Nearly at the same moment the public interest was fastened on another rebelling personage, more worthy than Fouche of general esteem, and who had just dealt the emperor a more perceptible stroke. New difficulties had arisen between Napoleon and Louis Bonaparte, the vexations of the surveillance everywhere instituted in his States, the sufferings and the hindrances which resulted from it as regards the affairs of his subjects; the humiliation which he himself experienced from it every moment, exasperated the heart of King Louis. He wrote affectionately to the ministers whom he had been forced to dismiss. To this powerless manifestation of a natural feeling, strongly encouraged by the state of public opinion in Holland, was added the resolution to interdict the complete occupation of the territory by the French troops. The gates of Haarlem were closed to the imperial eagles. The populace of the Hague ill- treated in the street a servant of the minister of France. The emperor was only waiting for a pretext for a long time foreseen. Marshal Oudinot received orders to enter Haarlem and Amsterdam, with flags displayed. At the same time, the division of General Molitor entered Holland by the north and the south; everywhere the Netherlands found themselves occupied. The minister of Holland at Paris, Admiral Verhuell, received his passports.

Resistance was impossible; the councillors of King Louis felt it as bitterly as he did himself. The king was resolved upon not accepting the personal yoke that his brother wished to impose upon him; he signed an act of abdication in favor of his eldest son, until then favorably treated by the Emperor Napoleon. He committed to his ministers a touching farewell message for the Corps Legislatif, and secretly entering a carriage, on the night of the 1st of July, 1810, he quitted Haarlem, in order to take refuge at the baths of Toeplitz. The fugitive carefully concealed his journey and his presence; he was weary of the power which he sorrowfully exercised; he remained esteemed and regretted in the country which he sadly abandoned without having ever been able to defend it.

This flight from the throne, and this mute protest against the tyranny which rendered it insupportable, caused some ill-humor in Napoleon, and constrained him to act openly, and without the soothing forms with which he had reckoned upon enveloping his taking possession of Holland. An imperial decree of the 9th of July, 1810, announced to the world that Holland was reunited to France. The abdication of King Louis in favor of his son was treated as null and void. Rome had been declared the second city of the empire after the confiscation of the Papal States. Amsterdam was promoted to the third rank. Seven new departments were formed from the territory of the Netherlands. Holland was to send six members to the Senate of the Empire, six deputies to the Council of State, twenty-five to the Corps Legislatif, two Councillors to the Court of Cassation. The emperor often vaunted the rare capacity of the Dutch whom he had thus drawn into his service. The first use which he now made of his supreme authority was to reduce the public debt from 80,000,000 to 20,000,000. This act of bankruptcy introduced into the charges of the budget an economy which it was thought ought to satisfy all those who had not personally to suffer the consequences. "The Corps Legislatif will be another object of economy," wrote Napoleon, on the 23rd of July, to Lebrun, his arch-treasurer, whom he had charged to represent him in Holland; "the external relations will be an object of economy; the Council of State will be an object of economy; the civil list will be still another object of economy." The emperor had not reckoned on two sentiments, more powerful than all others in this little country, which had conquered its liberty at the price of so many sufferings. Its union to France cost Holland its national independence; the bankruptcy tainted its honor and its credit; whilst submitting to an imperious necessity, the Dutch nation never forgot it.

The condition of Europe thus underwent, under the hand of the Emperor Napoleon, fundamental modifications, of which he scarcely took the trouble to inform his allies. The Emperor Alexander alone received some explanations on the subject of the union of Holland and France. "The Netherlands have not in reality had a change of master," Caulaincourt was instructed to say; "it is a country of lagoons, ports, and dockyards. They are not much known on the continent, and have no importance except for England; the naval forces of France will be augmented by it, and the general peace will become more easy and more certain." A few months only were to pass away before Napoleon would complete his maritime lines of defence, by taking possession of the coasts as far as the Weser and the Elbe. In the month of December, 1810, a simple decree formed three French departments [Footnote: L'Ems Superieur, les Bouches-du-Weser, and les Bouches-de-l'Elbe.] from the territory of the Hanseatic towns, the States of the Prince of Oldenburg and a small portion of Hanover. In his quality of uncle to the Emperor Alexander, the Prince of Oldenburg received the town of Erfurt by way of indemnity. At the same time the territory of the Valais became French, under the name of the department of the Simplon. The former masters of the annexed countries received purely and simply a notification of the sovereign will. Irritation was everywhere increasing; no one resented these things more keenly than the Emperor Alexander, still a nominal ally of France. Meanwhile he silently waited.

Quite close to Russia, in a country recently dismembered by the Emperor Alexander with the consent of Napoleon, there was preparing at this time an event which was soon to assure to the fifth European coalition one of its most useful supports. The King of Sweden, Gustavus IV., unstable, violent, and eccentric enough to warrant doubts as to the soundness of his reason, had been deposed on the 10th of May, 1809, by the assembled States, as the result of a military conspiracy. His uncle, the Duke of Sudermania, elevated to the throne under the title of Charles XIII., had no children; the Diet designated as his successor the Duke of Augustenburg. This prince expired suddenly, in the midst of a review. The claimants were numerous, and the King of Sweden desired to know the wish of Napoleon. The latter secretly favored the King of Denmark, but the States were not well disposed in his favor: the emperor refused to give a decision. "A word from his Majesty would suffice to decide everything," said Desaugiers, the charge-d'affaires at Stockholm. Some proposed to choose a stranger, and Marshal Bernadotte was thought of. During our occupation of Pomerania he had known how to render himself agreeable to the population over whom he ruled, and to persons of consideration who had known how to appreciate the vivacity and capacity of his mind. He was a kinsman of the Bonapartes, and conspicuous amongst the lieutenants of Napoleon. An obscure member of the Diet repaired to Paris, and knitted the first threads of an intrigue, destined to succeed by the very fact of the ignorance and illusions of its authors. By placing Bernadotte upon the steps of the throne, the States of Sweden thought to assure themselves of the good-will of the Emperor Napoleon; his name was popular amongst the lower classes. He was proclaimed Prince Royal of Sweden 17th August, 1810.

Napoleon had delayed too long to express his mind. A messenger arrived at Stockholm bearing despatches which emphatically disavowed the declarations of the partisans of Bernadotte. "I cannot think," said Napoleon, "that these individuals could have had the impudence to assert themselves to be charged with any mission whatever." The official announcement of the elevation of the Prince of Pontecorvo was already on its way to Paris. "I was little prepared for this news," replied Napoleon to the letter of King Charles XIII. He wished to wrest from Bernadotte a pledge never to bear arms against France. The marshal formally refused. For a long time in secret hostility to the emperor, he severely judged the errors of his ambition, and the consequences that would result for the peace of Europe. "Go then," said Napoleon, "and let destiny be accomplished!" On the evening of the 18th Brumaire, Bernadotte wrote to General Bonaparte: "My idea of liberty differs from yours, and your plan kills it. Three weeks ago I retired; but if I receive orders from those who have still the right to give me them, I shall resist all illegal attempts against the established powers."

The struggle was not to be long in breaking forth between the new heir to the throne of Sweden and the exacting master who claimed to subject all European powers to his laws. Everywhere the questions that grew out of the continental blockade in right as well as in practice, brought about difficulties, and gave rise to sufferings by which all the governments were injured. In annexing Holland to France, Napoleon had authorized, under a duty of 50 per cent., the sale of goods of English production which the contraband had kept stored up in their warehouses. He conceived the idea of applying the same duty to all sales of colonial products which until then had only been able to enter France by virtue of a special license. All the merchandise of this kind found in store, either in the countries dependent on the French Empire, or in foreign territories within four hours' journey of the frontier, were suddenly affected by this tax, and placed under the obligation of a certificate of origin (5th August, 1810). In default of this justification, the goods were seized as of English production, and in consequence contraband. The colonial produce was to be sold; the manufactured articles were to be everywhere burnt. In Spain, in the Canton of Tessin, at Frankfort, in the Hanseatic towns, at Stettin, at Custrin, at Dantzig, the troops were ordered to carry out the searches and seizures. A few dependent or vanquished sovereigns—Saxony or Prussia, for example—themselves consented to make the required requisitions. The sums produced by sales made in Prussia were generously credited by the Emperor Napoleon as deductions from the Prussian debt to France. A director of the French Customs superintended the Swiss troops in their inquisitions. At all points of the immense territory subjugated by Napoleon, the merchants crowded to the markets opened for confiscated goods, whilst every article proved to be of English manufacture was delivered to the flames in public. "For confiscation, for expulsion from the country, they came to substitute the punishment of burning," writes Mollien in his Memoirs; "and the reading of the correspondence of commerce might have convinced Napoleon what complaint the bankers and maritime speculators were making against a policy which, in the most industrious century, was destroying by fire the creations of industry. Until then, however, French manufacturers had flattered themselves with being able to supply the consumers whom English commerce was to lose by so severe a system of prohibition; but this illusion vanished when Napoleon, seduced by the hope of assuring to France a part in the enterprises of the commercial monopoly of England, was seen to be putting in some sort up to auction the right of introducing into Europe the productions of America and India, loading several raw materials—such as cotton and wool—with enormous duties, and, by an inexplicable contradiction, rendering to the productions of English industry, by these very taxes, more advantages than prohibition caused them to lose. Then this fictitious system, which was to free the continent from the domination of English commerce, became patent to all eyes as nothing else but the most disastrous and false of fiscal inventions; for it was creating two monopolies in place of one— aggravating at once the condition of the French manufacturers and that of the speculators of all countries, and giving up the privilege of commercial speculation to a few interested adventurers."

