These proceedings began to arouse alarm and discontent among the Spanish people; but on its Government their influence was as benumbing as that which the boa-constrictor exerts on its prey. In vain did Charles IV. and Godoy strive to set a limit to the numbers of the auxiliaries that poured across the Pyrenees to help them against fabled English expeditions. In vain did they beg that the partition of Portugal might now proceed in accordance with the terms of the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau. The King was curtly told that affairs were not yet ripe for the publication of that treaty.[185] And the growing conviction that he had been duped poured gall into the cup of family bitterness that had long been full to overflowing.

The scandalous relations of the Queen with Godoy had deeply incensed the heir to the throne, Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias. His attitude of covert opposition to his parents and their minion was strengthened by the influence of his bride, a daughter of the ex-Queen of Naples, and their palace was the headquarters of all who hoped to end the degradation of the kingdom. As later events were to prove, Ferdinand had not the qualities of courage and magnanimity that command general homage; but it was enough for his countrymen that he opposed the Court. In 1806 his consort died; and on October 11th, 1807, without consulting his father, he secretly wrote to Napoleon, requesting the hand of a Bonaparte princess in marriage, and stating that such an alliance was the ardent wish of all Spaniards, while they would abhor his union with a sister of the Princess of the Peace. To this letter Napoleon sent no reply. But Charles IV. had some inkling of the fact that the prince had been treating direct with Napoleon; and this, along with another unfilial action of the prince, furnished an excuse for a charge of high treason. It was spitefully pressed home and was revoked only on his humble request for the King's pardon.

Now, this "School for Scandal" was being played at Madrid at the time when Napoleon was arranging the partition of Portugal; and the schism in the Spanish royal House may well have strengthened his determination to end its miserable existence and give a good government to Spain. At the close of the so-called palace plot, Charles IV. informed his august ally of that frightful attempt, and begged him to give the aid of his lights and his counsels.[186] The craven-hearted King thus himself opened the door for that intervention which Napoleon had already meditated. His resolve now rapidly hardened. At the close of January, 1808, he wrote to Junot asking him: "If unexpected events occurred in Spain, what would you fear from the Spanish troops? Could you easily rid yourself of them?"[187] On February the 20th he appointed Murat, Grand Duke of Berg, to be his Lieutenant in Spain and commander of the French Forces. The choice of this bluff, headstrong cavalier, who had done so much to provoke Prussia in 1806, certainly betokened a forward policy. Yet the Emperor continued to smile on the Spanish Court, and gave a sort of half sanction to the union of Ferdinand with a daughter of Lucien Bonaparte.[188] In fact, the hope of this alliance was now used to keep quiet the numerous partisans of Ferdinand, while Murat advanced rapidly towards Madrid. To his Lieutenant the Emperor wrote (March 16th): "Continue your kindly talk. Reassure the King, the Prince of the Peace, the Prince of Asturias, the Queen. The chief thing is to reach Madrid, to rest your troops and replenish your provisions. Say that I am about to come so as to arrange matters."

As to Napoleon's real aims, Murat was in complete ignorance; and he repeatedly complained of the lack of confidence which a brother-in-law had a right to expect.[189] But while the Grand Duke of Berg beamed on the Spaniards with meaningless affability, Izquierdo, Godoy's secret agent at Paris, troubled his master with gloomy reports of the deepening reserve and lowering threats of Ministers at Paris. There was talk of requiring from Spain the cession of her lands between the Pyrenees and the Ebro: there were even dark suggestions as to the need of dethroning the Spanish Bourbons once for all. Interpreting these hints in the light of their own consciences, the King, Queen, and favourite saw themselves in imagination flung forth into the Atlantic, a butt to the scorn of mankind; and they prepared to flee to the New World betimes, with the needful treasure.

But there, too, Napoleon forestalled them. On February 21st a secret order was sent to a French squadron to anchor off Cadiz and stop the King and Queen of Spain if they sought to "repeat the scene of Lisbon."[190] Their escape to America would be even more favourable to England than the flight of the Court of Lisbon had been; and Napoleon took good care that the King, to whom he had awarded the title of Emperor of the two Americas, should remain a prisoner in Europe. Scared, however, by the approach of Murat and the news from Paris, Charles still prepared for flight; and the Queen's anxiety to save her favourite from the growing fury of the populace also bent her desires seawards.

The Court was at the palace of Aranjuez, not far from Madrid, and it seemed easy to escape into Andalusia, and to carry away, by guile or by force, the heir to the throne. But Ferdinand, who hoped for deliverance at the hands of the French, thwarted the scheme by a timely hint to his faithful guards. At once his partisans gathered round him; and the people, rushing to Godoy's residence, madly ransacked it in the hope of tearing to pieces the author of the nation's ruin. After thirty-six hours' concealment, Godoy ventured to steal forth; at once he was discovered, was kicked and beaten; and only the intervention of Ferdinand, prompted by the agonized entreaties of his mother, availed to save the dregs of that wretched life. The roars of the crowd around the palace, and the smashing of the royal carriage, now decided the King to abdicate; and he declared that his declining years and failing health now led him to yield the crown to Ferdinand (March 19th, 1808).

Loud was the acclaim that greeted the young King when he entered Madrid; but the rejoicings were soon damped by the ambiguous behaviour of Murat, who, on entering Madrid at the head of his troops, skilfully evaded any recognition of Ferdinand as King. In fact, Murat had received (March 21st) a letter from Charles IV.'s daughter begging for his help to her parents at Aranjuez; and it soon transpired that the ex-King and Queen now repented of their abdication, which they represented as brought about by force and therefore null and void. The Grand Duke of Berg saw the advantage which this dispute might give to Napoleon; and he begged the Emperor to come immediately to Madrid for the settlement of matters on which he alone could decide. To this Napoleon replied (March 30th) commending his Lieutenant's prudence, and urging him to escort Charles IV. to the Escurial as King, while Godoy was also to be protected and sent to Bayonne.

To this town the Emperor set out on April the 2nd, as though he would thence proceed to Madrid. Ferdinand, meanwhile, was treated with guarded courtesy that kept alive his hope of an alliance with a French princess. To favour this notion, Napoleon despatched the wariest of his agents, Savary, who artfully persuaded him to meet the Emperor at Burgos. He succeeded, and even induced him to continue his journey to Vittoria. At that place the citizens sought to cut the traces of the royal carriage, so much did they fear treachery if he proceeded further. Yet the young King, beguiled by the Emperor's letter of April 16th, which offered the hand of a French princess, prolonged his journey, crossed the frontier, and was received by Napoleon at Bayonne (April 20th). His arguments, proving that his father's abdication had been voluntary, fell on deaf ears. The Emperor invited him to dinner, and afterwards sent Savary to inform him that he must hand back the crown to his father. To this Ferdinand returned a firm refusal; and his advisers, Escoiquiz and Labrador, ventured to warn the Emperor that the Spaniards would swear eternal hatred to France if he tampered with the crown of Spain. Napoleon listened good-humouredly, pulled Escoiquiz by the ear as a sign of his personal regard, and added: "You are a deep fellow; but, I tell you, the Bourbons will never let me alone." On the next day he offered Ferdinand the throne of Etruria. It was coldly declined.[191]

Charles IV., his Queen, and Godoy, arrived at Bayonne at the close of April. The ex-King had offered to put himself and his claim in Napoleon's hands, which was exactly what the Emperor desired. The feeble creature now poured forth his bile on his disobedient son, and peevishly bade him restore the crown. Ferdinand assented, provided his father would really reign, and would dismiss those advisers who were hated by the nation; but the attempt to impose conditions called forth a flash of senile wrath, along with the remark that "one ought to do everything for the people and nothing by the people."

Meanwhile the men of Madrid were not acting with the passivity desired by their philosophizing monarch. At first they had welcomed Murat as delivering them from the detested yoke of Godoy; but the conduct of the French in their capital, and the detention of Ferdinand at Bayonne, aroused angry feelings, which burst forth on May the 2nd, and long defied the grapeshot of Murat's guns and the sabres of his troopers. The news of this so-called revolt gave Napoleon another handle against his guests. He hurried to Charles and cowed him by well-simulated signs of anger, which that roi faineant thereupon vented on his son, with a passion that was outdone only by the shrill gibes of the Queen. At the close of this strange scene, the Emperor interposed with a few stern words, threatening to treat the prince as a rebel if he did not that very evening restore the crown to his father. Ferdinand braved the parental taunts in stolid silence, but before the trenchant threats of Napoleon he quailed, and broke down.

Resistance was now at an end. On that same night (May 5th) the Emperor concluded with Godoy a convention whereby Charles IV. agreed to hand over to Napoleon the crowns of Spain and the Indies, on consideration that those dominions should remain intact, should keep the Roman Catholic faith to the exclusion of all others, and that he himself should be pensioned off with the estates of Compiegne and Chambord, receiving a yearly income of seven and a half million francs, payable by the French treasury. The Spanish princes were similarly treated, Ferdinand signing away his rights for a castle and a pension. To crown the farce, Napoleon ordered Talleyrand to receive them at his estate of Valencay, and amuse them with actors and the charms of female society. Thus the choicest humorist of the age was told off to entertain three uninteresting exiles; and the ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs, who disapproved of the treachery of Bayonne, was made to appear the Emperor's accomplice.

Such were the means whereby Napoleon gained the crowns of Spain and the Indies, without striking a blow.

