XIX. THE ROYALIST PLOT
From domestic comedy, France turned rapidly in the early months of 1804 to a sombre tragedy--the tragedy of the Georges Cadoudal plot and the execution of the Duc d'Enghien.
There were varied reasons why the exiled French Bourbons should compass the overthrow of Napoleon. Every month that they delayed action lessened their chances of success. They had long clung to the hope that his Concordat with the Pope and other anti-revolutionary measures betokened his intention to recall their dynasty. But in February, 1803, the Comte de Provence received overtures which showed that Bonaparte had never thought of playing the part of General Monk. The exiled prince, then residing at Warsaw, was courteously but most firmly urged by the First Consul to renounce both for himself and for the other members of his House all claims to the throne of France, in return for which he would receive a pension of two million francs a year. The notion of sinking to the level of a pensionary of the French Republic touched Bourbon pride to the quick and provoked this spirited reply:
"As a descendant of St. Louis, I shall endeavour to imitate his example by respecting myself even in captivity. As successor to Francis I., I shall at least aspire to say with him: 'We have lost everything but our honour."'
To this declaration the Comte d'Artois, his son, the Duc de Berri, Louis Philippe of Orleans, his two sons, and the two Condés gave their ardent assent; and the same loyal response came from the young Condé, the Duc d'Enghien, dated Ettenheim, March 22nd, 1803. Little did men think when they read this last defiance to Napoleon that within a year its author would be flung into a grave in the moat of the Castle of Vincennes.
Scarcely had the echoes of the Bourbon retorts died away than the outbreak of war between England and France raised the hopes of the French royalist exiles in London; and their nimble fancy pictured the French army and nation as ready to fling themselves at the feet of Louis XVIII. The future monarch did not share these illusions. In the chilly solitudes of Warsaw he discerned matters in their true light, and prepared to wait until the vaulting ambition of Napoleon should league Europe against him. Indeed, when the plans of the forward wing in London were explained to him, with a view of enlisting his support, he deftly waved aside the embarrassing overtures by quoting the lines:
"Et pour être approuvés De semblables projets veulent être achevés,"
a cautious reply which led his brother, then at Edinburgh, scornfully to contemn his feebleness as unworthy of any further confidences.[281] In truth, the Comte d'Artois, destined one day to be Charles X. of France, was not fashioned by nature for a Fabian policy of delay: not even the misfortunes of exile could instill into the watertight compartments of his brain the most elementary notions of prudence. Daring, however, attracts daring; and this prince had gathered around him in our land the most desperate of the French royalists, whose hopes, hatreds, schemes, and unending requests for British money may be scanned by the curious in some thirty large volumes of letters bequeathed by their factotum the Comte de Puisaye, to the British Museum. Unfortunately this correspondence throws little light on the details of the plot which is fitly called by the name of Georges Cadoudal.
This daring Breton was, in fact, the only man of action on whom the Bourbon princes could firmly rely for an enterprise that demanded a cool head, cunning in the choice of means, and a remorseless hand. Pichegru it is true, lived near London, but saw little of the émigrés, except the venerable Condé. Dumouriez also was in the great city, but his name was too generally scorned in France for his treachery in 1793 to warrant his being used. But there were plenty of swashbucklers who could prepare the ground in France, or, if fortune favoured, might strike the blow themselves; and a small committee of French royalists, which had the support of that furious royalist, Mr. Windham, M.P., began even before the close of 1802 to discuss plans for the "removal" of Bonaparte. Two of their tools, Picot and Le Bourgeois by name, plunged blindly into a plot, and were arrested soon after they set foot in France. Their boyish credulity seems to have suggested to the French authorities the sending of an agent so as to entrap not only French émigrés, but also English officials and Jacobinical generals.
The agent provocateur has at all times been a favourite tool of continental Governments: but rarely has a more finished specimen of the class been seen than Méhée de la Touche. After plying the trade of an assassin in the September massacres of 1792, and of a Jacobin spy during the Terror, he had been included by Bonaparte among the Jacobin scapegoats who expiated the Chouan outrage of Nivôse. Pining in the weariness of exile, he heard from his wife that he might be pardoned if he would perform some service for the Consular Government. At once he consented, and it was agreed that he should feign royalism, should worm himself into the secrets of the émigrés at London, and act as intermediary between them and the discontented republicans of Paris.
The man who seems to have planned this scheme was the ex-Minister of Police. Fouché had lately been deprived by Bonaparte of the inquisitorial powers which he so unscrupulously used. His duties were divided between Régnier, the Grand Judge and Minister of Justice, and Réal, a Councillor of State, who watched over the internal security of France. These men had none of the ability of Fouché, nor did they know at the outset what Méhée was doing in London. It may, therefore, be assumed that Méhée was one of Fouché's creatures, whom he used to discredit his successor, and that Bonaparte welcomed this means of quickening the zeal of the official police, while he also wove his meshes round plotting émigrés, English officials, and French generals.[282]
Among these last there was almost chronic discontent, and Bonaparte claimed to have found out a plot whereby twelve of them should divide France into as many portions, leaving to him only Paris and its environs. If so, he never made any use of his discovery. In fact, out of this group of malcontents, Moreau, Bernadotte, Augereau, Macdonald, and others, he feared only the hostility of the first. The victor of Hohenlinden lived in sullen privacy near to Paris, refusing to present himself at the Consular Court, and showing his contempt for those who donned a courtier's uniform. He openly mocked at the Concordat; and when the Legion of Honour was instituted, he bestowed a collar of honour upon his dog. So keen was Napoleon's resentment at this raillery that he even proposed to send him a challenge to a duel in the Bois de Boulogne.[283] The challenge, of course, was not sent; a show of reconciliation was assumed between the two warriors; but Napoleon retained a covert dislike of the man whose brusque republicanism was applauded by a large portion of the army and by the frondeurs of Paris.
The ruin of Moreau, and the confusion alike of French royalists and of the British Ministry, could now be assured by the encouragement of a Jacobin-Royalist conspiracy, in which English officials should be implicated. Moreau was notoriously incapable in the sphere of political intrigue: the royalist coteries in London presented just the material on which the agent provocateur delights to work; and some British officials could, doubtless, with equal ease be drawn into the toils. Méhée de la Touche has left a highly spiced account of his adventures; but it must, of course, be received with distrust.[284]
Proceeding first to Guernsey, he gained the confidence of the Governor, General Doyle; and, fortified by recommendations from him, he presented himself to the émigrés at London, and had an interview with Lord Hawkesbury and the Under-Secretaries of State, Messrs. Hammond and Yorke. He found it easy to inflame the imagination of the French exiles, who clutched at the proposed union between the irreconcilables, the extreme royalists, and the extreme republicans; and it was forthwith arranged that Napoleon's power, which rested on the support of the peasants, in fact of the body of France, should be crushed by an enveloping move of the tips of the wings.
Méhée's narrative contains few details and dates, such as enable one to test his assertions. But I have examined the Puisaye Papers,[285] and also the Foreign and Home Office archives, and have found proofs of the complicity of our Government, which it will be well to present here connectedly. Taken singly they are inconclusive, but collectively their importance is considerable. In our Foreign Office Records (France, No 70) there is a letter, dated London, August 30th, 1803, from the Baron de Roll, the factotum of the exiled Bourbons, to Mr. Hammond, our Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, asking him to call on the Comte d'Artois at his residence, No. 46, Baker Street. That the deliberations at that house were not wholly peaceful appears from a long secret memorandum of October 24th, 1803, in which the Comte d'Artois reviews the career of "that miserable adventurer" (Bonaparte), so as to prove that his present position is precarious and tottering. He concludes by naming those who desired his overthrow--Moreau, Reynier, Bernadotte, Simon, Masséna, Lannes, and Férino: Sieyès, Carnot, Chénier, Fouché, Barras, Tallien, Rewbel, Lamarque, and Jean de Bry. Others would not attack him "corps à corps," but disliked his supremacy. These two papers prove that our Government was aware of the Bourbon plot. Another document, dated London, November 18th, 1803, proves its active complicity. It is a list of the French royalist officers "who had set out or were ready to set out." All were in our pay, two at six shillings, five at four shillings, and nine at two shillings a day. It would be indelicate to reveal the names, but among them occurs that of Joachim P.J. Cadoudal. The list is drawn up and signed by Frieding--a name that was frequently used by Pichegru as an alias. In his handwriting also is a list of "royalist officers for whom I demand a year's pay in advance"--five generals, thirteen chefs de légion, seventeen chefs de bataillon, and nineteen captains. The pay claimed amounts to £3,110 15_s._[286] That some, at least, of our Admiralty officials also aided Cadoudal is proved by a "most secret" letter, dated Admiralty Office, July 31st, 1803, from E. N[epean] to Admiral Montagu in the Downs, charging him to help the bearer, Captain Wright, in the execution of "a very important service," and to provide for him "one of the best of the hired cutters or luggers under your orders." Another "most secret" Admiralty letter, of January 9th, 1804, orders a frigate or large sloop to be got ready to convey secretly "an officer of rank and consideration" (probably Pichegru) to the French coast. Wright carried over the conspirators in several parties, until chance threw him into Napoleon's power and consigned him to an ignominious death, probably suicide.
Finally, there is the letter of Mr. Arbuthnot, Parliamentary Secretary at the Foreign Office (dated March 12th, 1804), to Sir Arthur Paget, in which he refers to the "sad result of all our fine projects for the re-establishment of the Bourbons: ... we are, of course, greatly apprehensive for poor Moreau's safety."[287]
In face of this damning evidence the ministerial denials of complicity must be swept aside.[288] It is possible, however, that the plot was connived at, not by the more respectable chiefs, but by young and hot-headed officials. Even in the summer of 1803 that Cabinet was already tottering under the attacks of the Whigs and the followers of Pitt. The blandly respectable Addington and Hawkesbury with his "vacant grin"[289] were evidently no match for Napoleon; and Arbuthnot himself dubs Addington "a poor wretch universally despised and laught at," and pronounces the Cabinet "the most inefficient that ever curst a country." I judge, therefore, that our official aid to the conspirators was limited to the Under-Secretaries of the Foreign, War, and Admiralty Offices. Moreover, the royalist plans, as revealed to our officials, mainly concerned a rising in Normandy and Brittany. Our Government would not have paid the salaries of fifty-four royalist officers--many of them of good old French families--if it had been only a question of stabbing Napoleon. The lists of those officers were drawn up here in November, 1803, that is, three months after Georges Cadoudal had set out for Normandy and Paris to collect his desperadoes; and it seems most probable that the officers of the "royal army" were expected merely to clinch Cadoudal's enterprise by rekindling the flame of revolt in the north and west. French agents were trying to do the same in Ireland, and a plot for the murder of George III. was thought to have been connived at by the French authorities. But, when all is said, the British Government must stand accused of one of the most heinous of crimes. The whole truth was not known at Paris; but it was surmised; and the surmise was sufficient to envenom the whole course of the struggle between England and Napoleon.
Having now established the responsibility of British officials in this, the most famous plot of the century, we return to describe the progress of the conspiracy and the arts employed by Napoleon to defeat it. His tool, Méhée de la Touche, after entrapping French royalists and some of our own officials in London, proceeded to the Continent in order to inveigle some of our envoys. He achieved a brilliant success. He called at Munich, in order, as he speciously alleged, to arrange with our ambassador there the preparations for the royalist plot. The British envoy, who bore the honoured name of Francis Drake, was a zealous intriguer closely in touch with the émigrés: he was completely won over by the arts of Méhée: he gave the spy money, supplied him with a code of false names, and even intrusted him with a recipe for sympathetic ink. Thus furnished, Méhée proceeded to Paris, sent his briber a few harmless bulletins, took his information to the police, and, at Napoleon's dictation, gave him news that seriously misled our Government and Nelson.[290]
The same trick was tried on Stuart, our ambassador at Vienna, who had a tempting offer from a French agent to furnish news from every French despatch to or from Vienna. Stuart had closed with the offer, when suddenly the man was seized at the instance of the French ambassador, and his papers were searched.[291] In this case there were none that compromised Stuart, and his career was not cut short in the ignominious manner that befell Drake, over whom there may be inscribed as epitaph the warning which Talleyrand gave to young aspirants--"et surtout pas trop de zèle."
Thus, while the royalists were conspiring the overthrow of Napoleon, he through his agents was countermining their clumsy approach to his citadel, and prepared to blow them sky high when their mines were crowded for the final rush. The royalist plans matured slowly owing to changes which need not be noticed. Georges Cadoudal quitted London, and landed at Biville, a smuggler's haunt not far from Dieppe, on August 23rd, 1803. Thence he made his way to Paris, and spent some months in striving to enlist trusty recruits. It has been stated that the plot never aimed at assassination, but at the overpowering of the First Consul's escort, and the seizure of his person, during one of his journeys. Then he was to be forcibly transferred to the northern coast on relays of horses, and hurried over to England.[292] But, though the plotters threw the veil of decency over their enterprise by calling it kidnapping, they undoubtedly meant murder. Among Drake's papers there is a hint that the royalist emissaries were at first to speak only of the seizure and deportation of the First Consul.
Whatever may have been their precise aims, they were certainly known to Napoleon and his police. On November 1st, 1803, he wrote to Régnier:
"You must not be in a hurry about the arrests: when the author [Méhée] has given in all the information, we will draw up a plan with him, and will see what is to be done. I wish him to write to Drake, and, in order to make him trustful, inform him that, before the great blow can be dealt, he believes he [Méhée] can promise to have seized on the table of the First Consul, in his secret room, notes written in his own hand relating to his great expedition, and every other important document."
Napoleon revelled in the details of his plan for hoisting the engineers with their own petards.[293] But he knew full well that the plot, when fully ripe, would yield far more than the capture of a few Chouans. He must wait until Moreau was implicated. The man selected by the émigrés to sound Moreau was Pichegru, and this choice was the sole instance of common sense displayed by them. It was Pichegru who had marked out the future fortune of Moreau in the campaign of 1793, and yet he had seemed to be the victim of that general's gross ingratitude at Fructidor. Who then so fitted as he to approach the victor of Hohenlinden? Through a priest named David and General Lajolais, an interview was arranged; and shortly after Pichegru's arrival in France, these warriors furtively clasped hands in the capital which had so often resounded with their praises (January, 1804). They met three or four times, and cleared away some of the misunderstandings of the past. But he would have nothing to do with Georges, and when Pichegru mooted the overthrow of Bonaparte and the restoration of the Bourbons, he firmly warned him: "Do with Bonaparte what you will, but do not ask me to put a Bourbon in his place."
From this resolve Moreau never receded. But his calculating reserve did not save him. Already several suspects had been imprisoned in Normandy. At Napoleon's suggestion five of them were condemned to death, in the hope of extorting a confession; and the last a man named Querelle, gratified his gaolers by revealing (February 14th) not only the lodging of Georges in Paris, but the intention of other conspirators, among whom was a French prince, to land at Biville. The plot was now coming to a head, and so was the counter-plot. On the next day Moreau was arrested by order of Napoleon, who feigned the utmost grief and surprise at seeing the victor of Hohenlinden mixed up with royalist assassins in the pay of England.[294]
Elated by this success, and hoping to catch the Comte d'Artois himself, Napoleon forthwith despatched to that cliff one of his most crafty and devoted servants, Savary, who commanded the gendarmerie d'élite. Tricked out in suitable disguises, and informed by a smuggler as to the royalist signals, Savary eagerly awaited the royal quarry, and when Captain Wright's vessel hove in sight, he used his utmost arts to imitate the signals that invited a landing. But the crew were not to be lured to shore; and after fruitless endeavours he returned to Paris--in time to take part in the murder of the Duc d'Enghien.
Meanwhile the police were on the tracks of Pichegru and Georges. On the last day of February the general was seized in bed in the house of a treacherous friend: but not until the gates of Paris had been closed, and domiciliary visits made, was Georges taken, and then only after a desperate affray (March 9th). The arrest of the two Polignacs and the Marquis de Rivière speedily followed.
Hitherto Napoleon had completely outwitted his foes. He knew well enough that he was in no danger.
"I have run no real risks," he wrote to Melzi, "for the police had its eyes on all these machinations, and I have the consolation of not finding reason to complain of a single man among all those I have placed in this huge administration, Moreau stands alone." [295]
But now, at the moment of victory, when France was swelling with rage against royalist assassins, English gold, and Moreau's treachery, the First Consul was hurried into an enterprise which gained him an imperial crown and flecked the purple with innocent blood.
There was living at Ettenheim, in Baden, not far from the Rhine, a young prince of the House of Condé, the Duc d'Enghien. Since the disbanding of the corps of Condé he had been tranquilly enjoying the society of the Princess Charlotte de Rohan, to whom he had been secretly married. Her charms, the attractions of the chase, the society of a small circle of French émigrés, and an occasional secret visit to the theatre at Strassburg, formed the chief diversions to an otherwise monotonous life, until he was fired with the hope of a speedy declaration of war by Austria and Russia against Napoleon. Report accused him of having indiscreetly ventured in disguise far into France; but he indignantly denied it. His other letters also prove that he was not an accomplice of the Cadoudal-Pichegru conspiracy. But Napoleon's spies gave information which seemed to implicate him in that enterprise. Chief among them was Méhée, who, at the close of February, hovered about Ettenheim and heard that the duke was often absent for many days at a time.
Napoleon received this news on March 1st, and ordered the closest investigation to be made. One of his spies reported that the young duke associated with General Dumouriez. In reality the general was in London, and the spy had substituted the name of a harmless old gentleman called Thumery. When Napoleon saw the name of Dumouriez with that of the young duke his rage knew no bounds. "Am I a dog to be beaten to death in the street? Why was I not warned that they were assembling at Ettenheim? Are my murderers sacred beings? They attack my very person. I'll give them war for war." And he overwhelmed with reproaches both Réal and Talleyrand for neglecting to warn him of these traitors and assassins clustering on the banks of the Rhine. The seizure of Georges Cadoudal and the examination of one of his servants helped to confirm Napoleon's surmise that he was the victim of a plot of which the duke and Dumouriez were the real contrivers, while Georges was their tool. Cadoudal's servant stated that there often came to his master's house a mysterious man, at whose entry not only Georges but also the Polignacs and Rivière always arose. This convinced Napoleon that the Duc d'Enghien was directing the plot, and he determined to have the duke and Dumouriez seized. That they were on German soil was naught to him. Talleyrand promised that he could soon prevail on the Elector to overlook this violation of his territory, and the question was then discussed in an informal council. Talleyrand, Réal, and Fouché advised the severest measures. Lebrun spoke of the outcry which such a violation of neutral territory would arouse, but bent before the determination of the First Consul; and the regicide Cambacérès alone offered a firm opposition to an outrage which must embroil France with Germany and Russia. Despite this protest, Napoleon issued his orders and then repaired to the pleasing solitudes of La Malmaison, where he remained in almost complete seclusion. The execution of the orders was now left to Generals Ordener and Caulaincourt, who arranged the raid into Baden; to Murat, who was now Governor of Paris; and to the devoted and unquestioning Savary and Réal.
The seizure of the duke was craftily effected. Troops and gendarmes were quietly mustered at Strassburg: spies were sent forward to survey the ground; and as the dawn of the 15th of March was lighting up the eastern sky, thirty Frenchmen encircled Enghien's abode. His hot blood prompted him to fight, but on the advice of a friend he quietly surrendered, was haled away to Strassburg, and thence to the castle of Vincennes on the south-east of Paris. There everything was ready for his reception on the evening of March 20th. The pall of secrecy was spread over the preparations. The name of Plessis was assigned to the victim, and Harel, the governor of the castle, was left ignorant of his rank.[296]
Above all, he was to be tried by a court-martial of officers, a form of judgment which was summary and without appeal; whereas the ordinary courts of justice must be slow and open to the public gaze. It was true that the Senate had just suspended trial by jury in the case of attempts against the First Consul's life--a device adopted in view of the Moreau prosecution. But the certainty of a conviction was not enough: Napoleon determined to strike terror into his enemies, such as a swift and secret blow always inspires. He had resolved on a trial by court-martial when he still believed Enghien to be an accomplice of Dumouriez; and when, late on Saturday, March 17th, that mistake was explained, his purpose remained unshaken--unshaken too by the high mass of Easter Sunday, March 18th, which he heard in state at the Chapel of the Tuileries. On the return journey to Malmaison Josephine confessed to Madame de Rémusat her fears that Bonaparte's will was unalterably fixed: "I have done what I could, but I fear his mind is made up." She and Joseph approached him once more in the park while Talleyrand was at his side. "I fear that cripple," she said, as they came near, and Joseph drew the Minister aside. All was in vain. "Go away; you are a child; you don't understand public duties." This was Josephine's final repulse.
