World's Best Histories Part 19

The Emperor Francis showed none of the repugnance or hesitation which irritated Napoleon against the Russians. No gloomy forecast seems to have pa.s.sed through the minds of that august family, which had formerly seen Marie-Antoinette leave Vienna to sit at Paris upon a fatal throne. Yet all the efforts of both the emperors tended to suggest constant a.n.a.logies.

Napoleon's contract was copied from the act which united the destinies of Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette. The marriage ceremonial was throughout the same, with the redoubled splendor of an unprecedented magnificence.

The new empress had willingly accepted the throne which was offered her.

The Archduke Charles agreed to represent the Emperor Napoleon at the celebration of the official marriage. Marshal Berthier, major-general of the Imperial army, was appointed to go and fetch the princess. Her first lady of honor was the d.u.c.h.ess of Montebello, widow of Marshal Lannes, who was killed at Wagram. The tragical remembrances of by-gone alliances between France and the reigning house of Austria, the bitter and bloodstained recollections of recent struggles, seemed to serve only to enhance the brilliancy of the new ties uniting the two countries. The Emperor Napoleon took possession of the imperial family, as he had recently conquered their capital and occupied their palaces. The people of Paris thought they saw in this alliance a final and permanent triumph: and the magnificence of the fetes given in honor of the young empress's arrival increased their intoxication. "She brings news to the world of peaceful days," was the inscription on all the triumphal arches.

In fact the world was hopeful but men of foresight and wisdom were not deceived. There were germs of discord everywhere, in spite of the appearance of peace. Fighting was still going on in Spain, and the obstinacy of the Spanish insurgents equalled the perseverance of Sir Arthur Wellesley. The Emperor Alexander had courteously congratulated Caulaincourt upon the a.s.surance of peace between Austria and France, resulting from the projected union; at the same time not failing to point out the contradictory negotiations simultaneously carried on by Napoleon at St. Petersburg and Vienna. The subst.i.tution, which the emperor had just proposed, of a new convention for the articles decided upon in the Polish question, deeply excited the Czar's displeasure. "It is not I who shall disturb the peace of Europe or attack any one," said he, with a keen and determined irony; "but if they come to look for me, I shall defend myself."

Another protestation, startling in its silence, annoyed the imperious ruler of Europe. Most of the cardinals had been brought to Paris, not without some threats of physical compulsion, several of them weakly hoping to obtain important concessions. Cardinal Consalvi energetically supported the courage of a large number, who were determined to take no part in the emperor's religious marriage, as being illegal. They told Cardinal Fesch of their intention, adding, that they would afterwards wait upon the empress to be presented, but that they were bound to defend the rights of the holy seat, injured on that occasion by the appeal pure and simple to the magistracy of Paris. "That," said Cardinal Consalvi, "was wounding the emperor in the apple of the eye." "They will never dare!" answered Napoleon, angrily, when his uncle told him of the resolution of the cardinals.

Thirteen of them dared, notwithstanding. When, on the 2nd April, 1810, the Emperor Napoleon entered the great saloon of the Louvre, changed for that day into a chapel, after casting his eyes over the crowd who thronged the benches and galleries, he turned towards his chaplain, Abbe Pradt, and said, "Where are the cardinals? I don't see any." There were, however, fourteen there, though not enough to conceal the number of absentees.

"There are many here," replied the abbe, "and several are old and infirm."

"Ah! the idiots! the idiots!" exclaimed the emperor. He again repeated those words when the ceremony began.

Napoleon's anger was especially directed against Cardinal Consalvi. "The rest have their theological prejudices," said he, "but he has offended me on political grounds; he is my enemy; he has dared to lay a trap for me by holding out against my dynasty a pretext of illegitimacy. They will not fail to make use of it after my death, when I am no longer there to keep them in awe!" On the day after the marriage the whole court were to defile before the new empress, and the cardinals were in attendance with the utmost punctuality, as they had announced. After the distinguished a.s.semblage had waited three hours, an aide-de-camp came to announce the order that the prelates who had not been present on the previous evening in the chapel of the Louvre were to withdraw, because the emperor would not receive them. On the same day, Napoleon wrote to M. Bigot de Preameneu: "Several cardinals did not come yesterday, although invited, to the ceremony of my marriage. They have, therefore, failed in an essential duty towards me. I wish to know the names of those cardinals, and which of them are bishops in France, in my kingdom of Italy, or in the kingdom of Naples. My intention is to discharge them from their office, and suspend the payment of their salaries by no longer regarding them as cardinals."

