne with his uncle and all the remaining members of the royal family, including the Queen of Etruria and her children. On May second the entire population rose to resist this insolent tyranny. Murat was ready for the move; the conflict was short, but it was sharp, for he lost several hundred soldiers, perhaps half as many as the patriots, in whose ranks some eight hundred fell. The aspirant to royal honors yielded with ostentatious grace to the first representations of the junta, and promised a general amnesty; but he also thought it best to make an example before the eyes of his future subjects, and in spite of his plighted word two hundred of the insurgent patriots were seized and shot. This very day, however, there was p.r.o.nounced a decree of rude disenchantment for him. It was on May second that Napoleon definitely wrote to him that the kingdom of Spain could not be his; he might have Naples or Portugal. The Emperor was tired of Bayonne, and longed to be back in Paris, where he could be active about the business of perpetuating his empire and his dynasty. The stubborn Ferdinand was therefore summoned once more, and charged with having instigated the upheaval of Madrid. He remained mute for some minutes, and with downcast eyes. "If before midnight," came the cold words of the Emperor, "you have not recognized your father as legitimate king, and notified the fact at Madrid, you will be treated as a rebel." Some declare that there was besides a menace of death.
This ended all resistance. Ferdinand resigned his rights as king into his father"s hands, his rights as heir into those of Napoleon. Charles had already a.s.signed his rights as king to the same suzerain.[23] The complacent old man was actually cheerful and joyous, as his entertainer desired he should be; but Ferdinand, in spite of the fact that he was to have the chateau of Navarre with an income of a million francs, in spite of promises that all the royal family would be liberally pensioned, remained silent and gloomy. Napoleon was not pleased by this behavior, and in commending him to the hospitality of Talleyrand, at the splendid castle of Valencay, declared that his whole character could be summed up in a single word-sullen. Poor Talleyrand! he saw himself condemned to the "honorable mission" of turnkey to a dispossessed monarch whose guard of honor was a troop of eighty mounted police. By the Emperor"s grace the young culprit was not to be committed to jail, for he had voluntarily surrendered himself; but Talleyrand was to watch and amuse him, and discover, if possible, some charming and marriageable girl to entangle his affections, so that in her society he might forget the delights of power, while time should weaken the promptings of ambition and revenge. In a few days Charles, Louisa, and G.o.doy were comfortably installed at Compiegne, while Ferdinand, with his brother, went sullenly away to "visit" at Valencay. The prisoner"s character was soon displayed. The day of his arrival at his destination he wrote a cringing letter to Napoleon, and soon after not only congratulated the Emperor on the accession of the King of Naples to the throne he had claimed for his own, but even felicitated Joseph himself on his coronation as Catholic Majesty.
Napoleon knew the mysterious power throughout Europe of that charmed word "legitimacy." He despised the concept that it expressed, while he meant to make the most of its power. Having misunderstood the strength of Spanish patriotism, he now made the blunder of supposing that the Spaniards would receive as a legitimate prince whomsoever he chose to appoint as heir to the "legitimacy" which the Spanish Bourbons had just put into his hands. Louis, moreover, had but recently ill.u.s.trated the force of a new environment under the notion of legitimacy. Replying to Napoleon"s letter of March twenty-fifth, he had flatly refused the Spanish crown, on the ground that he had sworn a solemn oath to the Dutch. Joseph was immediately restored to favor and ordered to Bayonne. He came with apparent alacrity, due, as he claimed, to his desire to free his beloved brother Napoleon from embarra.s.sment. Soon all was apparently ready for his inauguration.
The treaty of Fontainebleau had produced unexpected complications and disastrous results on its political side; the apparently insignificant military clauses had so far been successfully executed. One Spanish army was far away on the Baltic, held under curb by Bernadotte; another had been despatched to western Spain, and had remained there; in the mean while the north and the center of the country were occupied by the French. General Solano had made some movement to lead back his troops into the occupied territory, but was checked in his advance by instructions from the ministers of Charles IV at Madrid. Uncertain as to their powers in a revolutionary crisis, he rendered only a half-obedience; but it was sufficient for Napoleon"s object, and there was no body of Spanish troops within striking distance of the capital. Accordingly, when the Spanish notables were summoned to Bayonne, they could not well refuse, and a hundred and fifty of them responded. On June sixth, 1808, the crown of Spain was offered to Joseph by this strange Cortes, and he accepted it. At the same time the new const.i.tution, destined by Napoleon to regenerate the country, was laid before the same body, which discussed and adopted it. In the following month his Catholic Majesty presented himself, with this doc.u.ment and a cabinet of able ministers, to the people of Madrid. Charles IV and his followers found Compiegne too cold, and soon moved, first to Ma.r.s.eilles, then to Italy. Murat became King of Naples. Ferdinand remained contentedly in France, licking the hand which had struck him down. Napoleon returned to Paris, uneasy at the att.i.tude of the Spanish nation, but hoping that local discontent could be smothered by the strong hand, as he had seen it smothered in France, Italy, and the Orient. In this, however, he was to find himself sadly mistaken.