On March 20th Napoleon drew up the form of questions to be put to the prisoner. He now shifted the ground of accusation. Out of eleven questions only the last three referred to the duke's connection with the Cadoudal plot.[297] For in the meantime he had found in the duke's papers proofs of his having offered his services to the British Government for the present war,[298] his hopes of participation in a future Continental war, but nothing that could implicate him in the Cadoudal plot. The papers were certainly disappointing; and that is doubtless the reason why, after examining them on March 19th, he charged Réal "to take secret cognizance of these papers, along with Desmarest. One must prevent any talk on the more or less of charges contained in these papers." The same fact doubtless led to their abstraction along with the dossier of the proceedings of the court-martial.[299]
The task of summoning the officers who were to form the court-martial was imposed on Murat. But when this bluff, hearty soldier received this order, he exclaimed: "What! are they trying to soil my uniform! I will not allow it! Let him appoint them himself if he wants to." But a second and more imperious mandate compelled him to perform this hateful duty. The seven senior officers of the garrison of Paris now summoned were ordered not to separate until judgment was passed.[300] At their head was General Hulin, who had shown such daring in the assault on the Bastille; and thus one of the early heroes of the Revolution had the evening of his days shrouded over with the horrors of a midnight murder. Finally, the First Consul charged Savary, who had just returned to Paris from Biville, furious at being baulked of his prey, to proceed to Vincennes with a band of his gendarmes for the carrying out of the sentence.
The seven officers as yet knew nothing of the nature of their mission, or of martial law. "We had not," wrote Hulin long afterwards, "the least idea about trials; and, worst of all, the reporter and clerk had scarcely any more experience."[301] The examination of the prisoner was curt in the extreme. He was asked his name, date and place of birth, whether he had borne arms against France and was in the pay of England. To the last questions he answered decisively in the affirmative, adding that he wished to take part in the new war against France.
His replies were the same as he made in his preliminary examination, which he closed with the written and urgent request for a personal interview with Napoleon. To this request the court proposed to accede; but Savary, who had posted himself behind Hulin's chair, at once declared this step to be inopportune. The judges had only one chance of escape from their predicament, namely, to induce the duke to invalidate his evidence: this he firmly refused to do, and when Hulin warned him of the danger of his position, he replied that he knew it, and wished to have an interview with the First Consul.
The court then passed sentence, and, "in accordance with article (blank) of the law (blank) to the following effect (blank) condemned him to suffer death." Ashamed, as it would seem, of this clumsy condemnation, Hulin was writing to Bonaparte to request for the condemned man the personal interview which he craved, when Savary took the pen from his hands, with the words: "Your work is done: the rest is my business."[302] The duke was forthwith led out into the moat of the castle, where a few torches shed their light on the final scene of this sombre tragedy: he asked for a priest, but this was denied him: he then bowed his head in prayer, lifted those noble features towards the soldiers, begged them not to miss their aim, and fell, shot through the heart. Hard by was a grave, which, in accordance with orders received on the previous day, the governor had caused to be made ready; into this the body was thrown pell-mell, and the earth closed over the remains of the last scion of the warlike House of Condé.
Twelve years later loving hands disinterred the bones and placed them in the chapel of the castle. But even then the world knew not all the enormity of the crime. It was reserved for clumsy apologists like Savary to provoke replies and further investigations. The various excuses which throw the blame on Talleyrand, and on everyone but the chief actor, are sufficiently disposed of by the ex-Emperor's will. In that document Napoleon brushed away the excuses which had previously been offered to the credulity or malice of his courtiers, and took on himself the responsibility for the execution:
"I caused the Duc d'Enghien to be arrested and judged, because it was necessary for the safety, the interest, and the honour of the French people when the Comte d'Artois, by his own confession, was supporting sixty assassins at Paris. In similar circumstances I would act in the same way again."[303]
The execution of the Duc d'Enghien is one of the most important incidents of this period, so crowded with momentous events. The sensation of horror which it caused can be gauged by the mental agony of Madame de Rémusat and of others who had hitherto looked on Bonaparte as the hero of the age and the saviour of the country. His mother hotly upbraided him, saying it was an atrocious act, the stain of which could never be wiped out, and that he had yielded to the advice of enemies' eager to tarnish his fame.[304] Napoleon said nothing, but shut himself up in his cabinet, revolving these terrible words, which doubtless bore fruit in the bitter reproaches later to be heaped upon Talleyrand for his share in the tragedy. Many royalists who had begun to rally to his side now showed their indignation at the deed. Chateaubriand, who was about to proceed as the envoy of France to the Republic of Valais, at once offered his resignation and assumed an attitude of covert defiance. And that was the conduct of all royalists who were not dazzled by the glamour of success or cajoled by Napoleon's favours. Many of his friends ventured to show their horror of this Corsican vendetta; and a mot which was plausibly, but it seems wrongly, attributed to Fouché, well sums up the general opinion of that callous society: "It was worse than a crime--it was a blunder."
Scarcely had Paris recovered from this sensation when, on April 6th, Pichegru was found strangled in prison; and men silently but almost unanimously hailed it as the work of Napoleon's Mamelukes. This judgment, however natural after the Enghien affair, seems to be incorrect. It is true the corpse bore marks which scarcely tallied with suicide: but Georges Cadoudal, whose cell was hard by, heard no sound of a scuffle; and it is unlikely that so strong a man as Pichegru would easily have succumbed to assailants. It is therefore more probable that the conqueror of Holland, shattered by his misfortunes and too proud to undergo a public trial, cut short a life which already was doomed. Never have plotters failed more ignominiously and played more completely into the hands of their enemy. A mot of the Boulevards wittily sums up the results of their puny efforts: "They came to France to give her a king, and they gave her an Emperor."
* * * * *
XX. THE DAWN OF THE EMPIRE
For some time the question of a Napoleonic dynasty had been freely discussed; and the First Consul himself had latterly confessed his intentions to Joseph in words that reveal his super-human confidence and his caution: "I always intended to end the Revolution by the establishment of heredity: but I thought that such a step could not be taken before the lapse of five or six years." Events, however, bore him along on a favouring tide. Hatred of England, fear of Jacobin excesses, indignation at the royalist schemes against his life, and finally even the execution of Enghien, helped on the establishment of the Empire. Though moderate men of all parties condemned the murder, the remnants of the Jacobin party hailed it with joy. Up to this time they had a lingering fear that the First Consul was about to play the part of Monk. The pomp of the Tuileries and the hated Concordat seemed to their crooked minds but the prelude to a recall of the Bourbons, whereupon priestcraft, tithes, and feudalism would be the order of the day. Now at last the tragedy of Vincennes threw a lurid light into the recesses of Napoleon's ambition; and they exclaimed, "He is one of us." It must thenceforth be war to the knife between the Bourbons and Bonaparte; and his rule would therefore be the best guarantee for the perpetual ownership of the lands confiscated during the Revolution.[305]
To a materialized society that great event had come to be little more than a big land investment syndicate, of which Bonaparte was now to be the sole and perpetual director. This is the inner meaning of the references to the Social Contract which figure so oddly among the petitions for hereditary rule. The Jacobins, except a few conscientious stalwarts, were especially alert in the feat of making extremes meet. Fouché, who now wriggled back into favour and office, appealed to the Senate, only seven days after the execution, to establish hereditary power as the only means of ending the plots against Napoleon's life; for, as the opportunist Jacobins argued, if the hereditary system were adopted, conspiracies to murder would be meaningless, when, even if they struck down one man, they must fail to shatter the system that guaranteed the Revolution.
The cue having been thus dextrously given, appeals and petitions for hereditary rule began to pour in from all parts of France. The grand work of the reorganization of France certainly furnished a solid claim on the nation's gratitude. The recent promulgation of the Civil Code and the revival of material prosperity redounded to Napoleon's glory; and with equal truth and wit he could claim the diadem as a fit reward for having revived many interests while none had been displaced. Such a remark and such an exploit proclaim the born ruler of men. But the Senate overstepped all bounds of decency when it thus addressed him: "You are founding a new era: but you ought to make it last for ever: splendour is nothing without duration." The Greeks who fawned on Persian satraps did not more unman themselves than these pensioned sycophants, who had lived through the days of 1789 but knew them not. This fulsome adulation would be unworthy of notice did it not convey the most signal proof of the danger which republics incur when men lose sight of the higher aims of life and wallow among its sordid interests.[306]
After the severe drilling of the last four years, the Chambers voted nearly unanimously in favour of a Napoleonic dynasty. The Corps Législatif was not in session, and it was not convoked. The Senate, after hearing Fouché's unmistakable hints, named a commission of its members to report on hereditary rule, and then waited on events. These were decided mainly in private meetings of the Council of State, where the proposal met with some opposition from Cambacérès, Merlin, and Thibaudeau. But of what avail are private remonstrances when in open session opponents are dumb and supporters vie in adulation? In the Tribunate, on April 23rd, an obscure member named Curée proposed the adoption of the hereditary principle. One man alone dared openly to combat the proposal, the great Carnot; and the opposition of Curée to Carnot might have recalled to the minds of those abject champions of popular liberty the verse that glitters amidst the literary rubbish of the Roman Empire:
"Victrix causa deis placuit, sed victa Catoni."
The Tribunate named a commission to report; it was favourable to the Bonapartes. The Senate voted in the same sense, three Senators alone, among them Grégoire, Bishop of Blois, voting against it. Sieyès and Lanjuinais were absent; but the well-salaried lord of the manor of Crosne must have read with amused contempt the resolution of this body, which he had designed to be the guardian of the republican constitution:
"The French have conquered liberty: they wish to preserve their conquest: they wish for repose after victory. They will owe this glorious repose to the hereditary rule of a single man, who, raised above all, is to defend public liberty, maintain equality, and lower his fasces before the sovereignty of the people that proclaims him."
In this way did France reduce to practice the dogma of Rousseau with regard to the occasional and temporary need of a dictator.[307]
When the commonalty are so obsequious, any title can be taken by the one necessary man. Napoleon at first affected to doubt whether the title of Stadtholder would not be more seemly than that of Emperor; and in one of the many conferences held on this topic, Miot de Melito advocated the retention of the term Consul for its grand republican simplicity. But it was soon seen that the term Emperor was the only one which satisfied Napoleon's ambition and French love of splendour. Accordingly a senatus consultum of May 18th, 1804, formally decreed to him the title of Emperor of the French. As for his former colleagues, Cambacérès and Lebrun, they were stultified with the titles of Arch-chancellor and Arch-treasurer of the Empire: his brother Joseph received the title of Grand Elector, borrowed from the Holy Roman Empire, and oddly applied to an hereditary empire where the chief had been appointed: Louis was dubbed Constable: two other grand dignities, those of Arch-chancellor of State and High Admiral, were not as yet filled, but were reserved for Napoleon's relatives by marriage, Eugène Beauharnais and Murat. These six grand dignitaries of the new Empire were to be irresponsible and irremovable, and, along with the Emperor, they formed the Grand Council of the Empire.
On lesser individuals the rays of the imperial diadem cast a fainter glow. Napoleon's uncle, Cardinal Fesch, became Grand Almoner; Berthier, Grand Master of the Hounds; Talleyrand, Grand Chamberlain; Duroc, Grand Marshal of the Palace; and Caulaincourt, Master of the Horse, the acceptance of which title seemed to the world to convict him of full complicity in the schemes for the murder of the Duc d'Enghien. For the rest, the Emperor's mother was to be styled Madame Mère; his sisters became Imperial Highnesses, with their several establishments of ladies-in-waiting; and Paris fluttered with excitement at each successive step upwards of expectant nobles, regicides, generals, and stockjobbers towards the central galaxy of the Corsican family, which, ten years before, had subsisted on the alms of the Republic one and indivisible.
It remained to gain over the army. The means used were profuse, in proportion as the task was arduous. The following generals were distinguished as Marshals of the Empire (May 19th): Berthier, Murat, Masséna, Augereau, Lannes, Jourdan, Ney, Soult, Brune, Davoust, Bessières, Moncey, Mortier, and Bernadotte; two marshal's bâtons were held in reserve as a reward for future service, and four aged generals, Lefebvre, Serrurier, Pérignon, and Kellerman (the hero of Valmy), received the title of honorary marshals. In one of his conversations with Roederer, the Emperor frankly avowed his reasons for showering these honours on his military chiefs; it was in order to assure the imperial dignity to himself; for how could they object to this, when they themselves received honours so lofty?[308] The confession affords a curious instance of Napoleon's unbounded trust in the most elementary, not to say the meanest, motives of human conduct. Suitable rewards were bestowed on officers of the second rank. But it was at once remarked that determined and outspoken republicans like Suchet, Gouvion St. Cyr, and Macdonald, whose talents and exploits far outstripped those of many of the marshals, were excluded from their ranks. St. Cyr was at Taranto, and Macdonald, after an enforced diplomatic mission to Copenhagen, was received on his recall with much coolness.[309] Other generals who had given umbrage at the Tuileries were more effectively broken in by a term of diplomatic banishment. Lannes at Lisbon and Brune at Constantinople learnt a little diplomacy and some complaisance to the head of the State, and were taken back to Napoleon's favour. Bernadotte, though ever suspected of Jacobinism and feared for the forceful ambition that sprang from the blending of Gascon and Moorish blood in his veins, was now also treated with the consideration due to one who had married Joseph Bonaparte's sister-in-law: he received at Napoleon's hands the house in Paris which had formerly belonged to Moreau: the exile's estate of Grosbois, near Paris, went to reward the ever faithful Berthier. Augereau, half cured of his Jacobinism by the disfavour of the Directory, was now drilling a small French force and Irish volunteers at Brest. But the Grand Army, which comprised the pick of the French forces, was intrusted to the command of men on whom Napoleon could absolutely rely, Davoust, Soult, and Ney; and, in that splendid force, hatred of England and pride in Napoleon's prowess now overwhelmed all political considerations.
These arrangements attest the marvellous foresight and care which Napoleon brought to bear on all affairs: even if the discontented generals and troops had protested against the adoption of the Empire and the prosecution of Moreau, they must have been easily overpowered. In some places, as at Metz, the troops and populace fretted against the Empire and its pretentious pomp; but the action of the commanders soon restored order. And thus it came to pass that even the soldiery that still cherished the Republic raised not a musket while the Empire was founded, and Moreau was accused of high treason.
The record of the French revolutionary generals is in the main a gloomy one. If in 1795 it had been prophesied that all those generals who bore the tricolour to victory would vanish or bow their heads before a Corsican, the prophet would speedily have closed his croakings for ever. Yet the reality was even worse. Marceau and Hoche died in the Rhineland: Kléber and Desaix fell on the same day, by assassination and in battle: Richepanse, Leclerc, and many other brave officers rotted away in San Domingo: Pichegru died a violent death in prison: Carnot was retiring into voluntary exile: Masséna and Macdonald were vegetating in inglorious ease: others were fast descending to the rank of flunkeys; and Moreau was on his trial for high treason.
Even the populace, dazzled with glitter and drunk with sensations, suffered some qualms at seeing the victor of Hohenlinden placed in the dock; and the grief of the scanty survivors of the Army of the Rhine portended trouble if the forms of justice were too much strained. Trial by jury had been recently dispensed with in cases that concerned the life of Napoleon. Consequently the prisoner, along with Georges and his confederates, could be safely arraigned before judges in open court; and in that respect the trial contrasted with the midnight court-martial of Vincennes. Yet in no State trial have judges been subjected to more official pressure for the purpose of assuring a conviction.[310] The cross examination of numerous witnesses proved that Moreau had persistently refused his help to the plot; and the utmost that could be urged against him was that he desired Napoleon's overthrow, had three interviews with Pichegru, and did not reveal the plot to the authorities. That is to say, he was guilty of passively conniving at the success of a plot which a "good citizen" ought to have denounced.
For these reasons the judges sentenced him to two years' imprisonment. This judgment excessively annoyed Napoleon, who desired to use his imperial prerogative of pardon on Moreau's life, not on a mere term of imprisonment; and with a show of clemency that veiled a hidden irritation, he now released him provided that he retired to the United States.[311] To that land of free men the victor of Hohenlinden retired with a dignity which almost threw a veil over his past incapacity and folly; and, for the present at least, men could say that the end of his political career was nobler than Pompey's, while Napoleon's conduct towards his rival lacked the clemency which graced the triumph of Cæsar.
As for the actual conspirators, twenty of them were sentenced to death on June 10th, among them being the elder of the two Polignacs, the Marquis de Rivière, and Georges Cadoudal. Urgent efforts were made on behalf of the nobles by Josephine and "Madame Mère"; and Napoleon grudgingly commuted their sentence to imprisonment. But the plebeian, Georges Cadoudal, suffered death for the cause that had enlisted all the fierce energies of his youth and manhood. With him perished the bravest of Bretons and the last man of action of the royalists. Thenceforth Napoleon was not troubled by Bourbon plotters; and doubtless the skill with which his agents had nursed this silly plot and sought to entangle all waverers did far more than the strokes of the guillotine to procure his future immunity. Men trembled before a union of immeasurable power with unfathomable craft such as recalled the days of the Emperor Tiberius.
Indeed, Napoleon might now almost say that his chief foes were the members of his own household. The question of hereditary succession had already reawakened and intensified all the fierce passions of the Emperor's relatives. Josephine saw in it the fatal eclipse of a divorce sweeping towards the dazzling field of her new life, and Napoleon is known to have thrice almost decided on this step. She no longer had any hopes of bearing a child; and she is reported by the compiler of the Fouché "Memoirs" to have clutched at that absurd device, a supposititious child, which Fouché had taken care to ridicule in advance. Whatever be the truth of this rumour, she certainly used all her powers over Napoleon and over her daughter Hortense, the spouse of Louis Bonaparte, to have their son recognized as first in the line of direct succession. But this proposal, which shelved both Joseph and Louis, was not only hotly resented by the eldest brother, who claimed to be successor designate, it also aroused the flames of jealousy in Louis himself. It was notorious that he suspected Napoleon of an incestuous passion for Hortense, of which his fondness for the little Charles Napoleon was maliciously urged as proof; and the proposal, when made with trembling eagerness by Josephine, was hurled back by Louis with brutal violence. To the clamour of Louis and Joseph the Emperor and Josephine seemed reluctantly to yield.
New arrangements were accordingly proposed. Lucien and Jerome having, for the present at least, put themselves out of court by their unsatisfactory marriages, Napoleon appeared to accept a reconciliation with Joseph and Louis, and to place them in the order of succession, as the Senate recommended. But he still reserved the right of adopting the son of Louis and of thus favouring his chances of priority. Indeed, it must be admitted that the Emperor at this difficult crisis showed conjugal tact and affection, for which he has received scant justice at the hands of Josephine's champions. "How could I divorce this good wife," he said to Roederer, "because I am becoming great?" But fate seemed to decree the divorce, which, despite the reasonings of his brothers, he resolutely thrust aside; for the little boy on whose life the Empress built so many fond hopes was to be cut off by an early death in the year 1807.
Then there were frequent disputes between Napoleon and Joseph. Both of them had the Corsican's instinct in favour of primogeniture; and hitherto Napoleon had in many ways deferred to his elder brother. Now, however, he showed clearly that he would brook not the slightest interference in affairs of State. And truly, if we except Joseph's diplomatic services, he showed no commanding gifts such as could raise him aloft along with the bewildering rush of Napoleon's fortunes. The one was an irrepressible genius, the other was a man of culture and talent, whose chief bent was towards literature, amours, and the art of dolce far niente, except when his pride was touched: then he was capable of bursts of passion which seemed to impose even on his masterful second brother. Lucien, Louis, and even the youthful Jerome, had the same intractable pride which rose defiant even against Napoleon. He was determined that his brothers should now take a subordinate rank, while they regarded the dynasty as largely due to their exertions at or after Brumaire, and claimed a proportionate reward. Napoleon, however, saw that a dynasty could not thus be founded. As he frankly said to Roederer, a dynasty could only take firm root in France among heirs brought up in a palace: "I have never looked on my brothers as the natural heirs to power: I only consider them as men fit to ward off the evils of a minority."
Joseph deeply resented this conduct. He was a Prince of the Empire, and a Grand Elector; but he speedily found out that this meant nothing more than occasionally presiding at the Senate, and accordingly indulged in little acts of opposition that enraged the autocrat. In his desire to get his brother away from Paris, the Emperor had already recommended him to take up the profession of arms; for he could not include him in the succession, and place famous marshals under him if he knew nothing of an army. Joseph perforce accepted the command of a regiment, and at thirty-six years of age began to learn drill near Boulogne.[312] This piece of burlesque was one day to prove infinitely regrettable. After the disaster of Vittoria, Napoleon doubtless wished that Joseph had for ever had free play in the tribune of the Senate rather than have dabbled in military affairs. But in the spring and summer of 1804 the Emperor noted his every word; so that, when he ventured to suggest that Josephine should not be crowned at the coming coronation, Napoleon's wrath blazed forth. Why should Joseph speak of his rights and his interests? Who had won power? Who deserved to enjoy power? Power was his (Napoleon's) mistress, and he dared Joseph to touch her. The Senate or Council of State might oppose him for ten years, without his becoming a tyrant: "To make me a tyrant one thing alone is necessary--a movement of my family."[313]
The family, however, did not move. As happened with all the brothers except Lucien, Joseph gave way at the critical moment. After threatening at the Council of State to resign his Grand Electorate and retire to Germany if his wife were compelled to bear Josephine's train at the coronation, he was informed by the Emperor that either he must conduct himself dutifully as the first subject of the realm, or retire into private life, or oppose--and be crushed. The argument was unanswerable, and Joseph yielded. To save his own and his wife's feelings, the wording of the official programme was altered: she was to support Josephine's mantle, not to bear her train.