In the first impulse of his anger, Napoleon thought of summoning the rebel prelates before a special court. "Since there is no ecclesiastical jurisdiction in France," said he to the minister of public wors.h.i.+p, "nothing prevents them from being condemned." He was contented, however, with making use only of his own supreme authority. Despoiled of the insignia of their ecclesiastical dignity--which procured them the nickname of the "black cardinals"--and deprived of their private fortunes as well as of the revenues of their dioceses, which had been sequestered by the treasury, Consalvi and his colleagues were interned, two and two, in towns a.s.signed to them for the purpose, put under police supervision, and reduced to the most precarious means of living. "Without the Pope they are nothing," said Napoleon. The Pope was still kept at Savona, meekly inflexible, like the cardinals.

A few men thus resolutely opposed their wills to the formidable power of the Emperor Napoleon. Just after the peace of Vienna, his hands filled with new conquests, he modified the frontiers of several of the states which he had recently formed or increased; some territories he yielded up, others he took back; to some he was prodigal of his favors, to others he denied them. He showed at this time special severity towards King Louis, a prince who was naturally of a serious, honorable, and upright character, and had tried sincerely to fulfil his duties as king towards the Dutch. He thought it his duty to protect against Napoleon himself the subjects which the latter had given him, and whom he saw ruined by the arbitrary acts of the imperial power. When, at the end of 1809, the emperor's family all met in Paris, King Louis had great difficulty in persuading himself to obey the order by which he was summoned. Napoleon had already threatened Holland in his speech at the opening of the Legislative Body. "Placed between England and France, the princ.i.p.al arteries of my empire meet there," said the emperor. "Changes will be necessary; the safety of my frontiers, and naturally the interests of both countries, imperiously demand it." Zealand and Brabant had not been evacuated by our troops, who advanced there when the English took possession of the island of Walcheren.

It was the union of Holland and France which Napoleon then intended, and he did not conceal it from his brother. Recriminations and reproaches were only followed by an obstinate determination. "Holland is really only a part of France," said the minister of the interior, officially, "and it is time she held her natural position." This determination was announced to Louis on his arrival in Paris. "That is the most deadly blow I can inflict upon England," said Napoleon.

The King of Holland had long and frequently cursed the imperious will which had called him to the throne. He had extolled the charms of private life; when abdication was, as it were, forced upon him, he drew back and defended himself. Napoleon insisted upon having a disguised national bankruptcy, an increase of their navy for French service alone, the strict application of the "continental blockade," which till then had been frequently evaded by the Dutch merchants, the rejection of the honorary t.i.tles accepted or created by his brother for the benefit of his subjects.

King Louis struggled against such hateful conditions, implying the ruin of his adopted country as well as of his personal authority in Holland. The intimate relations.h.i.+p of the imperial family was disturbed by the discussions carried on between the two brothers; Champagny naturally had some share in them, and Fouche also. Napoleon seemed to become more reasonable. Nevertheless, he wished to take advantage of the alarm he had caused, and make its influence extend even to England. A trustworthy agent was appointed to inform the English ministry of the impending union between France and Holland, and the consequent danger for England; vast armaments were said to be prepared in our harbors. Peace was the only means of avoiding so many dangers; Holland would do herself honor by a.s.sisting to guarantee Europe of a rest now become possible by Napoleon's union with Marie-Louise.

Labouchere, descended from a family of French refugees, was appointed by the emperor, in the name of King Louis, to carry these overtures to the English cabinet. On account of the unfortunate campaign in Walcheren, which caused universal indignation in England, Canning and Castlereagh had been replaced in power by Perceval and the Marquis Wellesley, elder brother of Sir Arthur, formerly governor-general of India and the intimate friend of Pitt. He courteously received Labouchere, who was introduced by his brother-in-law, Mr. Baring, one of the princ.i.p.al bankers in London. It was not the first time that overtures of peace had reached the ministry.

On his own account, and from the incessant pa.s.sion for intrigue which seemed to haunt him everywhere, Fouche had instructed one of his agents to make to Lord Wellesley advances which had no real aim or earnestness. To these, as well as those, the English cabinet replied that they were firmly resolved never to abandon Spain or the kingdom of Naples to Bonaparte.

Holland in King Louis' hands was unreservedly under French influence, and its union to the empire conveyed no threat of danger to England, which was, besides, well accustomed to the evils of the war, and determined to suffer the consequences to the last. Some new overtures with reference to modifying the continental blockade had been entrusted to Labouchere, but they were hampered and complicated by Fouche's intrigues. The minister of police had recently authorized Ouvrard to leave Vincennes, and employed him in those mysterious negotiations which was soon afterwards to cost him the confidence and favor of his master. At this time, however, it was against the King of Holland that the anger of the latter was let loose.