Hitherto the United States of America alone had protested equally against the Emperor Napoleon's system of continental blockade and the English ordinances. Already, for several months past, an embargo had been placed in their ports on French and English vessels, unless driven to take refuge in consequence of a tempest. Mistress, the one of the seas, the other of the land, it was on the United States that both England and France lavished their caresses, eager to enrol them in the service of their hostile passions. For a long time the Emperor Napoleon had required the seizure of American vessels sailing under a neutral flag, in spite of the interdiction of their government, and this rigor had been one of the causes of the dissensions between him and the King of Holland. In the month of July, 1810, he made known to Congress, that on and after the 1st of November the Americans should not be subject to the decrees of Berlin and Milan, and that they might enter into the ports of France, provided that they could obtain from England a revocation of the ordinances of the Council. "In continuing to submit to them," Napoleon had formerly said, "the peoples who are menaced by the pretensions of England would do better to recognize her sovereignty, and America ought to press forward to return under the yoke from which she has so gloriously delivered herself."

On its part, the English cabinet revoked the ordinances of the Council with regard to the Americans, and relieved them of the toll by way of harbor dues imposed on all other vessels; but it persisted in forbidding to neutral vessels the entry into French ports, thus confirming its system of a paper blockade. The measure was insufficient for the satisfaction of the United States; it did little harm to that commerce and industry of Great Britain which Napoleon strove so madly to injure by land as well as by sea.

A sign of the discontent of the Emperor Alexander was his clearly manifested resolution not to impose upon his subjects new and exorbitant pecuniary sacrifices. Nearly all the European powers had accepted or submitted to the decree of the 1st of August. "There are no true neutrals," maintained Napoleon; "they are all English, masked under divers flags, and bearers of false papers. They must be confiscated, and England is lost." Russia constantly refused to yield to these entreaties. Faithful to the law of the blockade as regards the capture of English vessels, the Emperor Alexander authorized navigation under a neutral flag. No seizure was effected in his States.

Sweden protested in vain. Denmark had been authorized to effect the sale of prohibited merchandise by means of the fifty per cent. tariff; the new Prince of Sweden begged a similar indulgence in favor of his adopted country. The emperor, dissatisfied, was angered. "Choose," said he, "between the cannon-balls for the English or war with France." Bernadotte consented to commence hostilities against the English; he was without resources, and without defences. "We offer you our arms and our iron," wrote he to the emperor; "give us in return the means that nature has refused to us." Other allies were soon to accept the offers of the illustrious marshal of the empire.

Meanwhile the months rolled past, and Napoleon did not quit Paris. He had just contracted new ties; he was occupied with the cares necessitated by the internal administration of the empire—with the legal creation of the extraordinary Domain, the fruit of conquests and confiscations, and which had already served to supply without control the divers needs of the emperor. The very appearance of authority was thus little by little escaping from the Corps Legislatif, the retiring deputies of which had their commissions arbitrarily prolonged. The representatives of the new departments had been directly chosen by the Senate. The censorship had been re-established, and its favorable decrees did not always suffice to save works and their authors. The "Germany" of Madame de Stael had received the authorization of the censors, when the edition was seized and placed in the pillory. Madame de Stael was compelled to quit France in twenty-four hours. The rigors of Savary with regard to the press surpassed the traditions left by Fouche; the greater number of the journals were subjected to permanent fines, under the form of pensions to literary men. The erection of eight state prisons seemed to presage times still more harsh; however, the emperor demanded from the Council of State, in order to explain the motive for these erections, a couple of pages of clauses "containing liberal ideas." He had for a long time exercised towards France the power of words; he knew their influence and weight. More than once, in deeds of warfare his acts had gone beyond his promises; the day had come when he was about to promise more than he could perform. Liberal phrases no longer concealed from the nation the yoke which crushed it. The pompous declarations against the English leopard, hurled forth at the opening of the session of the Corps Legislatif, in December, 1809, did not hasten the end of the war in Spain. The emperor did not set out as he had solemnly announced. He called Marshal Massena, scarcely recovered from his fatigue and his wounds during the war in Germany, and confided to him the task of vanquishing the English in Portugal. Sir Arthur Wellesley continued to occupy his positions between Badajoz and Alcantara. Since the battle of Talavera and the combats which then accompanied his last movements of troops, the English general had not actively taken part in hostilities.

The war had not, however, ceased in Spain, and the insurgents had not diminished their efforts. General Kellermann had depicted in its true light the particular character of the struggle, when he wrote to Marshal Berthier: "The war in Spain is not at all an ordinary affair. Doubtless one has not to fear reverses and disastrous checks; but this stubborn nation wears away the army with its detailed resistance. Independently of the regular corps, which must be faced, it is also necessary to guard against the numerous swarms of brigands and strong organized bands, which infest the country, and which by their mobility, and above all by the favor of the inhabitants, escape from all pursuit, and come up behind you a quarter of an hour after your return. It is in vain that we beat down on one side the heads of the hydra; they reappear on the other, and without a revolution in the minds of men you will not succeed for a long time in subduing this vast peninsula. It will absorb the population and the treasures of France. They wish to gain time, and to weary us by persistency. We shall only obtain their submission by their exhaustion, and the annihilation of half the population. Such is the spirit which animates this nation, that one cannot even create in it a few partisans. It is in vain to treat it with mode ration and justice; in a difficult moment, no governor or leader whatever would find ten men who would dare to arm for his defence. We must, then, have more men. The emperor perhaps grows weary of sending them, but it is necessary to make an end of the business, or to be contented with establishing ourselves in one half of Spain in order afterwards to conquer the other. Meanwhile, resources diminish, the means perish, money is exhausted or disappears; one knows not where to direct one's energies to provide for the pay, for the maintenance of the troops, for the needs of the hospitals, for the infinite details necessary for an army in need of everything. Misery and privations increase sickness, and enfeeble the army continually; whilst, on the other side, the bands that swarm on all sides seize every day upon small parties or isolated men, who venture into the open country with extreme imprudence, notwithstanding the most positive, reiterated prohibitions."

It was the effort of all the generals commanding in Spain to destroy the bands of guerillas, who harassed their soldiers and slowly decimated their armies. General Suchet had, more than any other, succeeded in Aragon; General Gouvion St. Cyr had been absorbed by the siege of Girone, which had at length just submitted to him when Marshal Augereau was sent into Catalonia, in order to take from him at once his command and the glory of his conquest. The end of the campaign of 1809 had been signalized by a victory, gained on the 19th of November, at Ocana, by Marshal Mortier and General Sebastiani over the insurgent army of the centre. The central Junta had confided its powers to a commission, at the head of which was the Marquis de la Romana, always more active than effective. The insurrectional government retired into the Ile de Leon, boldly convoking the Cortes at Madrid for the 1st of March, 1810.

Marshal Soult had become major-general of the army of Spain, since Marshal Jourdan had been recalled after the battle of Talavera; he was meditating a great campaign against Andalusia. Napoleon hesitated to consent to it; the English alone appeared to him to be formidable, and he had been wishing to concentrate all his forces against them: Marshal Massena was not, however, ready to enter on the campaign. King Joseph received the authorization to advance upon Andalusia; he ordered, at the same time, Marshals Ney and Suchet to lay siege to Ciudad Rodrigo and Valencia. Both attempted operations with insufficient forces, and were to fail in an enterprise which drew upon them the bitter reproaches of the emperor. The army of the King of Spain advanced towards Seville; the defiles of the Sierra Morena had been occupied without resistance by Marshal Victor. The intestine dissensions which divided the capital of Andalusia had deprived it of its means of defence; a great part of the population took to flight. A few cannon, pointed from the ramparts, did not arrest for a moment the march of the French. Marshal Soult summoned the place to surrender, and the Junta of the province consented to capitulate. All the military chiefs recently assembled in Seville had succeeded in escaping. King Joseph made his entry on the 1st of February, 1810. Malaga and Granada were not long in surrendering.