In things great and small Napoleon carried his point. Although Roederer pleaded long and earnestly that Joseph and Louis should come next to the Emperor in the succession, and inserted a clause in the report which he was intrusted to draw up, yet by some skilful artifice this clause was withdrawn from the constitutional act on which the nation was invited to express its opinion: and France assented to a plébiscite for the establishment of the Empire in Napoleon's family, which passed over Joseph and Louis, as well as Lucien and Jerome, and vested the succession in the natural or adopted son of Napoleon, and in the heirs male of Joseph or Louis. Consequently these princes had no place in the succession, except by virtue of the senatus consultant of May 18th, which gave them a legal right, it is true, but without the added sanction of the popular vote. More than three and a half million votes were cast for the new arrangement, a number which exceeded those given for the Consulate and the Consulate for Life. As usual, France accepted accomplished facts.
Matters legal and ceremonial were now approaching completion for the coronation. Negotiations had been proceeding between the Tuileries and the Vatican, Napoleon begging and indeed requiring the presence of the Pope on that occasion. Pius VII. was troubled at the thought of crowning the murderer of the Duc d'Enghien; but he was scarcely his own master, and the dextrous hints of Napoleon that religion would benefit if he were present at Notre Dame seem to have overcome his first scruples, besides quickening the hope of recovering the north of his States. He was to be disappointed in more ways than one. Religion was to benefit only from the enhanced prestige given to her rites in the coming ceremony, not in the practical way that the Pope desired. And yet it was of the first importance for Napoleon to receive the holy oil and the papal blessing, for only so could he hope to wean the affections of royalists from their uncrowned and exiled king. Doubtless this was one of the chief reasons for the restoration of religion by the Concordat, as was shrewdly seen at the time by Lafayette, who laughingly exclaimed: "Confess, general, that your chief wish is for the little phial."[314] The sally drew from the First Consul an obscene disclaimer worthy of a drunken ostler. Nevertheless, the little phial was now on its way.
In order to divest the meeting of Pope and Emperor of any awkward ceremony, Napoleon arranged that it should take place on the road between Fontainebleau and Nemours, as a chance incident in the middle of a day's hunting. The benevolent old pontiff was reclining in his carriage, weary with the long journey through the cold of an early winter, when he was startled to see the retinue of his host. The contrast in every way was striking. The figure of the Emperor had now attained the fullness which betokens abounding health and strength: his face was slightly flushed with the hunt and the consciousness that he was master of the situation, and his form on horseback gained a dignity from which the shortness of his legs somewhat detracted when on foot. As he rode up attired in full hunting costume, he might have seemed the embodiment of triumphant strength. The Pope, on the other hand, clad in white garments and with white silk shoes, gave an impression of peaceful benevolence, had not his intellectual features borne signs of the protracted anxieties of his pontificate. The Emperor threw himself from his horse and advanced to meet his guest, who on his side alighted, rather unwillingly, in the mud to give and receive the embrace of welcome. Meanwhile Napoleon's carriage had been driven up: footmen were holding open both doors, and an officer of the Court politely handed Pius VII. to the left door, while the Emperor, entering by the right, took the seat of honour, and thus settled once for all the vexed question of social precedence.[315]
During the Pope's sojourn at Fontainebleau, Josephine breathed to him her anxiety as to her marriage; it having been only a civil contract, she feared its dissolution, and saw in the Pope's intervention a chance of a firmer union with her consort. The pontiff comforted her and required from Napoleon the due solemnization of his marriage; it was therefore secretly performed by Napoleon's uncle, Cardinal Fesch, two days before the coronation.[316]
It was not enough, however, that the successor of St. Peter should grace the coronation with his presence: the Emperor sought to touch the imagination of men by figuring as the successor of Charlemagne. We here approach one of the most interesting experiments of the modern world, which, if successful, would profoundly have altered the face of Europe and the character of its States. Even in its failure it attests Napoleon's vivid imagination and boundless mental resources. He aspired to be more than Emperor of the French: he wished to make his Empire a cosmopolitan realm, whose confines might rival those of the Holy Roman Empire of one thousand years before, and embrace scores of peoples in a grand, well-ordered European polity.
Already his dominions included a million of Germans in the Rhineland, Italians of Piedmont, Genoa, and Nice, besides Savoyards, Genevese, and Belgians. How potent would be his influence on the weltering chaos of German and Italian States, if these much-divided peoples learnt to look on him as the successor to the glories of Charlemagne! And this honour he was now to claim. However delusive was the parallel between the old semi-tribal polity and modern States where the peoples were awakening to a sense of their nationality, Napoleon was now in a position to clear the way for his great experiment. He had two charms wherewith to work, material prosperity and his gift of touching the popular imagination. The former of these was already silently working in his favour: the latter was first essayed at the coronation.
Already, after a sojourn at Boulogne, he had visited Aix-la-Chapelle, the city where Charlemagne's relics are entombed, and where Victor Hugo in some of his sublimest verse has pictured Charles V. kneeling in prayer to catch the spirit of the mediæval hero. Thither went Napoleon, but in no suppliant mood; for when Josephine was offered the arm-bones of the great dead, she also proudly replied that she would not deprive the city of that precious relic, especially as she had the support of an arm as great as that of Charlemagne.[317] The insignia and the sword of that monarch were now brought to Paris, and shed on the ceremony of coronation that historic gleam which was needed to redeem it from tawdry commonplace.
All that money and art could do to invest the affair with pomp and circumstance had already been done. The advice of the new Master of the Ceremonies, M. de Ségur, and the hints of the other nobles who had rallied to the new Empire, had been carefully collated by the untiring brain that now watched over France. The sum of 1,123,000 francs had been expended on the coronation robes of Emperor and Empress, and far more on crowns and tiaras. The result was seen in costumes of matchless splendour; the Emperor wore a French coat of red velvet embroidered in gold, a short cloak adorned with bees and the collar of the Legion of Honour in diamonds; and at the archbishop's palace he assumed the long purple robe of velvet profusely ornamented with ermine, while his brow was encircled by a wreath of laurel, meed of mighty conquerors. In the pommel of his sword flashed the famous Pitt diamond, which, after swelling the family fortune of the British statesman, fell to the Regent of France, and now graced the coronation of her Dictator. The Empress, radiant with joy at her now indissoluble union, bore her splendours with an easy grace that charmed all beholders and gave her an almost girlish air. She wore a robe of white satin, trimmed with silver and gold and besprinkled with golden bees: her waist and shoulders glittered with diamonds, while on her brows rested a diadem of the finest diamonds and pearls valued at more than a million francs.[318] The curious might remember that for a necklace of less than twice that value the fair fame of Marie Antoinette had been clouded over and the House of Bourbon shaken to its base.
The stately procession began with an odd incident: Napoleon and Josephine, misled apparently by the all-pervading splendour of the new state carriage, seated themselves on the wrong side, that is, in the seats destined for Joseph and Louis: the mistake was at once made good, with some merriment; but the superstitious saw in it an omen of evil.[319] And now, amidst much enthusiasm and far greater curiosity, the procession wound along through the Rue Nicaise and the Rue St. Honoré--streets where Bonaparte had won his spurs on the day of Vendémiaire--over the Pont-Neuf, and so to the venerable cathedral, where the Pope, chilled by long waiting, was ready to grace the ceremony. First he anointed Emperor and Empress with the holy oil; then, at the suitable place in the Mass he blessed their crowns, rings, and mantles, uttering the traditional prayers for the possession of the virtues and powers which each might seem to typify. But when he was about to crown the Emperor, he was gently waved aside, and Napoleon with his own hands crowned himself. A thrill ran through the august assembly, either of pity for the feelings of the aged pontiff or of admiration at the "noble and legitimate pride" of the great captain who claimed as wholly his own the crown which his own right arm had won. Then the cortège slowly returned to the middle of the nave, where a lofty throne had been reared.
Another omen now startled those who laid store by trifles. It was noticed that the sovereigns in ascending the steps nearly fell backwards under the weight of their robes and trains, though in the case of Josephine the anxious moment may have been due to the carelessness, whether accidental or studied, of her "mantle-bearers." But to those who looked beneath the surface of things was not this an all-absorbing portent, that all this religious pomp should be removed by scarcely eleven years from the time when this same nave echoed to the shouts and gleamed with the torches of the worshippers of the newly enthroned Goddess of Reason?
Revolutionary feelings were not wholly dead, but they now vented themselves merely in gibes. On the night before the coronation the walls of Paris were adorned with posters announcing: The last Representation of the French Revolution--for the Benefit of a poor Corsican Family. And after the event there were inquiries why the new throne had no glands d'or; the answer suggested because it was sanglant.[320] Beyond these quips and jests the Jacobins and royalists did not go. When the phrase your subjects was publicly assigned to the Corps Législatif by its courtier-like president, Fontanes, there was a flutter of wrath among those who had hoped that the new Empire was to be republican. But it quickly passed away; and no Frenchman, except perhaps Carnot, made so manly a protest as the man of genius at Vienna, who had composed the "Sinfonia Eroïca," and with grand republican simplicity inscribed it, "Beethoven à Bonaparte." When the master heard that his former hero had taken the imperial crown, he tore off the dedication with a volley of curses on the renegade and tyrant; and in later years he dedicated the immortal work to the memory of a great man.
* * * * *
XXI. THE BOULOGNE FLOTILLA
The establishment of the Empire, as has been seen, provoked few signs of opposition from the French armies, once renowned for their Jacobinism; and by one or two instances of well-timed clemency, the Emperor gained over even staunch republicans. Notably was this the case with a brave and stalwart colonel, who, enraged at the first volley of cheers for the Empire, boldly ordered "Silence in the ranks." At once Napoleon made him general and appointed him one of his aides-de-camp; and this brave officer, Mouton by name, was later to gain glory and the title of Comte de Lobau in the Wagram campaign. These were the results of a timely act of generosity, such as touches the hearts of any soldiery and leads them to shed their blood like water. And so when Napoleon, after the coronation, distributed to the garrison of Paris their standards, topped now by the imperial eagles, the great Champ de Mars was a scene of wild enthusiasm. The thunderous shouts that acclaimed the prowess of the new Frankish leader were as warlike as those which ever greeted the hoisting of a Carolingian King on the shields of his lieges. Distant nations heard the threatening din and hastened to muster their forces for the fray.
As yet only England was at war with the Emperor. Against her Napoleon now prepared to embattle the might of his vast Empire. The preparations on the northern coast were now wellnigh complete, and there was only one question to be solved--how to "leap the ditch." It seems strange to us now that no attempt was made to utilize the great motive force of the nineteenth century--steam power. And the French memoir-writers, Marmont, Bourrienne, Pasquier, and Bausset, have expressed their surprise that so able a chief as Napoleon should have neglected this potent ally.
Their criticisms seem to be prompted by later reflections rather than based on an accurate statement of facts. In truth, the nineteenth-century Hercules was still in his cradle. Henry Bell had in 1800 experimented with a steamer on the Clyde; but it aroused the same trembling curiosity as Trevithick's first locomotive, or as Fulton's first paddle-boat built on the Seine in 1803. In fact, this boat of the great American inventor was so weak that, when at anchor, it broke in half during a gale, thus ridding itself of the weight of its cumbrous engine. With his usual energy, Fulton built a larger and stronger craft, which not only carried the machinery, but, in August, 1803, astonished the members of the French Institute by moving, though with much circumspection.
Fulton, however, was disappointed, and if we may judge from the scanty records of his life, he never offered this invention to Napoleon.[321] He felt the need of better machinery, and as this could only be procured in England, he gave the order to a Birmingham firm, which engined his first successful boat, the "Clermont," launched on the Hudson in 1807. But for the war, perhaps, Fulton would have continued to live in Paris and made his third attempt there. He certainly never offered his imperfect steamship to the First Consul. Probably the fact that his first boat foundered when at anchor in the Seine would have procured him a rough reception, if he had offered to equip the whole of the Boulogne flotilla with an invention which had sunk its first receptacle and propelled the second boat at a snail's pace.
Besides, he had already met with one repulse from Napoleon. He had offered, first to the Directory and later to the First Consul, a boat which he claimed would "deliver France and the world from British oppression."
This was a sailing vessel, which could sink under water and then discharge under a hostile ship a "carcass" of gunpowder or torpedo--another invention of his fertile brain. The Directory at once repulsed him. Bonaparte instructed Monge, Laplace, and Volney to report on this submarine or "plunging" boat, which had a partial success. It succeeded in blowing up a small vessel in the harbour at Brest in July, 1801; but the Commission seems to have reported unfavourably on its utility for offensive purposes. In truth, as Fulton had not then applied motive power to this invention, the name "plunging boat" conveyed an exaggerated notion of its functions, which were more suited to a life of ascetic contemplation than of destructive activity.
It appears that the memoir-writers named above have confused the two distinct inventions of Fulton just referred to. In the latter half of 1803 he repaired to England, and later on to the United States, and after the year 1803 he seems to have had neither the will nor the opportunity to serve Napoleon. In England he offered his torpedo patent to the English Admiralty, expressing his hatred of the French Emperor as a "wild beast who ought to be hunted down." Little was done with the torpedo in England, except to blow up a vessel off Walmer as a proof of what it could do. It is curious also that when Bell offered his paddle-boat to the Admiralty it was refused, though Nelson is said to have spoken in its favour. The official mind is everywhere hostile to new inventions; and Marmont suggestively remarks that Bonaparte's training as an artillerist, and his experience of the inconvenience and expense resulting from the adoption of changes in that arm, had no slight influence in setting him against all innovations.
But, to resume our description of the Boulogne flotilla, it may be of interest to give some hitherto unpublished details about the flat-bottomed boats, and then to pass in brief review Napoleon's plans for assuring a temporary command of the Channel.
It is clear that he at first relied almost solely on the flotilla. After one of his visits to Boulogne, he wrote on November 23rd, 1803, to Admiral Gantheaume that he would soon have on the northern coast 1,300 flat-bottomed boats able to carry 100,000 men, while the Dutch flotilla would transport 60,000. "Do you think it will take us to the English coast? Eight hours of darkness which favour us would decide the fate of the universe." There is no mention of any convoying fleet: the First Consul evidently believed that the flotilla could beat off any attack at sea. This letter offers a signal proof of his inability, at least at that time, to understand the risks of naval warfare. But though his precise and logical mind seems then to have been incapable of fully realizing the conditions of war on the fickle, troublous, and tide-swept Channel, his admirals urgently warned him against trusting to shallow, flat-bottomed boats to beat the enemy out at sea; for though these praams in their coasting trips repelled the attacks of British cruisers, which dared not come into shallow waters, it did not follow that they would have the same success in mid-Channel, far away from coast defences and amidst choppy waves that must render the guns of keelless boats wellnigh useless.[320]
The present writer, after going through the reports of our admiral stationed in the Downs, is convinced that our seamen felt a supreme contempt for the flat-bottomed boats when at sea. After the capture of one of them, by an English gun-brig, Admiral Montagu reported, November 23rd, 1803:
"It is impossible to suppose for an instant that anything effective can be produced by such miserable tools, equally ill-calculated for the grand essentials in a maritime formation, battle and speed: that floored as this wretched vessel is, she cannot hug the wind, but must drift bodily to leeward, which indeed was the cause of her capture; for, having got a little to leeward of Boulogne Bay, it was impossible to get back and she was necessitated to steer large for Calais. On the score of battle, she has one long 18-pounder, without breeching or tackle, traversing on a slide, which can only be fired stem on. The 8-pounder is mounted aft, but is a fixture: so that literally, if one of our small boats was to lay alongside there would be nothing but musketry to resist, and those [sic] placed in the hands of poor wretches weakened by the effect of seasickness, exemplified when this gun-boat was captured--the soldiers having retreated to the hold, incapable of any energy or manly exertion.... In short, Sir, these vessels in my mind are completely contemptible and ridiculous, and I therefore conclude that the numbers collected at Boulogne are to keep our attention on the qui vive, and to gloss over the real attack meditated from other points."
The vessel which provoked the contempt of our admiral was not one of the smallest class: she was 58-1/3 ft. long, 14-1/2 ft. wide, drew 3 ft. forward and 4 ft. aft: her sides rose 3 ft. above the water, and her capacity was 35 tons. The secret intelligence of the Admiralty for the years 1804 and 1805 also shows that Dutch sailors were equally convinced of the unseaworthiness of these craft: Admiral Verhuell plainly told the French Emperor that, however flatterers might try to persuade him of the feasibility of the expedition, "nothing but disgrace could be expected." The same volume (No. 426) contains a report of the capture of two of the larger class of French chaloupes off Cape La Hogue. Among the prisoners was a young French royalist named La Bourdonnais: when forced by the conscription to enter Napoleon's service, he chose to serve with the chaloupes "because of his conviction that all these flotillas were nothing but bugbears and would never attempt the invasion so much talked of and in which so few persons really believe." The same was the opinion of the veteran General Dumouriez, who, now an exile in England, drew up for our Government a long report on the proposed invasion and the means of thwarting it. The reports of our spies also prove that all experienced seamen on the Continent declared Napoleon's project to be either a ruse or a foolhardy venture.
The compiler of the Ney "Memoirs," who was certainly well acquainted with the opinions of that Marshal, then commanding the troops at Boulogne, also believed that the flotilla was only able to serve as a gigantic ferry.[322] The French admirals were still better aware of the terrible risks to their crowded craft in a fight out at sea. They also pointed out that the difference in the size, draught, and speed of the boats must cause the dispersion of the flotilla, when its parts might fall a prey to the more seaworthy vessels of the enemy. Indeed, the only chance of crossing without much loss seemed to be offered by a protracted calm, when the British cruisers would be helpless against a combined attack of a cloud of row-boats. The risks would be greater during a fog, when the crowd of boats must be liable to collision, stranding on shoals, and losing their way. Even the departure of this quaint armada presented grave difficulties: it was found that the whole force could not clear the harbour in a single tide; and a part of the flotilla must therefore remain exposed to the British fire before the whole mass could get under way. For all these reasons Bruix, the commander of the flotilla, and Decrès, Minister of Marine, dissuaded Napoleon from attempting the descent without the support of a powerful covering fleet.
Napoleon's correspondence shows that, by the close of the year 1803, he had abandoned that first fatuous scheme which gained him from the wits of Paris the soubriquet of "Don Quixote de la Manche."[323] On the 7th of December he wrote to Gantheaume, maritime prefect at Toulon, urging him to press on the completion of his nine ships of the line and five frigates, and sketching plans of a naval combination that promised to insure the temporary command of the Channel. Of these only two need be cited here:
1. "The Toulon squadron will set out on 20th nivôse (January 10th, 1804), will arrive before Cadiz (or Lisbon), will find there the Rochefort squadron, will sail on without making land, between Brest and the Sorlingues, will touch at Cape La Hogue, and will pass in forty-eight hours before Boulogne: thence it will continue to the mouth of the Scheldt (there procuring masts, cordage, and all needful things)--or perhaps to Cherbourg.
2. "The Rochefort squadron will set out on 20th nivôse, will reach Toulon the 20th pluviôse: the united squadrons will set sail in ventôse, and arrive in germinal before Boulogne--that is rather late. In any case the Egyptian Expedition will cover the departure of the Toulon squadron: everything will be managed so that Nelson will first sail for Alexandria."
These schemes reveal the strong and also the weak qualities of Napoleon. He perceived the strength of the central position which France enjoyed on her four coasts; and he now contrived all his dispositions, both naval and political, so as to tempt Nelson away eastwards from Toulon during the concentration of the French fleet in the Channel; and for this purpose he informed the military officers at Toulon that their destination was Taranto and the Morea. It was to these points that he wished to decoy Nelson; for this end had he sent his troops to Taranto, and kept up French intrigues in Corfu, the Morea, and Egypt; it was for this purpose that he charged that wily spy Méhée to inform Drake that the Toulon fleet was to take 40,000 French troops to the Morea, and that the Brest fleet, with 200 highly trained Irish officers, was intended solely for Ireland. But, while displaying consummate guile, he failed to allow for the uncertainties of operations conducted by sea. Ignoring the patent fact that the Toulon fleet was blockaded by Nelson, and that of Rochefort by Collingwood, he fixed the dates of their departure and junction as though he were ordering the movements of a corps d'armée in Provence; and this craving for certainty was to mar his naval plans and dog his footsteps with the shadow of disaster.[324]
The plan of using the Toulon fleet to cover an invasion of England was not entirely new. As far back as the days of De Tourville, a somewhat similar plan had been devised: the French Channel and Atlantic fleets under that admiral were closely to engage Russell off the Isle of Wight, while the Toulon squadron, sailing northwards, was to collect the French transports on the coasts of Normandy for the invasion of England. Had Napoleon carefully studied French naval history, he would have seen that the disaster of La Hogue was largely caused by the severe weather which prevented the rendezvous, and brought about a hasty and ill-advised alteration in the original scheme. But of all subjects on which he spoke as an authority, there was perhaps not one that he had so inadequately studied as naval strategy: yet there was none wherein the lessons of experience needed so carefully to be laid to heart.
Fortune seemed to frown on Napoleon's naval schemes: yet she was perhaps not unkind in thwarting them in their first stages. Events occurred which early suggested a deviation from the combinations noticed above. In the last days of 1803, hearing that the English were about to attack Martinique, he at once wrote to Gantheaume, urging him to despatch the Toulon squadron under Admiral Latouche-Tréville for the rescue of this important island. The commander of the troops, Cervoni, was to be told that the expedition aimed at the Morea, so that spies might report this news to Nelson, and it is clear from our admiral's despatches that the ruse half succeeded. Distracted, however, by the thought that the French might, after all, aim at Ireland, Nelson clung to the vicinity of Toulon, and his untiring zeal kept in harbour the most daring admiral in the French navy, who, despite his advanced age, excited an enthusiasm that none other could arouse.