His excuse for the treachery as expressed at the time was as follows: "My action is not good from a certain point of view, I know. But my policy demands that I shall not leave in my rear, so near to Paris, a dynasty hostile to mine." From this and from other similar remarks, it would seem that his resolve to dethrone the Bourbons was taken while on his march to Jena, but was thrust down into the abyss of his inscrutable will for a whole year, until Junot's march to Lisbon furnished a safe means for effecting the subjugation of Spain. This end he thenceforth pursued unswervingly with no sign of remorse, or even of hesitation—unless we accept as genuine the almost certainly spurious letter of March 29th, 1808. That letter represents him as blaming Murat for entering Madrid, when he had repeatedly urged him to do so; as asking his advice after he had all along kept him in ignorance as to his aims; and as writing a philosophical homily on the unused energies of the Spanish people, for whom in his genuine letters he expressed a lofty contempt.[192]

The whole enterprise is, indeed, a masterpiece of skill, but a masterpiece marred by ineffaceable stains of treachery. And at the close of his life, he himself said: "I embarked very badly on the Spanish affair, I confess: the immorality of it was too patent, the injustice too cynical, and the whole thing wears an ugly look since I have fallen; for the attempt is only seen in its hideous nakedness deprived of all majesty and of the many benefits which completed my intention."

That he hoped to reform Spain is certain. Political and social reforms had hitherto consolidated the work of conquest; and those which he soon offered to the Spaniards might possibly have renovated that nation, had they not been handed in at the sword's point; but the motive was too obvious, the intervention too insulting, to render success possible with the most sensitive people in Europe. On May 2nd he wrote to Murat that he intended King Joseph of Naples to reign at Madrid, and offered to Murat either Portugal or Naples.[193] He chose the latter. Joseph was allowed no choice in the matter. He was summoned from Naples to Bayonne, and, on arriving at Pau, heard with great surprise that he was King of Spain.

Napoleon's selection was tactful. At Naples, the eldest of the Bonapartes had effected many reforms and was generally popular; but the treachery of Bayonne blasted all hopes of his succeeding at Madrid. Though the grandees of Spain welcomed the new monarch with courtly grace, though Charles IV. gave him his blessing, though Ferdinand demeaned himself by advising his former subjects quietly to submit, the populace willed otherwise.

Every instinct of the Spanish nature was aflame with resentment. Loathing for Charles IV., his Queen, and their favourite, whom Napoleon richly dowered, love of the young King whom he falsely filched away, detestation of the French troops who outraged the rights of hospitality, and zeal for the Roman Catholic Church, whose chief had just been robbed of half his States, goaded the Spaniards to madness. Their indignation rumbled hoarsely for a time, like a volcano in labour, and then burst forth in an explosion of fury. The constitution which Napoleon presented to the Spanish Notables at Bayonne was accepted by them, only to be flung back with scorn by the people. The men of enlightenment who counselled prudence and patience were slain by raging mobs or sought safety in flight. The rising was at once national in its grand spontaneity and local in its intensity. Province after province rose in arms, except the north and centre, where 80,000 French troops held the patriots in check. In the van of the movement was the rugged little province of Asturias, long ago the forlorn hope of the Christians in their desperate conflicts with the Moors. Intrenched behind their mountains and proud of their ancient fame, the Asturians ventured on the sublime folly of declaring war against the ruler of the West and the lord of 900,000 warriors. Swiftly Galicia and Leon in the north repeated the challenge; while in the south, the fertile lands of Andalusia, Murcia, and Valencia flashed back from their mountains the beacon lights of a national war. The former dislike of England was forgotten. The Juntas of Asturias, Galicia, and Andalusia sent appeals to us for help, to which Canning generously responded; and, on July 4th, we passed at a single bound from war with the Spanish Bourbons to an informal alliance with the people of Spain.

Napoleon now began to see the magnitude of his error. Instead of gaining control over Spain and the Indies, he had changed long-suffering allies into irreconcilable foes. He prepared to conquer Spain. While Joseph was escorted to his new capital by a small army, Napoleon from Bayonne directed the operations of his generals. Holding the northern road from Bayonne to Burgos and Madrid, they were to send out cautious feelers against the bands of insurgents; for, as Napoleon wrote to Savary (July 13th): "In civil wars it is the important posts that must be held: one ought not to go everywhere." Weighty words, which his lieutenants in Spain were often to disregard! Bessieres in the north gained a success at Medina de Rio Seco; but a signal disaster in the south ruined the whole campaign. Dupont, after beating the levies of Andalusia, penetrated into the heart of that great province, and, when cumbered with plunder, his divided forces were surrounded, cut off from their supplies, and forced to surrender at Baylen—in all about 20,000 men (July 19th). The news that a French army had laid down its arms caused an immense sensation in an age when Napoleon's troops were held to be invincible. Baylen was hailed everywhere by despairing patriots as the dawn of a new era. And such it was to be. If Valmy proclaimed the advent of militant democracy, the victory of Spaniards over one of the bravest of Napoleon's generals was felt to be an even greater portent. It ushered in the epoch of national resistance to the overweening claims of the Emperor of the West.

That truth he seems dimly to have surmised. His rage on hearing of the capitulation was at first too deep for words. Then he burst out: "Could I have expected that from Dupont, a man whom I loved, and was rearing up to become a Marshal? They say he had no other way to save the lives of his soldiers. Better, far better, to have died with arms in their hands. Their death would have been glorious: we should have avenged them. You can always supply the place of soldiers. Honour alone, when once lost, can never be regained."

Moreover, the material consequences were considerable. The Spaniards speedily threatened Madrid; and, on the advice of Savary, Joseph withdrew from his capital after a week's sojourn, and fell back hurriedly on the line of the Upper Ebro, where the French rallied for a second advance.

Their misfortunes did not end here. In the north-east the hardy Catalans had risen against the invaders, and by sheer pluck and audacity cooped them up in their ill-gotten strongholds of Barcelona and Figueras. The men of Arragon, too, never backward in upholding their ancient liberties, rallied to defend their capital Saragossa. Their rage was increased by the arrival of Palafox, who had escaped in disguise from the suite of Ferdinand at Bayonne, and brought news of the treachery there perpetrated. Beaten outside their ancient city, and unable to hold its crumbling walls against the French cannon and columns of assault, the defenders yet fiercely turned to bay amidst its narrow lanes and massive monasteries. There a novel warfare was waged. From street to street and house to house the fight eddied for days, the Arragonese opposing to French valour the stubborn devotion ever shown by the peoples of the peninsula in defence of their walled cities, and an enthusiasm kindled by the zeal of their monks and the heroism of the Maid of Saragossa. Finally, on August 10th, the noble city shook off the grip of the 15,000 assailants, who fell back to join Joseph's forces higher up the Ebro.

Even now the Emperor did not fully realize the serious nature of the war that was beginning. Despite Savary's warnings of the dangers to be faced in Spain, he persisted in thinking of it as an ordinary war that could be ended by good strategy and a few victories. He censured Joseph and Savary for giving up the line of the Upper Douro: he blamed them next for the evacuation of Tudela, and summed up the situation by stating that "all the Spanish forces are not able to overthrow 25,000 French in a reasonable position"—adding, with stinging satire: "In war men are nothing: it is a man who is everything."

When, at the close of August, Napoleon penned these memorable words in his palace of St. Cloud, he knew not that a man had arrived on the scene of action. At the beginning of that month, Sir Arthur Wellesley with a British force of 12,300 men landed at the mouth of the River Mondego, and, aided by Portuguese irregulars, began his march on Lisbon. This is not the place for a review of the character and career of our great warrior: in truth, a volume would be too short for the task. With fine poetic insight, Lord Tennyson has noted in his funeral Ode the qualities that enabled him to overcome the unexampled difficulties caused by our own incompetent Government and by jealous, exacting, and slipshod allies:

"Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute, Whole in himself, a common good."

Glory and vexation were soon to be his. On the 17th he drove the French vanguard from Rolica; and when, four days later, Junot hurried up with all his force, the British inflicted on that presumptuous leader a signal defeat at Vimiero. So bad were Junot's tactics that his whole force would have been cut off from Torres Vedras, had not Wellesley's senior officer, Sir Harry Burrard, arrived just in time to take over the command and stop the pursuit. Thereupon Wellesley sarcastically exclaimed to his staff: "Gentlemen, nothing now remains to us but to go and shoot red-legged partridges." The peculiarities of our war administration were further seen in the supersession of Burrard by Sir Hew Dalrymple, whose chief title to fame is his signing of the Convention of Cintra.

By this strange compact the whole of Junot's force was to be conveyed from Portugal to France on British ships, while the Russian squadron blockaded in the Tagus was to be held by us in pledge till the peace, the crews being sent on to Russia. The convention itself was violently attacked by the English public; but it has found a defender in Napier, who dwells on the advantages of getting the French at once out of Portugal, and thus providing a sure base for the operations in Spain. Seeing, however, that Junot's men were demoralized by defeat, and that the nearest succouring force was in Navarre, these excuses seem scarcely tenable, except on the ground that, with such commanders as Burrard and Dalrymple, it was certainly desirable to get the French speedily away.