All the leaders of the insurrection were found henceforth at Cadiz; the central Junta and its executive commission had abdicated in favor of a royal regency. The preparations for resistance in this place, fortified on the side of the land by man, as on the side of the sea by nature, disquieted King Joseph, who had long been desirous of detaching a corps d'armee against Cadiz. "Assure me of Seville, and I will assure you of Cadiz," said Marshal Soult. Now it was found necessary to guard Seville, Granada, and Malaga; a corps of observation was being maintained before Badajoz; the forces which were laying siege to Cadiz were necessarily restrained; everywhere the Spanish armies were forming again.

Napoleon had been for a long time weary of the war in Spain, which he had at first regarded as an easy enterprise; he had conceived ill-feeling towards his brother, whom he rightly judged incapable of accomplishing the work which he himself had been wrong in committing to his charge. The continual demands for men and money which came to him from the peninsula hindered his operations and his schemes; he resolved upon modifying the organization of the government in Spain. On the 28th of January, 1810, he wrote to the Duke of Cadore (Champagny): "Write by the express, and several times, to the Sieur Laforest, at Madrid, in order that he may present notes as to the impossibility of my continuing to sustain the enormous expenses of Spain; that I have already sent there more than 300,000,000; that such considerable exportations of money exhaust France; that it is, then, indispensable that the engineers, the artillery, the administrations, and the soldiers' pay should be henceforth supplied from the Spanish treasury; that all which I can do is to give a supplemental grant of two millions per month for the soldiers' pay; that if this proposition is not agreed to, it will only remain for me to administer the provinces of Spain on my own account—in that case they will abundantly supply the maintenance and pay of the army. To see the resources of this country lost by false measures and a feeble administration, and to send thither my best blood, is impossible. The provinces have plenty of money, when the soldier is not paid he will pillage, and I know not what to do with him."

It was in the midst of his joy and his easy triumph in Andalusia that the severe protests of Napoleon arrived to surprise King Joseph. A few liberalities he had permitted himself with regard to his servants had succeeded in exasperating the emperor. He decreed the state of siege in all the provinces [Footnote: Catalonia, Aragon, Navarre, and Biscay.] to the left of the Ebro, confiding the military command to four generals— Augereau, Suchet, Reille, and Thouvenot. All the administrative powers were at the same time, committed to these generals, who were to correspond directly with the emperor. The idea of Napoleon, with which he acquainted his lieutenants, was to unite to France the territories which he thus isolated from the rest of the empire, as an indemnity for the sacrifices which the war had imposed upon him. General Suchet was charged with completing the conquest of the towns in Catalonia and Aragon which were still held by the insurgents. He achieved brilliantly the siege of Lerida.

At the same time, and in order to take away from King Joseph an authority which he knew not how to use, the armies in the country were divided into three corps. The army of the south was confided to Marshal Soult; the army of Portugal was waiting for the arrival of Marshal Massena; the army of the centre—the least important of all—was alone left under the personal direction of King Joseph, who was appointed its general-in-chief. The embassies of King Joseph, the complaint of his wife, who was still in Paris, remained without result. In place of a central, powerless, and insufficient power, Napoleon was desirous of establishing delegates of his supreme authority. He had sanctioned anarchy; the rights of the hierarchy had disappeared before the lieutenants of a chief arbitrary, but until now constantly attended by victory. Far from the presence of Napoleon, in a country given over for two years to the disorder of civil war, obedience had given place to mistrust, and regularity to disorder. Scarcely had Marshal Massena joined the army of Portugal, of which he had accepted the command with regret, than he had immediately a perception of the difficulties which awaited it. The emperor had given orders to commence by the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo and of Almeida. Marshal Ney and General Junot, whose corps were placed under the command of Massena, made such clamorous protests that the old marshal was obliged to display all his authority. "They say that Massena has grown old," cried he with just anger; "they will see that my will has lost nothing of its force." Already Sir Arthur Wellesley, become Lord Wellington, was preparing not far from Lisbon, between the Tagus and the sea, that invulnerable position which history has designated "the lines of Torres Vedras." It was thither that he counted on drawing the French army, slowly exhausting its forces before an enemy patiently unassailable. The orders of Napoleon, and the deference of Massena to these instructions, had spared us the danger of being attacked in the rear; when the French army advanced to encounter Lord Wellington, it had taken possession of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, but the two sieges had been long and painful, having cost the lives of many soldiers; important garrisons occupied the places. In accordance with a mental habit which grew upon him through default of contradiction, the Emperor Napoleon did not admit the enfeeblement of his forces, whilst depreciating beforehand those of his enemy. "My cousin," wrote he on the 10th of September, 1810, to Marshal Berthier, "let a French officer set out immediately as bearer of a letter for the Prince of Essling, in which you will make him understand that my intention is that he should attack and rout the English; that Lord Wellington has no more than 18,000 men, of which only 15,000 are infantry, and the remainder cavalry and artillery; that General Hill has no more than 6000 men, infantry and cavalry; that it would be ridiculous for 25,000 English to hold in suspense 60,000 Frenchmen; that, by not groping about, but by attacking them openly, after having reconnoitred them, they will be made to experience severe repulses. The Prince of Essling has four times as many cavalry as he needs for defeating the enemy's army. I am too far off, and the position of the enemy changes too often, for me to be able to counsel you as to the manner of leading the attack, but it is certain that the enemy is not in a state to resist."

Marshal Massena was wrong in accepting a mission of which he foresaw the immense dangers, and in refraining from personally impressing the emperor, by the weight of his old experience, as regards the illusions that were prevalent in Paris on the subject of the respective situations of the two armies. Counting upon victory on the day when he should succeed in meeting the enemy, he became involved, with 50,000 men in the impracticable roads of Portugal in the vicinity of Lord Wellington, already his equal in forces, and seconded by the whole Portuguese nation in insurrection against the French. The lieutenants of Massena, as bold and more youthful, estimated as he did the disastrous chances of the campaign. "Do not stand haggling with the English," replied Napoleon. He was obeyed.

Lord Wellington remained in his retreat upon the heights of Busaco, above the valley of Mondego, in front of Coimbra; he barred the passage to Marshal Massena, who resolved to give battle. After a furious and sanguinary combat (27th of September, 1810), the attack of the French was decisively repulsed. For the first time the Portuguese, mixed with the English troops, had courageously sustained their allies. "They have shown themselves worthy of fighting beside English soldiers," says Lord Wellington in his report. The road remained closed, and the English, masters of their position, saw already Marshal Massena constrained to retreat. He had recovered on the field of battle all his indomitable ardor. "We ought to be able to turn the hills," said he to his lieutenants, and he detached immediately General Montbrun upon the right, to traverse an unknown country, hostile, and already enveloped in the darkness of night. The perspicacity and perseverance of the marshal had not been deceived; his scouts discovered a passage which the English had not occupied. On the 29th, at sunset, Lord Wellington learnt all of a sudden that the French army had defiled by the little village of Bazalva upon the back of the mountain; it was already debouching upon the plain of Coimbra, when the English saw themselves compelled to evacuate the town in all haste: the French passed through behind them, only leaving their sick and wounded. The Portuguese militia immediately resumed possession of the town. Massena advanced upon Lisbon by forced marches; on the 11th of October he arrived before the lines of Torres Vedras, by this time completely finished, and furnished with 600 pieces of ordnance. Behind three successive series of formidable entrenchments, supplied with resources of every kind, and supported on one side by the Tagus and on the other by the ocean, Lord Wellington had resolved to shut up his army, until then victorious, and to wait until hunger, sickness, and exhaustion should at length deliver him from his enemies, whatever might be the difficulties of the undertaking, and the clamors that might be raised against him.

"I am convinced," wrote the English general to his government, "that the honor and the interest of the country require us to remain here to the latest possible moment, and, with the aid of Heaven, I will hold on here as long as I can. I shall not seek to relieve myself of the burden of responsibility by causing the burden of a defeat to rest upon the shoulders of ministers; I will not ask from them resources which they cannot spare, and which will not contribute perhaps in an effective manner to the success of our enterprise; I will not again give to the weakness of the ministry an excuse for withdrawing the army from a situation which the honor and interest of the country compel us to guard. If the Portuguese do their duty, I can maintain myself here; if they do not do their duty, no effort in the power of Great Britain to make will suffice to save Portugal; and if I am obliged to retire, I shall be in a situation to bring away the English army with me."

It was with this firm and modest confidence in a situation that he had prudently chosen, and of which all the resources had been multiplied by his foresight, that Lord Wellington awaited the attack of Massena, and the seasoned troops who were deploying before his lines. The soldiers were exasperated at this unforeseen obstacle raised by the hand of man, and of which no one had penetrated the secret. "We shall succeed, as we should have succeeded at Busaco, if we had been allowed to," said the troops. Massena judged otherwise.

On the 10th of October the marshal with his staff-officers examined with care the enemy's lines; one discharge of a cannon, one only, resounded in their ears, and the wall upon which the telescope rested was overthrown. Massena looked at his lieutenants. "The only thing to do is to occupy both shores of the Tagus, and keep them and Lisbon blockaded," said he: "we will wait for reinforcements, and when the army of Andalusia shall have arrived we will see if, behind those cannons there, there are other cannons and other walls, as the peasants say."