To him, in spite of his present ill-fortune, Napoleon intrusted the execution of a scheme bearing date July 2nd, 1804. Latouche was ordered speedily to put to sea with his ten ships of the line and four frigates, to rally a French warship then at Cadiz, release the five ships of the line and four frigates blockaded at Rochefort by Collingwood, and then sweep the Channel and convoy the flotilla across the straits. This has been pronounced by Jurien de la Gravière the best of all Napoleon's plans: it exposed ships that had long been in harbour only to a short ocean voyage, and it was free from the complexity of the later and more grandiose schemes.
But fate interposed and carried off the intrepid commander by that worst of all deaths for a brave seaman, death by disease in harbour, where he was shut up by his country's foes (August 20th).
Villeneuve was thereupon appointed to succeed him, while Missiessy held command at Rochefort. The choice of Villeneuve has always been considered strange; and the riddle is not solved by the declaration of Napoleon that he considered that Villeneuve at the Nile showed his good fortune in escaping with the only French ships which survived that disaster. A strange reason this: to appoint an admiral commander of an expedition that was to change the face of the world because his good fortune consisted in escaping from Nelson![325]
Napoleon now began to widen his plans. According to the scheme of September 29th, three expeditions were now to set out; the first was to assure the safety of the French West Indies; the second was to recover the Dutch colonies in those seas and reinforce the French troops still holding out in part of St. Domingo; while the third had as its objective West Africa and St. Helena. The Emperor evidently hoped to daze us by simultaneous attacks in Africa, America, and also in Asiatic waters. After these fleets had set sail in October and November, 1804, Ireland was to be attacked by the Brest fleet now commanded by Gantheaume. Slipping away from the grip of Cornwallis, he was to pass out of sight of land and disembark his troops in Lough Swilly. These troops, 18,000 strong, were under that redoubtable fighter, Augereau; and had they been landed, the history of the world might have been different. Leaving them to revolutionize Ireland, Gantheaume was to make for the English Channel, touch at Cherbourg for further orders, and proceed to Boulogne to convoy the flotilla across: or, if the weather prevented this, as was probable in January, he was to pass on to the Texel, rally the seven Dutch battleships and the transports with their 25,000 troops, beat back down the English Channel and return to Ireland. Napoleon counted on the complete success of one or other of Gantheaume's moves: "Whether I have 30,000 or 40,000 men in Ireland, or whether I am both in England and Ireland, the war is ours."[326]
The objections to the September combination are fairly obvious. It was exceedingly improbable that the three fleets could escape at the time and in the order which Napoleon desired, or that crews enervated by long captivity in port would succeed in difficult operations when thrust out into the wintry gales of the Atlantic and the Channel. Besides, success could only be won after a serious dispersion of French naval resources; and the West Indian expeditions must be regarded as prompted quite as much by a colonial policy as by a determination to overrun England or Ireland.[327]
At any rate, if the Emperor's aim was merely to distract us by widely diverging attacks, that could surely have been accomplished without sending twenty-six sail of the line into American and African waters, and leaving to Gantheaume so disproportionate an amount of work and danger. This September combination may therefore be judged distinctly inferior to that of July, which, with no scattering of the French forces, promised to decoy Nelson away to the Morea and Egypt, while the Toulon and Rochefort squadrons proceeded to Boulogne.
The September schemes hopelessly miscarried. Gantheaume did not elude Cornwallis, and remained shut up in Brest. Missiessy escaped from Rochefort, sailed to the West Indies, where he did some damage and then sailed home again. "He had taken a pawn and returned to his own square."[328] Villeneuve slipped out from Toulon (January 19th, 1805), while Nelson was sheltering from westerly gales under the lee of Sardinia; but the storm which promised to renew his reputation for good luck speedily revealed the weakness of his ships and crews.
"My fleet looked well at Toulon," he wrote to Decrès, Minister of Marine, "but when the storm came on, things changed at once. The sailors were not used to storms: they were lost among the mass of soldiers: these from sea-sickness lay in heaps about the decks: it was impossible to work the ships: hence yard-arms were broken and sails were carried away: our losses resulted as much from clumsiness and inexperience as from defects in the materials delivered by the arsenals."[329]
Inexperience and sea-sickness were factors that found no place in Napoleon's calculations; but they compelled Villeneuve to return to Toulon to refit; and there Nelson closed on him once more.
Meanwhile events were transpiring which seemed to add to Napoleon's naval strength and to the difficulties of his foes. On January 4th, 1805, he concluded with Spain a treaty which added her naval resources to those of France, Holland, and Northern Italy. The causes that led to an open rupture between England and Spain were these. Spain had been called upon by Napoleon secretly to pay him the stipulated sum of 72,000,000 francs a year (see p. 437), and she reluctantly consented. This was, of course, a covert act of hostility against England; and the Spanish Government was warned at the close of 1803 that, if this subsidy continued to be paid to France, it would constitute "at any future period, when circumstances may render it necessary, a just cause of war" between England and Spain. Far from complying with this reasonable remonstrance, the Spanish Court yielded to Napoleon's imperious order to repair five French warships that had taken refuge in Ferrol from our cruisers, and in July, 1804, allowed French seamen to travel thither overland to complete the crews of these vessels. Thus for some months our warships had to observe Ferrol, as if it were a hostile port.
Clearly, this state of things could not continue; and when the protests of our ambassador at Madrid were persistently evaded or ignored, he was ordered, in the month of September, to leave that capital unless he received satisfactory assurances. He did not leave until November 10th, and before that time a sinister event had taken place. The British Ministry determined that Spanish treasure-ships from South America should not be allowed to land at Cadiz the sinews of war for France, and sent orders to our squadrons to stop those ships. Four frigates were told off for that purpose. On the 5th of October they sighted the four rather smaller Spanish frigates that bore the ingots of Peru, and summoned them to surrender, thereafter to be held in pledge. The Spaniards, nobly resolving to yield only to overwhelming force, refused; and in the ensuing fight one of their ships blew up, whereupon the others hauled down their flags and were taken to England. Resenting this action, Spain declared war on December 12th, 1804.
Stripped of all the rodomontade with which French historians have enveloped this incident, the essential facts are as follows. Napoleon compelled Spain by the threat of invasion to pay him a large subsidy: England declared this payment, and accompanying acts, to be acts of war; Spain shuffled uneasily between the two belligerents but continued to supply funds to Napoleon and to shelter and repair his warships; thereupon England resolved to cut off her American subsidies, but sent a force too small to preclude the possibility of a sea-fight; the fight took place, with a lamentable result, which changed the covert hostility of Spain into active hostility.
Public opinion and popular narratives are, however, fashioned by sentiment rather than founded on evidence; accordingly, Britain's prestige suffered from this event. The facts, as currently reported, seemed to convict her of an act of piracy; and few persons on the Continent or among the Whig coteries of Westminster troubled to find out whether Spain had not been guilty of acts of hostility and whether the French Emperor was not the author of the new war. Undoubtedly it was his threatening pressure on Spain that had compelled her to her recent action: but that pressure had been for the most part veiled by diplomacy, while Britain's retort was patent and notorious. Consequently, every version of this incident that was based merely on newspaper reports condemned her conduct as brutally piratical; and only those who have delved into archives have discovered the real facts of the case.[330] Napoleon's letter to the King of Spain quoted on p. 437 shows that even before the war he was seeking to drag him into hostilities with England, and he continued to exert a remorseless pressure on the Court of Madrid; it left two alternatives open to England, either to see Napoleon close his grip on Spain and wield her naval resources when she was fully prepared for war, or to precipitate the rupture. It was the alternative, mutatis mutandis, presented to George III. and the elder Pitt in 1761, when the King was for delay and his Minister was for war at once. That instance had proved the father's foresight; and now at the close of 1804 the younger Pitt might flatter himself that open war was better than a treacherous peace.
In lieu of a subsidy Spain now promised to provide from twenty-five to twenty-nine sail of the line, and to have them ready by the close of March. On his side, Napoleon agreed to guarantee the integrity of the Spanish dominions, and to regain Trinidad for her. The sequel will show how his word was kept.
The conclusion of this alliance placed the hostile navies almost on an equality, at least on paper. But, as the equipment of the Spanish fleet was very slow, Napoleon for the present adhered to his plan of September, 1804, with the result already detailed. Not until March 2nd, 1805, do we find the influence of the Spanish alliance observable in his naval schemes. On that date he issued orders to Villeneuve and Gantheaume, which assigned to the latter most of the initiative, as also the chief command after their assumed junction. Gantheaume, with the Brest fleet, after eluding the blockaders, was to proceed first to Ferrol, capture the British ships off that port and, reinforced by the French and Spanish ships there at anchor, proceed across the Atlantic to the appointed rendezvous at Martinique. The Toulon squadron under Villeneuve was at the same time to make for Cadiz, and, after collecting the Spanish ships, set sail for the West Indies. Then the armada was to return with all speed to Boulogne, where Napoleon expected it to arrive between June 10th and July 10th.[331]
Diverse judgments have been passed on this, the last and grandest of Napoleon's naval combinations. On the one hand, it is urged that, as the French fleets had seen no active service, a long voyage was necessary to impart experience and efficiency before matters were brought to the touch in the Straits of Dover; and as Britain and France both regarded their West Indian islands as their most valued possessions, a voyage thither would be certain to draw British sails in eager pursuit. Finally, those islands dotted over a thousand miles of sea presented a labyrinth wherein it would be easy for the French to elude Nelson's cruisers.
On the other hand, it may be urged that the success of the plan depended on too many ifs. Assuming that the Toulon and Brest squadrons escaped the blockaders, their subsequent movements would most probably be reported by some swift frigate off Gibraltar or Ferrol. The chance of our divining the French plans was surely as great as that Gantheaume and Villeneuve would unite in the West Indies, ravage the British possessions, and return in undiminished force. The English fleets, after weary months of blockade, were adepts at scouting; their wings covered with ease a vast space, their frigates rapidly signalled news to the flagship, and their concentration was swift and decisive. Prompt to note every varying puff of wind, they bade fair to overhaul their enemies when the chase began in earnest, and when once the battle was joined, numbers counted for little: the English crews, inured to fights on the ocean, might be trusted to overwhelm the foe by their superior experience and discipline, hampered as the French now were by the lumbering and defective warships of Spain.
Napoleon, indeed, amply discounted the chances of failure of his ultimate design, the command of the Channel. The ostensible aims of the expedition were colonial. The French fleets were to take on board 11,908 soldiers, of whom three-fourths were destined for the West Indies; and, in case Gantheaume did not join Villeneuve at Martinique, the latter was ordered, after waiting forty days, to set sail for the Canaries, there to intercept the English convoys bound for Brazil and the East Indies.
In the spring and summer of 1805 Napoleon's correspondence supplies copious proof of the ideas and plans that passed through his brain. After firmly founding the new Empire, he journeyed into Piedmont, thence to Milan for his coronation as King of Italy, and finally to Genoa. In this absence of three months from Paris (April-July) many lengthy letters to Decrès attest the alternations of his hopes and fears. He now keeps the possibility of failure always before him: his letters no longer breathe the crude confidence of 1803: and while facing the chances of failure in the West Indies, his thoughts swing back to the Orient:
"According to all the news that I receive, five or six thousand men in the [East] Indies would ruin the English Company. Supposing that our [West] Indian expedition is not fully successful, and I cannot reach the grand end which will demolish all the rest, I think we must arrange the [East] Indian expedition for September. We have now greater resources for it than some time ago."[332]
How tenacious is his will! He here recurs to the plan laid down before Decaen sailed to the East Indies in March, 1803. Even the prospects of a continental coalition fail to dispel that gorgeous dream. But amid much that is visionary we may discern this element of practicality: in case the blow against England misses the mark, Napoleon has provided himself with a splendid alternative that will banish all thought of failure.
It is needless to recount here the well-known details of Villeneuve's voyage and Nelson's pursuit. The Toulon and Cadiz fleets got clear away to the West Indies, and after a last glance towards the Orient, Nelson set out in pursuit. On the 4th of June the hostile fleets were separated by only a hundred miles of sea; and Villeneuve, when off Antigua, hearing that Nelson was so close, decided forthwith to return to Europe. After disembarking most of his troops and capturing a fleet of fourteen British merchantmen, he sailed for Ferrol, in pursuance of orders just received from Napoleon, which bade him rally fifteen allied ships at that port, and push on to Brest, where he must release Gantheaume.
In this gigantic war game, where the Atlantic was the chess-board, and the prize a world-empire, the chances were at this time curiously even. Fortune had favoured Villeneuve but checked Gantheaume. Villeneuve successfully dodged Nelson in the West Indies, but ultimately the pursuer divined the enemy's scheme of returning to Europe, and sent a swift brig to warn the Admiralty, which was thereby informed of the exact position of affairs on July 8th, that is, twelve days before Napoleon himself knew of the state of affairs. On July 20th, the French Emperor heard, through English newspapers, that his fleet was on its return voyage: and his heart beat high with hope that Villeneuve would now gather up his squadrons in the Bay of Biscay and appear before Boulogne in overwhelming force; for he argued that, even if Villeneuve should keep right away from Brest, and leave blockaders and blockaded face to face, he would still be at least sixteen ships stronger than any force that could be brought against him.
But Napoleon was now committing the blunder which he so often censured in his inferiors. He was "making pictures" to himself, pictures in which the gleams of fortune were reserved for the tricolour flag, and gloom and disaster shrouded the Union Jack; he conceived that Nelson had made for Jamaica, and that the British squadrons were engaged in chasing phantom French fleets around Ireland or to the East Indies. "We have not to do," he said, "with a far-seeing, but with a very proud, Government."
In reality, Nelson was nearing the coast of Portugal, Cornwallis had been so speedily reinforced as to marshal twenty-eight ships of the line off Brest, while Calder was waiting for Villeneuve off Cape Finisterre with a fleet of fifteen battleships. Thus, when Villeneuve neared the north-west of Spain, his twenty ships of the line were confronted by a force which he could neither overwhelm nor shake off. The combat of July 22nd, fought amidst a dense haze, was unfavourable to the allies, two Spanish ships of the line striking their colours to Calder before the gathering fog and gloom of night separated the combatants: on the next two days Villeneuve strove to come to close quarters, but Calder sheered off; thereupon the French, unable then to make Ferrol, put into Vigo, while Calder, ignorant of their position, joined Cornwallis off Brest. This retreat of the British admiral subjected him to a court-martial, and consternation reigned in London when Villeneuve was known to be on the Spanish coast unguarded; but the fear was needless; though the French admiral succeeded in rallying the Ferrol squadron, yet, as he was ordered to avoid Ferrol, he put into Corunna, and on August 15th he decided to sail for Cadiz.
To realize the immense importance of this decision we must picture to ourselves the state of affairs just before this time.
Nelson, delayed by contrary winds and dogged by temporary ill-luck, had made for Gibraltar, whence, finding that no French ships had passed the straits, he doubled back in hot haste northwards, and there is clear proof that his speedy return to the coast of Spain spread dismay in official circles at Paris. "This unexpected union of forces undoubtedly renders every scheme of invasion impracticable for the present," wrote Talleyrand to Napoleon on August 2nd, 1805.[333] Missing Villeneuve off Ferrol, Nelson joined Cornwallis off Ushant on the very day when the French admiral decided to make for Cadiz. Passing on to Portsmouth, the hero now enjoyed a few days of well-earned repose, until the nation called on him for his final effort.
Meanwhile Napoleon had arrived on August 3rd at Boulogne, where he reviewed a line of soldiery nine miles long. The sight might well arouse his hopes of assured victory. He had ground for hoping that Villeneuve would soon be in the Channel. Not until August 8th did he receive news of the fight with Calder, and he took pains to parade it as an English defeat. He therefore trusted that, in the spirit of his orders to Villeneuve dated July the 26th, that admiral would sail to Cadiz, gather up other French and Spanish ships, and return to Ferrol and Brest with a mighty force of some sixty sail of the line:
"I count on your zeal for my service, on your love for the fatherland, on your hatred of this Power which for forty generations has oppressed us, and which a little daring and perseverance on your part will for ever reduce to the rank of the small Powers: 150,000 soldiers ... and the crews complete are embarked on 2,000 craft of the flotilla, which, despite the English cruisers, forms a long line of broadsides from Etaples to Cape Grisnez. Your voyage, and it alone, makes us without any doubt masters of England."
Austria and Russia were already marshalling their forces for the war of the Third Coalition. Yet, though menaced by those Powers, to whom he had recently offered the most flagrant provocations, this astonishing man was intent only on the ruin of England, and secretly derided their preparations. "You need not" (so he wrote to Eugène, Viceroy of Italy) "contradict the newspaper rumours of war, but make fun of them.... Austria's actions are probably the result of fear."--Thus, even when the eastern horizon lowered threateningly with clouds, he continued to pace the cliffs of Boulogne, or gallop restlessly along the strand, straining his gaze westward to catch the first glimpse of his armada. That horizon was never to be flecked with Villeneuve's sails: they were at this time furled in the harbour of Cadiz.
Unmeasured abuse has been showered upon Villeneuve for his retreat to that harbour. But it must be remembered that in both of Napoleon's last orders to him, those of July 16th and 26th, he was required to sail to Cadiz under certain conditions. In the first order prescribing alternative ways of gaining the mastery of the Channel, that step was recommended solely as a last alternative in case of misfortune: he was directed not to enter the long and difficult inlet of Ferrol, but, after collecting the squadron there, to cast anchor at Cadiz. In the order of July 26th he was charged positively to repair to Cadiz: "My intention is that you rally at Cadiz the Spanish ships there, disembark your sick, and, without stopping there more than four days at most, again set sail, return to Ferrol, etc." Villeneuve seems not to have received these last orders, but he alludes to those of July 16th.[334]
These, then, were probably the last instructions he received from Napoleon before setting sail from the roads of Corunna on August 13th. The censures passed on his retreat to Cadiz are therefore based on the supposition that he received instructions which he did not receive.[335] He expressly based his move to Cadiz on Napoleon's orders of July 16th. The mishaps which the Emperor then contemplated as necessitating such a step had, in Villeneuve's eyes, actually happened. The admiral considered the fight of July 22nd la malheureuse affaire; his ships were encumbered with sick; they worked badly; on August 15th a north-east gale carried away the top-mast of a Spanish ship; and having heard from a Danish merchantman the news--false news, as it afterwards appeared--that Cornwallis with twenty-five ships was to the north, he turned and scudded before the wind. He could not divine the disastrous influence of his conduct on the plan of invasion. He did not know that his master was even then beginning to hesitate between a dash on London or a campaign on the Danube, and that the events of the next few days were destined to tilt the fortunes of the world. Doubtless he ought to have disregarded the Emperor's words about Cadiz and to have struggled on to Brest, as his earlier and wider orders enjoined. But the Emperor's instructions pointed to Cadiz as the rendezvous in case of misfortune or great difficulty. As a matter of fact, Napoleon on July 26th ordered the Rochefort squadron to meet Villeneuve at Cadiz; and it is clear that by that date Napoleon had decided on that rendezvous, apparently because it could be more easily entered and cleared than Ferrol, and was safer from attack. But, as it happened, the Rochefort squadron had already set sail and failed to sight an enemy or friend for several weeks.
Such are the risks of naval warfare, in which even the greatest geniuses at times groped but blindly. Nelson was not afraid to confess the truth. The French Emperor, however, seems never to have made an admission which would mar his claim to strategic infallibility. Even now, when the Spanish ships were proved to clog the enterprise, he persisted in merely counting numbers, and in asserting that Villeneuve might still neutralize the force of Calder and Cornwallis. These hopes he cherished up to August 23rd, when, as the next chapter will show, he faced right about to confront Austria. His Minister of Marine, who had more truly gauged the difficulties of all parts of the naval enterprise, continued earnestly to warn him of the terrible risk of burdening Villeneuve's ships with the unseaworthy craft of Spain and of trusting to this ill-assorted armada to cover the invasion now that their foes had divined its secret. The Emperor bitterly upbraided his Minister for his timidity, and in the presence of Daru, Intendant General of the army, indulged in a dramatic soliloquy against Villeneuve for his violation of orders: "What a navy! What an admiral! What sacrifices for nothing! My hopes are frustrated--- Daru, sit down and write"--whereupon it is said that he traced out the plans of the campaign which was to culminate at Ulm and Austerlitz.[336]
The question has often been asked whether Napoleon seriously intended the invasion of England. Certainly the experienced seamen of England, France, and Holland, with few exceptions, declared that the flat-bottomed boats were unseaworthy, and that a frightful disaster must ensue if they were met out at sea by our ships. When it is further remembered that our coasts were defended by batteries and martello towers, that several hundreds of pinnaces and row-boats were ready to attack the flotilla before it could attempt the disembarkation of horses, artillery, and stores, and that 180,000 regulars and militia, aided by 400,000 volunteers, were ready to defend our land, the difficulties even of capturing London will be obvious. And the capture of the capital would not have decided the contest. Napoleon seems to have thought it would. In his voyage to St. Helena he said: "I put all to the hazard; I entered into no calculations as to the manner in which I was to return; I trusted all to the impression the occupation of the capital would have occasioned."[337]--But, as has been shown above (p. 441), plans had been secretly drawn up for the removal of the Court and the national treasure to Worcester; the cannon of Woolwich were to be despatched into the Midlands by canal; and our military authorities reckoned that the systematic removal of provisions and stores from all the districts threatened by the enemy would exhaust him long before he overran the home counties. Besides, the invasion was planned when Britain's naval power had been merely evaded, not conquered. Nelson and Cornwallis and Calder would not for ever be chasing phantom fleets; they would certainly return, and cut Napoleon from his base, the sea.