On his side, Napoleon showed much annoyance at Junot's acceptance of this convention, and remarked: "I was about to send Junot to a council of war: but happily the English got the start of me by sending their generals to one, and thus saved me from the pain of punishing an old friend." With his customary severity to those who had failed, he frowned on all the officers of the Army of Portugal, and, on landing in France, they were strictly forbidden to come to Paris. The fate of Dupont and of his chief lieutenants, who were released by the Spaniards, was even harder: on their return they were condemned to imprisonment. By such means did Napoleon exact the uttermost from his troops, even in a service so detested as that in Spain ever was.[194]

Despite the blunderings of our War Office, the silly vapourings of the Spaniards, and the insane quarrels of their provincial juntas about precedence and the sharing of English subsidies, the summer of 1808 saw Napoleon's power stagger under terrible blows. Not only did he lose Spain and Portugal and the subsidies which they had meekly paid, but most of the 15,000 Spanish troops which had served him on the shores of the Baltic found means to slip away on British ships and put a backbone into the patriotic movements in the north of Spain. But worst of all was the loss of that moral strength, which he himself reckoned as three-fourths of the whole force in war. Hitherto he had always been able to marshal the popular impulse on his side. As the heir to the Revolution he had appealed, and not in vain, to the democratic forces which he had hypnotized in France but sought to stir up in his favour abroad. Despite the efforts of Czartoryski and Stein to tear the democratic mask from his face, it imposed on mankind until the Spanish Revolution laid bare the truth; and at St. Helena the exile gave his own verdict on the policy of Bayonne: "It was the Spanish ulcer which ruined me."

NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION.—For a careful account of the Convention of Cintra in its military and political aspects, see Mr. Oman's recently published "History of the Peninsular War," vol. i., pp. 268-278, 291-300. I cannot, however, agree with the learned author that that Convention was justifiable on military grounds, after so decisive a victory as Vimiero.

* * * * *



CHAPTER XXIX

ERFURT

"At bottom the great question is—who shall have Constantinople?"—NAPOLEON, May 31st, 1808.

The Spanish Rising made an immense rent in Napoleon's plans. It opened valuable markets for British goods both in the Peninsula and in South and Central America, and that too at the very time when the Continental System was about to enfold us in its deadly grip.[195] And finally it disarranged schemes that reached far beyond Europe. To these we must now briefly recur.

Even amidst his greatest military triumphs Napoleon's gaze turned longingly towards the East; and no sooner did he force peace on the conquered than his thoughts centred once more on his navy and colonies, on Egypt and India. The Treaty of Tilsit gave him leisure to renew these designs. The publication in 1807 of his official Atlas of Australia, in which he claimed nearly half that continent for France, proves that he never accepted Trafalgar as a death-blow to his maritime and colonial aspirations. And the ardour of his desire for the conquest of India is seen in the letter which he wrote to the Czar on February 2nd, 1808. After expressing his desire for the glory and expansion of Russia, and advising the Czar to conquer Finland, he proceeds:

"An army of 50,000 men, Russians, French, and perhaps a few Austrians, that penetrated by way of Constantinople into Asia, would not reach the Euphrates before England would tremble and bow the knee before the Continent. I am ready in Dalmatia. Your Majesty is ready on the Danube. A month after we came to an agreement the army could be on the Bosporus.... By the 1st of May our troops can be in Asia, and at the same time those of Your Majesty, at Stockholm. Then the English, threatened in the Indies, and chased from the Levant, will be crushed under the weight of events with which the atmosphere will be charged."[196]

There were several reasons why Napoleon should urge on this scheme. He was irritated by the continued resistance of Great Britain, and thought to terrify us into surrender by means of those oriental enterprises which convinced our statesmen that we must fight on for dear life. He also desired to restore the harmony of his relations with Alexander. For, in truth, the rapturous harmonies of Tilsit had soon been marred by discord. Alexander did not withdraw his troops from the Danubian provinces; whereupon Napoleon declined to evacuate Silesia; and the friction resulting from this wary balancing of interests was increased, when, at the close of 1807, a formal proposal was sent from Paris that, if Russia retained those provinces, Silesia should be at the disposal of France.[197] The dazzling vistas opened up to Alexander's gaze at Tilsit were thus shrouded by a sordid and distasteful bargain, which he hotly repelled. To repair this false step, Napoleon now wrote the alluring letter quoted above; and the Czar exclaimed on perusing it: "Ah, this is the language of Tilsit."

Yet, it may be questioned whether Napoleon desired to press on an immediate partition of the Ottoman Power. His letter invited the Czar to two great enterprises, the conquest of Finland and the invasion of Persia and India. The former by itself was destined to tax Russia's strength. Despite Alexander's offer of a perpetual guarantee for the Finnish constitution and customs, that interesting people opposed a stubborn resistance. Napoleon must also have known that Russia's forces were then wholly unequal to the invasion of India; and his invitation to Alexander to engage in two serious enterprises certainly had the effect of postponing the partition of Turkey. Delay was all in his favour, if he was to gain the lion's share of the spoils. Russian troops were ready on the banks of the Danube; but he was not as yet fully prepared. His hold on Dalmatia, Ragusa, and Corfu was not wholly assured. Sicily and Malta still defied him; and not until he seized Sicily could he gain the control of the Mediterranean—"the constant aim of my policy." Only when that great sea had become a French lake could he hope to plant himself firmly in Albania, Thessaly, Greece, Crete, Egypt, and Syria.

For the present, then, the Czar was beguiled with the prospect of an eastern expedition; and, while Russian troops were overrunning Finland, Napoleon sought to conquer Sicily and reduce Spain to the rank of a feudatory State. From this wider point of view, he looked on the Iberian Peninsula merely as a serviceable base for a greater enterprise, the conquest of the East. This is proved by a letter that he wrote to Decres, Minister of Marine and of the Colonies, from Bayonne on May 17th, 1808, when the Spanish affair seemed settled: "There is not much news from India. England is in great penury there, and the arrival of an expedition [from France] would ruin that colony from top to bottom. The more I reflect on this step, the less inconvenience I see in taking it." Two days later he wrote to Murat that money must be found for naval preparations at the Spanish ports: "I must have ships, for I intend striking a heavy blow towards the end of the season." But at the close of June he warned Decres that as Spanish affairs were going badly, he must postpone his design of despatching a fleet far from European waters.[198]

Spain having proved to be, not a meek purveyor of fleets, but a devourer of French armies, there was the more need of a close accord with the Czar. Napoleon desired, not only to assure a further postponement of the Turkish enterprise, but also to hold Austria and Germany in check. The former Power, seeing Napoleon in difficulties, pushed on apace her military organization; and Germany heaved with suppressed excitement at the news of the Spanish Rising. The dormant instinct of German nationality had already shown signs of awakening. In the early days of 1808 the once cosmopolitan philosopher, Fichte, delivered at Berlin within sound of the French drums his "Addresses to the German Nation," in which he dwelt on the unquenchable strength of a people that determined at all costs to live free.

On the philosopher's theme the Spaniards now furnished a commentary written with their life-blood. Thinkers and soldiers were alike moved by the stories of Baylen and Saragossa. Varnhagen von Ense relates how deep was the excitement of the quaint sage, Jean Paul Richter, who "doubted not that the Germans would one day rise against the French as the Spaniards had done, and that Prussia would revenge its insults and give freedom to Germany.... I proved to him how hollow and weak was Napoleon's power: how deeply rooted was the opposition to it. The Spaniards were the refrain to everything, and we always returned to them."

The beginnings of a new civic life were then being laid in Prussia by Stein. Called by the King to be virtually a civic dictator, this great statesman carried out the most drastic reforms. In October, 1807, there appeared at Memel the decrees of emancipation which declared the abolition of serfdom with all its compulsory and menial services. The old feudal society was further invigorated by the admission of all classes to the holding of land or to any employment, while trade monopolies were similarly swept away. Municipal self-government gave new zest and energy to civic life; and the principle that the army "ought to be the union of all the moral and physical energies of the nation" was carried out by the military organizer Scharnhorst, who conceived and partly realized the idea that all able-bodied men should serve their time with the colours and then be drafted into a reserve. This military reform excited Napoleon's distrust, and he forced the King to agree by treaty (September, 1808) that the Prussian army should never exceed 42,000 men, a measure which did not hinder the formation of an effective reserve, and was therefore complied with to the letter, if not in spirit.

In fact, in the previous month a plan of a popular insurrection had been secretly discussed by Stein, Scharnhorst, and other patriotic Ministers. The example of the Spaniards was everywhere to be followed, and, if Austria sent forth her legions on the Danube and England helped in Hanover, there seemed some prospect of shaking off the Napoleonic yoke. The scheme miscarried, and largely owing to the interception of a letter in which Stein imprudently referred to the exasperation of public feeling in Germany and the lively hope excited by the events in Spain and the preparations of Austria. Napoleon caused the letter to be printed in the "Moniteur" of September 8th, and sequestered Stein's property in Westphalia. He also kept his grip on Prussia; for while withdrawing most of his troops from that exhausted land, he retained French garrisons in Stettin, Glogau, and Kuestrin. Holding these fortresses on the strong defensive line of the Oder, he might smile at the puny efforts of Prussian patriots and hope speedily to crush the Spanish rebels, provided he could count on the loyal support of Alexander in holding Austria in check.

To gain this support and to clear away the clouds that bulked on their oriental horizon, Napoleon urgently desired an interview with his ally. For some months it had been proposed; but the Spanish Rising and the armaments of Austria made it essential.