The emperor had agreed to delay his projected union, thus a second time granting his brother the honor of obedience. In accordance with his strict demands, he resolved to rectify the frontier separating Holland from Belgium, and by taking the Waal as the future limit to form two new French departments on this side the river, called Bouches-du-Rhin and Bouches-de- l'Escaut. Zealand and its islands, North Brabant, part of Guelder, and the towns Bergen-op-Zoom, Breda, Bois-le-Duc, and Nimeguen were thus taken away from Holland, with a population of 400,000 souls. Heavy conditions were imposed on the commerce; and the guard of all the river mouths was entrusted to Franco-Dutch troops under the orders of a French general.

Against this the conscience and reason of the King of Holland revolted equally. He gave secret instructions to his ministers to fortify Amsterdam, and forbid our troops to enter any stronghold. General Maison found the gates of Bergen-op-Zoom shut before him.

The action was as imprudent as the resolution was honorable. At the news of it Napoleon's violence exceeded all bounds. In accordance with the custom which he had followed for several weeks in his communications with his brother, with whom he was not on visiting terms, he wrote to Fouche, at the same time sending him a letter from Rochefoucault, the French minister in Holland:--

"I beg of you to read this letter, and call upon the King of Holland and let him know of it. Is that prince become quite mad? You will tell him that he has done his best to lose his kingdom, and that I shall never make arrangements which may make such people think they have imposed upon me.

You will ask him if it is by his order that his ministers have acted, or if it is of their own authority: and let him know that if it is by their authority I shall have them arrested and their heads cut off, every one of them. If they have acted by the king's order, what must I think of that prince? And how, after that, can he think of commanding my troops, since he has perjured his oaths?"

Any personal resistance was impossible to the unhappy king of Holland, melancholy and obstinate, but without energy. He became afraid, and yielded every point; his ministers were dismissed, and the strongholds opened to the French generals. "Hitherto there has been no western empire," wrote Louis to his terrible brother; "there is soon to be one, apparently. Then, sire, your Majesty will be certain that I can no longer be deceived or cause you trouble. Kindly consider that I was without experience, in a difficult country, living from day to day. Allow me to conjure you to forget everything. I promise you to follow faithfully all the engagements which you may impose upon me."

King Louis set out again for Holland, after signing the conventions which were to disgrace him in the eyes of his subjects. Only one bitter item was spared him; he was not compelled to plead bankruptcy. Henceforth the valuation of things taken was to take place in Paris, and the French troops were already seizing in the annexed provinces the prohibited goods which were stored in the warehouses; and Marshal Oudinot fixed his head- quarters at Utrecht. On the 13th March, 1810, the emperor wrote to his brother: "All political reasons are in favor of my joining Holland to France. The misconduct of the men belonging to the administration made it a law to me; but I see that it is so painful to you, that for the first time I make my policy bend to the desire of pleasing you. At the same time, be well a.s.sured that the principles of your administration must be altered, and that, on the first occasion which you offer for complaint I shall do what I am not doing now. These complaints are of two kinds, and have as their object either the continuation of the relations of Holland with England, or reactionary speeches and edicts which are contrary to what I ought to expect from you. For the future your whole conduct must tend to inculcate in the minds of the Dutch friends.h.i.+p for France. I should not have taken Brabant, and I should even have increased Holland by several millions of inhabitants, if you had acted as I had a right to expect from my brother and a French prince. There is no remedy, however, for the past. Let what has happened serve you for the future."

Scarcely had the King of Holland returned to his kingdom, bringing back to his subjects the solitary consolation that their national independence was precariously preserved, when the emperor, who was then travelling through Belgium, came in great pomp to visit the new departments which he had just taken from his weak neighbor. The Empress Marie-Louise, who accompanied him, was everywhere surprised at the unprecedented display of forces and the activity of the empire. Napoleon inspected Flus.h.i.+ng, which had been recently evacuated by the English; and at Breda received deputations from all the const.i.tuted authorities, the presence of a vicar-apostolic supplying an occasion for a violent attack upon the papacy. "Who nominated you?" asked he. "The Pope? He has no such right in my empire. I appoint the bishops charged with administering the Church. Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; it is not the Pope who is Caesar, it is I. It is not to the Pope that G.o.d has committed the sceptre and the sword, it is to me. I have in hand proofs that you will not obey the civil authority, that you will not pray for me. Why? Is it because a Roman priest has excommunicated me? But who has given him the right to do so? Who can, here below, relieve subjects from their oath of obedience to the sovereign inst.i.tuted by the laws? n.o.body. You ought to know it, if you understand your religion. Are you ignorant of the fact that it is your culpable pretensions which drove Luther and Calvin to separate from Rome half the Catholic world? I also might have freed France from the Roman authority, and forty millions of men would have followed me. I did not wish to do so, because I believed the true principles of the Catholic religion reconcilable with the principles of civil authority. But renounce the idea of putting me in a convent or of shaving my head, like Louis le Debonnaire, and submit yourselves, for I am Caesar; if not, I will banish you from my empire, and I will disperse you, like the Jews, over the face of the earth."