In their rigid simplicity, the conceptions of Lord Wellington had taken little account of the sufferings of the Portuguese nation. Resolved upon defending Portugal to the last extremity, he had left Lisbon exposed to cannon-balls, and the country a prey to the systematic depredations of the French. Massena decided upon constituting a military establishment in face of the enemy's lines. Everywhere the resources of the surrounding country were stored in the magazines; an hospital was prepared; General Eble, old and fatigued, but always inexhaustible in resources, was preparing boats in order to form a bridge. Effecting a movement in rear, Massena and his lieutenants occupied all the positions from Santarem to Thomar, eager to instal themselves upon the two shores of the Tagus, to seize upon Abrantes, and to invest the English each day more closely in their lines. Already discontent was great in Lisbon, where provisions arrived with difficulty. Wellington urged upon the regency of Portugal the devastation of the country districts, and especially that of Alemtejo, the natural resource of the French army; the Portuguese authorities resisted. "Deliver Portugal, instead of famishing it," said they.

This was repeated in England, where the Prince of Wales had just assumed the regency, in consequence of a decided relapse into madness of King George III. The opposition thought itself returning to power; it had long sustained against the ministers of his father the policy of the heir to the throne; it now pleaded the cause of peace. The dangers to which the army of Portugal was exposed, the evils it might have to undergo, formed the subject of the debates in Parliament. The Prince Regent did not hasten to change his cabinet, but the violence of the recriminations in the ranks of the opposition affected the Marquis of Wellesley; he pressed his brother to make an effort to relieve England from the enormous weight that was crushing her. "I know it will cost me the little reputation I have been able to obtain, and the good will of the population that surrounds me," said Wellington; "but I shall not accomplish my duty towards England and this country, if I do not persevere in the prudence which can alone assure us success." Marshal Massena had sent the eloquent and adroit General Foy to Paris, charged with representing to the Emperor the difficulties of the situation of the army, and the absolute need of a supreme effort in its favor.

The general arrived at Paris at the moment when new complications were preparing. The harshness of the proceedings of Napoleon, the violence which he had displayed towards the small independent princes whose territories he had confiscated, the yoke of iron under which he claimed to place all the commercial interests of Europe, had, little by little, effaced the remains of the youthful admiration and confidence with which his brilliant genius had inspired the Emperor Alexander. Personally wounded by the sudden abandonment of the matrimonial negotiations, the Czar experienced serious uneasiness at the insatiable ambition which threatened to invade the most distant regions. He had made some preparations for defence, of little importance in themselves, and simply manifesting his fears. Napoleon took umbrage at it; the mad passion for conquests was again roused in his mind; he already meditated a new enterprise, bolder and less justifiable than all those which he had hitherto accomplished, necessitating efforts which became every day more difficult. No resource would be neglected; no reinforcement could be detached for Portugal and Spain from the armies which were being prepared in France and Germany. The intelligent ardor of General Foy, his loyal pleadings on behalf of Marshal Massena, did not completely succeed in enlightening Napoleon as to the situation of affairs in the peninsula; he understood enough of it, however, to order new dispositions of his troops. The corps of General Drouet, in Old Castile, and the fifth corps of the army of Andalusia, commanded by Marshal Mortier, were to proceed to the aid of Marshal Massena. The emperor recommended the latter to occupy without delay the two shores of the Tagus—to throw a couple of bridges across, as formerly over the Danube at Essling, in order to assure his communications whilst waiting for the reinforcements, which would permit him to attack the English lines with 80,000 men, perhaps to seize them, and in any case to inflict such sufferings upon the Portuguese population and upon the English that the latter should be obliged to retire. "The policy of the English Government inclines to change," added Napoleon; "my grand and final efforts will at last bring us the general peace." He commenced at the same moment his preparations for the Russian campaign.

"Everything depends of the Tagus!" Such was the watchword sent back to Spain by General Foy, and the tenor of the correspondence between Major- General Berthier and the leaders of the armies in the Peninsula. General Drouet began the march with his army reduced to 15,000 men, which Napoleon reckoned as 30,000. In consequence of the delay of the operations, only one division of 7000 men was effectively at the disposal of the general when he took the road from Santarem. General Gardanne, sent forward in advance, had become alarmed through the report of a movement of the English, and had promptly fallen back upon Almeida, leaving to the soldiers of Massena, and to the general-in-chief himself, the wretchedness of a hope deceived. The instructions sent to General Drouet still gave evidence of the obstinate illusions of the Emperor Napoleon as regards the respective situation of the two armies in Portugal. "Repeat to General Drouet the order to go to Almeida," wrote Napoleon to Marshal Berthier, "and to collect considerable forces, in order to be of use to the Prince of Essling, and to aid in keeping open his communications. It will be necessary that he should give to General Gardanne, or any other general, a force of 6000 men, with six pieces of cannon, in order to reopen the communication, and that a corps of the same force should be placed at Almeida, to correspond with him. In short, it is important that the communications of the army of Portugal should be re-established, in order that during all the time that the English remain in the country the rear of the Prince of Essling may be securely guarded. Immediately the English have re-embarked he will make his headquarters at Ciudad Rodrigo, my intention being that only the ninth corps should be engaged in Portugal, unless the English still hold it; and even the ninth corps ought never to let itself be separated from Almeida; but it ought to manoeuvre between Almeida and Coimbra."

When General Drouet, collecting all his forces, arrived at length with 8000 or 9000 men at Thomar (January, 1811), Marshal Massena had been struggling for five months in complete isolation against a situation which became every day more critical. He had successively seized Punhete and Leyria, constantly occupied in preparing for that passage of the Tagus which Napoleon was recommending to him without fathoming the enormous difficulties of the task. The soldiers had been organized into companies of foragers, from day to day obliged to go out further from the encampments in order to be sure of some resources, exposing themselves in consequence to attacks from a population everywhere hostile. Marauders often detached themselves from their regiments, living for several weeks by veritable pillage before returning under their flags. The officers suffered still more than the soldiers, for they did not pillage. Money and rations failed them; their clothes were worn to rags; courage alone remained inexhaustible; discipline grew feeble in every rank of the military hierarchy. The lieutenants of Marshal Massena did not experience the same confidence in him which sustained the soldiers. The bridges at length reached completion, thanks to prodigies of perseverance and cleverness; bitter discussions arose every day as to the most favorable point for the passage, when the approach of General Drouet infused joy and hope into the entire army. General Gardanne, who commanded the vanguard, announced the arrival of all the straggling divisions of the ninth corps, and the orders sent to Marshal Soult for the movement of Marshal Mortier. Money as well as reinforcements was about to rain upon the army. The instructions of the emperor were precise. The English were to be speedily dislodged from their famous lines; and, if it was necessary still to blockade them for some time, the Tagus once crossed, the troops would no longer want for resources. The plain of Alemtejo would be open to them; the fine season was approaching; all efforts would become easy. Confidence and cheerfulness spread through all the encampments.

Marshal Massena alone remained sad and uneasy. He had read the despatches which General Drouet brought him; he had smiled bitterly at the hopes and counsels of the Emperor Napoleon; he comprehended that the reinforcements were insufficient, and that the attempt at resistance was in advance condemned to failure. General Drouet had the order to maintain communications between Santarem and Almeida; already the insurrection had closed up all the roads behind him, and new skirmishes were necessary to open a passage. Only the corps of General Gardanne was destined to remain in the encampments, and that corps did not amount to 1500 men. Massena resolved upon keeping General Drouet near himself; not without pain did he arrive at this conclusion. Discouragement was already penetrating the army, with a true knowledge of the situation and of the notorious insufficiency of the succors. General Foy had just arrived, accompanied by a small corps of recruits or convalescents, which he had formed at Ciudad Rodrigo. Before quitting that post, he had written to Marshal Soult, continually occupied in Andalusia: "I beseech you, Monsieur le Marechal, in the name of a sentiment sacred to all French hearts—of the sentiment which inflames us all for the interests and glory of our august master—to present at the soonest possible moment a corps of troops upon the left bank of the Tagus, opposite to the mouth of the Zezere. It is scarcely four days' journey from Badajoz to Breto, a village situated opposite Punhete. The English are not numerous on the left bank of the Tagus; they cannot dare anything in this part without compromising the safety of their formidable entrenchments before Lisbon, which are only eight leagues from the bridge of Rio Mazac. According to the decision that your Excellency may arrive at, the army of the Prince of Essling will pass the Tagus, hold in check the English on both banks of the river, will fatigue them, will prey upon them, will keep them in painful and ruinous inaction, will form between them and your sieges a barrier likely to accelerate the surrender of the towns; or, on the other hand, this army, failing to effect the passage that has become necessary, will be forced to withdraw from the Tagus and from the English in order to find sufficient to eat, and by the same movement will give the day to our eternal enemies, in a struggle in which till now the chances have been in our favor. The country between the Mondego and the Tagus being eaten up and entirely devastated, there can be no question as to the army of Portugal having to make a retrograde step of about five or six leagues. Hunger will follow it even into the provinces of the north. The consequences of such a retreat are incalculable. It appertains to you, Monsieur le Marechal, to be at once the saviour of a great army and the powerful instrument in carrying out the ideas of our glorious sovereign. On the day when the troops under your orders shall have appeared on the banks of the Tagus, and facilitated the passage of this great river, you will be the true conqueror of Portugal."