In the story of Spanish degradation at its worst two names must stand together as partners in political crime-those of G.o.doy and Escoiquiz, who sought to mask their own base ambitions behind the acts of their feeble creatures, the King and Ferdinand respectively. Throughout the whole vile complot moves also the figure of the Queen, whose counterpart must be sought in the annals of witches, furies, and hetaerae. But there were still left uncontaminated eleven millions of the Spanish people. They were indolent by nature, had been fettered both by tradition and by worn-out inst.i.tutions, and had long groaned in the chains of corrupt administration. With the removal of the Bourbons all these paraphernalia were swept away. The brothers Napoleon believed, and no doubt honestly, that pure and capable administration under a modern system would soon produce order, industry, prosperity, and peace, and that a grateful nation would before long acclaim its preservers, and enroll itself as a devoted ally against the "perfidious and tyrannical" supremacy of Great Britain. It is useless to speculate how far this dream would have been realized but for the utter rottenness of the instruments with which the reformers worked. The King"s senility, the Queen"s l.u.s.t, G.o.doy"s greed, Escoiquiz"s self-seeking, Ferdinand"s unreliability, Murat"s ambition, made a poor armory of weapons wherewith to accomplish a beneficent revolution. But the one vital blunder was, after all, not in the use of such tools: it was in the contempt for nationality shown first in making the treaty of Fontainebleau, then in its violation by the subsequent seizure of Portugal, and finally in the occupation of Spain by French troops. Declaring that more had been lost than gained by the events which occurred at Bayonne, Talleyrand says that on one occasion he icily observed to Napoleon that society would pardon much to a man of the world, but cheating at cards never. If this be true, it was a stinging rebuke and one which touched the heart of the whole matter.
To the b.l.o.o.d.y butchery and broken faith of May second, the day of the Madrid riots, may be attributed the turn of Napoleon"s fortunes. How far he was responsible for each of Murat"s successive acts cannot be known. With exaggerated conceptions of the Emperor"s ubiquity, some attribute every detail in every step to the direct intervention of the master. This is unproved and highly improbable; but the spirit was his, and the use he made of each occasion as it arose is matter of history. The fires of rebellion were lighted thenceforth on every Spanish hearth. Madrid itself was dangerous enough, but Madrid was not Spain, as Paris is France, and the fine local enthusiasm of uncorrupted Spanish blood in every district was awakened into vigorous activity by the news of how faithless had been the French treatment, not only of the royal house, but of the citizens-men and women who were themselves true Spaniards, brothers and sisters of every other Spaniard. This possibility Napoleon had not foreseen, and he did not grasp the fact until long afterward, when years of bitter experience had rolled over his head. The Madrid riots, suppressed by Murat with such terrible bloodshed, were at the time, in Napoleon"s mind, only a welcome leverage for moving Ferdinand to compliance, and that was all.
But the city had been full of provincials attracted from all parts of the country to swell the triumph of their idol Ferdinand on his accession to the throne. They returned to their homes inspired with hatred for the French and with bitter scorn for the pretexts on which Spain and Portugal had been torn from a commercial system that brought them considerable prosperity and many comforts, in order that they might be incorporated, under foreign princes, into another system, which not only required serious self-denial, but brought stagnation, disorganization, and the presence of an armed soldiery. One weakness of the Spanish monarchy had always been the absence of centralization, but that very fact had been the national strength in fostering local attachments. Into every city, town, and hamlet, each nourishing its own local pride by local patriotism, came the news from Madrid of how the invaders were trampling not merely upon Spanish rights, but upon every consideration of humanity and good faith. The national will was stirred as never before or since; its expression grew louder every day, until at last the conflagration of devotion to a national cause was kindled far and near. Every community formed its committees, and these organized such neighborhood resistance as was possible, while communicating with other juntas of the same sort to unite their little wars, or guerrillas, into a great combined and vigorous effort wherever the opportunity offered. Under the surface throughout all Spain the fires of resistance began to kindle; the crackling could be heard even while the a.s.sembly at Bayonne was adopting the new const.i.tution.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER XI.
The First Revolt of Nations.[24]
The New Role of Spain - Guerrilla Warfare - The French Cowed - The Capitulation of Baylen - The French Retreat from Spain and Portugal - Complaints of King Joseph - Napoleon"s Exasperation - Imperialist Sentiment in France - The Emperor"s Determination - The Spirit of Prussia - The Work of Stein - The Revolution in Turkey - Austria"s Anxieties - War Feeling at Vienna - Napoleon Turns to the Czar - Alexander"s Hesitancy - Napoleon"s Misrepresentations - Austria Warned - Talleyrand and the Czar - Napoleon"s Allocution at St. Cloud.
Thus far in the history of Europe all politics had been in the main dynastic. The nations having been consolidated under powerful houses, it was the reigning family which seemed to const.i.tute the national ent.i.ty, not the common inst.i.tutions, common speech, common faith, common territory, common aims, and common destiny of the people. Spain, like Italy, had a clearly marked national domain, and, in spite of some striking differences, a fairly h.o.m.ogeneous population. It was fitting and not entirely unnatural that the land of the Inquisition, the land of ignorance, the land of intolerance, the land, in short, which had sunk the lowest under absolutism, should begin the counterrevolution which, checking the excesses of Napoleon and the French Revolution in their disregard for nationality, ushered into the world"s forum the nation and national sentiment as the strongest force of the nineteenth century.
