A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878 Part 65

[183] Napoleon to Eugene, 1st July, 1813.

[184] Metternich, i. 163.

[185] Hausser, iv. 59. One of the originals is contained in Lord Cathcart's despatch from Kalisch, March 28th, 1813. Records: Russia, Vol. 206.

[186] Memoires de Jerome, vi. 223.

[187] "Your lords.h.i.+p has only to recollect the four days' continued fighting at Leipzig, followed by fourteen days' forced marches in the worst weather, in order to understand the reasons that made some repose absolutely necessary. The total loss of the Austrians alone, since the 10th of August, at the time of our arrival at Frankfort, was 80,000 men. We were entirely unprovided with heavy artillery, the nearest battery train not having advanced further than the frontiers of Bohemia." It was thought for a moment that the gates of Strasburg and Huningen might be opened by bribery, and the Austrian Government authorised the expenditure of a million florins for this purpose; in that case the march into Switzerland would have been abandoned. The bribing plan, however, broke down.--Lord Aberdeen's despatches, Nov. 24, Dec. 25, 1813. Records; Austria, 107.

[188] Castlereagh's despatch from Langres, Jan. 29, 1814. Records: Continent, Vol. II.: "As far as I have hitherto felt myself called on to give an opinion, I have stated that the British Government did not decline treating with Bonaparte." "The Czar said he observed my view of the question was different from what he believed prevailed in England"

(_id._ Feb. 16). See Southey's fine Ode on the Negotiations of 1814.

[189] British and Foreign State Papers, I. 131.

[190] Beranger, Biographie, ed. duod., p. 354.

[191] British and Foreign State Papers, I. 151.

[192] Lord W. Bentinck, who was with Murat, warned him against the probable consequences of his duplicity. Bentinck had, however, to be careful in his language, as the following shows. Murat having sent him a sword of honour, he wrote to the English Government, May 1, 1814: "It is a severe violence to my feelings to incur any degree of obligation to an individual whom I so entirely despise. But I feel it my duty not to betray any appearance of a spirit of animosity." To Murat he wrote on the same day: "The sword of a great captain is the most flattering present which a soldier can receive.

It is with the highest grat.i.tude that I accept the gift, Sire, which you have done me the honour to send."--Records: Sicily, Vol. 98.

[193] Treaties of Teplitz, Sept. 9, 1813. In Bianchi, Storia Doc.u.mentata della Diplomazia Europea, i. 334, there is a long protest addressed by Metternich to Castlereagh on May 26, 1814, referring with great minuteness to a number of clauses in a secret Treaty signed by all the Powers at Prague on July 27, 1813, and ratified at London on August 23, giving Austria the disposal of all Italy. This protest, which has been accepted as genuine in Reuchlin's Geschichte Italiens and elsewhere, is, with the alleged secret Treaty, a forgery. My grounds for this statement are as follows:--(1) There was no British envoy at Prague in July, 1813. (2) The private as well as the official letters of Castlereagh to Lord Cathcart of Sept. 13 and 18, and the instructions sent to Lord Aberdeen during August and September, prove that no joint Treaty existed up to that date, to which both England and Austria were parties. Records: Russia, 207, 209 A.

Austria, 105. (3) Lord Aberdeen's reports of his negotiations with Metternich after this date conclusively prove that almost all Italian questions, including even the Austrian frontier, were treated as matters to be decided by the Allies in common. While Austria's right to a preponderance in upper Italy is admitted, the affairs of Rome and Naples are always treated as within the range of English policy.

[194] The originals of the Genoese and Milanese pet.i.tions for independence are in Records: Sicily, Vol. 98. "The Genoese universally desire the restoration of their ancient Republic. They dread above all other arrangements their annexation to Piedmont, to the inhabitants of which there have always existed a peculiar aversion."--Bentick's Despatch, April 27, 1814, _id._

[195] Castlereagh, x. 18.

[196] As Arndt, Schriften, ii. 311, Funf oder sechs Wunder Gottes.

[197] Bernhardi, Geschichte Russlands, iii. 26.

[198] Parl. Debates, xxvii. 634, 834.

[199] Wellington, Sup. Des., x. 468; Castlereagh, x. 145. Records, Sicily, vol. 97. The future King Louis Philippe was sent by his father-in-law, Ferdinand, to England, to intrigue against Murat among the Sovereigns and Ministers then visiting England. His own curious account of his proceedings, with the secret sign for the Prince Regent, given him by Louis XVIII., who was afraid to write anything, is in _id._, vol. 99.