When Marshal Soult received this eloquent and truthful summing up from General Foy, already forestalled by the formal orders of the emperor, he was personally in a grave embarrassment. Like Massena in Portugal, he was disposing in Andalusia of forces less considerable than Napoleon estimated them in France. General Suchet, after having brilliantly accomplished his enterprise against Tortosa, which was reduced on the 2nd of January, had immediately commenced the difficult siege of Tarragona, which occupied almost all his forces. General Sebastiani with difficulty sufficed for guarding Granada; Marshal Victor was detained before Cadiz, where the Cortes had solemnly assembled on the 4th of September. The resistance was to be long, the place being manned by good troops, and constantly revictualled by the English vessels. Generals Blake and Castanos had collected their forces, and ceaselessly harassed the corps occupied by the sieges, as well as the armies which kept the country. Marshal Soult had just asked for important reinforcements from Paris, when he received the order to attempt the difficult enterprise of an expedition into Portugal. He thought he had the right to comment on the instructions sent to him, and whilst urging the obstacles which were opposed to his prompt obedience, he announced his intention of proceeding to the aid of Marshal Massena, by reducing the hostile towns found upon the road to Portugal. The sieges accomplished, nothing more would hinder the march upon Santarem. He advanced then, with Marshal Mortier and the fifth corps, to the attack of Olivenca, which did not oppose a long resistance. On the 27th of January he invested Badajoz.

The place was strong, protected by the Guadiana and by solid ramparts; it communicated by a stone bridge with Fort St. Cristoval, built upon the right bank, and defending the entrenched camp of Santa Engracia. At the moment when Marshal Soult approached Badajoz, the corps of the Marquis de la Romana, formerly occupied in Portugal in the service of the English, and recently recalled by the Spanish insurrection, took possession of these entrenchments; its indefatigable chief had just died at Lisbon. It was in presence of these hostile forces that the fifth corps commenced the work of a siege destined to detain them for several weeks. A successful attack on a little detached fort permitted the marshals to attempt the passage of the Guadiana, then much swollen by the rains, and to give battle to the Spanish army. On the 19th of February, in the morning, upon the banks of the Gevara, the corps of the insurgents were completely defeated, without having been able to succeed in establishing themselves in the entrenched camp of Santa Engracia. Marshal Soult was now in a situation to hasten the taking of Badajoz, and to push forward into Portugal before the Spanish army could be re-formed. He does not appear to have conceived this idea, and resumed with perseverance the work of the trenches. "I hope that Badajoz will have been taken in the course of January, and that the junction with the Prince of Essling will have taken place before the 20th of January," wrote the emperor, meanwhile. "If it is necessary, the Duke of Dalmatia can withdraw troops from the fourth corps. I repeat to you, everything depends upon the Tagus."

The cannon of Badajoz were heard at Santarem and at Torres Vedras, and the hearts of the two armies beat with uneasiness and hope. Upon the arrival of General Foy, in presence of the insufficiency of the disposable forces, the question lay between a retreat upon Mondego and an attempt at the passage of the Tagus. The wish of the emperor strongly expressed to Foy himself, the patriotic honor which animated all the generals, even the most dissatisfied, had made the balance incline in favor of a prolonged occupation. It was necessary, then, to attempt to cross the river; the distress which reigned in certain divisions, absolutely reduced by famine, did not permit of hesitation; the shores of the stream were reconnoitred with care. For a moment the idea was entertained of making use, as a guiding mark, of the isle of Alviela, situated in the midst of the river, as the isle of Lobau was found placed in the midst of the Danube. The materials of the bridge were collected at Punhete, but horses were wanting. General Eble opposed an attempt, the advantages of which were to be too tardily recognized. The passage from Santarem to Abrantes offered the inconvenience of an immediate attack from the enemy in possession of that town, recently fortified by General Hill. It was resolved to wait for the arrival of Marshal Soult, or for the reinforcements which he had been ordered to send into Portugal. Massena had never believed, and did not believe, in the promises which had been made him on this side; he consented, however, upon the advice of all, to retard for a few days a retrograde movement which became necessary, the impossibility of attempting alone the passage of the Tagus being recognized. The enemy had occupied the isle of Alviela; all the local resources were exhausted; the reserve of biscuit assured still fifteen days' provisions to the army. The weeks passed without news: the wind no longer brought the sound of the cannonade; the soldiers felt themselves abandoned at the end of the world; the anger of the generals no longer permitted them to reanimate the failing courage of an army famished and without hope. Massena commenced the skilful preparations for his retreat upon Mondego. Under pretext of effecting a concentration of the corps necessary for the passage of the Tagus, he detached Marshal Ney towards Leyria, with a view of cutting off from the enemy the roads to the sea, in order to form afterwards a rear- guard. The wounded and the sick had been taken on before. On the 5th of March, at the end of the day, the whole French army was on the march, sad and gloomy in spite of their joy at quitting the places where they had suffered without compensation and without glory. The materials of the bridges, prepared with so much care by General Eble, were burnt. General Junot pressed forward, in order to occupy Coimbra and the Mondego—a rallying-point indicated beforehand to all the corps.

Lord Wellington issued forth from his entrenchments on learning the movements which announced to him our retreat. His accustomed prudence kept him from precipitating the pursuit by an effort that might become dangerous; the well-known character of Marshal Ney protected the rear- guard no less than the valor of his troops. He ranged his forces in order of battle before Pombal, which obliged Wellington to recall the troops which he had detached for the succor of Badajoz. But the hurry of the retreat had resumed possession of the mind of General Drouet, ever haunted by compunctions for his disobedience to the formal orders of Napoleon. Ney was not in a position seriously to defend his positions against the English; after a brilliant skirmish, he fell back upon Redinha. His division of infantry had constantly fought under his orders in all the campaigns of the six previous years; it disputed the land, foot to foot, with the 25,000 English, who followed the French army, without letting itself, for a single moment, be troubled or pressed by the superiority of the enemy. The least offensive movement of the English columns was responded to by a charge from our troops, which soon re-established the distance between the two armies. Massena, who was present at the manoeuvres of Marshal Ney, admired them without reserve, beseeching his clever and courageous lieutenant not to abandon the heights, in order to give the other corps the time and space necessary for the continuance of their march. A last engagement, which took place upon the banks of the Soure, in front of the position of Redinha, permitted Ney at last to cross the river, and gain the town of Condeixa.

The position was strong, and Massena counted on the energetic resistance of his rear-guard, in order to hinder the English, and leave time for the different corps to reassemble at Coimbra. Marshal Ney on this occasion failed to realize the just hopes of his chief; after a slight skirmish, he abandoned Condeixa, and overtaking in his haste the corps that his movement had exposed, he fell back upon the main body of the army. A position at Coimbra became impossible, as Lord Wellington was following closely on our divided forces. Massena gained the Alva by a series of clever manoeuvres, constantly thwarted by the want of discipline in his lieutenants. Marshal Ney had let himself be surprised at Foz d'Arunce by the English; General Regnier extended his camp to a distance, without care for the safety of other corps; the position of the Alva was no longer tenable. Massena, exasperated and grieved, continued his march towards the frontier of Spain; re-entered it without glory, after having displayed, during six months, all the resources of his courage, and the energy of his will in a situation which had been imprudently imposed upon him by peremptory orders. He led back an army inured to fatigue and privations, but disorganized by an existence at once idle and irregular, directed by chiefs soured and discontented. The consequences of this state of things were not long in bursting forth; scarcely had the troops taken a few days' rest in Spain, when Marshal Massena conceived the idea of assuming the offensive by descending upon the Tagus by Alcantara, in order to re-enter Portugal and recommence the campaign. Marshal Ney frankly refused to follow him without the communication of the formal orders of the emperor. In consideration of this act of revolt, twice repeated, Massena took from Ney the command of the sixth corps, which was confided to General Loyson. Ney obeyed, not without some regret for his conduct; the ill-humor of all the chiefs of the corps rendered the resumption of the campaign in Portugal utterly impossible: the army was cantoned between Almeida, Ciudad Rodrigo, and Salamanca. The emperor had just confided the general command of all the provinces of the north to Marshal Bessieres; the latter had promised much to Marshal Massena, who still nursed the hope of a great battle. Lord Wellington, following the French, had entered Spain.