This was exactly what happened in Spain. Napoleon"s strategy had laughed at the military formation of Frederick the Great"s system; the guerrillas of Spain laughed at the formations of regular warfare in any shape. They rose to fight, and dispersed for safety, leaving their smarting foe unable to strike for lack of a billet. The occasional successes of the Spanish regulars showed, moreover, that the generals were not entirely ignorant of Napoleon"s own system. When Joseph entered Madrid the whole land was already in open rebellion, except where French force compelled a sullen acquiescence in French rule. The long inactive, sluggish ecclesiastics suddenly seemed to feel the vigor to resist and the power to lead. They joined the insurgents, and invoked the orthodoxy of the nation so as to inflame the pa.s.sions of the ma.s.ses against the persecutor of the Pope. Irregular and undefined as were the elements of the uprising, it was nevertheless essentially a popular movement; as Napoleon himself later admitted, it was the people themselves who refused to ratify his new inst.i.tutions, and who declared for Ferdinand VII. The sequel furnished ample ill.u.s.tration of this fact: the mountaineers of Asturias rose in united rebellion; the inhabitants of Cartagena threw open their a.r.s.enals to the volunteers of the neighborhood; the citizens of Saragossa beat off their besiegers, while those of Valencia first ma.s.sacred the French who took refuge in their citadel, and then repulsed Moncey in a desperate conflict. When the Spanish leaders ventured into an open battle-field they were defeated; on the other hand, when they kept the hills and fought like bandits they were victorious.
So quick and general was the Spanish rising that the various French army divisions shut themselves up for safety in whatever towns they could hold: pretending to defy the national guards, who seemed to spring from the ground without, they were in reality awestricken before the wrath of the armed citizens within. A quick burst of Spanish anger, a sharp stab of the Spanish poniard-the frequency of such incidents began to create a panic among the French boy-soldiers. The seizure and sack of a city had for years been a traditional amus.e.m.e.nt of the grand army, connected in Italy and Germany with little or no loss of life, and enhanced by the acquisition of enormous booty. The young conscripts, who had heard the oft-told tale from their fathers" lips, found to their bitter disappointment that in Spain a sack meant much bloodshed and little, if any, booty. Sometimes the tables were more than turned. A French squadron put in at Cadiz to cooperate with a force despatched by Napoleon, under pretense of resisting an invasion threatened by the English, but really for the purpose of terrorizing southern Spain. The arrival of the troops having been delayed by the outbreak of rebellion farther north, the townsfolk of that ancient city rose and seized the fleet. The corpses of French soldiers, wherever found throughout the country, were mutilated by the furious Spaniards, and the wounded received no quarter.
At the end of May, Murat was in Madrid as commander-in-chief, with Moncey as his lieutenant; he had thirty thousand troops. Junot was in Portugal with twenty-five thousand. Bessieres had twenty-five thousand more, half in Old Castile under himself, half in Aragon under Verdier. Duhesme commanded the thirteen thousand who were in Catalonia; Dupont stood on the Tagus near Toledo with twenty-four thousand more. In the first weeks of June four different skirmishes occurred between the French regulars and the insurgents in different parts of the country. Verdier at Logrono on the sixth, Frere in Segovia on the seventh, Lefebvre at Tudela on the eighth, and Lasalle near Valladolid on the twelfth, had all dispersed the hordes opposed to them. By the middle of the month a regular advance was ordered. It took the form of dispersion for the sake of complete occupation. While Lefebvre laid siege to Saragossa, Moncey started for Valencia with ten thousand soldiers, Dupont for Andalusia with nine thousand, and Bessieres"s division was distributed throughout Castile up to the walls of Santander, which closed its gates and prepared for resistance. Owing to the defiant att.i.tude and desperate courage of the people, every one of these movements was unsuccessful, each failing in its own special purpose. Cordova was captured, but it had almost instantly to be abandoned. At once Napoleon changed his carefully studied but futile strategy, and determined to concentrate the scattered columns on the critical point, wherever it might be. By this time Palafox and others of the Spanish leaders had shown great ability as generals. The danger now was that a Spanish army would seize Madrid, and thither the French army must betake itself. On July fourteenth Bessieres successfully overwhelmed the opposition made at Medina de Rio Seco by the Spaniards under La Cuesta and the Irish general Blake. The only corps left exposed was that of Dupont, to whom reinforcements had been promptly despatched; but the Spaniards under Castanos caught his army, now twenty-five thousand strong, in the mountain pa.s.s of La Carolina, among the Sierra Morena mountains, and on July twenty-first forced him to capitulate at Baylen, where his whole corps laid down their arms.
This was an awful blow, for Madrid was thereby rendered untenable. The Emperor gave orders to retreat behind the Duero, and directed Bessieres to keep open the connection with Junot by way of Valladolid. In fact, he began to appreciate his task, for he warned his generals against any system of cordons in dealing with such an enemy, useful as a string of posts might be in checking smugglers; and besides this change of plan, there were indications that he would himself soon take charge in Spain. There was need of this, for his generals and boy-soldiers did not stop to hold the Duero; evacuating Madrid, they never halted until they were behind the Ebro, in what they considered a kind of French borderland. The siege of Saragossa was abandoned, and Duhesme evacuated Catalonia. Junot"s situation was thus rendered most precarious, for when Wellesley landed early in August with fourteen thousand English troops, and found that the junta of Corunna had no need of him, he promptly advanced against the invaders of Portugal. Having driven in the French outposts on the seventeenth, four days later he attacked and defeated Junot at Vimeiro. At the very height of the contest, when victory seemed already secure, Burrard, a superior officer, arrived to a.s.sume command. This reduced Wellesley to the rank of an adviser, and, his advice not being taken, Junot escaped to the strong position of Cintra, whence, although entirely cut off from his base in Spain, he was able to dictate his own terms of surrender. He and all his troops had a free return by sea to France, but Portugal was to be evacuated.
