History of Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon Buonaparte. Translated ... by the author of 'The Life of Joanna, Queen of Naples'

Front matter

A SELECTION FROM THE CATALOGUE OF MISCELLANEOUS SECOND-HAND BOOKS, RECENTLY PURCHASED— FOR SALE BY RICHARD JAMES KENNETT, 59, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S-INN-FIELDS, LONDON. Lodge's Portraits of Illustrious Person ages of Great Britain, 4 vols. royal 8vo. (vol. 1 and 2, half-bound, morocco, gilt leaves,) fine impressions, 8/. 8s. Holy Bible, with Engravings from the best English Artists, published by Macklin, 6 volsfine impressions, blue morocco, gilt leaves, 311. 10s. 1800 Churchill's Voyages and Travels, with the Harleian Supplement, 10 vols. folio, uniformly bound, maps and plates, 10/. Ids. 1744 Allason's Picturesque Antiquities of Pola in Istria, 14 plates, engraved by Cooke, Moses, and Armstrong, large paper, atlas folio, proofs, half-bound, 11. I6s. 1819 Gregory's Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, 2 vols. 4to. plates, half-bound morocco, 21. 10s. 1S07 Bentham's History and Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of Ely, with the Appen dixes, 2 vols. in 1, 4to. uncut, 3/. 13s. fir?.

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Chapter I

State of France after the loss of Italy.— General discontent, and complaints of the people against the government. — Universal desire for the return of Buonaparte. — His arrival from Egypt. — Puts an end to the Directory. Assumes the supreme authority under the title of First Consul. — Turns his thoughts to the conquest of Italy. — Effects a reconciliation with the Emperor Paul, but cannot procure peace with Austria or England. — His vast designs. — Siege of Genoa. — Brave defence of Massena. — That city surrendered to the Austrians p. 1.

Chapter II

The Consul passes the Great St. Bernard. — Gains the battle of Marengo; and becomes master of Upper Italy. — Provisionary governments in Piedmont, Genoa, and Milan. — Conclave in Venice. — Cardinal Chiaramonti raised to the Pontificate ; his inauguration at Rome. — Practices of Buonaparte with" him. — Malta taken by the English. — Movements in Tuscany. — War renewed between Austria and France. — Battle of the Mincio between Bellegarde and Brune. — Retreat of the former. — Passage of the Splugen effected with wonderful courage and skill, by Macdonald. — Fresh successes of the French. — Peace with Naples, Austria, and Spain. — All Europe, except England, in amity with France P. 29.

Chapter III

The Consul comes to an agreement with the See of Rome, and restores the Catholic religion in France. — The Concordat. — Discussions in the Papal council on this subject. — Organic articles added by the Consul. — Complaints of the Pope respecting them. — French ordinances in Piedmont, which pave the way for its definitive union with France. — Menou replaces Jourdan in the government. — Murat in Tuscany. — His mandate against the Neapolitan exiles. — Tuscany given to the young Prince of Parma, with the title of King of Etruria. — The Consul endeavours to secure more VI CONTENTS. ample authority, and a more illustrious title. — Makes his first experiment* in Italy, and calls the Italian deputies to Lyons. — He is there declared president of the Italian republic for ten years, with the capability of being re-elected. — Constitution of the Italian republic. — Change in Genoa. — Her new constitution. — Monument erected at Sarzana in honour of the Buonaparte family, originally of that city. — Piedmont formally united to France. — Charles Louis Infant of Spain becomes King of Etruria by the death of the Prince of Parma. — Yellow fever at Leghorn. — The ten years' arts of Buonaparte attain their completion. — Procures for himself the title of Emperor. — Pius the Seventh goes expressly to Paris to per form the ceremony of his coronation P. 82.