The situation of affairs became critical, in spite of the eclat of the taking of Badajoz, which had been at length reduced to capitulate, on the 11th of March, on the eve of a general assault. Marshal Soult now found himself pressed to fly to the assistance of Cadiz. Marshal Victor was threatened in his positions of siege by the Spanish general Blake, and by an English corps recently embarked at Gibraltar. But already the energetic defence of Victor had triumphed over the enemy in the battle of Barossa. The assailants had retired, but remained in a threatening attitude. The army of Wellington, formerly kept immovable by Massena at Torres Vedras, became every day a danger for those who had not been able, or who had not been willing, to go to the aid of the expedition in Portugal. Our forces, everywhere dispersed, were everywhere insufficient. Marshal Soult, justly uneasy, demanded reinforcements from all sides. General Foy had returned to Paris, in order to explain to the emperor the retreat of Massena.

Great was the wrath of Napoleon. He had not yet opened his eyes to the profound causes of so many repeated checks. He did not comprehend the lessons which events were pointing out to his conquering ambition. He imputed to his lieutenants faults sometimes inevitable, or easily to be foreseen, in the circumstances in which they were placed. The inexhaustible resources of his military genius were not, however, at a loss on the occasion of this first outburst of embarrassments, destined daily to increase. He recalled Marshal Ney, incapable of serving under any other than himself, and replaced him by Marshal Marmont, more docile, more skilled in questions of military organization, and very earnest in the service of Marshal Massena. The latter was charged with watching Lord Wellington, and with closely following the English army. Marshal Soult received the reinforcements which had become necessary to him in order to defend the frontiers of Estramadura. The garrison of Badajoz was insufficient; that of Almeida had been furnishing provisions for several weeks to the troops of Massena cantoned in the environs of the place; resources began to be exhausted. Wellington was triumphing in Portugal, in Spain, and even in England. His detractors had been constrained to admire the wisdom of his contrivances, and to admit their success; the opposition loudly proclaimed it in Parliament; the war party prevailed in the councils, and nobody any longer haggled over the succors to the victorious general. Past clamor did not trouble Lord Wellington; the flatteries of public favor did not intoxicate him. He decided on laying siege to the places recently conquered by the French. He himself proceeded to the environs of Badajoz, in order to settle his plan for the campaign. The bulk of his army were menacing Almeida.

Massena was informed of the departure of Wellington; he conceived the hope of profiting by his absence to inflict upon the English a startling defeat. Hastily collecting a convoy of provisions destined to revictual Almeida, he pressed Marshal Bessieres to join with him in order to attack the army of the enemy. Bessieres lingered; the lieutenants of Massena did not give evidence of the ardor which still inflamed the heroic defender of Genoa. Using on this occasion all his rights as general-in-chief, Massena ordered at length the concentration of the forces. He was getting ready to set out, "without bread, without cannons, without horses," wrote he to Marshal Bessieres, resolved upon no longer deferring his attack. The Duke of Istria (Bessieres) arrived at last, on the 1st of May, with a reinforcement of 1500 horses and a convoy of grain. When the troops quitted Ciudad Rodrigo, on the 2nd of May, they had appeased their hunger. About 36,000 men were under arms. Wellington had had time to rejoin his army.

The English occupied the village of Fuentes d'Onoro, between the two streams of the Dos Casas and the Furones; they covered thus their principal communications with Portugal by the bridge of Castelbon over the Coa, and defended against us the road of Almeida. The combat began (3rd May, 1811) upon the two shores of the Dos Casas. Extremely furious on both sides, it left the English in possession of the village. Our columns of attack found themselves insufficient, and dispersed over too wide an extent of country. They occupied, however, both shores of the stream, when, night falling, caused the combat to cease. On the morrow Marshal Massena, changing the point of his principal effort, marched with the main body of his forces upon Pozo-Velho. He attacked on May 5th, at daybreak. Some brilliant charges of cavalry threw the English into disorder, but the guard refused to act without the orders of Marshal Bessieres, who was not found in time on the field of battle. The division of General Loyson went astray in the woods, while General Reynier limited himself to keeping back the English brigade which was directly opposed to him. The ammunition failed; Marshal Bessieres, alleging the fatigue of the teams, refused to despatch immediately the wagons to Ciudad Rodrigo, where there was a store of cartridges. Discussion and want of discipline had borne their fruits. The first glorious outburst at the beginning of the day remained without result. Massena slept upon the field of battle, within range of the guns of the English; but the latter had not recoiled, and everywhere maintained their position. When the marshal, provided with ammunition, wished to recommence hostilities, the most devoted amongst his lieutenants dissuaded him from the enterprise. Discouragement spread among the soldiers, as ill- humor among the officers. With despair in his heart, Massena remained in face of the English whilst he gave orders to blow up the ramparts of Almeida. The movement of retreat had scarcely commenced, on the 10th of May, when the explosion was heard which announced the execution of the orders given. The town of Almeida existed no longer. The garrison had succeeded in escaping the watchfulness of the English, rejoining the corps of General Heudelet, who had been sent to meet it. "That act is as good as a victory!" cried Lord Wellington in anger. Massena, however, did not allow himself to be deceived.

A few days later (16th May, 1811), Marshal Soult failed in his turn to overcome the resistance of the English posted before Badajoz, on the shores of the Albuera. A corps of the Anglo-Spanish army had laid siege to the place. The efforts of the French general to seize the village of Albuera were not successful. The marshal was constrained to place his cantonments at some distance, without, however, withdrawing from Badajoz. Massena had just been recalled to France, and replaced in his command by Marshal Marmont. He had the misfortune to be constantly sacrificed to an ambition bolder and cleverer than his own, and to bear more than once the punishment for faults which he had not committed. His soul remained indomitable, even in his bitter sorrow; but his military career was terminated. Henceforth he was to fight no more: none of the last efforts of Napoleon were confided to the warlike genius of an ancient rival, who had become a loyal and useful lieutenant, without ever sinking to the role of the courtier or the servant.

For three years past, the stubborn antipathy of the Spaniards to the foreign yoke had been struggling foot to foot against the power of Napoleon. For two years the most brilliant efforts of our courage had been vainly employed against the boldly-planned resistance of the English. The enormous sacrifices necessitated by the conquest of Spain were not compensated for, either by repose or glory. The armies were exhausted, and the generals grew weary of struggling with enemies impossible to destroy, whilst they fled only to form again immediately, like the Spaniards; or whilst they defended intrepidly positions cleverly chosen, like the English. The power and the reputation of Wellington went on increasing in proportion to our defeats. King Joseph, feeble and honorable, unjustly imposed by a perfidious contrivance on a people who repelled him, carried to France the recital of his griefs and sorrows.

Such was the situation in Spain in the month of May, 1811, after the hopes and long illusions of the campaigns of Andalusia and Portugal. The emperor had just experienced a great joy; he possessed at last a son. The King of Rome was born at Paris on the 20th of March. But day by day the situation was becoming more grave. The rupture with Russia was imminent. We had lost one after the other our most important colonies. In 1809 the English had seized upon our factories in the Senegal, and had succeeded in destroying our power in St. Domingo; in the months of July and December, 1810, the Isle of Bourbon and the Isle of France were in their turn snatched away. Our courageous efforts on the seas were powerless to defend the ancient possessions of France, as our brilliant valor failed in Spain to assure us an unjust conquest. In the interim, the industrial and commercial crisis was developing, though the superabundance of production in face of a European market more and more restricted. At the same time the Emperor Napoleon found himself battling with the heedlessly contracted difficulties of the spiritual government of the Catholic Church. The new prelates were still waiting for their bulls of institution, and the Pope still continued a prisoner.

Napoleon took his decision. He gave orders to the appointed bishops of Orleans, St. Flour, Asti, and Liege to repair to their sees without any other ecclesiastical formalities. He had elevated his uncle, Cardinal Fesch, to the archbishopric of Paris, after the death of Cardinal de Belloy. Fesch provisionally accepted, whilst continuing to hold his archbishopric of Lyons, the titles of which were canonically regular. The emperor flew into a passion. He had been to pay a visit to Notre Dame without being received by Cardinal Fesch. "I expect," said he, "to find the Archbishop of Paris at the door of his cathedral." He ordered the newly-elected prelate to take possession of his see. "No," said the cardinal; "I shall wait for the institution of the holy father." "But the chapter has given you powers." "It is true, but I should not know how to use them in this case." "Ah!" cried the emperor, "you condemn those who have obeyed me. I shall certainly know how to force you to it." "Potius mori," replied the cardinal. "Ah! mori, mori," repeated the emperor. "You choose Maury; you shall have him!"