The meeting took place at Erfurt (September 27th). The Thuringian city was ablaze with uniforms, and the cannon thundered salvoes of welcome as the two potentates and their suites entered the ancient walls and filed through narrow streets redolent of old German calm, an abode more suited to the speculations of a Luther than to the world-embracing schemes of the Emperors of the West and East. With them were their chief warriors and Ministers, personages who now threw into the shade the new German kings. There, too, were the lesser German princes, some of them to grace the Court of the man who had showered lands and titles on them, others to hint a wish for more lands and higher titles. In truth, the title of king was tantalizingly common; and if we may credit a story of the time, the French soldiery had learnt to despise it. For, on one occasion, when the guard of honour, deceived by the splendour of the King of Wuertemberg's chariot, was about to deliver the triple salute accorded only to the two Emperors, the officer in command angrily exclaimed: "Be quiet: it's only a king."

The Emperors at Erfurt devoted the mornings to personal interviews, the afternoons to politics, the evenings to receptions and the theatre. The actors of the Comedie Francaise had been brought from Paris, and played to the Emperors and a parterre of princes the masterpieces of the French stage, especially those which contained suitable allusions. A notable incident occurred on the recital of the line in the "Oedipe" of Voltaire:

"L'amitie d'un grand homme est un bienfait des dieux."

As if moved by a sudden inspiration, Alexander arose and warmly pressed the hand of Napoleon, who was then half-dozing at his side.[199] On the surface, indeed, everything was friendship and harmony. With urbane facility, the Czar accompanied his ally to the battlefield of Jena, listened to the animated description of the victor, and then joined in the chase in a forest hard by.

But beneath these brilliant shows there lurked suspicions and fears. Alexander was annoyed that Napoleon retained French garrisons in the fortresses on the Oder and claimed an impossible sum as indemnity from Prussia. This was not the restoration of Prussia's independence, for which he, Alexander, had pleaded; and while the French eagles were at Kuestrin, the Russian frontier could not be deemed wholly safe.[200] Then again the Czar had been secretly warned by Talleyrand against complaisance to the French Emperor. "Sire, what are you coming here for? It is for you to save Europe, and you will only succeed in that by resisting Napoleon. The French are civilized, their sovereign is not. The sovereign of Russia is civilized, her people are not. Therefore the sovereign of Russia must be the ally of the French people."[201] We may doubt whether this symmetrical proposition would have had much effect, if Alexander had not received similar warnings from his own ambassador at Paris; and it would seem that too much importance has been assigned to what is termed Talleyrand's treachery at Erfurt.[202] Affairs of high policy are determined, not so much by the logic of words as by the sterner logic of facts. Ever since Tilsit, Napoleon had been prodigal of promises to his ally, but of little else. The alluring visions set forth in his letter of February 2nd were as visionary as ever; and Romantzoff expressed the wish of his countrymen in his remark to Champagny: "We have come to Erfurt to set a limit to this conduct." It was evident that if Napoleon had his way completely, the partition of Turkey would take place at the time and in the manner desired by him; this the Czar was determined to prevent, and therefore turned a deaf ear to his ally's proposal that they should summon Austria to explain her present ambiguous behaviour and frankly to recognize Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain. If Austria put a stop to her present armaments, the supremacy of Napoleon in Central Europe would be alarmingly great. Clearly it was not to Russia's interest to weaken the only buffer-state that remained between her and the Empire of the West.

These fears were quietly fed by a special envoy of the Court of Vienna, Baron Vincent, who brought complimentary notes to the two Emperors and remained to feel the pulse of European policy. It boded peace for Austria for the present. Despite Napoleon's eager arguments that England would never make peace until Austria accepted the present situation in Spain, Alexander quietly but firmly refused to take any steps to depress the Hapsburg Power. The discussions waxed warm; for Napoleon saw that, unless the Court of Vienna were coerced, England would persist in aiding the Spanish patriots; and Alexander showed an unexpected obstinacy. Napoleon's plea, that peace could only be assured by the entire discouragement of England, Austria, and the Spanish "rebels," had no effect on him: in fact, he began to question the sincerity of a peacemaker whose methods were war and intimidation. Finding arguments useless, Napoleon had recourse to anger. At the end of a lively discussion, he threw his cap on the ground and stamped on it. Alexander stopped, looked at him with a meaning smile, and said quietly: "You are violent: as for me, I am obstinate: anger gains nothing from me: let us talk, let us reason, or I go." He moved towards the door, whereupon Napoleon called him back—and they reasoned.

It was of no avail. Though Alexander left his ally a free hand in Spain, he refused to join him in a diplomatic menace to Austria; and Napoleon saw that "those devilish Spanish affairs" were at the root of this important failure, which was to cost him the war on the Danube in the following year.

As a set-off to this check, he disappointed Alexander respecting Prussia and Turkey. He refused to withdraw his troops from the fortresses on the Oder, and grudgingly consented to lower his pecuniary claims on Prussia from 140,000,000 francs to 120,000,000. Towards the Czar's Turkish schemes he showed little more complaisance. After sharp discussions it was finally settled that Russia should gain the Danubian provinces, but not until the following year. France renounced all mediation between Alexander and the Porte, but required him to maintain the integrity of all the other Turkish possessions, which meant that the partition of Turkey was to be postponed until it suited Napoleon to take up his oriental schemes in earnest. The golden visions of Tilsit were thus once more relegated to a distant future, and the keenness of the Czar's disappointment may be measured by his striking statement quoted by Caulaincourt in one of his earlier reports from St. Petersburg: "Let the world be turned upside down provided that Russia gains Constantinople and the Dardanelles."[203]

The Erfurt interview left another hidden sore. It was there that the divorce from Josephine was officially discussed, with a view to a more ambitious alliance. Persistent as the rumours of a divorce had been for seven years past, they seem to have emanated, not from the husband, but from jealous sisters-in-law, intriguing relatives, and officious Ministers. To the most meddlesome of these satellites, Fouche, who had ventured to suggest to Josephine the propriety of sacrificing herself for the good of the State, Napoleon had lately administered a severe rebuke. But now he caused Talleyrand and Caulaincourt to sound the Czar as to the feasibility of an alliance with one of his sisters. The response was equally vague and discreet. Alexander expressed his gratification at the friendship which proffered such a request and his desire for the founding of a Napoleonic House. Further than this he did not go: and eight days after his return to St. Petersburg his only marriageable sister, Catherine, was affianced to the heir to the Duchy of Oldenburg. This event, it is true, was decided by the Dowager Empress; but no one, least of all Napoleon, could harbour any doubts as to its significance.

In truth, Napoleon's chief triumphs at Erfurt were social and literary. His efforts to dazzle German princes and denationalize two of her leading thinkers were partly successful. Goethe and Wieland bowed before his greatness. To the former Napoleon granted a lengthy interview. He flattered the aged poet at the outset by the words, "You are a man": he then talked about several works in a way that Goethe thought very just; and he criticised one passage of the poet's youthful work, "Werther," as untrue to nature, with which Goethe agreed. On Voltaire's "Mahomet" he heaped censure, for its unworthy portraiture of the conqueror of the East and its ineffective fatalism. "These pieces belong to an obscure age. Besides, what do they mean with their fatalism? Politics is fatalism." The significance of this saying was soon to be emphasized, so that misapprehension was impossible. After witnessing Voltaire's "La Mort de Cesar," Napoleon suggested that the poet ought to write a tragedy in a grander style than Voltaire's, so as to show how the world would have benefited if the great Roman had had time to carry out his vast plans.

Finally, Goethe was invited to come to Paris, where he would find abundant materials for his poetic creations. Fortunately, Goethe was able to plead his age in excuse; and the world was therefore spared the sight of a great genius saddled with an imperial commission and writing a Napoleonized version of Caesar's exploits and policy. But the pressing character of the invitation reveals the Emperor's dissatisfaction with his French poetasters and his intention to denationalize German literature. He had a dim perception that Teutonic idealism was a dangerous foe, inasmuch as it kept alive the sense of nationality which he was determined to obliterate. He was right. The last and most patriotic of Schiller's works, "Wilhelm Tell," the impassioned discourses of Fichte, the efforts of the new patriotic league, the Tugendbund, and last, but not least, the memory of the murdered Palm, all these were influences that baffled bayonets and diplomacy. Conquer and bargain as he might, he could not grapple with the impalpable forces of the era that was now dawning. The younger generation throbbed responsive to the teachings of Fichte, the appeals of Stein, and the exploits of the Spaniards; it was blind to the splendours of Erfurt: and it heard with grief, but with no change of conviction, that Goethe and Wieland had accepted from Napoleon the cross of the Legion of Honour, and that too on the anniversary of the Battle of Jena.