Napoleon was at St. Cloud, near Paris, when the news of this disaster arrived. To some extent he was already aware of the situation. He knew that the Spaniards would not keep any stipulations they made, claiming that no faith was due to a hostile army which had entered their country under the guise of allies-an army, moreover, which stole the sacred vessels from the sanctuaries of their churches, and would not keep its promise to restore them. The letters of Joseph, who was now utterly disenchanted, had for some time been but one string of bitter complaints. He had asked the Emperor whether an end could not be made to the organized pillage of the churches, and had told him that the movement in Spain was as irrepressible as that of the French Revolution, emphasizing his hopelessness by the suggestion that if France had raised a million soldiers, Spain could probably raise at least half as many. He said, too, that men talked openly of a.s.sa.s.sinating him; that he had no friends but the scoundrels, the honest men and patriots being on the other side. "My generals," was the Emperor"s comment on this querulousness, "are a parcel of post-inspectors; the Ebro is nothing but a line; we must resume the offensive at Tudela." "I have a spot there," he said, pointing with his finger at his uniform. To calm his brother"s fears, he replied that the whole Spanish matter had been arranged long before with Russia; that Europe recognized the change as an accomplished fact; and that the priests and monks were at the bottom of all the trouble, stirring up sedition, and acting for the greedy Inquisition. "There is no question of death, but of life and victory; you shall have both.... I may find in Spain the Pillars of Hercules, but not the limits of my power." True to his old principles, Napoleon refused to "call off the thieves," as Joseph besought him, and declared that, according to the laws of war, when a town was captured under arms pillage was justifiable.
These were all brave words, but the Emperor was in the last stage of exasperation. The letters he wrote at the time betray something of the unutterable pain he felt. No one but himself could really know the difference to him: his glory was smirched, his Oriental plans and his scheme for peace with England were indefinitely postponed, his impatient ally was again put off, while Austria and Prussia were encouraged to revolt. Was the vast structure he had so laboriously erected now to fall in one crash at his feet? The news of Junot"s surrender was further embittered by the receipt of information that the Spanish troops under General La Romana, which had slyly been posted first in Hamburg, and then sent to Denmark as Bernadotte"s advance-guard, had at last revolted, and were embarking on English ships for home in order to join the movement of national redemption. By this disaster the demonstration against Sweden promised to the Czar was made impossible. This acc.u.mulation of misfortunes-defeat before Valencia, defeat before Saragossa, disaster and surrender at Baylen, disaster and disgrace at Vimeiro, retreat from Madrid, desertion of the Duero as a line of defense, exchange of the offensive for a weak defensive, and loss of the whole Iberian peninsula except the strip behind the Ebro-all this was shameful and hard to bear. Nevertheless, under favorable conditions the situation might have been retrieved. The conditions, however, were most unfavorable. The example and success of Spain were daily giving new comfort to Napoleon"s enemies both in France and abroad.
For the present, however, France might be trusted. The people as a whole had become imperial to the core. The republicans and royalists were so diminished in numbers, and so silenced by the censorship, that they were virtually impotent. The real ability of the country was no longer in retreat, but in the public service; the administration, both financial and judicial, had every appearance of solidity, and the industrial conditions were so steadily improving that the most enterprising and intelligent merchants began to have faith in the ultimate success of the Continental System as a means of securing a European monopoly to French manufactures and commerce. The perfect centralization of France kept the provinces in such close touch with Paris that there was no open expression of discontent in any part of the country. The people were not well informed as to the facts, and they were slow to apprehend the significance of what they learned. By this time the Emperor was France, and whatever he did must be well done. The gradual infusion of the military spirit into the ma.s.ses had made them pa.s.sive and obedient. There had been, they knew, some unpleasant troubles beyond the Pyrenees, but the season was not over, and before winter the Emperor"s discipline would no doubt be successful. The grand army now pouring out of Germany across France into Spain evidently meant serious business, but there could be no doubt of the result.
The court remained solemn and dull in its weary round of ceremony. The moving spirit was now occupied elsewhere, and his constant absent-mindedness made the whole structure meaningless; for it was an open secret that the soft grace and beseeching eyes, the graceful and willowy form, the exquisite taste and winning ways of Josephine would avail her no longer. The little nephew, Hortense"s son and Napoleon"s darling, his intended heir, was dead; Joseph had only daughters, and there being no male successor to the throne, reasons of state made a divorce inevitable.[25] The deference of others to the Empress and her condescension to them were but a mockery, the reality of her power having vanished. In this vain show the Emperor moved more dark and mysterious than ever. It was his will that nothing should be changed, and every courtier played his part as well as possible, the two leading actors playing theirs superbly. There was an outward display of confidence and kindness between them, which sometimes may have been real; there were quarrels, explanations, and reconciliations-a momentary return at times to old affection: but the resultant of the conflicting forces was such as to destroy conjugal trust and create general disquietude.
When Napoleon looked abroad he saw nothing to rea.s.sure him, and everything to create alarm. In Prussia there was a regeneration such as was comparable only to a new birth. The old military monarchy, under which the land had been repressed like an armed camp by its sovereigns, was gone forever. The Tugendbund, that "band of virtue" already mentioned, had ramified to the farthest borders; partizan warfare was abandoned; piety, dignity, purity, courage, and the power of organization were filling the land. The presence of the French could not quench the new spirit, but instead it added fuel to the flames of national hatred. Patriotic conventicles and every other form of secret meeting were held. Scharnhorst went steadily on with the training and reform of the army, while Stein, with a n.o.ble devotion, and under an unsympathetic master, was working to perfect his new administrative system. The churches were filled, and the hearers understood every allusion in the glowing sermons addressed to them by a devoted and patriotic clergy; schools, colleges, and universities swarmed with students, whose youthful zeal found every encouragement in the instruction of their teachers, which combined two qualities not always found united in teaching, being at the same time thoroughly scientific and highly stimulating.