Again, if Napoleon was bent solely on the invasion of England, why should he in June, 1805, have offered to Russia and Austria so gratuitous an affront as the annexation of the Ligurian Republic? He must have known that this act would hurry them into war. Thiers considers the annexation of Genoa a "grave fault" in the Emperor's policy--but many have doubted whether Napoleon did not intend Genoa to be the gate leading to a new avenue of glory, now that the success of his naval dispositions was doubtful. Marbot gives the general opinion of military circles when he says that the Emperor wanted to provoke a continental war in order to escape the ridicule which the failure of his Boulogne plans would otherwise have aroused. "The new coalition came just at the right moment to get him out of an annoying situation." The compiler of the Fouché "Memoirs," which, though not genuine, may be accepted as generally correct, took the same view. He attributes to Napoleon the noteworthy words: "I may fail by sea, but not by land; besides, I shall be able to strike the blow before the old coalition machines are ready: the kings have neither activity nor decision of character: I do not fear old Europe." The Emperor also remarked to the Council of State that the expense of all the preparations at Boulogne was fully justified by the fact that they gave him "fully twenty days' start over all enemies.... A pretext had to be found for raising the troops and bringing them together without alarming the Continental Powers: and that pretext was afforded me by the projected descent upon England."[338]
It is also quite possible that his aim was Ireland as much as England. It certainly was in the plan of September, 1804: and doubtless it still held a prominent place in his mind, except during the few days when he pictured Calder vanquished and Nelson scouring the West Indies. Then he doubtless fixed his gaze solely upon London. But there is much indirect evidence which points to Ireland as forming at least a very important part of his scheme. Both Nelson and Collingwood believed him to be aiming at Ireland.[339]
But indeed Napoleon is often unfathomable. Herein lies much of the charm of Napoleonic studies. He is at once the Achilles, the Mercury, and the Proteus of the modern world. The ease with which his mind grasped all problems and suddenly concentrated its force on some new plan may well perplex posterity as it dazed his contemporaries. If we were dealing with any other man than Napoleon, we might safely say that an invasion of England, before the command of the sea had been secured, was infinitely less likely than a descent on Ireland. The landing of a corps d'armée there would have provoked a revolution; and British ascendancy would have vanished in a week. Even had Nelson returned and swept the seas, Ireland would have been lost to the United Kingdom; and Britain, exhausted also by the expenses which the Boulogne preparations had compelled her to make for the defence of London, must have succumbed.
If ever Napoleon intended risking all his fortunes on the conquest of England, it can be proved that his mind was gradually cleared of illusions. He trusted that a popular rising would overthrow the British Government: people and rulers showed an accord that had never been known since the reign of Queen Anne. He believed, for a short space, that the flotilla could fight sea-going ships out at sea: the converse was proved up to the hilt. Finally, he trusted that Villeneuve, when burdened with Spanish ships, would outwit and outmanoeuvre Nelson!
What then remained after these and many other disappointments? Surely that scheme alone was practicable, in which the command of the sea formed only an unimportant factor. For the conquest of England it was an essential factor. In Ireland alone could Napoleon find the conditions on which he counted for success--a discontented populace that would throng to the French eagles, and a field of warfare where the mere landing of 20,000 veterans would decide the campaign.[340]
And yet it is, on the whole, certain that his expedition for Ireland was meant merely to distract and paralyze the defenders of Great Britain, while he dealt the chief blow at London. Instinct and conviction alike prompted him to make imposing feints that should lead his enemy to lay bare his heart, and that heart was our great capital. His indomitable will scorned the word impossible--"a word found only in the dictionary of fools"; he felt England to be the sole barrier to his ambitions; and to crush her power he was ready to brave, not only her stoutest seamen, but also her guardian angels, the winds and storms. Both the man and the occasion were unique in the world's history and must not be judged according to tame probabilities. For his honour was at stake. He was so deeply pledged to make use of the vast preparations at his northern ports that, had all his complex dispositions worked smoothly, he would certainly have attempted a dash at London; and only after some adequate excuse could he consent to give up that adventure.
The excuse was now furnished by Villeneuve's retreat to Cadiz; and public opinion, ignorant of Napoleon's latest instructions on that subject, and knowing only the salient facts of the case, laid on that luckless admiral the whole burden of blame for the failure of the scheme of invasion. With front unabashed and a mind presaging certain triumphs, Napoleon accordingly wheeled his legions eastward to prosecute that alluring alternative, the conquest of England through the Continent.
* * * * *
Appendix
[The two following State Papers have never before been published]
No. I. is a despatch from Mr. Thornton, our chargé d'affaires at Washington, relative to the expected transfer of the vast region of Louisiana from Spain to France (see ch. xv. of this vol.).
[In "F O.," America, No. 35.] "WASHINGTON, "26 Jany., 1802.
"MY LORD,
"... About four years ago, when the rumour of the transfer of Louisiana to France was first circulated, I put into Mr. Pickering's hands for his perusal a despatch written by Mr. Fauchet about the year 1794, which with many others was intercepted by one of H.M. ships. In that paper the French Minister urged to his Government the absolute necessity of acquiring Louisiana or some territory in the vicinity of the United States in order to obtain a permanent influence in the country, and he alluded to a memorial written some years before by the Count du Moutier to the same effect, when he was employed as His Most Christian Majesty's Minister to the United States. The project seems therefore to have been long in the contemplation of the French Government, and perhaps no period is more favourable than the present for carrying it into execution.
"When I paid my respects to the Vice-President, Mr. Burr, on his arrival at this place, he, of his own accord, directed conversation to this topic. He owned that he had made some exertion indirectly to discover the truth of the report, and thought he had reason to believe it. He appeared to think that the great armament destined by France to St. Domingo, had this ulterior object in view, and expressed much apprehension that the transfer and colonization of Louisiana were meditated by her with the concurrence or acquiescence of His Maj'^{s} Gov^{t}. It was impossible for me to give any opinion on this part of the measure, which, whatever may be its ultimate tendency, presents at first view nothing but danger to His Maj'^{s} Trans-Atlantic possessions.
"Regarding alone the aim of France to acquire a preponderating influence in the councils of the United States, it may be very well doubted whether the possession of Louisiana, and the means which she would chose to employ are calculated to secure that end. Experience seems now to have sanctioned the opinion that if the provinces of Canada had been restored to France at the Peace of Paris, and if from that quarter she had been left to press upon the American frontier, to harass the exterior settlements and to mingle in the feuds of the Indian Tribes, the colonies might still have preserved their allegiance to the parent country and have retained their just jealousy of that system of encroachment adopted by France from the beginning of the last century. The present project is but a continuance of the same system; and neither her power nor her present temper leave room for expectation that she will pursue it with less eagerness or greater moderation than before. Whether, therefore, she attempt to restrain the navigation of the Mississippi or limit the freedom of the port of New Orleans; whether she press upon the Western States with any view to conquest, or seduce them by her principles of fraternity (for which indeed they are well prepared) she must infallibly alienate the Atlantic States and force them into a straiter connection with Great Britain.
"I have scarcely met with a person under whatever party he may rank himself, who does not dread this event, and who would not prefer almost any neighbours to the French: and it seems perfect infatuation in the Administration of this country that they chuse the present moment for leaving that frontier almost defenceless by the reduction of its military establishment.
"I have, etc.,
"[Signed] EDW'D THORNTON."
* * * * *
No. II. is a report in "F.O.," France, No. 71, by one of our spies in Paris on the doings of the Irish exiles there, especially O'Connor, whom Napoleon had appointed General of Division in Marshal Augereau's army, then assembling at Brest for the expedition to Ireland. After stating O'Connor's appointment, the report continues:
"About eighty Irishmen were sent to Morlaix to be formed into a company of officers and taught how they were to discipline and instruct their countrymen when they landed in Ireland. McShee, Général de Brigade, commands them. He and Blackwell are, I believe, the only persons among them of any consequence, who have seen actual service. Emmett's brother and McDonald, who were jealous of the attention paid to O'Connor, would not go to Morlaix. They were prevailed on to go to Brest towards the end of May, and there to join General Humbert. Commandant Dalton, a young man of Irish extraction, and lately appointed to a situation in the Army at Boulogne, translated everything between O'Connor and the War Department at Paris. There is no Irish Committee at Paris as is reported. O'Connor and General Hartry, an old Irishman who has been long in the French service, are the only persons applied to by the French Government, O'Connor for the expedition, and Hartry for the Police, etc., of the Irish in France.
"O'Connor, though he had long tried to have an audience of Bonaparte, never saw him till the 20th of May [1805], when he was presented to him at the levee by Marshal Augereau. The Emperor and the Empress complimented him on his dress and military appearance, and Bonaparte said to him Venez me voir en particulier demain matin. O'Connor went and was alone with him near two hours. On that day Bonaparte did not say a word to him respecting his intention on England; all their conversation regarded Ireland. O'Connor was with him again on the Thursday and Friday following. Those three audiences are all that O'Connor ever had in private with Bonaparte.
"He told me on the Saturday evening that he should go to Court the next morning to take public leave of the Emperor and leave Paris as soon as he had received 10,000 livres which Maret was to give him for his travelling expenses, etc., and which he was to have in a day or two. His horses and all his servants but one had set off for Brest some time before.
"Bonaparte told O'Connor, when speaking of the prospect of a continental War, 'la Russie peut-être pourroit envoyer cette année 100,000 hommes contre la France, mais j'ai pour cela assez de monde à ma disposition: je ferois même marcher, s'il le faut, une armée contre la Russie, et si l'Empereur d'Allemagne refusoit un passage à cette armée dans son pays, je la ferois passer malgré lui.' He afterwards said--'il y a plusieurs moyens de détruire l'Angleterre, mais celui de lui ôter Irlande est bon. Je vous donnerai 25,000 bonnes troupes et s'il en arrive seulement 15,000, ce sera assez. Vous aurez aussi 150,000 fusils pour armer vos compatriotes, et un parc d'artillerie légère, des pièces de 4 et de 6 livres, et toutes les provisions de guerre nécessaires.'
"O'Connor endeavoured to persuade Bonaparte that the best way to conquer England was first to go to Ireland, and thence to England with 200,000 Irishmen. Bonaparte said he did not think that would do; d'ailleurs, he added, ce seroit trop long. They agreed that all the English in Ireland should be exterminated as the whites had been in St. Domingo. Bonaparte assured him that, as soon as he had formed an Irish army, he should be Commander in Chief of the French and Irish forces. Bonaparte directed O'Connor to try to gain over to his interest Laharpe, the Emperor of Russia's tutor. Laharpe had applied for a passport to go to St. Pétersbourg. He says he will do everything in his power to engage the Emperor to go to war with Bonaparte. Laharpe breathes nothing but vengeance against Bonaparte, who, besides other injuries, turned his back on him in public and would not speak to him. Laharpe was warned of O'Connor's intended visit, and went to the country to avoid seeing him: The Senator Garat is to go to Brest with O'Connor to write a constitution for Ireland. O'Connor is getting out of favor with the Irish in France; they begin to suspect his ambitious and selfish views. There was a coolness between Admiral Truguet and him for some time previous to Truguet's return to Brest. Augereau had given a dinner to all the principal officers of his army then at Paris. Truguet invited all of them to dine with him, two or three days after, except O'Connor. O'Connor told me he would never forgive him for it."
* * * * *
VOLUME II
* * * * *
XXII. ULM AND TRAFALGAR
"Napoleon is the only man in Europe that knows the value of time."--Czartoryski.
Before describing the Continental campaign which shattered the old European system to its base, it will be well to take a brief glance at the events which precipitated the war of the Third Coalition. Even at the time of Napoleon's rupture with England, his highhanded conduct towards the Italian Republic, Holland, Switzerland, and in regard to the Secularizations in Germany, had exposed him to the hostility of Russia, Sweden, and Austria; but as yet it took the form of secret resentment. The last-named Power, under the Ministry of Count Cobenzl, had relapsed into a tame and undignified policy, which the Swedish Ambassador at Vienna described as "one of fear and hope--fear of the power of France, and hope to obtain favours from her."[1] At Berlin, Frederick William clung nervously to neutrality, even though the French occupation of Hanover was a threat to Prussia's influence in North Germany. The Czar Alexander was, at present, wrapt up in home affairs; and the only monarch who as yet ventured to show his dislike of the First Consul was the King of Sweden. In the autumn of 1803 Gustavus IV. defiantly refused Napoleon's proposals for a Franco-Swedish alliance, baited though they were with the offer of Norway as an eventual prize for Sweden, and a subsidy for every Swedish warship serving against England. And it was not the dislike of a proud nature to receive money which prompted his refusal; for Gustavus, while in Germany, hinted to Drake that he desired to have pecuniary help from England for the defence of his province of Pomerania.[2]
But a doughtier champion of European independence was soon to enter the field. The earlier feelings of respect and admiration which the young Czar had cherished towards Napoleon were already overclouded, when the news of the execution of the Duc d'Enghien at once roused a storm of passion in his breast. The chivalrous protection which he loved to extend to smaller States, the guarantee of the Germanic system which the Treaty of Teschen had vested in him, above all, his horror at the crime, led him to offer an emphatic protest. The Russian Court at once went into mourning, and Alexander expressed both to the German Diet and to the French Government his indignation at the outrage. It was ever Napoleon's habit to return blow with blow; and he now instructed Talleyrand to reply that in the D'Enghien affair he had acted solely on the defensive, and that Russia's complaint "led him to ask if, at the time when England was compassing the assassination of Paul I., the authors of the plot had been known to be one league beyond the [Russian] frontiers, every effort would not have been made to have them seized?" Never has a poisoned dart been more deftly sped at the weak spot of an enemy's armour. The Czar, ever haunted by the thought of his complicity in a parricidal plot, was deeply wounded by this malicious taunt, and all the more so because, as the death of Paul had been officially ascribed to a fit, the insult could not be flung back.[3] The only reply was to break off all diplomatic relations with Napoleon; and this took place in the summer of 1804.[4]
Yet war was not to break out for more than a year. This delay was due to several causes. Austria could not be moved from her posture of timid neutrality. In fact, Francis II. and Cobenzl saw in Napoleon's need of a recognition of his new imperial title a means of assuring a corresponding change of title for the Hapsburg Dominions. Francis had long been weary of the hollow dignity of Elective Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The faded pageantry of Ratisbone and Frankfurt was all that remained of the glories of the realm of Charlemagne: the medley of States which owned him as elected lord cared not for the decrees of this ghostly realm; and Goethe might well place in the mouth of his jovial toper, in the cellar scene of "Faust," the words:
"Dankt Gott mit jedem Morgen Dass Ihr nicht braucht für's Röm'sche Reich zu sorgen!"
In that bargaining and burglarious age, was it not better to build a more lasting habitation than this venerable ruin? Would not the hereditary dominions form a more lasting shelter from the storm? Such were doubtless the thoughts that prompted the assumption of the title of Hereditary Emperor of Austria (August 11th, 1804). The letter-patent, in which this change was announced, cited as parallels "the example of the Imperial Court of Russia in the last century and of the new sovereign of France." Both references gave umbrage to Alexander, who saw no parallel between the assumption of the title of Emperor by Peter the Great and the game of follow-the-leader played by Francis to Napoleon.[5]
Prussian complaisance to the French Emperor was at this time to be expected. Frederick William III. reigned over 10,000,000 subjects; he could marshal 248,000 of the best trained troops in Europe, and his revenue was more fruitful than that of the great Frederick. Yet the effective power of Prussia had sadly waned; for her policy was now marked by an enervating indecision. In the autumn of 1804, however, the Prussian King was for a time spurred into action by the news that Sir George Rumbold, British envoy at Hamburg, had been seized on the night of October 24th, by French troops, and carried off to Paris. This aggression upon the Circle of Lower Saxony, of which Frederick William was Director, aroused lively indignation at Berlin; and the King at once wrote to Napoleon a request for the envoy's liberation as a proof of his "friendship and high consideration ...a seal on the past and a pledge for the future."
To this appeal Napoleon returned a soothing answer that Sir George would at once be released, though England was ever violating the rights of neutrals, and her agents were conspiring against his life. The Emperor, in fact, saw that he had taken a false step, which might throw Prussia into the arms of England and Russia. For this latter Power had already (May, 1804) offered her armed help to the Court of Berlin in case the French should violate any other German territory.[6] But the King was easily soothed; and when, in the following spring, Napoleon sent seven Golden Eagles of the Legion of Honour to the Court of Berlin, seven Black Eagles of the renowned Prussian Order were sent in return--an occurrence which led Gustavus IV. to return his Order of the Black Eagle with the remark that he could not recognize "Napoleon and his like" as comrades in an Order of Chivalry and Religion.[7] Napoleon's aim was achieved: Prussia was sundered from any league in which Gustavus IV. was a prominent member.
Thus, the chief steps in the formation of the Third Coalition were taken by Sweden, England, and Russia. Early in 1804 Gustavus proposed a League of the Powers; and, on the advent of the Pitt Ministry to office, overtures began to pass between St. Petersburg and London for an alliance. Important proposals were made by Pitt and our Foreign Minister, the Earl of Harrowby, in a note of June 26th, 1804, in which hopes were expressed that Russia, England, Austria, Sweden, and if possible Prussia, might be drawn together.[8] Alexander and Czartoryski were already debating the advantages of an alliance with England. Their aims were certainly noble. International law and the rights of the weak States bordering on France were to be championed, and it was suggested by Czartoryski that disputes should be settled, not by force, but by arbitration.[9]
The statement of these exalted ideas was intrusted to a special envoy to London, M. Novossiltzoff, who propounded to Pitt the scheme of a European polity where the States should be independent and enjoy institutions "founded on the sacred rights of humanity." With this aim in view, the Czar desired to curb the power of Napoleon, bring back France to her old limits, and assure the peace of Europe on a firm basis, namely on the principle of the balance of power. Pitt and Lord Harrowby having agreed to these proposals, details were discussed at the close of 1804. None of the allies were, in any case, to make a separate peace; and England (said M. Novossiltzoff) must not only use her own troops, but grant subsidies to enable the Powers to set on foot effective forces.
This last sentence claims special notice, as it disposes of the well-worn phrase, that the Third Coalition was built up by Pitt's gold. On the contrary, Russia was the first to set forth the need of English subsidies, which Pitt was by no means eager to supply. The phrase used by French historians is doubtless correct in so far as English gold enabled our allies to arm efficiently; but it is wholly false if it implies that the Third Coalition was merely trumped up by our money, and that the Russian, Austrian, and Swedish Governments were so many automatic machines which, if jogged with coins, would instantly supply armies to the ready money purchaser. This is practically the notion still prevalent on the Continent; and it is clearly traceable to the endless diatribes against Pitt's gold with which Napoleon seasoned his bulletins, and to the caricatures which he ordered to be drawn. The following was his direction to his Minister of Police, Fouché: "Have caricatures made--an Englishman purse in hand, entreating the various Powers to take his money. This is the real direction to give the whole business." How well he knew mankind: he rightly counted on its gullibility where pictures were concerned; and the direction which he thus gave to public opinion bids fair to persist, in spite of every exposure of the trickery.[10]
But, to return to the plans of the allies, Holland, Switzerland, and Italy were to be liberated from their "enslavement to France," and strengthened so as to provide barriers to future aggressions: the King of Sardinia was to be restored to his mainland possessions, and receive in addition the Ligurian, or Genoese, Republic.[11]
On all essential topics the British Government was in full accord with the views of the Czar, and Pitt insisted on the need of a system of international law which should guarantee the Continent against further rapacious acts. But Europe was not destined to find peace on these principles until after ten years of desolating war.
Various causes hindered the formation of this league. On January 2nd, 1805, Napoleon sent to George III. an offer of peace; and those persons who did not see that this was a device for discovering the course of negotiations believed that he ardently desired it. We now know that the offer was despatched a week after he had ordered Missiessy to ravage the British West Indies.[12] And, doubtless, his object was attained when George III. replied in the speech from the throne (January 15th) that he could not entertain the proposal without reference to the Powers with whom he was then engaged in confidential intercourse, and especially the Emperor of Russia. Yet the British Government discussed with the Czar the basis for a future pacification of Europe; and the mission of Novossiltzoff at midsummer to Berlin, on his way to Paris, was the answer, albeit a belated one, to Napoleon's New Year's pacific appeal. We shall now see why this delay occurred, and what acts of the French Emperor finally dispelled all hopes of peace.