Chapter IV

Buonaparte, having made himself Emperor of France, resolves to give himself the title of King of Italy. — The Italians present themselves before him, at Paris, and gratify this wish. — Repairs to Milan to be crowned. — Constitution of Genoa changed, and the territory united to France. — Fetes given by the Genoese to the Emperor and King. — Submission of Scipio Ricci, bishop of Pistoja, to the Pope. — His reception by the Pope at Florence. — Artful insinuations of the Jesuits to the princes of Europe; their restoration in the kingdom of Naples. — War between France on one side, and Russia and Austria on the other. — Its causes. — Massena Generalissimo of France. — The Archduke Charles, of Austria, in Italy. — Battle of Caldiera. — Brilliant victories of Napoleon, in Germany. — The Archduke retires from Italy. — Peace of Presburg. — Napoleon deprives Ferdinand of Naples of his kingdom. — Reasons of this step. — Joseph, brother of Napoleon, king of Naples. — Bloodshed in Calabria. — Battle of Maida between the French and English. — Affair of the mouths of the Cattaro. — Ferocity of the war in Dalmatia. — Dalmatia and Ragusa united to the kingdom of Italy P. 132.

Chapter V

Napoleon goes to war with the king of Prussia. — Reverses of the latter. Adulation, by the Italians, of Napoleon. — Treaty of Fontainebleau, which wrests Portugal from the House of Braganza. — Tuscany wrested from the Spanish race, and placed under Eliza, the sister of Napoleon. — Operations of the junta created in Tuscany. — Description of the miseries of Italy. — Magnificent works of Napoleon. — He wrests Spain from the Bourbons. — Joachim, King of Naples. — Joseph of Spain. — Joachim goes to take possession of the kingdom. — Fetes given to him. — The principles and nature of his government. — Sect of Carbonari, how, when, where, and for what purpose it originated: its distinctive rites. — Napoleon turns against the Pope. — Unites the Marches to the kingdom of Italy. — Occupies Rome. — Insults the Pope. — Energetic protestations of Pius the Seventh. — Unhappy vicissitudes in the Marches, on account of the oaths required from the magistrates and ecclesiastics P. 181.

Chapter VI

War renewed with Austria— The Archduke John Generalissimo of the Austrian forces, Prince Eugene, Viceroy and Generalissimo of the French CONTENTS. VII forces in Italy.— Their manifestoes to the Italians.— The Archduke, successful at Sacile, advances towards Verona. — General rising of the Tyro lese against the French and Bavarians. — Character of Andrew Hofer. Peculiar nature of the Tyrolese war.— Austria totally defeated, first near Ratisbon, then at Wagram. — The Archduke retires from Italy.— Peace between France and Austria.— Marriage of the Archduchess Maria Louisa to Napoleon.— End of the Tyrolese war.— Death of Hofer.— Napoleon unites Rome to France, and sends the Pope prisoner to Savona. — The Pope excommunicates him. — Description of Rome under the French, and the undertakings carried on there.— Explanation of the Propaganda.— Practices of Caroline of Sicily with Napoleon. — Unfortunate expedition of Joachim to Sicily. — General Manhes sent to reduce Calabria. — Suc ceeds, and by what means p. 224.

Chapter VII

Pius the Seventh a prisoner at Savona. — How treated. — His discussions with Napoleon concerning the execution of the Concordat and the institution of Bishops. — Reasons adduced by both parties for and against the power of the Roman pontiffs to delegate spiritual authority.— The Popeshowshimself not unwilling to institute the nominated Bishops at the end of six months, or to permit it to be done in his name by the metropolitans, excepting only from this concession the suburban bishops. — Council of Paris. — Brief of the 20th of September. — The Pope persists in refusing to resign his temporal sovereignty. — Threats used to intimidate him. — He is conducted from Savona to Fontainebleau P. 273.

Chapter VIII

Affairs of Sicily. — Constitution given by Ferdinand to the Sicilians, under the influence of Lord William Bentinck. — The Queen, obliged by the English to retire from Sicily, dies at Vienna. — War between France and Russia. — Napoleon's evil days arrive. — Overthrown in Russia; makes a fresh effort to appear on the German plains. — Is overwhelmed at Leipsig. — All Germany indignantly rises against him. — The concordat of Fontainebleau. — Proceedings of Joachim, of Eugene, and of Bentinck, regarding the affairs of Italy. — Eugene on the Save. — Italy assailed bydiverse factions. — The end of the tragedy draws near P. 321.