At last, in August, Napoleon, who had looked and listened with deep interest, read with his own eyes in one of Stein"s intercepted letters that the minister and his colleagues were aiming at a national uprising, not of Prussia alone, but of all Germany. The ill.u.s.trious statesman, having emanc.i.p.ated the Prussian people, and having seen the reform of the whole political organism in that great land, was proceeding to extend his beneficent influence throughout all Germany. In September Napoleon demanded Stein"s dismissal, and enforced the demand by sequestrating Frederick William"s Westphalian estates, threatening at the same time to continue the French occupation of Prussia indefinitely. There was apparently no alternative, for the country, although rejuvenated, had no allies, and could not fight alone. Stein, therefore, resigned after an eventful ministry of about a year, in which he had prepared the way for every one of the changes which ultimately reconstructed Prussia.
The two movements which in Spain and Germany menaced Napoleon"s prestige were national; there were two others, which, if not that, may, by a stretch of definition, be called at least dynastic. The first was a revolution in Constantinople. The Sultan Mustapha IV had been from the beginning a feeble creature of the soldiers, who, after overthrowing Selim, had set him on the throne. Before long he became the contemptible tool of an irresponsible robber gang known as the "yamacks," who, under the guise of militia, held the Turkish capital in terror. The situation in Constantinople had finally grown unendurable even to the Turks, and the Pasha of Rustchuk appeared at the gates of the city to restore Selim III, who was still a captive in the Seraglio. When the doors of that sacred inclosure were forced open, the first object seen was the body of the murdered sovereign, killed by Mustapha in the belief that he himself was now the sole available survivor of Othman"s line. But the soldiers ransacked the palace, and dragged from his concealment the young prince Mahmud, second of the name, and destined to be a great reformer. Him they proclaimed Sultan and set upon the throne, appointing their leader grand vizir. The new government was devoted to reform, contemptuous of French influence, and determined to repress the evils which seemed to have ruined its predecessor. This severity was more than the licentious capital would endure. At once every element of discontent burst forth again,-the janizaries, the Ulema, or doctors of the sacred law, and the people,-some mistrusting one thing, others another, all alike unwilling to obey any master but their own will. Disintegration of what little administrative organization there still was, seemed imminent. The Turkish generals on the Danube began to make light of the armistice or truce of Slobozia, Napoleon"s one reliance in his Eastern designs; they actually set in motion their troops, and prepared to take the offensive against Russia. This was in the hope that, before asking a separate peace from the Czar or returning to seize the leadership at Constantinople, they might secure some military prestige as a working capital. The whole outlook seemed to foretell the extinction of French influence with the Porte and a crash in the Orient before Napoleon was ready to take advantage of it.
But the events of Bayonne had been productive of greater alarm to the house of Austria than to any other power. In the humiliation of the Hohenzollerns, Napoleon had the sanction of conquest, though, in view of Prussia"s rising strength, it was now commonly said that he had done too much or too little. While in weakening that nation he had rudely lopped the strength of an old French ally, yet he had not destroyed it, and he had exercised what all Europe still admitted to be a right-that of superior force. Austria, on the other hand, had been an old and inveterate rival of France in the race for territorial extension. Napoleon"s treatment of her after Austerlitz had been bitter, but the Hapsburgs could not plead former friendship. Here, however, was a new development in Napoleonic ambition. The successive announcements that minor ruling dynasties had ceased to reign had all been made with the partial justification of either conquest or general expediency, or, as in most cases, of both. The Spanish Bourbons had been the Emperor"s most obsequious and useful allies, obeying his behests without a question: for their degradation there was no plea either of expediency or of a right secured by conquest. The extinction of what still ranked as a great royal house was accomplished by chicane, was due to a boundless ambition, and was rendered utterly abhorrent to all divine-right dynasties by the specious pretext of reform under which it was accomplished. This gave Francis food for reflection.
In the territorial expansion of Rome her victims were first conquered, then made dependent allies, then at last destroyed, and their lands turned into Roman provinces. It appeared as if this, too, were, in general, Napoleon"s policy; but in some cases he showed himself quite willing to dispense with any intermediary stage and marched direct to his goal. Austria, already irritated by the disposition made of Etruria and by the treatment of the Pope, could endure the suspense as to her own fate no longer. Her new military system was complete, her armies were reorganized and reequipped, her administration was well ordered, her generals and statesmen were alike confident. The Emperor of the French had shown quite the same impatience with Austria in July as with Prussia in September, admonishing both to observe the Continental System with strictness; but his warning produced no effect at Vienna. On the contrary, the Viennese newspapers took a belligerent tone, and called for war; English goods poured in through the harbor of Triest; communications between the ministry at London and the cabinet at Vienna became more frequent and regular; the nation supported its monarch and a.s.sumed a warlike att.i.tude. The disasters in Spain tied Napoleon"s hands, and he did nothing in a military way except to call Davout from Poland into Silesia, and to strengthen Mortier in Franconia.