After thus finally belittling the two poets, he shot a parting shaft at German idealism in his farewell to the academicians. He bade them beware of idealogues as dangerous dreamers and disguised materialists. Then, raising his voice, he exclaimed: "Philosophers plague themselves with weaving systems: they will never find a better one than Christianity, which, reconciling man with himself, also assures public order and repose. Your idealogues destroy every illusion; and the time of illusions is for peoples and individuals alike the time of happiness. I carry one away, that you will think kindly of me." He then mounted his carriage and drove away to Paris to resume his conquest of Spain.[204]

The last diplomatic proceeding at Erfurt was the drawing up of a secret convention which assigned Finland and the Danubian Provinces to Russia, and promised Russia's help to Napoleon in case Austria should attack him. The Czar also recognized Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain and joined Napoleon in a joint note to George III. summoning him to make peace. On the same day (October 12th) that note was drawn up and despatched to London. In reply, Canning stated our willingness to treat for peace, provided that it should include all parties: that, although bound by no formal treaty to Ferdinand VII. and the Spanish people, yet we felt ourselves none the less pledged to them, and presumed that they, as well as our other allies, would be admitted to the negotiations. Long before this reply reached Paris, Napoleon had left for Spain. But on November 19th, he charged Champagny to state that the Spanish rebels could no more be admitted than the Irish insurgents: as for the other parties to the dispute he would not refuse to admit "either the King reigning in Sweden, or the King reigning in Sicily, or the King reigning in Brazil." This insulting reply sufficiently shows the insincerity of his overtures and the peculiarity of his views of monarchy. The Spaniards were rebels because they refused to recognize the forced abdication of their young King; and the rulers of Sweden, Naples and Portugal, were Kings as long as it suited Napoleon to tolerate them, and no longer. It is needless to add that our Government refused to desert the Spaniards; and in his reply to St. Petersburg, Canning expressed George III.'s deep regret that Alexander should sanction

"An usurpation unparalleled in the history of the world.... If these be the principles to which the Emperor of Russia has inviolably attached himself ... deeply does His Majesty [George III.] lament a determination by which the sufferings of Europe must be aggravated and prolonged. But not to His Majesty is to be attributed the continuance of the calamities of war, by the disappointment of all hope of such a peace as would be compatible with justice and honour."[205]

No open-minded person can peruse the correspondence on this subject without concluding that British policy, if lacking the breadth, grip and finesse that marked that of France and Russia, yet possessed the sterling merits of manly truthfulness and staunch fidelity. The words quoted above were the words of Canning, but the spirit that animated them was that of George III. His storm-tossed life was now verging towards the dread bourne of insanity; but it was given to him to make this stern yet half-pleading appeal to the Czar's better nature. And who shall say that the example of constancy which the aged King displayed amidst the gathering gloom of his public and private life did not ultimately bear fruit in the later and grander phase of Alexander's character and career?

Meanwhile Napoleon was bursting through the Spanish defence. The patriots, puffed up with their first successes, had been indulging in dreams of an invasion of France; and their provincial juntas quarrelled over the sharing of the future spoils as over the apportionment of English arms and money. Their awakening was terrible. With less than 90,000 raw troops they were attacked by 250,000 men led by the greatest warrior of the age. Everywhere they were routed, and at a last fight at the pass over the Somosierra mountain, the superiority of the French was strikingly shown. While the Spaniards were pouring down grapeshot on the struggling masses of the assailants, the Emperor resolved to hurl his light Polish horse uphill at the death-dealing guns. Dashingly was the order obeyed. Some forty or fifty riders bit the dust, but the rest swept on, sabred the gunners, and decided the day. The Spaniards, amazed at these unheard-of tactics, took to their heels, and nothing now stayed Napoleon's entry into Madrid (December 4th). There he strove to popularize Joseph's rule by offering several desirable reforms, such as the abolition of feudal laws and of the Inquisition. It was of no avail. The Spaniards would have none of them at his hands.

After a brief stay in Madrid, he turned to crush Sir John Moore. That brave soldier, relying on the empty promises of the patriots, had ventured into the heart of Leon with a British force of 26,000 men. If he could not save Madrid, he could at least postpone a French conquest of the south. In this he succeeded; his chivalrous daring drew on him the chief strength of the invaders; and when hopelessly outnumbered he beat a lion-like retreat to Corunna. There he turned and dealt the French a blow that closed his own career with glory and gained time for his men to embark in safety.

While the red-coats saw the snowy heights of Galicia fade into the sky, Napoleon was spurring back to the Pyrenees. He had received news that portended war with Austria; and, cherishing the strange belief that Spain was conquered, he rushed back to Paris to confront the Hapsburg Power. But Spain was not conquered. Scattered her armies were in the open, and even brave Saragossa fell in glorious ruins under Lannes' persistent attacks. But the patriots fiercely rallied in the mountains, and Napoleon was to find out the truth of the Roman historian's saying: "In no land does the character of the people and the nature of the country help to repair disasters more readily than in Spain."

There was another reason for Napoleon's sudden return. Rumours had reached him as to the rapprochement of those usually envious rivals, Talleyrand and Fouche, who now walked arm in arm, held secret conclaves, and seemed to have some understanding with Murat. Were they plotting to bring this ambitious man and his still more ambitious and vindictive consort from the despised throne at Naples to seize on power at Paris while the Emperor was engulfed in the Spanish quagmire? A story ran that Fouche had relays of horses ready between Naples and Paris for this enterprise.[206] But where Fouche and Talleyrand are concerned, truth lurks at the bottom of an unfathomable well.

All that we know for certain is that Napoleon flew back to Paris in a towering rage, and that, after sharply rebuking Fouche, he subjected the Prince of Benevento to a violent tirade: just as he (Talleyrand) had first advised the death of the Duc d'Enghien and then turned that event to his sovereign's discredit, so now, after counselling the overthrow of the Spanish dynasty, he was making the same underhand use of the miscarriage of that enterprise. The Grand Chamberlain stood as if unmoved until the storm swept by, and then coldly remarked to the astonished circle: "What a pity that so great a man has been so badly brought up." Nevertheless, the insult rankled deep in his being, there to be nursed for five years, and then in the fullness of time to dart forth with a snake-like revenge. In 1814 and 1815 men saw that not the least serious result of Napoleon's Spanish policy was the envenoming of his relations with the two cleverest of living Frenchmen.

NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION.—In the foregoing narrative, describing the battle of the Somosierra, I followed the usually accepted account, which assigns the victory solely to the credit of the Polish horsemen. But Mr. Oman has shown ("History of the Peninsular War," vol. i., pp. 459-461) that their first charge failed, and that only when a brigade of French infantry skirmished right up to the crest, did a second effort of the Poles, supported by cavalry of the Guard, secure the pass. Napier's description (vol. i., p. 267), based on the French bulletin, is incorrect.

* * * * *



CHAPTER XXX

NAPOLEON AND AUSTRIA

"Never maltreat an enemy by halves": such was the sage advice of Prussia's warrior King Frederick the Great, who instinctively saw the folly of half measures in dealing with a formidable foe. The only statesmanlike alternatives were, to win his friendship by generous treatment, or to crush him to the earth so that he could not rise to deal another blow.

As we have seen, Napoleon deliberately took the perilous middle course with the Hapsburgs after Austerlitz. He tore away from them their faithful Tyrolese along with all their Swabian lands, and he half crippled them in Italy by leaving them the line of the Adige instead of the Mincio. Later on, he compelled Austria to join the Continental System, to the detriment of her commerce and revenue; and his thinly veiled threats at Erfurt nerved her to strike home as soon as she saw him embarked on the Spanish enterprise. She had some grounds for confidence. The blows showered on the Hapsburg States had served to weld them more closely together; reforms effected in the administration under the guidance of the able and high-spirited minister, Stadion, promised to reinvigorate the whole Empire; and army reforms, championed by the Archduke Charles, had shelved the petted incapables of the Court and opened up undreamt-of vistas of hope even to the common soldier. Moreover, it was certain that the Tyrolese would revolt against the cast-iron Liberalism now imposed on them from Munich, which interfered with their cherished customs and church festivals.

Throughout Germany, too, there were widespread movements for casting off the yoke of Napoleon. The benefits gained by the adoption of his laws were already balanced by the deepening hardships entailed by the Continental System; and the national German sentiment, which Napoleon ever sought to root out, persistently clung to Berlin and Vienna. A new thrill of resentment ran through Germany when Napoleon launched a decree of proscription against Stein, who had resigned office on November 24th. It was dated from Madrid (December 16th, 1808), and ordered that "the man named Stein," for seeking to excite troubles in Germany, should be held an enemy of France and the Confederation of the Rhine, and suffer confiscation of his property and seizure of his person, wherever he might be. The great statesman thereupon fled into Austria, where all the hopes of German nationalists now centred.[207]

On April the 6th the Archduke Charles issued a proclamation in which the new hopes of reformed Austria found eloquent expression: "The freedom of Europe has sought refuge beneath your banners. Soldiers, your victories will break her chains: your German brothers who are now in the ranks of the enemy wait for their deliverance." These hopes were premature. Austria was too late or too soon: she was too late to overpower the Bavarians, or to catch the French forces leaderless, and too soon to gain the full benefit from her recent army reforms and from the diversion promised by England on the North Sea.[208] But our limits of space render it impossible adequately to describe the course of the struggle on the Danube or of the Tyrolese rising.

Napoleon, hurrying from Paris, found his forces spread out over a front of sixty miles from Ratisbon to positions south of Augsburg, and it needed all his skill to mass them before the Archduke's blows fell. Thanks to Austrian slowness the danger was averted, and a difficult retrograde movement was speedily changed into a triumphant offensive. Five successive days saw as many French victories, the chief of which, at Eckmuehl (April 22nd), forced the Archduke with the Austrian right wing northwards towards Ratisbon, which was stormed on the following day, Charles now made for the Boehmer Wald, while his left wing on the south of the Danube fell back towards the Inn. Pushing his advantage to the utmost, the victor invaded Austria and forced Vienna to surrender (May 13th).