Chapter IX

The Austrians, under Hiller, invest the kingdom of Italy with a strong force. Dalmatia and Croatia rise against the French. — Eugene retires. — Battle of Bassano. — Eugene on the Adige. — The Italian generals and soldiers dissatisfied with him. — Nugent makes a stir at the mouths of the Po with the Germans. — Joachim declares against Napoleon, and makes war against the kingdom of Italy. — Battle of the Mincio, between Eugene and Bellegarde. — Bentinck disembarks at Leghorn; talks of the independence of Italy; takes Genoa, and promises the observance of the integrity CONTENTS. of the Genoese state. — Tidings received of Napoleon's fatal disasters:, of the occupation of Paris by the allies; of his retreat to Fontainebleau with the fragments of his troops; of his abdication; of his having accepted the Island of Elba as his final abode. — Eugene treats with Bellegarde, and retires to Bavaria. — State of opinion in Milan. — Unanimous as to national independence; but some desire Eugene, and some an Austrian prince as king — Debate in the senate on the subject. — Popular tumult. — The senate dissolved. — The electoral colleges convened. — They create a regency, and send deputies to Paris, to the Emperor Francis, to demand independence and an Austrian prince. — The result of the mission. — Genoa given to the K'mg of Sardinia — Conclusion of the work. P. 357.

Preface

. The translation which is now presented to the" public embraces the history of Italy during the consulate and empire of Napoleon, from 1799 to 1814. This part of Botta's celebrated work on modern Italy has been selected for translation, because the extraordinary character of " the man of destiny" is no where more fully developed, nor his actions more impartially related. In the pages of the modern Guicciardini facts are related with scrupulous fidelity ; but the bias of his mind is sometimes perceptible in the motives he attributes to the actors in his great tragedy ; and certain it is, that whatever good he may occasionally describe as the result of the actions of Napoleon, he never on any occasion traces their source to an impulse of virtue or generosity. It is also remarkable on the other hand, that his eloquent encomiums of the mighty genius of Napoleon are rarely given in the person of the author, but are attributed to the public at large.

These, however, are swelled to a pitch of extravagance that seems like hyperbole to those who have lived out of the immediate scene, where every mind was subdued by the force of his genius, or intimidated by a superstitious dread of his fortune. The writer seems panic-struck when brought back by his historical labours to live over again, in thought, those days

PREFACE.

. X when " the fatal Napoleon" was " the umpire of fortune." Perhaps, in the present state of continental Europe, he dared not pledge his own opinions; for the vivid picture he has drawn of the powers of his wonderful theme ; and, unwilling as an orator to forego the awe-inspiring effect it produces, he has adopted this mode of conveying it to posterity. An Italian mind could, perhaps, best comprehend and depict the irregular character of Napoleon, where the extremes of sublimity and meanness not unfrequently meet ; for his transports of rage, his fond attachments, his imperious pride, his soft and kindly manner, his craft, his contemptuous sarcasm, his subtle flattery, his fixedness of purpose, and continual change of plan, — breaking, like the Epicurean, as he ascended, every step of the ladder by which he mounted to a dizzing height over the dark and troubled abyss of anarchy and revolution, are all to be found in the character of the country from which he derived his origin.

Napoleon was but in fact on a gigantic scale, one of the Condottieri of earlier Italy ; leading on by his personal influence bands gathered from all nations, rushing on without magazines and without pay; rapid victories cementing their allegiance ; hope their support, and success their guerdon. In Italy were his earliest laurels won ; in Italy he gained the sceptre over his fellow men ; and whilst his own entrance into that gifted land, whose destiny it has been, in every age, to sway or to delight the world, resembles a tale of romance, the road he has made for others to traverse into Italy is one of his most enduring boasts. The broad facts of this unequalled period of excitement and of reverses we know and we deplore : the banished men who crowd the shores, yet cannot weary the generosity, of Britain, are here to take up the tale of frustrated hopes and defeated rights. In reading coolly the detail of the times in which they

PREFACE.