With the inconsistency of the highest greatness, Napoleon changed his whole political campaign in the twinkling of an eye, as he so often did his military ones. During the long months since the interview at Tilsit, Alexander had been kept in an agony of uncertainty, deprived of real French cooperation in regard either to Sweden or to Turkey, and actually menaced by the continued occupation of Prussia and the fortification of the strategic points in the duchy of Warsaw. Caulaincourt had found his mission of dissimulation and procrastination most difficult, partly by reason of Pozzo di Borgo"s influence, partly because the conquest of Muscovite society was a task hitherto unknown to French arts, and experience had to be dearly bought. In this latter work his success was very moderate, but he became unconsciously an intimate friend and adviser of the Czar. This displeased Napoleon, who promptly recalled him to his senses by a warning that he must not forget that he was a Frenchman. Caulaincourt bravely repelled the insinuation, but the correspondence of Napoleon both with him and with the Czar became so voluminous that the Emperor was virtually his own amba.s.sador.
The contents of these letters were partly personal and friendly; partly promissory, in preparation for what was about to be done at Bayonne; partly preliminary to the second interview between the two emperors, which had been mentioned at Tilsit and often discussed since then. But so far there was not the slightest change of front, no substantial fulfilment of the vague promises, no cooperation; the world was still under the system of Tilsit in the union of Russia and France-a union so far represented by the will of Napoleon. The events at Bayonne deeply affected Alexander. His ally knew they would, and on July tenth he wrote a long letter to St. Petersburg, lamely justifying his conduct. But, after all, the Czar cared little for ancient European dynasties, and, recovering from the first shock, he began to make sport of a king "who had nothing further to live for than his Louise and his Emmanuel," and then took a firm stand in approval of his ally"s course. The French and Russian ministers had now completed their scheme for the part.i.tion of Turkey, and the Czar finally and unconditionally a.s.sented to the second meeting with the Emperor.
But before the details of the all-important interview could be arranged there was much to be done; in particular, Austria must be held in check. An English vessel had arrived at Triest with a deputation of Spanish insurgents who offered the throne of their country to the Archduke Charles. The armaments of Francis grew stronger day by day. No one could hold the Hapsburg empire in check except the Czar. Even amid the exhausting labors of Bayonne, Napoleon remembered this, and thought of the East, reorganizing his fleet in preparation for cooperation with that of Russia, and commanding reports to be made on the geography and military history of Persia. After the loss of Baylen, of which he learned in the first days of August, his ingenuity did not desert him, in spite of his heavy heart. A swift courier was despatched on the fifth, with a letter dated back to July twenty-first, and written as if in ignorance of events in Spain. He was enjoined to outrun the ordinary news-carriers, in order that, reaching St. Petersburg before them, he might present as an offering of friendship to Alexander the promise of a virtual evacuation of Prussia-even, in certain contingencies, of Warsaw. Twenty-four hours later another messenger was despatched, conveying the bad news in the mildest form, and expressing as the Emperor"s greatest concern a hope that the Russian squadron which had been sent to Lisbon would escape, as he had rea.s.suring news from its commander. It mattered not to him that this was untrue; the end was gained, and the real significance of Baylen was thereby largely concealed from the Czar, or at least the impression made on him by the news was weakened.
Waiting for these communications to produce their effect, the Emperor forwarded a formal remonstrance to Vienna, in his own name, against Austria"s warlike att.i.tude, and two weeks later categorically demanded a similar step from the Czar, opening out once more the vista of indefinite aggrandizement for Russia in the East if only the European conflagration were not rekindled. The Czar was charmed by the promises of Napoleon, but when it came to a menacing remonstrance with Austria he hesitated. The anti-French party in Russia were now repeating, like parrots, first, Spain is annihilated, then Austria, then we ourselves. Moreover, as Alexander himself felt, arrangements like those of Tilsit are but too easily overset by unforeseen circ.u.mstances, and in such an event what would Europe be without the Hapsburgs? In the end a feeble hint, backed up by a weak menace, was sent to Vienna. Peace, wrote the Czar, is the best policy for Austria. "May not the peace of Tilsit, which I made, carry some obligations with it?" The warning produced a momentary impression in the city on the Danube.[26]
In this short interval every preparation was hastened for the interview which had now become indispensable to both parties. Napoleon had only one object-to draw the alliance closer in the eyes of all Europe for the conservation of his prestige. Alexander had several-the mitigation of Prussia"s bondage, the successful occupation of Finland, and, what was the real bond of the alliance, the part.i.tion of Turkey. This was substantially what the Czar had been promised at Tilsit, but he had not yet obtained a single item of the list then agreed upon. In spite of Caulaincourt"s caresses and Napoleon"s cajoling, he was now in a determined humor, and meant to demand the fulfilment of his ally"s engagement, not from good will, but from necessity. Talleyrand, wearied to distraction by the dull life of Valencay and the charge of the Spanish princes, had determined to regain his diplomatic power, and now began, by the agency of his many devoted friends in Paris, an extensive course of preparation for a return to public life and to influence. Through semi-official channels the Czar was informed that France, drunk with victory and conquest, now looked to his wisdom for protection from the further ambitions of her fiery ruler. Before long Alexander"s own agents began to confirm this statement. The French nation, at least the reasonable portion of it, they said, was weary of Napoleon"s imperial policy. If this were true, Spain and Austria might be used to hold France in check while Russia should work her will on the Danube. No matter now if her ally were faithless: compliance could be forced from his weakness.