The delay was due to differences between Russia and England respecting Malta and our maritime code. The Czar insisted on our relinquishing Malta and relaxing the rigours of the right of search for deserters from our navy. To this the Pitt Ministry demurred, seeing that Malta was our only means of protecting the Mediterranean States, and our only security against French aggressions in the Levant, while the right of searching neutral vessels was necessary to prevent the enfeebling of our navy.[13] Negotiations were nearly broken off even after a treaty between the two Powers had been brought to the final stage on April 11th, 1805; but in July (after the Czar had recorded his solemn protest against our keeping Malta) it was ratified, and formed the basis for the Third Coalition. The aims of the allies were to bring about the expulsion of French troops from North Germany; to assure the independence of the Republics of Holland and Switzerland; and to reinstate the King of Sardinia in Piedmont. Half a million of men were to be set in motion, besides the forces of Great Britain; and the latter Power, as a set-off to her lack of troops, agreed to subsidize her allies to the extent of; £1,250,000 a year for every 100,000 men actually employed in the war. It was further stipulated that a European Congress at the close of the war should endeavour to fix more surely the principles of the Law of Nations and establish a federative system. Above all, the allies bound themselves not to hinder the popular wish in France respecting the form of government--a clause which deprived the war of the Third Coalition of that monarchical character which had pervaded the league of 1793 and, to a less extent, that of 1799.[14]
What was the attitude of Napoleon towards this league? He certainly took little pains to conciliate the Czar. In fact, his actions towards Russia were almost openly provocative. Thus, while fully aware of the interest which Alexander felt in the restoration of the King of Sardinia, he sent the proposal that that unlucky King should receive the Ionian Isles and Malta as indemnities for his losses, and that too when Russia looked upon Corfu as her own. To this offer the Czar deigned not a word in reply. Napoleon also sent an envoy to the Shah of Persia with an offer of alliance, so as to check the advances of Russia on the shores of the Caspian.[15]
On the other hand, he used every effort to allure Prussia, by secretly offering her Hanover, and that too as early as the close of July.[16] For a brief space, also, he took some pains to conciliate Austria. This indeed was necessary: for the Court of Vienna had already (November 6th, 1804) framed a secret agreement with Russia to make war on Napoleon if he committed any new aggression in Italy or menaced any part of the Turkish Empire.[17] Yet this act was really defensive. Francis desired only to protect himself against Napoleon's ambition, and, had he been treated with consideration, would doubtless have clung to peace.
For a time Napoleon humoured that Court, even as regards the changes now mooted in Italy. On January 1st, 1805, he wrote to Francis, stating that he was about to proclaim Joseph Bonaparte King of Italy, if the latter would renounce his claim to the crown of France, and so keep the governments of France and Italy separate, as the Treaty of Lunéville required; that this action would enfeeble his (Napoleon's) power, but would carry its own recompense if it proved agreeable to the Emperor Francis.
But it soon appeared that Joseph was by no means inclined to accept the crown of Lombardy if it entailed the sacrifice of all hope of succeeding to the French Empire. He had already demurred to le vilain titre de roi, and on January 27th announced his final rejection of the offer. Napoleon then proposed to Louis that he should hold that crown in trust for his son; but the suggestion at once rekindled the flames of jealousy which ever haunted Louis; and, after a violent scene, the Emperor thrust his brother from the room.
Perhaps this anger was simulated. He once admitted that his rage only mounted this high--pointing to his chin; and the refusals of his brothers were certainly to be expected. However that may be, he now resolved to assume that crown himself, appointing as Viceroy his step-son, Eugène Beauharnais. True, he announced to the French Senate that the realms of France and Italy would be kept separate: but neither the Italian deputies, who had been summoned to Paris to vote this dignity to their master, nor the servile Senate, nor the rulers of Europe, were deceived. Thus, when in the early summer Napoleon reviewed a large force that fought over again in mimic war the battle of Marengo; when, amidst all the pomp and pageantry that art could devise, he crowned himself in the cathedral of Milan with the iron circlet of the old Lombard Kings, using the traditional formula: "God gave it me, woe to him who touches it"; when, finally, he incorporated the Ligurian Republic in the French Empire, Francis of Austria reluctantly accepted the challenges thus threateningly cast down, and began to arm.[18] The records of our Foreign Office show conclusively that the Hapsburg ruler felt himself girt with difficulties: the Austrian army was as yet ill organized: the reforms after which the Archduke Charles had been striving were ill received by the military clique; and the sole result had been to unsettle rather than strengthen the army, and to break down the health of the Archduke.[19] Yet the intention of Napoleon to treat Italy as a French province was so insultingly paraded that Francis felt war to be inevitable, and resolved to strike a blow while the French were still entangled in their naval schemes. He knew well the dangers of war; he would have eagerly welcomed any sign of really peaceful intentions at Paris; but no signs were given; in fact, French agents were sent into Switzerland to intrigue for a union of that land with France. Here again the pride of the Hapsburgs was cut to the quick, and they disdained to submit to humiliations such as were eating the heart out of the Prussian monarchy.
The Czar, too, was far from eager for war. He had sent Novossiltzoff to Berlin en route for Paris, in the hope of coming to terms with Napoleon, when the news of the annexation of Genoa ended the last hopes of a compromise. "This man is insatiable," exclaimed Alexander; "his ambition knows no bounds; he is a scourge of the world; he wants war; well, he shall have it, and the sooner the better," The Czar at once ordered all negotiations to be broken off. Novossiltzoff, on July 10th, declared to Baron Hardenberg, the successor of Haugwitz at the Prussian Foreign Office, that Napoleon had now passed the utmost limits of the Czar's patience; and he at once returned his French passports. In forwarding them to the French ambassador at Berlin, Hardenberg expressed the deep regret of the Prussian monarch at the breakdown of this most salutary negotiation--a phrase which showed that the patience of Berlin was nearly exhausted.[20]
Clearly, then, the Third Coalition was not cemented by English gold, but by Napoleon's provocations. While England and Russia found great difficulty in coming to an accord, and Austria was arming only from fear, the least act of complaisance on his part would have unravelled this ill-knit confederacy. But no such action was forthcoming. All his letters written in North Italy after his coronation are puffed up with incredible insolence. Along with hints to Eugène to base politics on dissimulation and to seek only to be feared, we find letters to Ministers at Paris scorning the idea that England and Russia can come to terms, and asserting that the annexation of Genoa concerns England alone; but if Austria wants to find a pretext for war, she may now find it.
Then he hurries back to Fontainebleau, covering the distance from Turin in eighty-five hours; and, after a brief sojourn at St. Cloud, he reaches Boulogne. There, on August the 22nd, he hears that Austria is continuing to arm: a few hours later comes the news that Villeneuve has turned back to Cadiz. Fiercely and trenchantly he resolves this fateful problem. He then sketches to Talleyrand the outlines of his new policy. He will again press, and this time most earnestly, his offer of Hanover to Prussia as the price of her effective alliance against the new coalition. Perhaps this new alliance will strangle the coalition at its birth; at any rate it will paralyze Austria. Accordingly, he despatches to Berlin his favourite aide-de-camp, General Duroc, to persuade the King that his alliance will save the Continent from war.[21]
Meanwhile the Hapsburgs were completely deceived. They imagined Napoleon to be wholly immersed in his naval enterprise, and accordingly formed a plan of campaign, which, though admirable against a weak and guileless foe, was fraught with danger if the python's coils were ready for a spring. As a matter of fact, he was far better prepared than Austria. As late as July 7th, the Court of Vienna had informed the allies that its army would not be ready for four months; yet the nervous anxiety of the Hapsburgs to be beforehand with Napoleon led them to hurry on war: and on August 9th they secretly gave their adhesion to the Russo-British alliance.
Then, too, by a strange fatuity, their move into Bavaria was to be made with a force of only 59,000 men, while their chief masses, some 92,000 strong, were launched into Italy against the strongholds on the Mincio. To guard the flanks of these armies, Austria had 34,000 men in Tyrol; but, apart from raw recruits, there were fewer than 20,000 soldiers in the rest of that vast empire. In fact, the success of the autumn campaign was known to depend on the help of the Russians, who were expected to reach the banks of the Inn before the 20th of October, while it was thought that the French could not possibly reach the Danube till twenty days later.[22] It was intended, however, to act most vigorously in Italy, and to wage a defensive campaign on the Danube.
Such was the plan concocted at Vienna, mainly under the influence of the Archduke Charles, who took the command of the army in Italy, while that of the Danube was assigned to the Archduke Ferdinand and Mack, the new Quarter-Master-General. This soldier had hitherto enjoyed a great reputation in Austria, probably because he was the only general who had suffered no great defeat. Amidst the disasters of 1797 he seemed the only man able to retrieve the past, and to be shut out from command by Thugut's insane jealousy of his "transcendent abilities."[23] Brave he certainly was: but his mind was always swayed by preconceived notions; he belonged to the school of "manoeuvre strategists," of whom the Duke of Brunswick was the leader; and he now began the campaign of 1805 with the fixed purpose of holding a commanding military position. Such a position the Emperor Francis and Mack had discovered in the weak fortress of Ulm and the line of the River Iller. Towards these points of vantage the Austrians now began to move.
The first thing was to gain over the Elector of Bavaria. The Court of Vienna, seeking to persuade or compel that prince to join the Coalition, made overtures (September 3rd to 6th) with which he dallied for a day or two until an opportunity came of escaping to the fortress of Würzburg. Mack thereupon crossed the River Inn and sought, but in vain, to cut off the Bavarian troops from that stronghold. Accordingly, the Austrian leader marched on to Ulm, where he arrived in the middle of September; and, not satisfied with holding this advanced position, he pushed on his outposts to the chief defiles of the Black Forest, while other regiments held the valley of the River Iller and strengthened the fortress of Memmingen. Doubtless this would have been good strategy, had his forces been equal in numbers to those of Napoleon. At that time the Black Forest was the only physical barrier between France and Southern Germany; the Rhine was then practically a French river; and, only by holding the passes of that range could the Austrians hope to screen Swabia from invasion on the side of Alsace.
But Mack forgot two essential facts. Until the Russians arrived, he was too weak to hold so advanced a position in what was hostile ground, now that Bavaria and the other South German States obeyed Napoleon's summons to range themselves on his side. Further, he was dangerously exposed on the north, as a glance at the map will show. Ulm and the line of the Iller formed a strong defence against the south-west: but on the north that position is singularly open: it can be turned from the valleys of the Main, the Neckar, and the Altmühl, all of which conduct an invader to the regions east of Ulm. Indeed, it passes belief how even the Aulic Council could have ignored the dangers of that position. Possibly the fact that Ulm had been stoutly held by Kray in 1796 now induced them to overrate its present importance; but at that time the fortified camp of Ulm was the central knot of vast operations, whereas now it was but an advanced outpost.[24] If Francis and his advisers were swayed by historical reminiscences it is strange that they forgot the fate of Melas in Piedmont. The real parallel had been provided, not by Kray, but by the general who was cut off at Marengo. Indeed, in its broad outlines, the campaign of Ulm resembles that of Marengo. Against foes who had thrust their columns far from their base, Napoleon now, as in 1800, determined to deal a crushing blow. On the part of the Austrians we notice the same misplaced confidence, the same lack of timely news, and the same inability to understand Napoleon's plan until his dispositions are complete; while his strategy and tactics in 1805 recall to one's mind the masterly simplicity of design, the subtlety and energy of execution, which led up to his triumph in the plains of Piedmont.
Meanwhile the allies were dissipating their strength. A Russian corps, acting from Corfu as a base, and an English expedition from Malta, were jointly to attack St. Cyr in the south of Italy, raise the country at his rear and compel him to surrender. This plan was left helplessly flapping in the air by a convention which Napoleon imposed on the Neapolitan ambassador. On September 21st Talleyrand induced that envoy to guarantee the neutrality of the kingdom of Naples, all belligerents being excluded from its domains. Consequently St. Cyr's corps evacuated that land and brought a welcome reinforcement to Masséna on the Mincio. Equally skilful was Napoleon's action as regards Hanover. On that side also the allies planned a formidable expedition. From the fortress of Stralsund in Swedish Pomerania, a force of Russians and Swedes, which Gustavus burned to command, was to march into Hanover, and, when strengthened by an Anglo-Hanoverian corps, drive the French from the Low Countries. It is curious to contrast the cumbrous negotiations concerning this expedition--the quarrels about the command, the anxiety at the outset lest Villeneuve should perhaps sail into the Baltic, the delays of the British War Office, the remonstrances of the Czar, and the efforts to avert the jealousy of Prussia--with the serene indifference of Napoleon as to the whole affair. He knew full well that the war would not be decided by diversions at the heel of Italy or on the banks of the Ems, but by the shock of great masses of men on the Danube. He denuded Hanover of French troops, except at its southern fortress of Hameln, so that he could overwhelm the levies of Austria before the Russians came up. In brief, while the Coalition sought, like a Briareus, to envelop him on all sides, he prepared to deal a blow at its heart.
As the first part of the campaign depended almost entirely on problems of time and space, it will be well to follow the chief movements of the hostile forces somewhat closely. The Austrian plan aimed at forestalling the French in the occupation of Swabia; and its apparent success puffed up Mack with boundless confidence. At Ulm he threw up extensive outworks to strengthen that obsolete fortress, extended his lines to Memmingen far on the south, and trusted that the Muscovites would come up long before the French eagles hovered above the sources of the Danube. But at that time the Russian vanguard had not reached Linz in Upper Austria, and not before October 10th did it appear on the banks of the River Inn.[25]
Far from being the last to move, the French Emperor outstripped his enemies in the speed of his preparations. Whereas the Austrians believed he would not be able to reach the Danube in force before November 10th, he intended to have 200,000 men in Germany by September 18th. But he knew not at first the full extent of his good fortune: it did not occur to him that the Austrians would cross the Inn: all he asks Talleyrand, on August 23rd, is that such news may appear in the "Moniteur" as will gain him twenty days and give General Bertrand time to win over Bavaria, while "I make my 200,000 men pirouette into Germany." On August 29th the Army of England became the Grand Army, composed of seven corps, led by Bernadotte, Marmont, Davoust, Soult, Lannes, Ney and Augereau. The cavalry was assigned to Murat; while Bessières was in command of the Imperial Guard, now numbering some 10,000 men.
Already the greater part of this vast array was beginning to move inland; Davoust and Soult left some regiments, 30,000 strong, to guard the flotilla, and Marmont detached 14,000 men to defend the coasts of Holland; but the other corps on September 2nd began their march Rhine-wards in almost their full strength. On that day Bernadotte broke up his cantonments in Hanover, and began his march towards the Main, on which so much was to turn. The Elector of Hesse-Cassel now espoused Napoleon's cause. Thus, without meeting any opposition, Bernadotte's columns reached Würzburg at the close of September; there the Elector of Bavaria welcomed the Marshal and gave him the support of his 20,000 troops; and at that stronghold he was also joined by Marmont.
In order to mislead the Austrians, Napoleon remained up to September 23rd at St. Cloud or Paris; and during his stay appeared a Senatus Consultum ordering that, after January 1st, 1806, France should give up its revolutionary calendar and revert to the Gregorian. He then set out for Strassburg, as though the chief blows were to be dealt through the passes of the Black Forest at the front of Mack's line of defence; and, to encourage that general in this belief, Murat received orders to show his horsemen in the passes held by Mack's outposts, but to avoid any serious engagements. This would give time for the other corps to creep up to the enemy's rear. Mack, meanwhile, had heard of the forthcoming junction of the French and Bavarians at Würzburg, but opined that it threatened Bohemia.[26]
Accordingly, he still clung to his lines, contenting himself with sending a cavalry regiment to observe Bernadotte's movements; but neither he nor his nominal chief, the Archduke Ferdinand, divined the truth. Indeed, so far did they rely on the aid of the Russians as to order back some regiments sent from Italy by the more sagacious Archduke Charles; but 11,000 troops from Tyrol reached the Swabian army. That force was now spread out so as to hold the bridges of the Danube between Ingolstadt and Ulm; and on October 7th the Austrians were disposed as follows: 18,000 men under Kienmayer were guarding Ingolstadt, Neuburg, Donauwörth, Günzburg, and lesser points, while Mack had about 35,000 men at Ulm and along the line of the Iller; the arrival of other detachments brought the Austrian total to upwards of 70,000 men. Against this long scattered line Napoleon led greatly superior forces.[27] The development of his plans proceeded apace. Though Prussia had proclaimed her strict neutrality, he did not scruple to violate it by sending Bernadotte's corps through her principality of Ansbach, which lay in their path. He charged Bernadotte to "offer many assurances favourable to Prussia, and testify all possible affection and respect for her--and then rapidly cross her land, asserting the impossibility of doing anything else." Accordingly, that Marshal was lavish in his regrets and apologies, but ordered his columns to defile past the battalions and squadrons of Prussia, that were powerless to resent the outrage.[28]
The news of this trespass on Prussian territory reached the ears of Frederick William at a critical time, when the Czar sent to Berlin a kind of ultimatum, intimating that, even if Prussia deserted the cause of European independence, Russian troops must nevertheless pass through part of Prussian Poland. Stung by this note from his usually passive demeanour, the King sent off an answer that such a step would entail a Franco-Prussian alliance against the violators of his territory, when the news came that Napoleon had actually done at Ansbach what Alexander had announced his intention of doing in the east. The revulsion of feeling was violent: for a short space the King declared he would dismiss Duroc and make war on Napoleon for this insult, but in the end he called a cabinet council and invited the Czar to come to Berlin.[29]
While the Gallophil counsellors, Haugwitz and Lombard, were using all their arts to hinder the Prusso-Russian understanding, the meshes were being woven fast around Mack and the Archduke Ferdinand. Bernadotte's corps, after making history in its march, was detached to the south-east so as to hold in check the Russian vanguard, and to give plenty of room to the troops that were to cut off Mack from Austria, a move which may be compared with the march of Bonaparte to Milan before he essayed the capture of Melas. Both steps bespeak his desire to have ample space at his back before circling round his prey.
On October 6th the corps of Soult and Lannes, helped by Murat's powerful cavalry, cut the Austrian lines on the Danube at Donauwörth, and gained a firm footing on the right bank. Over the crossing thus secured far in Mack's rear, the French poured in dense array, and marched south and south-west towards the back of the Austrian positions, while Ney's corps marched to seize the chief bridges over the Danube.
A study of the processes of Mack's brain at this time is not without interest. It shows the danger of intrusting the fate of an army to a man who cannot weigh evidence. Mack was not ignorant of the course of events, though his news generally came late. The mischief was that his brain warped the news. On October 6th he wrote to Vienna that the enemy seemed about to aim a blow at his communications: on October 7th, when he heard of the loss of Donauwörth, he described it as an unfortunate event, which no one thought to be possible. The Archduke now urged the need of an immediate retreat towards Munich, and marched in an easterly direction on Günzburg: another Austrian division of 8,000 men moved on Wertingen, where, on October 8th, it was furiously attacked by the troops of Murat and Lannes. At first the Imperialists firmly kept their ranks; but the unequal contest closed with a hasty flight, which left 2,000 men in the hands of the French Then Murat, pressing on through the woods, cut off Mack's retreat to Augsburg. Yet that general still took a cheerful view of his position. On that same day he wrote from Günzburg that, as soon as the enemy had passed over the Lech, he would cross the Danube and cut their communications at Nördlingen. He wrote thus when Ney's corps was striving to seize the Danube bridges below Ulm. If Mack were to march north-east against the French communications it was of the utmost importance for him to hold the chief of these bridges: but Ney speedily seized three of them, and on the 9th was able to draw closer the toils around Ulm.
From his position at Augsburg the French Emperor now directed the final operations; and, as before Marengo, he gave most heed to that side by which he judged his enemy would strive to break through, in this case towards Kempten and Tyrol. This would doubtless have been Mack's safest course; for he was strong enough to brush aside Soult, gain Tyrol, seal up its valleys against Napoleon, and carry reinforcements to the Archduke Charles. But he was still intent on his Nördlingen scheme, even after the loss of the Danube bridges exposed his march thither to flank attacks from the four French corps now south of the river. Nevertheless, Napoleon's miscalculation of Mack's plans, or, as Thiers has striven to prove, a misunderstanding of his orders by Murat, gave the Austrians a chance such as fortune rarely bestows.[30]
In spite of Ney's protests, one of his divisions, that led by Dupont, had been left alone to guard the northern bank of the Danube, a position where it might have been overwhelmed by an enterprising foe. What is more extraordinary, Dupont, with only 6,000 men, was charged to advance on Ulm, and carry it by storm. On the 11th he accordingly advanced against Mack's fortified camp north of that city. The Austrians met him in force, and, despite the utmost heroism of his troops, finally wrested the village of Hasslach from his grasp; later in the day a cloud of their horsemen, swooping round his right wing, cut up his tired troops, took 1,000 prisoners, and left 1,500 dead and wounded on the field. Among the booty was found a despatch of Napoleon ordering Dupont to carry Ulm by storm--which might have shown them that the French Emperor believed that city to be all but deserted.[31] In truth, Napoleon's miscalculation opened for Mack a path of safety; and had he at once marched away to the north, the whole aspect of affairs might have changed. The Russian vanguard was on the banks of the Inn: all the French, except the relics of Dupont's division, were south of the Danube, and a few vigorous blows at their communications might have greatly embarrassed troops that had little artillery, light stores of ammunition, and lived almost entirely on the produce of the country. We may picture to ourselves the fierce blows that, in such a case, Frederick the Great would have rained on his assailants as he wheeled round on their rear and turned their turning movements. With Frederick matched against Napoleon, the Lech and the Danube would have witnessed a very cyclone of war.