Cardinal Maury, formerly the fiery defender of the rights and liberties of the Catholic Church before the Constituent Assembly, was appointed Archbishop of Paris on the 14th of October, 1810. On the 22nd, Osmond, the Bishop of Nancy, was called to the vacant archbishopric of Florence. Command was given to the two prelates to take possession of their sees. From Savona, Pius VII. had often succeeded in causing some canonical dispensations and some indications of his spiritual authority to reach the French and Italian clergy. Several associations were formed in order to supply him with the means for doing so. The Pope profited by them to send to Cardinal Maury, as Archbishop of Florence, a prohibition against ascending episcopal chairs without his institution. The brief addressed to Florence was promptly circulated in the city. A canon and two priests were on this account thrown into prison. At Paris the brief was secretly committed to the Abbe d'Astros, grand capitular vicar, cousin of Portalis, the councillor of state, and the son of the former minister of religion. The canon was moderate in his opinions as in his conduct; he conformed, however, to the instructions of the holy father. When Cardinal Maury wished to have the episcopal cross borne before him, the chapter abandoned him en masse, in order to retire to the sacristy. A second brief from the Pope fell into the hands of the police, "removing from the appointed archbishop all power and all jurisdiction, declaring null and without effect all that might be done to the contrary, knowingly or through ignorance." The emperor flew into a rage, attributing the resistance to the Abbe d'Astros, whom he violently apostrophized in public in a reception at the Tuileries. "I avow that I had kept myself a little on one side," Astros himself says; "but I did not wish to have myself sought for, and I always presented myself when the emperor asked for me." "Before all, monsieur, it is necessary to be a Frenchman," cried Napoleon; "it is the way to be, at the same time, a good Christian. The doctrine of Bossuet is the sole guide one ought to follow. With him one is sure of not losing one's way. I expect every one to acknowledge the liberties of the Gallican Church. The religion of Bossuet is as far from that of Gregory VII. as heaven is from hell. I know, monsieur, that you are in opposition to the measures that my policy prescribes. I have the sword on my side; take care of yourself!" The Abbe d'Astros was put in prison at Vincennes, and was to remain there until the fall of the empire. It was not long before the Cardinals de Pietro and Gabrielli were brought there also. Portalis had secretly learnt of the papal interdiction from his relative. He limited himself to informing Pasquier, recently charged with the direction of the police. He was expelled in full sitting of the Council of State by the emperor, with the most harsh reproaches on his perfidy. "Go, monsieur," said he to him, "and let me never again see you before my eyes!" At the same time, and in accordance with formal orders received from Paris, Pius VII was surrounded with the most paltry vexations; henceforth he was deprived in his captivity of all his old servants. The papers and portfolios of the Pope were all seized. "Never mind my purse," said the holy father; "but what will they do with my breviary and the office of the Virgin?" He did not consent to deliver to Prince Borghese the ring of the Fisherman, which he wore habitually on his finger, until he had himself broken it. About the same time, on several occasions, Italian priests who had refused to swear allegiance to the new state of things were transported to Corsica. Napoleon had himself given his instructions to the minister of religion. The boundaries of the dioceses and parishes in the Pontifical States underwent a complete alteration. Their number was much restricted. All the archives of the court of Rome were transported to Paris.

The emperor had not lost the remembrance of the concessions he had formerly obtained from Pius VII, when strong and free: he had reckoned upon a complete submission from the aged prisoner. Already the refusal of the holy father to the insinuations of the Cardinals Spina and Caselli had disquieted Napoleon: he had formerly flattered himself that he could make the Pope accept the suppression of his temporal power and the confiscation of his states by offering him palaces at Paris and Avignon, a rich income, and the noble grandeur of his spiritual authority over the whole Catholic Church. The extent of this authority, such as the emperor conceived it, was beginning to reveal itself. Napoleon wished to be the master in the Church as in the State. The authority of the Czar over the Russian Church, or of the Sultan over the Mussulmans, could alone satisfy his ideas. "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's," limiting within the narrowest boundaries that portion which he still ostentatiously reserved for God. He thought for a moment of regulating by a law the question of episcopal institution. Diverted from this project by the wise counsels of Cambaceres and of Bigot de Preameneu, he resolved upon consulting a commission of ecclesiastics upon the convocation of a national Council. Already a first Council had been gathered, at the time of the debates on the investiture of the bishops. The illustrious Superior of St. Sulpice, the Abbe Emery, had sat in it, strongly against his will. "The emperor has appointed a commission of bishops and cardinals to examine certain questions," wrote the Abbe Emery, to his disciple, the Abbe Nageot, Superior of the Seminary of Baltimore. "He has desired that I should be added to it. All that I can say to you is, that I have come forth from it without having anything to reproach myself with; that I think God has given me the spirit of counsel in this affair. I am sure that He has given me the spirit of power through His holy mercy."

The Emperor Napoleon judged soundly of that spirit of power and counsel for which the Abbe Emery piously ascribed to God all the praise. "M. Emery is the only man who makes me afraid," said he; "he makes me do all that he wishes, and perhaps more than I ought. For the first time, I meet a man gifted with a veritable power over men, and from whom I ask no account of the use to which he will put it. On the contrary, I wish to be able to confide to him all our youth; I should die more reassured as to the future."

Notwithstanding the ascendancy which his holy character and the firm moderation of his spirit exercised over the emperor, the Abbe Emery was not deceived as to his personal action in the ecclesiastical commission. "Permit me," he wrote to the minister of religion, "out of respect for the bishops, to abstain from taking any deliberative part, and only to have a consulting voice; that is to say, that I may simply furnish upon the matters which may be discussed the lights and documents which my studies and experience may enable me to give." The Superior of St. Sulpice was once more to give his opinion freely before the impatient and haughty master, who claimed to subdue all wills and all consciences to his empire, "I do not call in question the spiritual power of the Pope," said Napoleon one day, when he had called the Ecclesiastical Commission to the Tuileries: "he has received it from Jesus Christ; but Jesus Christ has not given him the temporal power. It was Charlemagne who gave it to him, and I, as the successor of Charlemagne, wish to take it away from him, because he does not know how to use it, and because it hinders him from exercising his spiritual functions. What inconvenience will there be in the Pope being subject to me, now that Europe knows no other master?" "Sire," replied Emery, "your Majesty is better acquainted than I am with the history of revolutions. The present state of things may not always exist. It is not, then, necessary to change the order wisely established. The holy father will not agree to the concessions which your Majesty demands from him, because he cannot do it." Napoleon did not answer. The Abbe Emery had refused to sign the propositions accepted by the Ecclesiastical Commission; he dreaded the Council. "How is it that our bishops do not see," wrote he, "that the means of conciliation which the emperor demands from them are only a trick on his part to impose upon the simple, and a mask to cover his tyranny? Let him leave the Church tranquil; let him restore their functions to the Pope, the cardinals, and the bishops; let him renounce extravagant pretensions, and all will soon be arranged." The emperor, meanwhile, let it be known amongst the delegates that he intended to send to Savona to have an understanding with the Pope. "This is a good time to die," said Emery. God granted him this favor. He had suffered long, and on the 28th of April, 1811, he breathed his last.

It was at this very moment that the Archbishop of Tours and the Bishops of Nantes and Treves set out for Savona, charged to obtain from the Pope the concessions necessary for the re-establishment of ecclesiastical order. Already the Council had been ostentatiously convoked without the circular letters making mention of the name of Pius VII. "One of the contracting parties has disowned the Concordat," said the summons to attend; "the conduct that has been persevered in, in Germany for ten years past, has almost destroyed the episcopate in that part of Christendom; the Chapters have been disturbed in their rights, dark manoeuvres have been contrived, tending to excite discord and sedition among our subjects." It was in order to prevent a state of things contrary to the welfare of religion, to the principles of the Gallican Church, and to the interests of the state, that the emperor had resolved upon collecting, on the 9th of July following, in the church of Notre Dame at Paris, all the bishops of France and Italy in national council.

The prelates delegated to Savona had for their mission to announce to Pius VII the convocation of the Council and the repeal of the Concordat. "We intend," said their instructions, "that the bishops should be instituted according to the Concordat of Francis I., which we have renewed, and in such a manner as shall be established by the Council, and shall have received our approbation. However, it would be possible to revert to the Concordat on the following conditions: 1st. That the Pope should institute all the bishops that we have appointed; 2nd. That in future our appointment shall be communicated to the Pope in the ordinary form; that if three months after the court of Rome has not instituted, the institution shall be performed by the Metropolitan." A letter, almost threatening, written by nineteen bishops assembled at the house of Cardinal Fesch, accompanied the officious propositions of the emperor. The anger of Napoleon had weighed heavily on the Council. On the 9th of May the three prelates arrived secretly at Savona.