. XI were reared, of the wrongs by which their country bled, and of the opinions which moderate men are obliged to form from the facts which history has to recount, we shall see the human mind displayed in all its varieties. Botta, like too many of the most accomplished and the most virtuous of his countrymen, is virtually an exile, residing at Paris ; and, like too many of the still noble and once affluent princes of the land which has ever been considered the boast of nature, is said to be indebted to the generosity of his friends for such comforts as an Italian can enjoy out of his own idolized Italy ; where luxuries, such as wealth cannot create elsewhere, are the inheritance of all ; where the wonders of art are the delight of every eye ; the perfection of music is poured forth on every ear, and where many who live but to breathe the air of its balmy clime, find its tranquillizing influence a substitute for happiness, or a neutralizer of care.

Our Italian historian was busily engaged in the scenes he describes during the whole of the momentous period of which his history treats. He was born in 1766, in the town of San Giorgio, in Piedmont, and took his degrees as a physician at the university of Turin. In 1792 he was arrested as an advo cate of republican principles : but as nothing serious was proved against him, he was liberated after a short imprisonment. In 1794 he took refuge in the Cisalpine territory, as the French conquerors then termed Lombardy, and was thence sent with the French forces in his medical capacity to Corfu. He returned to Italy with the Italian army in 1796, and on the forced abdication of the King of Sardinia in 1798 was appointed by Joubert a member of the provisional government. His enemies, on the authority of the Moniteur of the 8th of March, 1799, accuse him of having been one of the three commissioners (Bossi and Colla were his alleged coadjutors) who proposed

PREFACE.

. the annexation of Piedmont to France, but of this he says nothing in his history, and indirectly apologizes for whatever may have been the errors of his political conduct. Thus, if any members of the provisional government were influenced by ambition, they were not long in discovering the bitterness of serving under foreign masters. For in a short time, not by their own misconduct, but from the miserable circumstances of the period, they lost at once the confidence of their own countrymen, and the friendship of the stranger. Fatal times! in which ancient governments were destroyed from mad rage, and the honoured name of the worthy was villified in order to reduce all men to the same level. This provisional govern ment, however, lasted but a few months, and on the return of Suwarrow in 1799, Botta was obliged to seek an asylum in France.

When the battle of Marengo had restored the French dominion in Italy, Botta, with Carlo Bossi, an advo cate, and Carlo Giulio, likewise a physician, was appointed to govern Piedmont, under the name of an executive commission. This triumvirate, having all unfortunately the same christian name of the deposed king, were held up to ridicule under the familiar appellation of " / tre Carli," some malicious wit having made them the subject of the following epigram : " Le Piedmont versait des Larmes, Lorsque Charles etait son roi; Quels pleurs et quels alarmes, A present qu'il en a trois." Ranza, the Cobbett of Italy, attacked them unceasingly in prose ; and Calvo, the Fontaine of the Piedmontese dialect, wrote a bitter satire against them, in revenge for a few days imprisonment, taking for his motto Ne sutor ultra crepidam ; and from the reiterated complaints he makes of the impossibility

PREFACE.

. XIII of governing Piedmont at this time, perhaps the historical physician was but too well convinced of the picture of the epigraph, and was not sorry to be relieved from his responsi bility, when in 1802 the second provisional government of which he had been a member, was set aside by the annexation of Piedmont to France. Bossi and Giulio were made prefects ; Botta was appointed a member of the new legislative councib as representative for the department of the Dora, and in 1808 became its vice-president. However, as, like other representatives and legislators under Napoleon, his office was a mere sinecure, he employed his leisure in writing his history of the American war, published in 1810, which all parties of his countrymen unite in admiring, and which the Americans cite as the best account that has yet appeared of that contest.