But Mack was not Frederick: and he had to do with a foe who speedily made good an error. On October 13th, when Mack seemed about to cut off the French from the Main, he received news through Napoleon's spies that the English had effected a landing at Boulogne, and a revolution had broken out in France. The tidings found easy entrance into a brain that had a strange bias towards pleasing falsities and rejected disagreeable facts. At once he leaped to the conclusion that the moves of Soult, Murat, Lannes, Marmont, and Ney round his rear were merely desperate efforts to cut back a way to Alsace. He therefore held fast to his lines, made only feeble efforts to clear the northern road, and despatched reinforcements to Memmingen. The next day brought other news; that Memmingen had been invested by Soult; that Ney by a brilliant dash across the Danube at Elchingen had routed an Austrian division there, and was threatening Ulm from the north-east; and that the other French columns were advancing from the south-east. Yet Mack, still viewing these facts in the twilight of his own fancies, pictured them as the efforts of despair, not as the drawing in of the hunter's toils.
He was now almost alone in his reading of events. The Archduke Ferdinand, though nominally in supreme command, had hitherto deferred to Mack's age and experience, as the Emperor Francis enjoined. But he now urged the need of instantly marching away to the north with all available forces. Still Mack clung to his notion that it was the French who were in sore straits; and he forbade the evacuation of Ulm; whereupon the Archduke, with Schwarzenberg, Kollowrath, Gyulai, and all whose instincts or rank prompted and enabled them to defy the madman's authority, assembled 1,500 horsemen and rode off by the northern road. It was high time; for Ney, firmly established at Elchingen, was pushing on his vanguard towards the doomed city: Murat and Lannes were charged to support him on the north bank, while across the river Marmont, and further south Soult, cut off the retreat on Tyrol.
At last the scales fell from Mack's eyes. Even now he protested against the mere mention of surrender. But again he was disappointed. Ney stormed the Michaelsberg north of Ulm, a position on which the Austrians had counted; and on October 17th the hapless commander agreed to terms of capitulation, whereby his troops were to march out and lay down their arms in six days' time, if an Austro-Russian army able to raise the siege did not come on the scene. These conditions were afterwards altered by the captor, who, wheedling his captive with a few bland words, persuaded him to surrender on the 20th on condition that Ney and his corps remained before Ulm until the 25th. This was Mack's last offence against his country and his profession; his assent to this wily compromise at once set free the other French corps for offensive operations; and that too when every day was precious to Austria, Russia, and Prussia.
On October 20th the French Emperor, with a brilliant staff, backed by the solid wall of his Guard and flanked by eight columns of his troops, received the homage of the vanquished. First came their commander, who, bowed down by grief, handed his sword to the victor with the words, "Here is the unfortunate Mack." Then there filed out to the foot of the Michaelsberg 20,000 foot and 3,000 horse, who laid down their arms before the Emperor, some with defiant rage, the most part in stolid dejection, while others flung them away with every sign of indecent joy.[32] As if the elements themselves conspired to enhance the brilliance of Napoleon's triumph, the sun, which had been obscured for days by storm-clouds and torrents of rain, now shone brightly forth, bathing the scene in the mild radiance of autumn, lighting up the French forces disposed on the slopes of that natural amphitheatre, while it cast deep shadows from the long trail of the vanquished beneath. The French were electrified by the sight: the fatigues of their forced marches through the dusty heats of September, and the slush, swamps, and torrents of the last few days were all forgotten, and they hailed with jubilant shouts the chief whose sagacity had planned and achieved a triumph hitherto unequalled in the annals of war. "Our Emperor," said they, "has found out a new way of making war: he no longer makes it with our arms, but with our legs."[33]
Meanwhile the other Austrian detachments were being hunted down. Only a few men escaped from Memmingen into Tyrol: the division, which, if properly supported, might have cut a way through to Nördlingen three days earlier, was now overwhelmed by the troops of Murat and Lannes; out of 13,000 foot-soldiers very few escaped. Most of the horsemen succeeded in joining the Archduke Ferdinand, on whose track Murat now flung himself with untiring energy. The beau sabreur swept through part of Ansbach in pursuit, came up with Ferdinand near Nuremberg, and defeated his squadrons, their chief, with about 1,700 horse and some 500 mounted artillerymen, finally reaching the shelter of the Bohemian Mountains. All the rest of Mack's great array had been engulfed.
Thus closed the first scene of the War of the Third Coalition. Hasty preparations, rash plans, and, above all, Mack's fatal ingenuity in reading his notions into facts--these were the causes of a disaster which ruined the chances of the allies. The Archduke Charles, who had been foiled by Masséna's stubborn defence, was at once recalled from Italy in order to cover Vienna; and, worst of all, the Court of Berlin now delayed drawing the sword.
Yet, even amidst the unstinted boons that she showered on Napoleon by land, Fortune rudely baffled him at sea. When he was hurrying from Ulm towards the River Inn, to carry the war into Austria, he heard that the French navy had been shattered. Trafalgar was fought the day after Mack's army filed out of Ulm. The greatest sea-fight of the century was the outcome of Napoleon's desire that his ships should carry succour to his troops in Italy. For this voyage the Emperor was about to substitute Admiral Rosily for Villeneuve: and the unfortunate admiral, divining that resolve, sought by a bold stroke to retrieve his fortunes. He put to sea, and Trafalgar was the result. It would be superfluous to describe this last and most splendid of Nelson's exploits; but a few words as to the bearing of this great victory on the events of that time may not be out of place. It is certain that Villeneuve at Trafalgar fought under more favourable conditions than in the conflict of July 22nd. He had landed his very numerous sick, his crews had been refreshed and reinforced, and, above all, the worst of the Spanish ships had been replaced by seaworthy and serviceable craft. Yet out of the thirty-three sail of the line, he lost eighteen to an enemy that numbered only twenty-seven sail; and that fact alone absolves him from the charge of cowardice in declining to face Cornwallis and Calder in July with ships that were cumbered with sick and badly needed refitting.
Then again: it is often stated that Trafalgar saved England from invasion. To refute this error it is merely needful to remind the reader that all immediate fear of invasion was over, when, at the close of August, Napoleon wheeled the Grand Army against Austria. Not until the Continent was conquered could the landing in Kent become practicable. That opportunity occurred two years later, after Tilsit; then, in truth, the United Kingdom was free from panic because Trafalgar had practically destroyed the French navy. For these islands, then, the benefits of Trafalgar were prospective. But, for the British Empire, they were immediate. Every French, Dutch, and Spanish colony that now fell into our hands was in great measure the fruit of Nelson's victory, which heralded the second and vaster stage of imperial growth.
Finally, the decisive advantage which Britain now gained over Napoleon at sea compelled him, if he would realize the world-wide schemes ever closest to his heart, to adopt the method of warfare against us which he had all along contemplated as an effective alternative. As far back as February, 1798, he pointed out that there were three ways of attacking and ruining England, either a direct invasion, or a French control of North Germany which would ruin British commerce, or an expedition to the Indies. After Trafalgar the first of these alternatives was impossible, and the last receded for a time into the background. The second now took the first place in his thoughts; he could only bring England to his feet and gain a world-empire by shutting out her goods from the whole of the Continent, and thus condemning her to industrial strangulation. In a word, Trafalgar necessitated the adoption of the Continental System, which was built up by the events now to be described.
Note to the Third Edition.--An American critic has charged me with inconsistency in saying that the Third Coalition was not built up by English gold, because I state (p. 5) that the first advances were made by England to Russia. I ought to have used the phrase "the first written proposals that I have found were made," etc. Czartoryski's "Memoirs" (vol. ii., chs. ii.-iii.), to which I referred my readers for details, show clearly that Alexander and his advisers looked on a rupture with France as inevitable, but wished to temporize for some three months or so, until certain matters were cleared up; they therefore cautiously sounded the position at Vienna and London. This passage from Czartoryski (vol. ii., ch. iii.) proves that Russia wanted the English alliance:
"After the diplomatic rupture consequent upon the execution of the Duc d'Enghien, it became indispensable to come to an understanding with the only Power, except Russia, which thought herself strong enough to contend with France--to ascertain as thoroughly as possible what were her inclinations and designs, the principles of her policy, and those which she could be led to adopt in certain contingencies. It would have been a great advantage to obtain the concurrence in our views of so powerful a State as England, and to strive with her for the same objects; but for this it was necessary, not only to make sure of her present inclinations, but to weigh well the possibilities of the future after the death of George III. and the fall of the Pitt Ministry. We had to make England understand that the wish to fight Napoleon was not in itself sufficient to establish an indissoluble bond between her Government and that of St. Petersburg...."
In "F.O.," Russia, No. 55, is a despatch of our ambassador at St. Petersburg, Admiral Warren, of June 30, 1804, in which he reports Czartoryski's concern at rumours of negotiations between England and France: "The prince [Czartoryski] remarked that he could not suppose, after what had passed between the two Courts, and the manner in which the Emperor [Alexander] had explained himself to England, and after the measures which Russia had since proposed, that Great Britain would make a peace at once by herself."
Of these earlier negotiations I have found no trace; but obviously the first proposals for an alliance must have come from Russia. Sweden was the first to propose a monarchical league against Napoleon. (See my article in the "Revue Napoléonienne" for June, 1902.)
* * * * *
XXIII. AUSTERLITZ
After the capitulation of Ulm, the French Emperor marched against the Russian army, which, as he told his troops, English gold had brought from the ends of the earth. As is generally the case with coalitions, neither of the allies was ready in time or sent its full quota. In place of the 54,000 which Alexander had covenanted to send to Austria's support, he sent as yet only 46,000; and of these 8,000 were detached into Podolia in order to watch the warlike moves of the Turks, whom the French had stirred up against the Muscovite.
But Alexander had another and weightier excuse for not denuding his realm of troops, namely, the ambiguous policy of Prussia. Up to the middle of October this great military Power clung to her somewhat threatening neutrality, an attitude not unlike that of the Scandinavian States, which, in 1691, remained deaf to the entreaties of William of Orange to take up the cause of European freedom against Louis XIV., and were dubbed the Third Party. It would seem, however, that the Prussian King had some grounds for his conduct: he feared the Polish influence which Czartoryski wielded over the Czar, and saw in the Russian request for a right of way through Prussian Poland a deep-laid scheme for the seizure of that territory. Indeed, the letters of Czartoryski prove that such a plan was pressed forward, and found much favour with the Czar, though at the last moment he prudently shelved it.[34]
For a time the hesitations of Prussia were ended by Napoleon's violation of Ansbach, and by Alexander's frank explanations at Potsdam; but meanwhile the delays caused by Prussia's suspicions had marred the Austrian plans. A week's grace granted by Napoleon, or a week gained by the Russians on their actual marching time, would have altered the whole situation in Bavaria--and Prussia would have drawn the sword against France to avenge the insult at Ansbach.
On October 10th Hardenberg informed the Austrian ambassador, Metternich, that Frederick William was on the point of declaring for the allies. Nothing, however, was done until Alexander reached Potsdam, and the first news that he received on his arrival (October 25th) was of the surrender of Ulm. Nevertheless, the influence of the Czar checkmated the efforts of Haugwitz and the French party, and kept that Government to its resolve, which on November 3rd took the form of the Treaty of Potsdam between Russia, Austria, and Prussia. Frederick William pledged himself to offer the armed mediation of Prussia, and, if it were refused by Napoleon, to join the allies. The Prussian demands were as follows: indemnities for the King of Sardinia in Lombardy, Liguria, and Parma; the independence of Naples, Holland, Germany, and Switzerland; and the Mincio as Austria's boundary in Italy.[35]
An envoy was to offer these terms to Napoleon, and to bring back a definite answer within one month from the time of his departure, and in the meantime 180,000 Prussians prepared to threaten his flank and rear. Alexander also secretly pledged himself to use his influence with George III. to gain Hanover for Frederick William at the close of the war, England meanwhile subsidizing Prussia and her Saxon allies on the usual scale. The Czar afterwards accompanied the King and Queen to the crypt of the Great Frederick, kissed the tomb, and, as he took his leave of their majesties, cast a significant look at the altar.[36]
Did he fear the peace-loving tendencies of the King, or the treachery of Haugwitz? It is difficult to see good faith in every detail of the treaty. Apart from the strange assumption that England would subsidize Prussia and also give up Hanover, the manner in which the armed mediation was to be offered left several loopholes for escape. After the surrender of Ulm, speedy and vigorous action was needed to restore the balance; yet a month's delay was bargained for. Then, too, Haugwitz, who was charged with this most important mission, deferred his departure for ten days on the plea that Prussia's forces could not be ready before the middle of December. Such was the statement of the leisurely Duke of Brunswick; but it can scarcely be reconciled with Frederick William's threat, a month earlier, of immediate war against the Russians if they entered his lands. Yet now that monarch approved of the delay. Haugwitz therefore did not set out till November 14th, and by that time Napoleon was master of Vienna, and the allies were falling back into Moravia.
We now turn to the scene of war. For the first time in modern history the Hapsburg capital had fallen into the hands of a foreign foe. Napoleon now installed himself at the stately palace of Schönbrunn, while Francis was fleeing to Olmütz and the Archdukes Charles and John were struggling in the defiles of the Alps to disengage themselves from the vanguard of Masséna. The march of the French on Vienna, and thence northwards to Brünn, led to only one incident of general interest, namely, the filching away from the Austrians of the bridge over the Danube to the north of Vienna. As it nears the city, that great river spreads out into several channels, the largest being on the north. The wooden bridge further up the river having been burnt by the Russian rearguard, there remained only the bridge or bridges, opposite the city, on the possession of which Napoleon set much store. He therefore charged Murat and Lannes to secure them if possible.
Murat was smarting under the Emperor's displeasure for a rash advance on Vienna which had wellnigh cost the existence of Mortier's corps on the other bank. Indeed, only by the most resolute bravery did the remnant of that corps hew its way through overwhelming numbers. Murat, who should have kept closely in touch with Mortier by a flotilla of boats, was eager to retrieve his fault, and, with Lannes, Bertrand, and an officer of engineers, he now approached the first part of the bridge as if for a parley during an informal armistice which had just been discussed but not concluded. The French Marshals had disposed the grenadiers of General Oudinot, a body of men as renowned as their leader for fighting qualities, behind some thickets that spread along the southern bank and partly screened the approach. The plank barricade at the southern end was now thrown down, and the four Frenchmen advanced. An Austrian mounted sentinel fired his carbine and galloped away to the main bridge; thereupon the four men advanced, called to the officer there in command as if for a parley, and stopped him in the act of firing the gunpowder stored beneath the bridge, with the assurance that an armistice was, or was about to be, concluded.
Reaching the northern end they repeated their tale, and claimed to see the commander. While the defenders were hesitating, Oudinot's grenadiers were rapidly marching forward. As soon as they were seen, the Austrians prepared once more to fire the bridge. Again they were implored to desist, as peace was as good as signed. But when the grenadiers had reached the northern bank, the mask was dropped: fresh troops were hurrying up and the chance of saving the bridge from their grasp was now lost. By these means did Murat and Lannes secure an undisputed passage to the northern bank, for which four years later the French had desperately to fight. Napoleon was delighted at Murat's exploit, which greatly furthered his pursuit of the allies, and he at once restored that Marshal to high favour. But those who placed gentlemanly conduct above the glamour of a trickster's success were not slow, even then, to express their disapproval of this act of perfidy.[37]
The prolonged retreat into Moravia, the unexpected feebleness of the Hapsburg arms, and the lack of supplies weighed heavily on Alexander's spirits, as is shown in his letter from Olmütz to the King of Prussia on November 19th: "Our position is more than critical: we stand almost alone against the French, who are close on our heels. As for the Austrian army, it does not exist.... If your armies advance, the whole position will alter at once."[38] A few days later, however, when 27,000 more Russians were at hand, including his Imperial Guard, the Czar passed from the depths of depression to the heights of confidence. The caution of his wary commander, Kutusoff, who urged a Fabian policy of delay and retreat, now began to weary him. To retire into northern Hungary seemed ignominious. And though Frederick William held to his resolve of not drawing the sword before December 15th, and by that time the Archduke Charles with a large army was expected below Vienna, yet the susceptible young autocrat spurned the behests of irksome prudence. In vain did Kutusoff and Schwarzenberg urge the need of delay and retreat: Alexander gave more heed to the rash counsels of his younger officers. An advance was ordered on Brünn, and a successful cavalry skirmish at Wischau confirmed the Czar in his change from the strategy of Fabius to that of Varro.
Napoleon, who was now at Brünn, had already divined this change in the temper of his foe, and called back his men with the express purpose of humouring Alexander's latest mood and tempting him on to a decisive battle. He saw clearly the advantage of fighting at once. The renewed offers of an armistice, which he received from the prudent Francis, might alone have convinced him of this; and they came in time to give him an argument, telling enough to daunt the Prussian envoy, who was now drawing near to his headquarters.
After proceeding towards Vienna and being sent back to Brünn, Haugwitz arrived there on November 29th.[39] Of the four hours' private conference that ensued with Napoleon we have but scanty records, and those by Haugwitz himself, who had every reason for warping the truth. He states that he was received with icy coldness, and at once saw that the least threat of hostile pressure by Prussia would drive Napoleon to make a separate peace with Austria. But after the first hour the Emperor appeared to thaw: he discussed the question of a Continental peace and laid aside all resentment at Prussia's conduct: finally, he gave a general assent to her proposals, on two conditions, namely, that the allied force then in Hanover should not be allowed by Prussia to invade Holland, and that the French garrison in the fortress of Hameln, now compassed about by Prussians, should be provisioned. To both of these requests Haugwitz assented, and pledged the word of his King, an act of presumption which that monarch was to repudiate.
While exceeding his instructions on this side, Haugwitz did practically nothing to advance the chief business of his mission. Either his own fears, or the crafty mixture of threats and flattery that cajoled so many envoys, led him to neglect the interests of Prussia, and to play into the hands of the very man whose ambition he was sent to check. After the interview, when the envoy had retired to his lodging, Caulaincourt came up in haste to warn him that a battle was imminent, that his personal safety might be endangered, and that Napoleon requested him to repair to Vienna, where he might consult with Talleyrand on affairs of State. Horses and an escort were ready, and Haugwitz set out for that city, where he arrived on November 30th, only to find that Talleyrand was strictly forbidden to do more than entertain him with commonplaces. Thus, the all-important question as to the action of Prussia's legions was again postponed, even when 150,000 Prussians and Saxons were ready to march against the French communications.
Napoleon's letter of November 30th to Talleyrand reveals his secret anxiety at this time. In truth, the crisis was terrible. With a superior force in front, with the Archdukes Ferdinand and Charles threatening to raise Bohemia and Hungary on his flanks, while two Prussian armies were about to throw themselves on his rear, his position was fully as serious as that of Hannibal before Cannæ, from which the Carthaginian freed himself only by that staggering blow. Did that example inspire the French Emperor, or did he take counsel from his own boundless resources of brain and will? Certain it is that, after a passing fit of discouragement, he braced himself for a final effort, and staked all on the effect of one mighty stroke. In order to hurry on the battle he feigned discouragement and withdrew his lines from Austerlitz to the Goldbach. Already he had sent General Savary to the Czar with proposals for a short truce.[40] The word truce now spelt guile; its offer through Savary, whose hands were stained with the blood of the Duc d'Enghien, was in itself an insult, and Alexander gave that envoy the coolest reception. In return he sent Prince Dolgoruki, the leader of the bellicose youths now high in favour, who proudly declared to the French Emperor the wishes of his master for the independence of Europe--adding among other things that Holland must be free and have Belgium added to it.
This suggestion greatly amused Napoleon, who replied that Russia ought now to think of her own advantages on the side of Turkey. The answer convinced the Czar that Napoleon dreaded a conflict in his dangerously advanced position. He knew not his antagonist's resources. Napoleon had hurried up every available regiment. Bernadotte's corps was recalled from the frontier of Bohemia; Friant's division of 4,000 men was ordered up from Pressburg; and by forced marches it also was nigh at hand on the night of December 1st, worn with fatigue after covering an immense space in two days, but ready to do excellent service on the morrow.[41] By this timely concentration Napoleon raised his forces to a total of at least 73,000 men, while the enemy founded their plan on the assumption that Napoleon had less than 50,000, and would scarcely resist the onset of superior forces.
Their plan was rash, even for an army which numbered about 80,000 men. The Austrian General Weyrother had convinced the Czar that an energetic advance of his left wing, which rested on the southern spurs of the Pratzenberg, would force back Napoleon's right, which was ranged between the villages of Kobelnitz and Sokelnitz, and so roll up his long line that stretched beyond Schlapanitz. This move, if successful, would not only win the day, but decide the campaign, by cutting off the French from their supplies coming from the south and driving them into the exhausted lands around Olmütz. Such was Weyrother's scheme, which enchanted the Czar and moved the fears of the veteran Kutusoff: it was expounded to the Russian and Austrian generals after midnight on December the 2nd. Strong in the great central hill, the Pratzenberg, and the cover of its village at the foot, the Czar had no fear for his centre: to his right or northern wing he gave still less heed, as it rested firmly on villages and was powerful in cavalry and artillery; but his left wing, comprising fully two-fifths of the allied army, was expected easily to defeat Napoleon's weak and scattered right, and so decide the day. Kutusoff saw the peril of massing so great a force there and weakening the centre, but sadly held his peace.