At that city Napoleon issued (May 17th) a decree which reveals the excess of his confidence. It struck down the temporal power of the Pope, and annexed to the French Empire the part of the Papal States which he had spared the year before. The form of the decree was as remarkable as its substance. With an effrontery only equalled by its historical falsity, it cited the example of "Charlemagne, my august predecessor, Emperor of the French"; and, after exalting the Imperial dignity, it proceeded to lower the Popes to the position of Bishops of Rome. The subordination of the spiritual to the civil power was also assured by the assigning of a yearly stipend of 2,000,000 francs to the Pope.

When Pius VII. protested against the seizure of his States, and hurled a bull of excommunication at the spoliator, Napoleon issued orders which led to his arrest; and shortly after midsummer the unfortunate pontiff was hurried away from Rome to Florence.

Meanwhile Napoleon had experienced an unlooked-for reverse. Though so far cowed by his defeats in Bavaria as to send Napoleon a cringing request for peace, to which the victor deigned no reply, the Archduke Charles obstinately clung to the northern bank of the Danube opposite the capital, and inflicted a severe defeat on the Emperor when the latter sought to drive him from Aspern-Essling (May 21st-22nd). Had the Austrian commander had that remorseless resolve which ever prompted Napoleon to wrest from Fortune her utmost favours, the white-coats might have driven their foes into the river; for at the close of both of those days of carnage they had a clear advantage. A French disaster was in fact averted only by the combined efforts of Napoleon, Massena, Lannes, and General Mouton; and even they were for a time dismayed by the frightful losses, and by the news that the bridges, over which alone they could retire, had been swept away by trees and barges sent down the flooded stream. But, as at Eylau, Napoleon's iron will imposed on his foes, and, under cover of darkness, the French were withdrawn into the island of Lobau, after losing some 25,000 men.[209]

Among them was that prince of vanguard leaders, Lannes. On hearing that his old friend was mortally wounded, the Emperor hurried to him, and tenderly embraced him. The interview, says Marbot, who was supporting the Marshal's shoulders, was most affecting, both these stern warriors displaying genuine emotion. And yet, it is reported that, after Lannes was removed to Ebersdorf, his last words were those of reproach to the Emperor for his ambition. At that time, however, the patient was delirious, and the words, if really uttered, were meaningless; but the inventor of the anecdote might plead that it was consonant with the recent tenor of the Marshal's thoughts. Like all thoughtful soldiers, who placed France before Napoleon, Lannes was weary of these endless wars. After Jena his heart was not in the work; and he wrote thus about Napoleon during the siege of Danzig: "I have always been the victim of my attachment to him. He only loves you by fits and starts, that is, when he has need of you." His presentiment was true. He was a victim to a war that was the outcome solely of Napoleon's Continental System, and not of the needs of France. He passed away, leaving a brilliant military fame and a reputation for soldierly republican frankness which was fast vanishing from the camps and salons of the Empire.[210]

As yet, however, Napoleon's genius and the martial ardour of his soldiers sufficed to overbear the halting efforts of Austria and her well-wishers. On retiring into Lobau Island he put forth to the utmost his extraordinary powers of organization. Boats brought vast supplies of stores and ammunition from Vienna, which the French still held. The menacing front of Massena and Davoust imposed on the enemy. Reinforcements were hurried up from Bavaria. Tyrol was denuded of Franco-Bavarian troops, so that the peasants, under the lead of the brave innkeeper, Hofer, were able to organize a systematic defence. And a French army which had finally beaten the Austrians in Venetia, now began to drive them back into Hungary. In Poland the white-coats were held in check, and the Franco-Russian compact deterred Frederick William from making any move against France such as Prussian patriots ardently counselled.

To have done so would have been madness, unless England sent powerful aid on the side of Hanover; and that aid was not forthcoming. Yet the patriotic ardour of the Germans led to two daring efforts against the French. Schill, with a Prussian cavalry regiment, sought to seize Magdeburg, and failing there moved north in hopes of British help. His adventurous ride was ended by Napoleon's Dutch and North German troops, who closed in on him at Stralsund, and, on May 31st, cut to pieces his brave troop. Schill met a warrior's death: most of the survivors were sent to the galleys in France. Undeterred by this failure, the young Duke of Brunswick sought to rouse Saxony and Westphalia by a dashing cavalry raid (June); but, beyond showing the weakness of Jerome Bonaparte's rule and the general hatred of the French, he effected little: with his 2,000 followers he was finally saved by British cruisers (August). Had the British expedition, which in the ensuing autumn rotted away on Walcheren, been landed at Stralsund, or in Hanover during the spring, it is certain that Germany would have risen in Napoleon's rear; and in that case, the doubtful struggle which closed at Wagram might have ended very differently.[211]

All hopes for European independence centred in Wellesley and the Archduke Charles. Although there was no formal compact between England and Austria, yet the Hapsburgs rested their hopes largely on the diversions made by our troops. In the early part of the Peninsular campaign of 1809, these hopes were brilliantly fulfilled. Wellesley moved against Soult at Oporto, and, by a dextrous crossing of that river in his rear, compelled him to beat a calamitous retreat on Spain, with the loss of all his cannon and stores. The French reached Lugo an armed rabble, and were greeted there with jeers and execrations by the men of Ney's corps. The two Marshals themselves took up the quarrel, and so fierce were the taunts of Ney that Soult drew his sword and a duel was barely averted.[212] An appearance of concord was restored during their operations in Galicia and Asturias: but no opportunity was missed of secretly thwarting the hated rival; and here, as all through the Peninsular War, the private jealousies of the French leaders fatally compromised the success of their arms. Wellesley, seeing that the operations in Galicia would never decide the war, began to prepare a deadly blow at the centre of French authority, Madrid.

While Wellesley thrust a thin wedge into the heart of Spain, the Archduke Charles was overthrown on the banks of the Danube. After drawing in reinforcements from France, the Rhenish Confederation, and Eugene's army of Italy, the French Emperor disposed of 180,000 highly-trained troops, whom he massed in the Lobau Island, or on the right shore of the Danube. Every preparation was made for deceiving the Austrians as to the point of crossing and with complete success. With great labour the defenders threw up intrenchments facing the north side of the island. But, on a thick stormy night (July 4th), six bridges of boats were quickly swung across the stream lower down, that is, on the east side of Lobau, while a furious cannonade on the north side misled their foes. The crossing was effected without loss by Oudinot and Massena; and sunrise saw the whole French army advancing rapidly northwards, thereby outflanking the Austrian earthworks, which were now evacuated.

Charles was outmanoeuvred and outnumbered. His brother, the Archduke John, was at Pressburg with 20,000 men, watched hitherto by Davoust. But the French Marshal cleverly withdrew his corps, leaving only enough men to impose on that unenterprising leader. Other Austrian detachments were also far away at the critical time, and thus Napoleon had a superiority of force of about 50,000 men. Nevertheless, the defence at Wagram was most obstinate (July 6th). Holding his own on the hills behind the Russbach, the Archduke swung forward his right in such strength as to drive back Massena on Aspern; but his weakened centre was now pushed back and endangered by the persistent vigour of Macdonald's onset. This success at the centre gave time for Davoust to wrest Neusiedel from the white-coats, a movement which would have been stopped or crushed, had the Archduke John obeyed his brother's orders and marched from the side of Pressburg on Napoleon's unguarded right flank. Finally, after an obstinate stand, the Austrians fell back in good order, effectively covering their retreat by a murderous artillery fire. A total loss of some 50,000 men, apportioned nearly equally on either side, was the chief result of this terrible day. It was not remarkable for brilliant tactics; and, as at Aspern, the Austrians fully equalled their foes in courage.



Such was the battle of Wagram, one of the greatest of all time, if the number of combatants be counted, but one of the least decisive in its strictly military results. If we may compare Austerlitz with Blenheim, Wagram may with equal fitness be matched with the vast slaughter of Malplaquet exactly a century before. The French now felt the hardening of the national defence of Austria and the falling off in their own fighting powers. Marmont tells how, at the close of the day, the approach of the Archduke John's scouts struck panic into the conquerors, so that for a time the plain on the east was covered with runaway conscripts and disconcerted plunderers. The incident proved the deterioration of the Grand Army from the times of Ulm and Jena. Raw conscripts raised before their time and hurriedly drafted into the line had impaired its steadiness, and men noted as another ominous fact that few unwounded prisoners were taken from the Austrians, and only nine guns and one colour. In fact, the only reputation enhanced was that of Macdonald, who for his great services at the centre enjoyed the unique honour of receiving a Marshal's baton from Napoleon on the field of battle.

Had the Archduke Charles been made of the same stuff as Wellington, the campaign might still have been retrieved. But softness and irresolution were the characteristics of Austria's generals no less than of her rulers.[213] The Hapsburg armies were still led with the old leisurely insouciance; and their counsels swayed to and fro under the wavering impulses of a seemingly decrepit dynasty. Francis had many good qualities: he was a good husband and father, and his kindly manners endeared him to the Viennese even in the midst of defeat. But he was capricious and shortsighted; anything outside of the well-worn ruts of routine vexed and alarmed him; and it is a supreme proof of the greatness and courage of his reforming Minister, Stadion, that his innovations should have been tolerated for so long. Now that disasters were shaking his throne he began to suspect the reformer; and Stadion confessed to the publicist, Gentz, that it was impossible to reckon on the Emperor for a quarter of an hour together, unless one stayed by him all the twenty-four hours.—"After a great defeat, he will take himself off at once and will calmly commend us to God."—This was what now happened. Another failure at Znaim so daunted the Archduke that he sued for an armistice (July 12th). For this there was some excuse. The latest news both from Spain and Prussia inspired the hope that, if time were gained, important diversions might be made in both quarters.