During this period he received the order of the Legion of Honour. In 1814 Botta, taking advantage of his privilege as a French citizen, again retired to France, where he obtained an employment under Louis the Eighteenth. Unfortunately for him, the reign of the hundred days did not pass over without bestowing on him further promotion, and, in consequence, on the return of the King of France he was deprived of his office. He has, notwithstanding, been permitted to reside at Paris, where he composed and published his recent works, and is now engaged in writing the History of Italy from the time of Guicciardini to the period when the beautiful work he has completed commences. There are few works whose sustained prolixity suggests more comprehensive and intricate views of the march of events than this of Botta : he seems to have written with the skill of an epic poet the rapid varieties of subject which history unfolds. He loves to mingle the minutiæ of the midnight fray, the

PREFACE.

. XIV brilliancy of the fete, the horrors of the Lazar house, with the complex detail of state policy : the attention is almost wearied with expanded views and local regulations, when some trifling appeal to universal nature, some identifying touch, comes suddenly before us. The sugar plums of famishing Genoa, the hymn of the Tyrolese, the opera of Valetta, the sarcastic turn of his own thought, break into his subject like sunshine on the scene, and reanimate the picture : he is a deep master of irony, which is often suggested rather than expressed ; and his covert smile is keenly felt under some unassuming phrase or short expressive comment. He is of that race of men, of warm and vivid fancies, with whom a shrug is of more eloquence than the harangue of other lands ; a gesture, or an intonation, the quintescence of passion, and the revealing of thought.

All is rapid, keen, sententious when opinion or sentiment is in ques tion ; while all is laboured into distinctness where facts are to be related. People more used to affairs would not need such long explanations ; but it is written by a native of the land of idleness and of thought, where to understand things is difficult, but to catch the most hidden turns of mind is the habit of every hour. A few words remain to be said for the translation. As the work is chiefly valuable as the record of the opinions of the moderate men of continental Europe as corrected by experi ence, scrupulous fidelity has chiefly been aimed at by the translator, who on all occasions has endeavoured to render the exact shade of praise or censure, and the epithets of the original simply. If this fidelity could compass the tragic effect, the pathos, the terse sarcasm of the original, there would be little more to desire ; but to cope at once with the style of Botta, and the flexible and glowing language of Italy, is no easy task. Should, however, the public favour the present attempt, the

PREFACE.

. XV translator may probably be induced to offer, at a future period, the first part of the original work to its approbation; beginning at the period of the beneficent reign of Leopold, in Tuscany, to which the historian so often and so fondly reverts; and ending in the last days of the corrupt and feeble directory of France. ITALY.

Chapter I

State of France after the loss of Italy. — General discontent, and complaints of the people against the government. — Universal desire for the return of Buonaparte. — His arrival from Egypt. — Puts an end to the Directory. — Assumes the supreme authority under the title of First Consul. — Turns his thoughts to the conquest of Italy. — Effects a reconciliation with the Emperor Paul, but cannot procure peace with Austria or England. — His vast designs. — Siege of Genoa. — Brave defence of Massena. — That city surrendered to the Austrians. In the present century, an age of violence, of ambition, and of pr.ide, Europe has been doomed to pass through the two worst extremes that can afflict the human race, with the ultimate result of being left incapable of enjoying mild and liberal institutions.

From the commencement of the French Revolution to the period of the Egyptian campaign, it had been convulsed by an unbridled license assuming the name of liberty, which it was then fated to exchange for an oppressive despotism, under the title of an imperial government. The situation of the French Directory in the year 1799 was one of extreme difficulty. France was disturbed by the fermentation of various parties, all inimical to the existing government: the French nation, naturally impatient under a reverse of fortune, was at this time rendered still more impatient by the memory of former victories; and, to soothe their own self-love, the people imputed the blame of their recent defeats to the errors of their rulers. Complaints of their conduct were heard on every side, and the best that [1799.

ITALY 2 was said for them was, that they knew not how to govern; for some accused them of treachery, and others, of having divided the booty with those by whose robberies the soldiery had been reduced to such penury that victory was rendered impossible. That enthusiasm which had at first been felt for the three new directors had been entirely destroyed by the last defeats. In the legislative council there reigned, as usual, the perverse ambition of embarrassing the government, in order to attain to the Directorial seats, and from this motive its members thwarted the Directory in every measure alike, whether good or bad; and thus there was no longer any means or possibility of governing. The new conscripts would not march; the veteran soldiers deserted on account of the shortness of their pay; the taxes could not be collected; every nerve was wanting.