Napoleon had already divined their secret. In his order of battle he took his troops into his confidence, telling them that, while the enemy marched to turn his right, they would expose their flank to his blows. To announce this beforehand was strangely bold, and it has been thought that he had the plan from some traitor on the enemy's staff. No proof of this has been given; and such an explanation seems superfluous to those who have observed Napoleon's uncanny power of fathoming his adversary's designs. The idea of withdrawing one wing in order to tempt the foe unduly to prolong his line on that side, and then to crush it at the centre, or sever it from the centre, is common both to Castiglione and Austerlitz. It is true, the peculiarities of the ground, the ardour of the Russian attack, and the vastness of the operations lent to the present conflict a splendour and a horror which Castiglione lacked. But the tactics which won both battles were fundamentally the same.
He had studied the ground in front of Austerlitz; and the priceless gift of strategic imagination revealed to him what a rash and showy leader would be certain to do on that ground;[42] he tempted him to it, and the announcement of the enemy's plan to the French soldiery supplied the touch of good comradeship which insured their utmost devotion on the morrow. At midnight, as he returned from visiting the outposts, the soldiers greeted him with a weird illumination: by a common impulse they tore down the straw from their rude shelters and held aloft the burning wisps on long poles, dancing the while in honour of the short gray-coated figure, and shouting, "It is the anniversary of the coronation. Long live the Emperor." Thus was the great day ushered in. The welkin glowed with this tribute of an army's heroworship: the frost-laden clouds echoed back the multitudinous acclaim; and the Russians, as they swung forward their left, surmised that, after all, the French would stand their ground and fight, whilst others saw in the flare a signal that Napoleon was once more about to retreat.
December the 2nd may well be the most famous day of the Napoleonic calendar: it was the day of his coronation, it was the day of Austerlitz, and, a generation later, another Napoleon chose it for his coup d'état. The "sun of Austerlitz," which the nephew then hailed, looked down on a spectacle far different from that which he wished to gild with borrowed splendour. Struggling dimly through dense banks of mist, it shone on the faces of 73,000 Frenchmen resolved to conquer or to die: it cast weird shadows before the gray columns of Russia and the white-coats of Austria as they pressed in serried ranks towards the frozen swamps of the Goldbach. At first the allies found little opposition; and Kienmayer's horse cleared the French from Tellnitz and the level ground beyond. But Friant's division, hurrying up from the west, restored the fight and drove the first assailants from the village. Others, however, were pressing on, twenty-nine battalions strong, and not all the tenacious bravery of Davoust's soldiery availed to hold that spot. Nor was it necessary. Napoleon's plan was to let the allied left compromise itself on this side, while he rained the decisive blows at its joint with the centre on the southern spur of the Pratzenberg.
For this reason he reduced Davoust to defensive tactics, for which his stubborn methodical genius eminently fitted him, until the French centre had forced the Russians from the plateau. Opposite or near that height he had posted the corps of Soult and Bernadotte, supporting them with the grenadiers of Oudinot and the Imperial Guard. Confronting these imposing forces was the Russian centre, weakened by the heavy drafts sent towards Tellnitz, but strong in its position and in the experience of its leader Kutusoff. Caution urged him to hold back his men to the last moment, until the need of giving cohesion to the turning movement led the Czar impatiently to order his advance. Scarcely had the Russians descended beyond Pratzen when they were exposed to a furious attack. Vandamme, noted even then as one of the hardest hitters in the army, was leading his division of Soult's corps up the northern slopes of the plateau; by a sidelong slant his men cut off a detachment of Russians in the village, and, aided by the brigade of Thiébault, swarmed up the hill at a speed which surprised and unsteadied its defenders. Oudinot's grenadiers and the Imperial Guard were ready to sustain Soult: but the men of his corps had the glory of seizing the plateau and driving back the Russians. Yet these returned to the charge. Alexander and Kutusoff saw the importance of the heights, and brought up a great part of their reserves. Soon the divisions of Vandamme and St. Hilaire were borne back; and it needed all the grand fighting powers of their troops to hold up against the masses of howling Russians. For two hours the battle there swayed to and fro; and Thiébault has censured Napoleon for the lack of support, and Soult for his apathy, during this soldiers' battle.
But the Emperor was awaiting the development of events on the wings. A sharp fight of all arms was raging on the plain further to the north. There the allies at first gained ground, the Austrian horse well maintaining its old fame: but the infantry of Lannes' corps, supported by powerful artillery ranged on a small conical hill, speedily checked their charges; the French horse, marshalled by Murat and Kellermann somewhat after the fashion of the British cavalry at Waterloo, so as to support the squares and dash through the intervals in pursuit, soon made most effective charges upon the dense squadrons of the allies, and finally a general advance of Lannes and Murat overthrew the wavering lines opposite and chased them back towards the small town of Austerlitz.
Thus by noon the lines of fighting swerved till they ranged along the course of the Littawa stream, save where the allies had thrust forward a long and apparently successful wedge beyond Tellnitz. The Czar saw the danger of this almost isolated wing, and sought to keep touch with it; but the defects of the allied plan were now painfully apparent. Napoleon, having the interior lines, while his foes were scattered over an irregular arc, could reinforce his hard-pressed right. There Davoust was being slowly borne back, when the march of Duroc with part of the Imperial Guard restored the balance on that side. The French centre also was strengthened by the timely arrival of part of Bernadotte's corps. That Marshal detached a division towards the northern slopes of the plateau; for he divined that there his master would need every man to deal the final blows.[43]
In truth, Alexander and Kutusoff were struggling hard to regain the Pratzenberg. Four times did the Muscovites fling themselves on the French centre, and not without some passing gleams of success. Here occurred the most famous cavalry fight of the war. The Russian Guards, mounted on superb horses, had cut up two of Vandamme's battalions, when Rapp rode to their rescue with the chasseurs of the French Imperial Guard. These choice bodies of horsemen met with a terrible shock, which threw the Russians into disorder. Rallied by other squadrons, these now overthrew their assailants and seemed about to overpower them, when Bessières with the heavy cavalry of the Guard fell on the flank of the Muscovite horse and drove their lines, horse and foot, into the valley beyond.
Assured of his centre, Napoleon now launched Soult's corps down the south-western spurs of the plateau upon the flank and rear of the allied left: this unexpected onset was decisive: the French, sweeping down the slopes with triumphant shouts, cut off several battalions on the banks of the Goldbach, scattered others in headlong flight towards Brünn, and drove the greater part down to the Lake of Tellnitz. Here the troubles of the allies culminated. A few gained the narrow marshy gap between the two lakes; but dense bodies found no means of escape save the frozen surface of the upper lake. In some parts the ice bore the weight of the fugitives; but where they thronged pell-mell, or where it was cut up by the plunging fire of the French cannon on the heights, crowds of men sank to destruction. The victors themselves stood aghast at this spectacle; and, for the credit of human nature be it said, many sought to save their drowning foes. Among others, the youthful Marbot swam to a floe to help bring a Russian officer to land, a chivalrous exploit which called forth the praise of Napoleon. The Emperor brought this glorious day to a fitting close by visiting the ground most thickly strewn with his wounded, and giving directions for their treatment or removal. As if satisfied with the victory, he gave little heed to the pursuit. In truth, never since Marlborough cut the Franco-Bavarian army in twain at Blenheim, had there been a battle so terrible in its finale, and so decisive in its results as this of the three Emperors, which cost the allies 33,000 men and 186 cannon.
The Emperors Alexander and Francis fled eastwards into the night. Between them there was now a tacit understanding that the campaign was at an end. On that night Francis sent proposals for a truce; and in two days' time Napoleon agreed to an armistice (signed on December 6th) on condition that Francis would send away the Russian army and entirely exclude that of Prussia from his territories. A contribution of 100,000,000 francs was also laid upon the Hapsburg dominions. On the next day Alexander pledged himself to withdraw his army at once; and Francis proceeded to treat for peace with Napoleon. This was an infraction of the treaties of the Third Coalition, which prescribed that no separate peace should be made.
Under the circumstances, the conduct of the Hapsburgs was pardonable: but the seeming break-up of the coalition furnished the Court of Berlin with a good reason for declining to bear the burden alone. It was not Austerlitz that daunted Frederick William; for, after hearing of that disaster, he wrote that he would be true to his pledge given on November 3rd. But then, on the decisive day (December 15th), came the news of the defection of Austria, the withdrawal of Alexander's army, and the closing of the Hapsburg lands to a Prussian force. These facts absolved Frederick William from his obligations to those Powers, and allowed him with perfect good faith to keep his sword in the scabbard. The change, it is true, sadly dulled the warlike ardour of his army; but it could not be called desertion of Russia and Austria.[44] The disgrace came later, when, on Christmas Day, Haugwitz reached Berlin, and described to the King and Ministers his interview with Napoleon in the palace of Schönbrunn, and the treaty which the victor then and there offered to Prussia at the sword's point.
For most men a great victory such as Austerlitz would have brought a brief spell of rest, especially after the ceaseless toils and anxieties of the previous fortnight. Yet now, after ridding himself of all fear of Austria, Napoleon at once used every device of his subtle statecraft to dissolve the nascent coalition. And Fortune had willed that, when flushed with triumph, he should have to deal with a timorous time-server.
It is the curse of a policy of keeping up a dainty balance in a hurricane that it unmans the balancer, until at last the peacemaker resembles a juggler. A decade of compromise and evasion of difficulties had enfeebled the spirit of Prussia, until the hardest trial for her King was to take any step that could not be retraced. He had often spoken "feelingly, if not energetically," of the predicaments of his position between France, England, and Russia.[45] And, as in the case of that other bon père de famille, Louis XVI., whom Nature framed for a farmhouse and Fate tossed into a revolution, his lack of foresight and resolution took the heart out of his advisers and turned statesmen into trimmers. Even before the news of Austerlitz reached the ears of Talleyrand and Haugwitz at Vienna, the bearer of Prussia's ultimatum was posing as the friend of France. On all occasions he wore the cordon of the Legion of Honour; and while the hosts of East and West were in the death-grapple on the Pratzenberg, he strove to convince the French Foreign Minister that the Prussians had entered Hanover only in order to keep the peace in North Germany; that, as Russians had traversed Prussian territory, the French would, of course, be equally free to do so; that Frederick William objected to the descent of any English force in Hanover, which belonged de facto to France; and finally that the Treaty of Potsdam was not a treaty at all, but merely a declaration with the "offer of Prussia's good offices and of mediation, but without any mingling of hostile intentions." Well might Talleyrand write to Napoleon: "I am very satisfied with M. Haugwitz."[46]
Napoleon's victory over Prussian diplomacy was therefore won, even before the lightning-stroke of Austerlitz blasted the Third Coalition. Haugwitz began his conference with the victor at Schönbrunn on December 13th, by offering Frederick William's congratulations on his triumph at Austerlitz, to which the Emperor replied by a sarcastic query whether, if the result of that battle had been different, he would have spoken at all about the friendship of his master.[47] After thus disconcerting the envoy and upbraiding him with the Treaty of Potsdam, Napoleon unmasked his battery by offering Prussia the Electorate of Hanover in return for the comparatively petty sacrifices of Ansbach to Bavaria, and Cleves and Neufchâtel to France. For the loss of these outlying districts Prussia could buy that long-coveted land.[48] The envoy was dazzled by this glittering offer, and by others that followed. The conqueror proposed an offensive and defensive alliance, whereby France and Prussia mutually guaranteed their lands along with prospective additions in Germany and Italy; and the Court of Berlin was also to uphold the independence of Turkey.
Such were the terms that Napoleon peremptorily required Haugwitz to sign within a few hours: and the bearer of Prussia's ultimatum on December 15th signed this Treaty of Schönbrunn, which degraded the would-be arbitress of Europe to her former position of well-fed follower of France. This was the news which Haugwitz brought back to his astonished King. His reception was of the coolest; for Frederick William was an honest man, who sought peace, prosperity, and the welfare of his people, and now saw himself confronted by the alternative of war or national humiliation. In truth, every turn and double of his course was now leading him deeper into the discredit and ruin which will be described in the next chapter.
Leaving for the present that unhappy King amidst his increasing perplexities, we return to the affairs of Austria. Mack's disaster alone had cast that Government into the depths of despair, and we learn from Lord Gower, our ambassador at St. Petersburg, that he had seen copies of letters written by the Emperor Francis to Napoleon "couched in terms of humility and submission unworthy of a great monarch," to which the latter replied in a tone of superiority and affected commiseration, and with a demand for the Hapsburg lands in Venetia and Swabia.[49]
The same tone of whining dejection was kept up by Cobenzl and other Austrian Ministers, even before Austerlitz, when Prussia was on the point of drawing the sword; and they sent offers of peace, when it was rather for their foe to sue for it. After that battle, and, still more so, after signing the armistice of December 6th, they were at the conqueror's mercy; and Napoleon knew it. After probing the inner weakness of the Berlin Court, he now pressed with merciless severity on the Hapsburgs. He proposed to tear away their Swabian and Tyrolese lands and their share of the spoils of Venice. In vain did the Austrian plenipotentiaries struggle against these harsh terms, pleading for Tyrol and Dalmatia, and pointing out the impossibility of raising 100,000,000 francs from territories ravaged by war. In vain did they proffer a claim to Hanover for one of their Archdukes: though Talleyrand urged the advantage of this step as dissolving the Anglo-Austrian alliance, yet Napoleon refused to hear of it; for at that time he was offering that Electorate to Haugwitz.[50] Still less would he hear a word in favour of the Court of Naples, whose conduct had aroused his resentment. The utmost that the Austrian envoys could wring from him was the reduction of the war contribution to 40,000,000 francs.
The terms finally arranged in the Treaty of Pressburg (December 26th, 1805) may be thus summarized: Austria recognized the recent acquisitions and changes of title made by Napoleon in Italy, and ceded to him her parts of Venetia, Istria, and Dalmatia. She recognized the title of King now bestowed by Napoleon on the Electors of Bavaria and Würtemberg, a change which was not to invalidate their membership of the "Germanic Confederation." To those potentates and to the Elector (now Grand Duke) of Baden, the Hapsburgs ceded all their scattered Swabian domains, while Bavaria also gained Tyrol and Vorarlberg. As a slight compensation for these grievous losses, Austria gained Salzburg, whose Elector was to receive from Bavaria the former principality of Würzburg. The domains and revenues of the Teutonic and Maltese Orders were secularized, so as to furnish appanages to some other princes of the Hapsburg House; and another blow was dealt at the Germanic system by the declaration that Napoleon guaranteed the full and entire sovereignty of the rulers of Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Baden. In fact, as will appear in the next chapter, Napoleon now usurped the place in Germany previously held by the Hapsburgs, and extended his influence as far east as the River Inn, and, on the south, down to the remote city of Ragusa on the Adriatic.
But it is one thing to win a brilliant diplomatic triumph, and quite another thing to secure a firm and lasting peace. The Peace of Pressburg raised Napoleon to heights of power never dreamt of by Louis XIV.: but his pre-eminence was at best precarious. When by moderate terms he might have secured the alliance of Austria and severed her friendship with England, he chose to place his heel on her neck and drive her to secret but irreconcilable hatred.
And his choice was deliberate. Two months earlier, Talleyrand had sent him a memorandum on the subject of a Franco-Austrian alliance, which is instinct with statesmanlike foresight. He stated that there were four Great Powers--France, Great Britain, Russia, and Austria: he excluded Prussia, whose rise to greatness under Frederick the Great was but temporary. Austria, he claimed, must remain a Great Power. She had opposed revolutionary France; but with Imperial France she had no lasting quarrel. Rather did her manifest destiny clash with that of Russia on the lower Danube, where the approaching break-up of the Ottoman Power must bring those States into conflict. It was good policy, then, to give a decided but friendly turn of Hapsburg policy towards the east. Let Napoleon frankly approach the Emperor Francis and say in effect: "I never sought this war with you, but I have conquered: I wish to restore complete harmony between us: and, in order to remove all causes of dispute, you must give up your Swabian, Tyrolese, and Venetian lands: of these Tyrol shall fall to a prince of your choice, and Venice (along with Trieste and Istria) shall form an aristocratic Republic under a magistrate nominated in the first instance by me. As a set-off to these losses, you shall receive Moldavia, Wallachia, and northern Bulgaria. If the Russians object to this and attack you, I will be your ally." Such was Talleyrand's proposal.[51]
It is easy to criticise it in many details; but there can be little doubt that its adoption by Napoleon would have laid a firmer foundation for French supremacy than was afforded by the Treaties of Pressburg and Tilsit. Austria would not have been deeply wounded, as she now was by the transfer of her faithful Tyrolese to the detested rule of Bavaria, and by the undisguised triumph of Napoleon in Italy and along the Adriatic. Moreover, the erection of Tyrol and Venetia into separate States would have been a wise concession to those clannish societies; and Austria could not have taken up the championship of outraged Tyrolese sentiment, which she assumed four years later. Instead of figuring as the leader of German nationality, she would have been on the worst of terms with the Czar over the Eastern Question; and their discord would have enabled France to dictate her own terms as to the partition of the Sultan's dominions. Talleyrand had no specific for dissolving the traditional friendship of England and Austria, and we may imagine the joy with which he heard from the Hapsburg envoys the demand for Hanover, at a time when English gold was pouring into the empty coffers at Vienna. Here was the sure means of embroiling England and Austria for a generation at least. But this further chance of preventing future coalitions was likewise rejected by Napoleon, who deliberately chose to make Austria a deadly foe, and to aggrandize her rival Prussia.[52]
Why did Napoleon reject Talleyrand's plan? Unquestionably, I think, because he had resolved to build up a Continental System, which should "hermetically seal" the coasts of Europe against English commerce. If he was to realize those golden visions of his youth, ships, colonies, and an Eastern empire, which, even amidst the glories of Austerlitz, he placed far above any European triumph, he must extend his coast system and subject or conciliate the maritime States. Of these the most important were Prussia and Russia. The seaborne commerce of Austria was insignificant, and could easily be controlled from his vassal lands of Venetia and Dalmatia. To the would-be conqueror of England the friendship or hatred of Austria seemed unimportant: he preferred to depress this now almost land-locked Power, and to draw tight the bonds of union with Prussia, always provided that she excluded British goods.[53]
The same reason led him to hope for a Russian alliance. Only by the help of Russia and Prussia could he shut England out from the Baltic; and, to win that help, he destined Hanover for Prussia and the Danubian States for the Czar. For the founder of the Continental System such a choice was natural; but, viewed from the standpoint of Continental politics, his treatment of Austria was a serious blunder. His frightful pressure on her motley lands endowed them with a solidity which they had never known before; and in less than four years, the conqueror had cause to regret having driven the Hapsburgs to desperation. It may even be questioned whether Austerlitz itself was not a misfortune to him. Just before that battle he thought of treating Austria leniently, taking only Verona and Legnago, and exchanging Venetia against Salzburg. This would have detached her from the Coalition, and made a friend of a Power that is naturally inclined to be conservative.
After Austerlitz, he rushed to the other extreme and forced the Hapsburgs to a hostility in which the Marie Louise marriage was only a forced and uneasy truce. His motives are not, in my judgment, to be assigned to mere lust of domination, but rather to a reasoned though exaggerated conviction of the need of Prussia and Russia to his Continental System. Above all things, he now sought to humble England, so that finally he might be free for his long-deferred Oriental enterprise. This is the irony of his career, that, though he preferred the career of Alexander the Great to that of Cæsar; though he placed his victory at Austerlitz far below the triumph of the great Macedonian at Issus which assured the conquest of the Orient, yet he felt himself driven to the very measures which tethered him to cette vieille Europe and which finally roused the Continent against him.
Among his errors of judgment, assuredly his behaviour to Austria in 1805 was not the least. The recent history of Europe supplies a suggestive contrast. Two generations after Austerlitz, the Hapsburg Power was shattered by the disaster of Königgrätz, and once more lost all influence in Germany and Italy. But the victor then showed consideration for the vanquished. Bismarck had pondered over the lessons of history, because, as he said, history teaches one how far one may safely go. He therefore persuaded King William to forego claims that would have embittered the rivalry of Prussia and Austria. Nay! he recurred to Talleyrand's policy of encouraging the Hapsburgs to seek in the Balkan Peninsula compensation for their losses in the west: and within fifteen years the basis of the Triple Alliance was firmly laid. Napoleon, on the other hand, for lack of that statesmanlike moderation which consecrates victory and cements the fabric of an enduring Empire, soon saw the political results of Austerlitz swept away by the rising tide of the nations' wrath. In less than nine years the Austrians and their allies were masters of Paris.
NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION.--The account given on p. 41 of the drowning of numbers of Russians at the close of the Battle of Austerlitz was founded upon the testimony of Napoleon and many French generals; the facts, as related by Lejeune, seemed quite convincing; the Czar Alexander also asserted at Vienna in 1815 that 20,000 Russians had been drowned there. But the local evidence (kindly furnished to me by Professor Fournier of Vienna) seems to prove that the story is a myth. Both lakes were drained only a few days after the battle, at Napoleon's orders; in the lower lake not a single corpse was found; in the upper lake 150 corpses of horses, but only two, some say three, of men, were found. Probably Napoleon invented the catastrophe for the sake of dramatic effect, and others followed the lead given in his bulletin. The Czar may have adopted the story because it helped to excuse his defeat. (See my article in the "Eng. Hist. Rev." for July, 1902.)
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