As we have seen, Sir Arthur Wellesley opened the campaign with a brilliant success, and then prepared to strike at the heart of the French power. The memorable campaign of Talavera was the result. Relying on promises of aid from the Spanish Junta and from their cross-grained commander, Cuesta, he led a small British force up the valley of the Tagus to seize Madrid, while the chief French armies were engaged in distant provinces. In one sense he achieved his aim. He compelled the enemy to loose their hold on those provinces and concentrate to save the capital. And before they fully effected their concentration, he gave battle to King Joseph and Marshals Jourdan and Victor at Talavera (July 28th). Skilfully posting the Spaniards behind intrenchments and in gardens where their raw levies could fight with every advantage, he extended his thin red lines—he had only 17,000 British troops—along a ridge stretching up to a plateau that dominated the broken ground north of the town. On that hill Wellesley planted his left: and all the efforts of Victor to turn that wing or to break it by charges across the intervening ravine were bloodily beaten off.

The fierce heat served but to kindle French and British to greater fury. Finally, the dashing charge of our 23rd dragoons and the irresistible advance of the 48th regiment of foot overthrew the enemy's centre; and as the day waned, the 30,000 French retired, with a loss of 17 cannon and of 7,000 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners. Had the other Spanish armies now offered the support which Wellesley expected, he would doubtless have seized Madrid. He had written three days before Talavera: "With or without a battle we shall be at Madrid soon." But his allies now failed him utterly: they did not hold the mountain passes which confronted Soult in his march from Salamanca into the valley of the Tagus; and they left the British forces half starving.—"We are here worse off than in a hostile country," wrote our commander; "never was an army so ill used: we had no assistance from the Spanish army: we were obliged to unload our ammunition and our treasure in order to employ the cars in the removal of our sick and wounded." Meanwhile Soult, with 50,000 men, was threading his way easily through the mountains and threatened to cut us off from Portugal: but by a rapid retreat Wellesley saved his army, vowing that he would never again trust Spanish offers of help.[214]

Far more dispiriting was the news that reached the Austrian negotiators from the North Sea. There the British Government succeeded in eclipsing all its former achievements in forewarning foes and disgusting its friends. Very early in the year, the men of Downing Street knew that Austria was preparing to fight Napoleon and built her hopes of success, partly on the Peninsular War, partly on a British descent in Hanover, where everything was ripe for revolution. Unfortunately, we were still, formally, at war with her: and the conclusion of the treaty of peace was so long delayed at Vienna that July was almost gone before the Austrian ratification reached London, and our armada set sail from Dover.[215] The result is well known. Official favouritism handed over the command of 40,000 troops to the Earl of Chatham, who wasted precious days in battering down the walls of Flushing when he should have struck straight at the goal now aimed at, Antwerp. That fortress was therefore ready to beat him off; and he finally withdrew his army into the Isle of Walcheren, into whose fever-laden swamps Napoleon had refused to send a single French soldier. A tottering remnant was all that survived by the close of the year: and the climax of our national disgrace was reached when a court-martial acquitted the commanders. Napoleon would have had them shot.

Helpless as the old monarchies were to cope with Napoleon, a wild longing for vengeance was beginning to throb among the peoples. It showed itself in a remarkable attempt on his life during a review at Schoenbrunn. A delicate youth named Staps, son of a Thuringian pastor, made his way to the palace, armed with a long knife, intending to stab him while he read a petition (October 12th). Berthier and Rapp, noting the lad's importunity, had him searched and brought before Napoleon. "What did you mean to do with that knife?" asked the Emperor. "Kill you," was the reply. "You are an idiot or an Illuminat." "I am not an idiot and do not know what an Illuminat is." "Then you are diseased." "No, I am quite well." "Why do you wish to kill me?" "Because you are the curse of my Fatherland." "You are a fanatic; I will forgive you and spare your life." "I want no forgiveness." "Would you thank me if I pardoned you?" "I would seek to kill you again." The quiet firmness with which Staps gave these replies and then went to his doom made a deep impression on Napoleon; and he sought to hurry on the conclusion of peace with these odd Germans whom he could conquer but not convince.

The Emperor Francis was now resigned to his fate, but he refused to hear of giving up his remaining sea-coast in Istria. On this point Metternich strove hard to bend Napoleon's will, but received as a final answer: "Then war is unavoidable."[216] In fact, the victor knew that Austria was in his power. The Archduke Charles had thrown up his command, the soldiery were depressed, and a great part of the Empire was in the hands of the French. England's efforts had failed; and of all the isolated patriotic movements in Germany only that of the Tyrolese mountaineers still struggled on. Napoleon could therefore dictate his own terms in the Treaty of Schoenbrunn (October 14th), which he announced as complete, when as yet Francis had not signed it.[217] Austria thereby recognized Joseph as King of Spain, and ceded Salzburg and the Inn-viertel to Napoleon, to be transferred by him to Bavaria. To the French Empire she yielded up parts of Austrian Friuli and Carinthia, besides Carniola, the city and district of Trieste, and portions of Croatia and Dalmatia to the south of the River Save. Her spoils of the old Polish lands now went to aggrandize the Duchy of Warsaw, a small strip of Austrian Gallicia also going to Russia. Besides losing 3,500,000 subjects, Austria was mulcted in an indemnity of L3,400,000, and again bound herself to exclude all British products. By a secret clause she agreed to limit her army to 150,000 men.

Perhaps the severest loss was the abandonment of the faithful Tyrolese. After Aspern, the Emperor Francis promised that he would never lay down his arms until they were re-united with his Empire. This promise now went the way of the many fond hopes of reform and championship of German nationality which her ablest men had lately cherished, and the Empire settled down in torpor and bankruptcy. In dumb wrath and despair Austrian patriots looked on, while the Tyrolese were beaten down by French, Bavarian, and Italian forces. Hofer finally took to the hills, was betrayed by a friend, and was taken to Mantua. Some of the officers who there tried him desired to spare his life, but a special despatch of Napoleon[218] ordered his execution, and the brave mountaineer fell, with the words on his lips: "Long live the Emperor Francis." Tyrol, meanwhile, was parcelled out between Bavaria, Illyria, and the Kingdom of Italy; but bullets and partitions were of no avail against the staunch patriotism of her people, and the Tyrolese campaign boded ill for Napoleon if monarchs, generals, and statesmen should ever be inspired by the sturdy faith and hardihood of that noble peasantry.

As yet, however, prudence and timidity reigned supreme. Though the Czar uttered some snappish words at the threatening increase to the Duchy of Warsaw, he still posed as Napoleon's ally. The Swedes, weary of their hopeless strifes with France, Russia, and Denmark, deposed the still bellicose Gustavus IV.; and his successor, Charles XIII., made peace with those Powers, retaining Swedish Pomerania, but only at the cost of submitting to the Continental System. Prussia seemed, to official eyes, utterly cowed. The Hapsburgs, having failed in their bold championship of the cause of reform and of German nationality, now fell back into a policy marked by timid opportunism and decorously dull routine.

The change was marked by the retirement of Stadion, a man whose enterprising character, no less than his enthusiasm for reform, ill fitted him for the time of compromise and subservience now at hand. He it was who had urged Austria forward in the paths of progress and had sought safety in the people: he was the Stein of Austria. But now, on the eve of peace, he earnestly begged to be allowed to resign the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and the Emperor Francis thereupon summoned to that seemingly thankless office a young diplomatist, who was destined to play a foremost part in the mighty drama of Napoleon's overthrow, and thereafter to wield by his astute policy almost as great an influence in Central and Southern Europe as the autocrat himself.

Metternich was born at Coblentz in 1773, and was therefore four years the junior of Napoleon. He came of an old family of the Rhineland, and his father's position in the service of the old Empire secured him early entrance into the diplomatic circle. After acting as secretary to the Imperial delegates at the Congress of Rastatt, he occupied the post of Austrian ambassador successively at the Courts of Dresden and Berlin; and in 1806 he was suddenly called to take up the embassy in Paris. There he displayed charms of courtly tact, and lively and eloquent conversation, which won Napoleon's admiration and esteem. He was looked on as a Gallophil; and, like Bismarck at a later crisis, he used his social gifts and powers of cajolery so as to gain a correct estimate of the characters of his future opponents.

Yet, besides these faculties of finesse and intrigue—and the Miltonic Belial never told lies with more winsome grace—Metternich showed at times a manly composure and firmness, even when Napoleon unmasked a searching fire of diplomatic questions and taunts. Of this he had given proof shortly before the outbreak of the late war, and his conduct had earned the thanks of the other ambassadors for giving the French Emperor a lesson in manners, while the autocrat liked him none the less, but rather the more, for standing up to him. But now, after the war, all was changed; craft was more serviceable than fortitude; and the gay Rhinelander brought to the irksome task of subservience to the conqueror a courtly insouciance under which he nursed the hope of ultimate revenge.—"From the day when peace is signed," he wrote to the Emperor Francis on August 10th, 1809, "we must confine our system to tacking and turning, and flattering. Thus alone may we possibly preserve our existence, till the day of general deliverance."[219] This was to be the general drift of Austrian policy for the next four years; and it may be granted that only by bending before the blast could that sore-stricken monarchy be saved from destruction. An opportunity soon occurred of carrying the new system into effect. Metternich offered the conqueror an Austrian Archduchess as a bride.