This disposition had been partly foreseen by Napoleon; he was informed by Caulaincourt how steadily it was crystallizing into a fixed determination. To the observer the moment seemed critical, but the great adventurer was still able to ride the storm. Whence the impulse came is not easily determined, but he turned to Talleyrand as an agent likely to be useful in such complications. The intriguer came forward promptly, and, receiving the Caulaincourt despatches, together with a verbal explanation from the Emperor, was quickly in readiness for the duty of counselor, to which he was called. Napoleon himself a.s.sumed a lofty tone. On August fifteenth he held a levee at St. Cloud to which all the representatives of foreign powers were summoned; those of Russia and Austria stood near together. Again, as on the famous occasion before the rupture of the peace of Amiens, he uttered a public allocution in the form of a conversation; this time it was with Metternich, the Austrian amba.s.sador, and he was calmer and more courtly. Reproaching the Emperor of Austria with ingrat.i.tude, he announced his political policy; to wit, that Russia would hold Austria in check, while he and Alexander divided the East between them without reference to Francis, unless the latter should disarm and recognize Joseph as king of Spain. Tolstoi remained frigid throughout the long harangue. It was he who had declared and repeated that eventually Napoleon, having humbled Austria, would attack Russia. A fortnight earlier, in an interview with the stern old Russian, the Emperor had a.s.severated the contrary, but to no effect: Tolstoi had shown no symptoms of faith or conviction. The address to Metternich was, therefore, a second string to Napoleon"s bow in case he should fail at Erfurt to win Alexander. His general mien was undaunted and his tone loftier than ever. The tenor of his private conversation with Metternich and others was that he would rest content with what he had. Spain would no longer be a danger in the rear, Austria and Russia would be his allies, sharing in the mastery of the world, and England, the irreconcilable enemy of them all, would be finally reduced to ignominious surrender by the loss of her means of subsistence.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER XII.
Napoleon and Alexander at Erfurt.[27]
Napoleon"s Imperial Hospitality - The Interviews of Napoleon and Goethe - Meeting of Napoleon and Wieland - Their Conversation - The Gains of Russia - Dangerous Elements in the Dual League - Austria Menaced - Napoleon"s Marital Relations - Fouche"s Machinations for the Divorce of Josephine - Napoleon"s Proposal for a Russian Princess.
The second meeting of the two most powerful monarchs then living occurred at Erfurt on September twenty-seventh, and their deliberations lasted eighteen days. It was Napoleon"s greatest diplomatic engagement, and he was the victor. The town was his, and he was, of course, the host. Such splendid hospitality as he lavished would have touched a harder heart than Alexander"s. The luxury and military display were barbaric on the one hand, while, on the other, Germany"s greatest scholars and men of letters were summoned to flatter the Czar"s intellectual pretensions. There was the same exhibition, too, of frank personal confidence and of imperial magnanimity as at Tilsit. Talleyrand and the Russian chancellor, Rumianzoff, held protracted conferences, the former, as he confesses in his memoirs, plotting against his master"s interests, in order to see that Austria should suffer no harm. Day after day Napoleon and Alexander paced the floor of the great room in the palace which had been fitted as an office, examining details and bringing matters to a conclusion. There was intoxication in the very air. The kings of Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Westphalia were present with their consorts and attendant courtiers; so, too, were the Prince Primate and the minor rulers of Germany. The drawing-rooms, streets, and theaters of Erfurt were filled with the splendors of their gorgeous apparel and that of their bedizened attendants. On October fourth the "dipe" of Voltaire was given at the playhouse before the a.s.sembled courts. At the words, "A great man"s friendship is a boon from the G.o.ds," Alexander rose, and, grasping Napoleon"s hand, stood for a moment in an att.i.tude that typified a renewed alliance. The house thundered with applause.
More memorable still was the appearance on the scene of Germany"s most transcendent genius, who came to lay the homage of his intellect at the feet of him whom he considered at the moment, and long after, not only to be the greatest power, but the greatest idealist, in the world. Goethe and Napoleon met twice-once in Erfurt, once in Weimar. On both occasions it was the man of arms who sought out the man of letters-par n.o.bile fratrum. They talked of Werther and his sorrows; the Emperor appreciatively, and with a knowledge of detail. It is said that the latter took exception to some one pa.s.sage in particular; which one is not known. The poet had probably just risen from penning the "Elective Affinities," and seemed to recognize his dazzling host as a creature familiar with such ties, transcending the bounds of nations, the trammels of commonplace human limitations, the confines of ordinary thought and speech. "A great man can be recognized only by his peers," is one of Goethe"s own sentences. What to the poet were common men and the chains of political bondage, what were nations and their ambitions, in comparison with a society where mind and morals had the glorious license of Olympians and could follow the un.o.bstructed paths of inclination in realms controlled only by fancy! Napoleon"s greeting was laconic, "Vous etes un homme." This flattered Goethe, who called it the inverse "ecce h.o.m.o," and felt its allusion to his citizenship, not in Germany, but in the world. The nineteenth-century Caesar then urged the great writer to carry out an already-formed design and compose a drama on the life of his own great prototype; such a work, he was sure, would be worthier of the theme than Voltaire"s effort. At St. Cloud Napoleon had once paid a glowing eulogy to the power of tragic dramas, and, speaking of Corneille, declared that to his inspiration the French nation owed many of its finest impulses and its most brilliant deeds. "If he were here, I would make him a prince." To Goethe he now said that in art, as in politics, there should be rule and ordered beauty; apropos of the drama imitated from Shakspere, which mingles tragedy and comedy, the terrible with the burlesque, he expressed surprise that a great mind like Goethe"s did not like clean-cut models-"N"aime pas les genres tranches." These two judgments, taken together, give a valuable picture of Napoleon"s mind.