Chabrol, the Prefect of Montenotte, announced their visit to the Pope. "They can come in when they wish," replied Pius VII. For four months the old man had been living alone, without external communication, deprived of his friends and his servants, without pen and ink, gently accepting his sufferings, but visibly enfeebled in mind and body. Disturbed at first, he soon recovered himself, talked familiarly with the bishops, and limited himself to asking that he might be granted the support of a few of his counsellors on this grave occasion. The request was denied in the most respectful manner; the prelates delegated by the Emperor Napoleon offered their assistance to the holy Father. The letter of the nineteen bishops dwelt upon the hope that the Pope would engage himself to do nothing contrary to the declarations of the Gallican Church in 1682; Pius VII protested that he had never had any intention of doing so, but that it was impossible for him to enter into any written engagement on the subject, the declaration having been condemned by Pope Alexander VIII. He discussed, without bitterness, the question of canonical institution, whilst altogether repelling the propositions put forth by the bishops. "All alone by himself, a poor man could not take upon himself such a great change in the Church," said he, smiling.

The discussion was prolonged, not only on the part of the prelates, but also on the part of the Prefect of Montenotte, who had frequent interviews with the Pope, using by turns menaces and caresses, seeking to act on the mind of Pius VII by the interposition of his physician, Dr. Porta, completely devoted to the imperial service. The Pope was complaining of his health; his intellect appeared at times affected by his long anguish. "The chief of the Church is in prison, and alone," said he, "nothing can be decided by him."

The virtues of Pius VII, like his natural weaknesses, contributed to the trouble of his conscience and his mind. Gentle and good, easily tormented by scruples, he was tossed about between the conviction of the duties which he owed to the holy see, and the fear of prolonging in the Church a grave disorder, which might bring about grievous consequences. In his interviews with the bishops he yielded everything, whilst thinking he was resisting, and finished by accepting a note, drawn up under his own eyes, containing in principle all the required concessions. He had not signed it, but the negotiators were contented with what they had obtained. "This morning we have drawn up the whole clearly and in French," wrote the Archbishop of Tours. "We have presented it to the Pope, he has desired a few changes in expression, some addition of phrases, some trifling erasures, and there has resulted from it an ensemble quite as good, and indeed much better than we flattered ourselves on obtaining a few days ago." Next day, May 20th, in the morning, the negotiators took the road to Paris.

They had scarcely got a few leagues from Savona, and already the Pope was seized with remorse. Ill for several days past, deprived of sleep by the agitations of his mind and conscience, he reproached himself for all the articles of the note he had agreed to, and fell into a state of suffering which gravely disquieted his jailers. "I cannot conceive how I could accept these articles," repeated Pius VII; "some of them are tainted with heresy; it is an act of folly on my part, I have been half mad." "Absorbed in a complete silence, he closed his eyes in the attitude of a man who pondered deeply," wrote Chabrol, on May 23rd; "he only roused himself to cry out, 'Happily, I have signed nothing.' I told him to put full confidence in that which he had adopted in his conscience, which had no need of signatures, nor of conventions made by civil laws. He answered me that from that moment he had lost all peace of mind, and he has again fallen into the same absorbed reverie."

Thus the courage, and even the reason, of the unfortunate pontiff momentarily gave way under the pressure of a moral suffering beyond his forces. In order to calm him, Chabrol was obliged to despatch a courier in pursuit of the bishops, withdrawing the concessions implied in the first article of the note; then, at last, the scruples of the Pope were concentrated.

"This suppression is absolutely necessary," said he, "without which I shall raise a disturbance in order to make my intentions known." In advance, and by the very fact of the violent pressure exercised over a captive, old, sick, and alone, the emperor found himself in reality disarmed in face of the Council which he had just convoked; the concession which he had snatched from Pius VII became null, for the pope was protesting from the depth of his prison.

Napoleon judged thus; he did not avail himself of the articles immediately denied in the note drawn up by his negotiators, and painfully accepted by the Pope. In fact, the undertaking at Savona had failed; it began again at Paris, where the Council at length assembled on June 17th. The emperor had beforehand sought to intimidate a few of the priests called to take part in it. During his recent journey in Normandy he had Bois Chollet, the Bishop of Seez, called before him, accused of rigor towards the priests who had lately accepted the constitution. "You wish for civil war; you have already engaged in it," cried Napoleon, "you have embrued your hands in French blood. I have pardoned you, and you will not pardon others, miserable wretch; you are a bad subject, give me your resignation immediately." One of the canons of Seez, the Abbe Le Gallois, learned and virtuous, and who was looked upon as exercising a great influence over his bishop, was conducted to Paris, and put in prison in La Force. "The canon is too clever," said the emperor, "let him be brought to Vincennes." Le Gallois was to pass nine months there, and only the fall of the Empire was to put an end to his detention.

"Your conscience is a fool!" said Napoleon to De Broglie, Bishop of Ghent, whom he had made a chevalier of the legion of honor, when the latter protested against a clause in the oath. He had said as much to other prelates whom he had just convoked to the Council. It is a serious case for absolute power when it enters into a struggle with the most noble sentiments of human nature. The Emperor Napoleon had come to that point when he regarded as his enemies freedom of thought and freedom of conscience amongst his subjects still suspected of independence, litterateurs or bishops.

Ninety-five prelates assembled, on the 17th of June, in the morning, in the church of Notre Dame. They were joined by nine bishops appointed by Napoleon, although they had not yet received canonical institution. At the second seance, when the affairs of the Council began to be seriously considered, the Ministers of Religion of France and Italy took their places in the assembly. In opening, on the 16th, the session of the Corps Legislatif, the emperor had haughtily proclaimed his supremacy. "The affairs of religion," he said, "have been too often mixed up with, and sacrificed to, the interests of a state of the third order. I have put an end to this scandal forever. I have united Rome to the Empire. I have accorded palaces to the popes at Rome and in Paris. If they have at heart the interests of religion, they will often desire to sojourn at the centre of the affairs of Christendom. It was thus that St. Peter preferred Rome to a sojourn in the Holy Land."

On taking his seat at the Council, Bigot de Preameneu, then Minister of Religion, pronounced in his turn a discourse which history ought to assign to its true origin. The emperor enumerated, by the mouth of his minister, his numerous grievances with regard to the court of Rome, dioceses without bishops, the prelates deprived of canonical institution. "By this means the Pope has tried to create troubles in the Church and in the state. The sinister projects of the Pope have been rendered null by the firmness of the chapters in maintaining their rights, and by the good feeling of the people, accustomed to respect only the legitimate authorities. His Majesty declares that he will never suffer in France as in Germany, that the court of Rome should exercise on vacancies in the sees any influence by vicars apostolic, because the Christian religion being necessary to the faithful, and to the state, its existence would be compromised in countries where vicars, whom the government might not recognize should be charged with the direction of the faithful. His Majesty wishes to protect the religion of his fathers; he wishes to preserve it; and yet it would be no longer the same religion if it ceased to have bishops, and if one claimed to concentrate in himself the power of all. His Majesty expects, as emperor and king, as protector of the Church, as the father of his people, that the bishops should be instituted according to the forms anterior to the Concordat, and without a see ever remaining vacant over three months, a time more than sufficient for its being filled up."

The declaration fell like a thunderbolt in the midst of the Council. With the exception of a very small number of prelates acquainted with the negotiations of Savona, or in the confidence of the emperor, the mass of the bishops, come from a distance, ignorant or deceived, thought to find peace accomplished, or on the way of being accomplished, in the Church between the civil power and the holy see. On the previous evening all had applauded the words of Boulogne, Bishop of Troyes, then the most celebrated amongst the religious orators, when he cried, "Whatever vicissitudes the see of Peter may experience, whatever may be the state and condition of his august successor, we shall always be linked to him by the bonds of respect and filial reverence. This see may be removed, it can never be destroyed. They may deprive it of its splendor, they can never deprive it of its force. Wheresoever the see may be, there all others will meet. Wheresoever this see may be transported, all Catholics will follow it, because wheresoever it may be settled there will be the stem of the succession, the centre of government, and the sacred depository of the apostolic traditions." When the prelates were successively called upon to give their consent to the opening of the Council, Mgr. d'Aviau, Archbishop of Bordeaux, replied, "Yes, I wish it; excepting, nevertheless, the obedience due to the sovereign pontiff, an obedience to which I pledge myself on oath." All the members of the Council, its president, Cardinal Fesch, at the head of it, took the oath of allegiance to the Catholic Church, apostolic and Roman, and at the same time a "faithful obedience to the Roman pontiff, successor of St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, and successor of Jesus Christ."

Such was not the end which the emperor had proposed to himself in convoking the Council, and his wrath towards Cardinal Fesch was violent, as well as towards Boulogne. "I have ever in my heart the oath taken to the Pope, which seemed to me very ill-timed," wrote he to Bigot de Preameneu; "make researches to discover what is meant by this oath, and how the parliaments regarded it. Let the sittings of the Council be secret, and let it not have, either in session or in committee, any motion of order. The report that you make to the Council ought not to be printed." The commissions were to be appointed by ballot; the first elected was charged with drawing up the address to the emperor. The task was confided to the Bishop of Nantes, Mgr. Duvoisin, clever and wise, well advanced in the good graces of Napoleon, and who had been one of the delegates to Savona. To the first objections that his colleagues presented to him, the prelate responded that his draft of the address had received the approval of the emperor.