After the humiliation of the Hapsburgs and of the Spanish patriots, nothing seemed wanting to Napoleon's triumph but an heir who should found a durable dynasty. This aim was now to be reached. As soon as the Emperor returned to Paris, his behaviour towards Josephine showed a marked reserve. The passage communicating between their private apartments was closed, and the gleams of triumphant jealousy that flashed from her sisters-in-law warned Josephine of her approaching doom. The divorce so long bruited by news-mongers was at hand. The Emperor broke the tidings to his consort in the private drawing-room of the Tuileries on November 30th, and strove to tone down the harshness of his decision by basing it on the imperative needs of the State. But she spurned the dictates of statecraft. With all her faults, she was affectionate and tender; she was a woman first and an Empress afterwards; she now clung to Napoleon, not merely for the splendour of the destiny which he had opened to her, but also from genuine love.

Their relations had curiously changed. At the outset she had slighted his mad devotion by her shallow coldness and occasional infidelities, until his lava-like passion petrified. Thenceforth it was for her to woo, and woo in vain. For years past she had to bemoan the waning of his affection and his many conjugal sins. And now the chasm, which she thought to have spanned by the religious ceremony on the eve of the coronation, yawned at her feet. The woman and the Empress in her shrank back from the black void of the future; and with piteous reproaches she flung back the orders of the Emperor and the soothings of the husband. Napoleon, it would seem, had nerved himself against such an outbreak. In vain did Josephine sink down at his feet with heart-rending cries that she would never survive the disgrace: failing to calm her himself, he opened the door and summoned the prefect of the palace, Bausset, and bade him bear her away to her private apartments. Down the narrow stairs she was borne, the Emperor lifting her feet and Bausset supporting her shoulders, until, half fainting, she was left to the sympathies of her women and the attentions of Corvisart. But hers was a wound that no sympathy or skill could cure.[220]

On his side, Napoleon felt the wrench. Not only the ghost of his early love, but his dislike of new associates and novel ways cried out against the change. "In separating myself from my wife," Napoleon once said to Talleyrand, "I renounce much. I should have to study the tastes and habits of a young woman. Josephine accommodates herself to everything: she understands me perfectly."[221] But his boundless triumphs, his alliance with the Czar and total overthrow of the Bourbons and the Pope, had fed the fires of his ambition. He aspired to give the mot d'ordre to the universe; and he scrupled not to put aside a consort who could not help him to found a dynasty. Yet it was not without pangs of sorrow and remorse. His laboured, panting breath and almost gasping words left on Bausset the impression that he was genuinely affected; and, consummate actor though he was, we may well believe that he felt the parting from his early associations. Underneath his generally cold exterior he hid a nervous nature, dominated by an inflexible will, but which now and again broke through all restraint, bathing the beloved object with sudden tenderness or blasting a foe with fiery passion. And it would seem that Josephine's pangs had power to reawaken the feelings of his more generous youth. The ceremony of divorce took place on December 15th Josephine declaring with agonized pride that she gave her assent for the welfare of France.

Already the new marriage negotiations had begun. They are unique even amidst the frigid annals of royal betrothals. The French ambassador, Caulaincourt, was charged to make definite overtures at St. Petersburg for the hand of the Czar's younger sister; the conditions could easily be arranged; religion need be no difficulty; but time was pressing; the Emperor had need of an heir; "we are counting the minutes here," ran the despatch; and an answer was expected from St. Petersburg after an interval of two days.[222] The request caused Alexander the greatest perplexity. He parried it with the reply, correct enough in form as in fact, that the disposal of his sister rested with the Dowager Empress. But her hostility to Napoleon was well known. After the half overtures of Erfurt she had at once betrothed her elder daughter to the Duke of Oldenburg. No similar escape was now possible for the younger one: but, after leaving Napoleon's request unanswered until February 4th, the reply was then despatched that the tender age of the princess, she being only twenty years old, formed an insuperable obstacle.

Some such answer had long been expected at Paris. Metternich asserts in his "Memoirs" that Napoleon had caused Laborde, one of his diplomatic agents at Vienna, tentatively to sound that Court as to his betrothal with the Archduchess Marie Louise. But the French archives show that the first hint came from Metternich, who saw in it a means of weakening the Franco-Russian alliance and saving Austria from further disasters.[223] A little later the Countess Metternich was at Paris; and great was her surprise when, on January 2nd, 1810, Josephine informed her that she favoured a marriage between Napoleon and Marie Louise. "I spoke to him of it yesterday," she said; "his choice is not yet fixed; but he thinks that this would be his choice if he were sure of its being accepted." Thereafter the Countess received the most flattering attentions at Court, a proof that the Hapsburg match was now favoured, even though the coyness of the Czar was as yet unknown.

At the close of January a Privy Council was held at the Tuileries to decide on the imperial bride. The votes were nearly equal: four voted for Austria, four for Saxony, and three for Russia. After listening quietly to the arguments, Napoleon summed up the discussion by pronouncing firmly and warmly in favour of Austria. The marriage contract was therefore drawn up on February 7th; and Berthier was despatched to Vienna to claim the hand of Marie Louise. He entered that city over the ruins of the old ramparts, which were now being dismantled in accordance with the French demands.

The marriage took place at Vienna by proxy; the bride was conducted to Paris; and the final ceremony took place at Notre Dame on April 2nd, but not until the union had been consummated. Such were Napoleon's second wooing and wedding. Nevertheless, he showed himself an attentive and even indulgent spouse, and he remarked at St. Helena that if Josephine was all grace and charm, Marie Louise was innocence and nature herself.

The Austrian marriage was an event of the first importance. It gained a few years' respite for the despairing Hapsburgs, and gave tardy satisfaction to Talleyrand's statesmanlike scheme of a Franco-Austrian alliance which should be in the best sense conservative. Had Napoleon taken this step after Austerlitz in the way that his counsellor advised, possibly Europe might have reached a condition of stable equilibrium, always provided that he gave up his favourite scheme of partitioning Turkey. But that was not to be; and when Austria finally yielded up Marie Louise as an unpicturesque Iphigenia on the marriage altar, she did so only as a desperate device for appeasing an inexorable destiny. And, strange to say, she succeeded. For Alexander took offence at the marriage negotiations; and thus was opened a breach in the Franco-Russian alliance which other events were rapidly to widen, until Western and Central Europe hurled themselves against the East, and reached Moscow.

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CHAPTER XXXI

THE EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT

Napoleon's star had now risen to its zenith. After his marriage with a daughter of the most ancient of continental dynasties, nothing seemed lacking to his splendour. He had humbled Pope and Emperor alike: Germany crouched at his feet: France, Italy, and the Confederation of the Rhine gratefully acknowledged the benefits of his vigorous sway: the Czar was still following the lead given at Erfurt: Sweden had succumbed to the pressure of the two Emperors: and Turkey survived only because it did not yet suit Napoleon to shear her asunder: he must first complete the commercial ruin of England and drive Wellington into the sea. Then events would at last be ripe for the oriental schemes which the Spanish Rising had postponed.

He might well hope that England's strength was running out: near the close of 1810 the three per cent. consols sank to sixty-five, and the declared bankruptcies averaged 250 a month. The failure of the Walcheren expedition had led to terrible loss of men and treasure, and had clouded over the reputation of her leaders. After mutual recriminations Canning and Castlereagh resigned office and fought a duel. Shortly afterwards the Premier, the Duke of Portland, fell ill and resigned: his place was taken by Mr. Perceval, a man whose sole recommendation for the post was his conscientious Toryism and powers of dull plodding. Ruled by an ill-assorted Ministry and a King whose reason was now hopelessly overclouded, weakened by the strangling grip of the Continental System, England seemed on the verge of ruin; and, encouraged alike by the factious conduct of our parliamentary Opposition and by Soult's recent conquest of Andalusia, Napoleon bent himself to the final grapple by extending his coast system, and by sending Massena and his choicest troops into Spain to drive the leopards into the sea.

The limits of our space prevent any description of the ensuing campaign of Torres Vedras; and we must refer our readers to the ample canvas of Napier if they would realize the sagacity of Wellington in constructing to the north of Lisbon that mighty tete de pont for the Sea Power against Massena's veteran army. After dealing the staggering blow of Busaco at that presumptuous Marshal, our great leader fell back, through a tract which he swept bare of supplies, on this sure bulwark, and there watched the French host of some 65,000 men waste away amidst the miseries of hunger and the rains and diseases of autumn. At length, in November, Massena drew off to positions near Santarem, where he awaited the succour which Napoleon ordered Soult to bring. It was in vain: Soult, puffed up by his triumphs in Andalusia, was resolved to play his own game and reduce Badajoz; he won his point but marred the campaign; and, at last, foiled by Wellington's skilful tactics, Massena beat a retreat northwards out of Portugal after losing some 35,000 men (March, 1811). Wellington's success bore an immeasurable harvest of results. The unmanly whinings of the English Opposition were stilled; the replies of the Czar to Napoleon's demands grew firmer; and the patriots of the Peninsula stiffened their backs in a resistance so stubborn, albeit unskilful, that 370,000 French troops utterly failed to keep Wellington in check, and to stamp out the national defence in the summer of 1811.