Amid the brilliant scenes arranged for the entertainment of Napoleon in the stately little town of Weimar, when surrounded by that German aristocracy which he had humbled, he summoned to his presence the man who in the two periods of his career personified first the strength and then the weakness of the German folk-the aged Wieland. Indeed, the Emperor"s conversation throughout that excursion to Weimar was chiefly of learning, as if he bowed before German knowledge, German science, German letters. He had studied much, he said, in the barracks, "when I was a young lieutenant of artillery," and his cold, piercing glance seemed to search the very hearts of the proud princes and dukes who crowded around and literally stood at his chair in domestic service. It was at the ball given by the Grand d.u.c.h.ess that he asked for Wieland. During the evening this gentle and now temperate old man had been present while the actors of the French comedy, brought among other decorative trappings from Paris, had declaimed the "Death of Caesar" from the stage of the ducal theater; he had listened to Talma"s significant utterance of the words, "Rule without violence over a conquered universe," and then, wearied by the excitement of these strange experiences, had withdrawn from further revelry. The Grand d.u.c.h.ess of Weimar, anxious to gratify her great guest, sent her carriage to fetch the author of "Oberon"; and rather than detain the ill.u.s.trious dictator, the poet started as he was, in his ordinary garments, with unpowdered hair, wearing his little skull-cap and felt shoes. The meeting was therefore most dramatic. The dancing almost ceased when Napoleon advanced to meet his visitor, for the company crowded in a wide circle to look on and catch what they might hear. But the conversation was in a low tone.
Wieland would never tell or write what was said, and we know only enough to feel that the great soldier"s words were worthy both of his genius and of the occasion. He had treated the German n.o.bility with haughtiness; this plain scholar he treated as an equal. Speaking of the ancients, and defending the Caesars against Tacitus, he discussed the rise of Christianity and emphasized the value of all religions in conserving morals. The poet replied, when needful, in broken French, but soon felt at his ease, for the Emperor seemed disposed to engross the conversation, and in the manner of the times proposed questions. "Which of your works do you prefer?" Wieland disclaimed merit for any, but, under urgency, confessed that he liked best his "Agathon" and "Oberon." Then Napoleon asked the stock query which he so often put to scholars and men of letters: "Which has been the happiest age of humanity?" "Impossible to give a reply," said the poet; "good and evil, virtue and vice, continually alternate; philosophy must emphasize the good and make the evil tolerable." "Admirable! admirable!" said Napoleon; "it is not just to paint everything dark, like Tacitus. He is certainly a skilful artist, a bold, seductive colorist, but above all he aims at effect. History wants no illusions; it should illuminate and instruct, not merely give descriptions and narratives which impress us. Tacitus did not sufficiently develop the causes and inner springs of events. He did not sufficiently study the mystery of facts and thoughts, did not sufficiently investigate and scrutinize their connection, to give posterity a just and impartial opinion. History, as I understand it, should know how to catch men and peoples as they would appear in the midst of their epoch. It should take account of external circ.u.mstances which would necessarily exercise an important influence on their actions, and clearly see within what limits that influence wrought. The Roman emperors were not so bad as Tacitus describes them. Therefore I am forced to prefer Montesquieu; he is more just, and his criticism is closer to the truth." In discussing Christianity Napoleon said: "Philosophers seek in vain a better doctrine than one which has reconciled man with himself, and has guaranteed the peace and public order of peoples, as well as the happiness and hope of individuals." The talk lasted for two hours, and the interview ended by a movement, not of Napoleon, but of Wieland himself, who seemed weary with standing. "Go, go," said the Emperor, gently. "Good-night."
Such were the scenes which unrolled themselves before the eyes of Europe. Festival succeeded festival-plays, processions, parades, hunts, b.a.l.l.s, and dinners. Onlookers sent broadcast to every quarter accounts of the millennial harmony which presided over all. Emperors, kings, princes, n.o.bles, marshals, generals, historians, scholars, poets, players, diplomatists,-the most brilliant actors on the world"s great stage,-were brought together at Erfurt in a group not often equaled. The stars of Russian decorations, the ribbons of the Legion of Honor, glittered for the first time on b.r.e.a.s.t.s like those of Goethe and Wieland, which were not accustomed to such distinctions. The dual league of emperors appeared to the world stronger and more ill.u.s.trious than before. In a sense this was true, for at the close Alexander seemed to have obtained much, if not all, that he had demanded. The two empires were still to act in unity for the reestablishment of a general peace on terms which would guarantee to France her conquests made in the south since Tilsit, and to Russia what she had secured in the east and north. Things were looking brighter for the Czar in Finland, and of the Eastern acquisitions which he so ardently desired, Wallachia and Moldavia were already within his grasp. In other words, England was to be forced into acknowledging the new order of things established by France in Spain, and into acquiescing in Russia"s seizure of Finland, Wallachia, and Moldavia. If Austria should ally herself with the Turks to defeat Russia"s aims, France would intervene for her ally, and, reciprocally, Russia would do the same in case the cabinet of Vienna should declare war against France. In any case, Francis was to be compelled to recognize the new kings of Spain and Naples under the virtual compulsion of a united summons by Russia and France. If England should again prove intractable, the two monarchs would meet a third time, and within a year, to concert further measures. These were very substantial gains for Russia, and for the time being the Franco-Russian alliance was, as it appeared to the world, mightier and firmer than it had been.
But, on the other hand, it contained now what was wanting before-active germs of dissolution. In the first place, Alexander and his ministers had shown themselves so firm that more than once there had been hot words even between the emperors, and the memories of these were a source of the increased suspicions which Alexander carried back to the Neva. The Czar had, moreover, been compelled t