Civil war lacerated the western provinces; party spirit divided the southern: in politics some advocated extreme opinions, others embraced the more moderate; many who well knew whither these wishes tended, and more yet who knew not what they looked for, further than change, desired an alteration in the government. And this alteration was inevitable, for no government in France can resist the effect of military reverses, if at the same time the press be free, and discussion unrestrained. The military faction, who ill brooked to see the nation ruled by the civil robe, and whom none but a martial government could please, looked around to see if any banner inviting to change was unfolded to the restless air, round which they might rally as a common centre, proposing to subdue, first the government by the name of liberty, and then the people by the name of glory.

These things were clearly perceived by the prudent, the enemies of license; nor were they less clearly seen by the factious, the friends of tyranny; and both hoped to turn them to their own designs. In this conjuncture, the name of Buonaparte, so glorious to France — so fearful to her enemies, arose to the minds of all. He alone, said they, can restore health to the afflicted state, or bring its tempest-driven fortunes into safe harbour. He alone can give fresh verdure to the drooping laurels of the desolated republic; and his arm alone can regain the much-coveted pro vinces of unhappy Italy. Treachery, or incapacity, has sullied the name of France by unnumbered defeats; and already Europe, so often vanquished, threatens to attack even the proper soil of her victors. He alone, the conqueror of Italy, ever equal to himself, has chained victory to the republican banners on distant and barbarous shores.

The fame of his triumphs in Egypt 1799.] ITALY 3 affords some consolation for the disasters in Europe. It is now to be seen how much one man may be able to effect for the safety of the state, attacked by such overpowering force; and since Joubert is dead, and Moreau and Massena are unequal to the task, why should we not call to the aid of the sinking country Buonaparte, the matchless? In others there is courage — in others talent; but the mind which subjugates fortune, the commanding intellect which binds every will to one noble and exalted end, dwells only in Buonaparte: he only can moderate and restrain discordant opinions, and baneful suspicions. Let us prove, therefore, how much may be accomplished by a mind thus powerful, and by fortune thus constant: — with the con queror of Italy the republic prospered; deprived of him, she has fallen; with the hero of Italy and of Egypt she shall rise anew.

In this manner there arose in France an intense desire for the presence of the unconquered captain. The lovers of military glory turned to him, as capable of restoring its lustre: those corrupted by the appetite of command and of plunder, because they hoped to regain, through him, the opportunities of oppression and peculation: the enemies of licentiousness desired him, because they knew he was adverse to it himself, and was strong enough to restrain it; the enemies of civil war believed that he could quell that evil; the ardent republicans doubted not that he would set aside the Director}*; the mode rate republicans believed that he would establish a regulated freedom; the learned, and men of letters, hoped for his patron age; the philosophers favoured him, because they knew he thought freely on religious subjects, and believed him a friend to civil liberty; the secret partizans of lo3*alty, because he had succeeded in persuading them (at least so it was reported, and even some overtures had been made to that effect) that he would consent to the return of the Bourbons, and to the restoration of their ancient authority in France.

Every one, therefore, ex pected to find a saviour in him — every one desired his return, to redeem their afflicted country. This affection towards him had arisen, partly from the defeats that had been sustained, partly from the splendour of his own victories, partly from the artifices he and his partizans had practised so dexterously, that every man believed that his own peculiar objects were exactly those which Buonaparte would labour to effect. So great is the efficacy of ambiguous language in civil discords, because the differing factions have no communication with each other; or, if they have, they yield no faith to the representation of their political opponents; and he who stands above them all may ITALY [1799 4 flatter them — may wind them about, and delude them at will. If, among madmen, the cautious can do so much, how much more may not the artful man effect, whose caution has double force? and Buonaparte was, to a supreme degree, astute.