[200] Wippermann, Kurhessen, pp. 9-13. In Hanover torture was restored, and occasionally practised till the end of 1818: also the punishment of death by breaking on the wheel. See Hodgskin, Travels, ii. 51, 69.

[201] Baumgarten, Geschichte Spaniens, ii. 30, Wellington, D., xii. 27; S.

D., ix. 17.

[202] Wellington, S.D., ix. 328.

[203] Compare his cringing letter to Pichegru in Ma.n.u.scrit de Louis XVIII., p. 463, with his answer in 1797 to the Venetian Senate, in Thiers.

[204] _Moniteur_, 5 Juin. British and Foreign State Papers, 1812-14, ii. 960.

[205] The payment of 13 per annum in direct taxes. No one could be elected who did not pay 40 per annum in direct taxes,--so large a sum, that the Charta provided for the case of there not being fifty persons in a department eligible.

[206] Fourteen out of Napoleon's twenty marshals and three-fifths of his Senators were called to the Chamber of Peers. The names of the excluded Senators will be found in Vaulabelle, ii. 100; but the reader must not take Vaulabelle's history for more than a collection of party-legends.

[207] Ordonnance, in _Moniteur_, 26 Mai.

[208] This poor creature owed his life, as he owes a shabby immortality, to the beautiful and courageous Grace Dalrymple Elliot. Journal of Mrs. G.D.

Elliot, p. 79.

[209] Carnot, Memoire adresse au Roi, p. 20.

[210] Wellington Despatches, xii. 248. On the ground of his ready-money dealings, it has been supposed that Wellington understood the French people. On the contrary, he often showed great want of insight, both in his acts and in his opinions, when the finer, and therefore more statesmanlike, sympathies were in question. Thus, in the delicate position of amba.s.sador of a victorious Power and counsellor of a restored dynasty, he bitterly offended the French country-population by behaving like a _grand seigneur_ before 1789, and hunting with a pack of hounds over their young corn. The matter was so serious that the Government of Louis XVIII. had to insist on Wellington stopping his hunts. (Talleyrand et Louis XVIII., p. 141.) This want of insight into popular feeling, necessarily resulted in some portentous blunders: _e.g.,_ all that Wellington could make of Napoleon's return from Elba was the following:--"He has acted upon false or no information, and the King will destroy him without difficulty and in a short time." Despatches, xii. 268.

[211] A good English account of Vienna during the Congress will be found in "Travels in Hungary," by Dr. R. Bright, the eminent physician. His visit to Napoleon's son, then a child five years old, is described in a pa.s.sage of singular beauty and pathos.

[212] British and Foreign State Papers, 1814-15, p. 554, _seq_.

Talleyrand et Louis XVIII., p. 13. Kluber, ix. 167. Seeley's Stein, iii.

248. Gentz, Depeches Inedites, i. 107. Records: Continent, vol. 7, Oct. 2.

[213] Bernhardi, i. 2; ii. 2, 661.

[214] Wellington, S.D., ix. 335.

[215] Wellington, S.D., ix. 340. Records: Continent, vol. 7, Oct. 9, 14.

[216] Talleyrand, p. 74. Records, _id.,_ Oct. 24, 25.

[217] Wellington, S.D., ix. 331. Talleyrand, pp. 59, 82, 85, 109. Kluber, vii. 21.

[218] British and Foreign State Papers, 1814-15, p. 814. Kluber, vii. 61.

[219] Talleyrand, p. 281.

[220] B. and F. State Papers, 1814-15, ii. 1001.

[221] Castlereagh did not contradict them. Records: Cont., vol. 10, Jan. 8.

[222] British and Foreign State Papers, 1814-15, p. 642. Seeley's Stein, iii. 303. Talleyrand, Preface, p. 18.

[223] Chiefly, but not altogether, because Napoleon's war with England had ruined the trade of the ports. See the report of Marshal Brune, in Daudet, La Terreur Blanche, p. 173, and the striking picture of Ma.r.s.eilles in Thiers, xviii. 340, drawn from his own early recollections. Bordeaux was Royalist for the same reason.

[224] Berriat-St. Prix, Napoleon a Gren.o.ble, p. 10.

[225] Beranger, Biographie, p. 373, ed. duod.

[226] See their contemptible addresses, as well as those of the army, in the _Moniteur_, from the 10th to the 19th of March to Louis XVIII., from the 27th onwards to Napoleon.

[227] _i.e._, Because he had abused his liberty. On Ney's trial two courtiers alleged that Ney said he "would bring back Napoleon in an iron cage." Ney contradicted, them. Proces de Ney, ii. 105, 113.

[228] British and Foreign State Papers, 1814-15, ii. 443.