These irregular outbursts of arbitrary will loudly proclaiming its omnipotence were excited by the very appearance of resistance. The King of Holland had sought to defend the interests of his subjects; the captive chief of the Catholic Church sometimes allowed the remains of his broken authority to appear; the most intimate counsellors of the emperor could not always hide their disapprobation and uneasiness. Fouche had gone further still. The emperor had in his hands proof of the intrigues in which he had been engaged in Holland and England. When Napoleon returned to Paris, Fouche did not present himself at the Council. "What would you think," said the emperor, "of a minister who, abusing his position, should, without the knowledge of his sovereign, have opened communications with the foreigner on bases of his own invention, and thus have compromised the policy of the State? What punishment can be inflicted on him?" Fouche had few friends; no one, however, dared to p.r.o.nounce his doom. "M. Fouche has committed a great fault," said Talleyrand. "I should give him a successor, but one only--M. Fouche himself." Napoleon, dissatisfied, shrugged his shoulders, and sent away his ministers. His decision was taken. "Your remarkable views with regard to the duties of the minister of police do not agree with the welfare of the State," he wrote to Fouche. "Although I do not mistrust your attachment and your fidelity, I am, however, compelled to maintain a perpetual surveillance, which fatigues me, and to which I ought not to be condemned. You have never been able to understand that one may do a great deal of harm whilst intending to do a great deal of good."

Fouche was despoiled of his dignities, and relegated to the senators.h.i.+p of Aix. General Savary, now become Duke of Rovigo, was chosen as minister of police. Napoleon was sure of his boundless and unscrupulous devotion, as well as of his executive ability. The decision of the emperor was ill received by the public. "I inspired every one with terror," says the Duke of Rovigo, in his "Memoirs;" "every one was packing up; nothing was talked about but banishments and imprisonments, and still worse; in fact, I believe that the news of a pestilence at some point on the coast would not have produced more fright than my appointment to the ministry of police." Savary succeeded to the ministry without any other resources than his personal sagacity and the activity of the police. Fouche had destroyed all traces of his administration. "I had not a great deal to burn, but all that I had I have burnt," said the disgraced minister, when the emperor sent to demand his papers. Many people breathed more freely when they heard this news. The Duke of Otranto became popular.

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

The minister of Holland at Paris, Admiral Verhuell, received his pa.s.sports.

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

This flight from the throne, and this mute protest against the tyranny which rendered it insupportable, caused some ill-humor in Napoleon, and constrained him to act openly, and without the soothing forms with which he had reckoned upon enveloping his taking possession of Holland. An imperial decree of the 9th of July, 1810, announced to the world that Holland was reunited to France. The abdication of King Louis in favor of his son was treated as null and void. Rome had been declared the second city of the empire after the confiscation of the Papal States. Amsterdam was promoted to the third rank. Seven new departments were formed from the territory of the Netherlands. Holland was to send six members to the Senate of the Empire, six deputies to the Council of State, twenty-five to the Corps Legislatif, two Councillors to the Court of Ca.s.sation. The emperor often vaunted the rare capacity of the Dutch whom he had thus drawn into his service. The first use which he now made of his supreme authority was to reduce the public debt from 80,000,000 to 20,000,000.

This act of bankruptcy introduced into the charges of the budget an economy which it was thought ought to satisfy all those who had not personally to suffer the consequences. "The Corps Legislatif will be another object of economy," wrote Napoleon, on the 23rd of July, to Lebrun, his arch-treasurer, whom he had charged to represent him in Holland; "the external relations will be an object of economy; the Council of State will be an object of economy; the civil list will be still another object of economy." The emperor had not reckoned on two sentiments, more powerful than all others in this little country, which had conquered its liberty at the price of so many sufferings. Its union to France cost Holland its national independence; the bankruptcy tainted its honor and its credit; whilst submitting to an imperious necessity, the Dutch nation never forgot it.

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

Quite close to Russia, in a country recently dismembered by the Emperor Alexander with the consent of Napoleon, there was preparing at this time an event which was soon to a.s.sure to the fifth European coalition one of its most useful supports. The King of Sweden, Gustavus IV., unstable, violent, and eccentric enough to warrant doubts as to the soundness of his reason, had been deposed on the 10th of May, 1809, by the a.s.sembled States, as the result of a military conspiracy. His uncle, the Duke of Sudermania, elevated to the throne under the t.i.tle of Charles XIII., had no children; the Diet designated as his successor the Duke of Augustenburg. This prince expired suddenly, in the midst of a review. The claimants were numerous, and the King of Sweden desired to know the wish of Napoleon. The latter secretly favored the King of Denmark, but the States were not well disposed in his favor: the emperor refused to give a decision. "A word from his Majesty would suffice to decide everything,"

said Desaugiers, the charge-d'affaires at Stockholm. Some proposed to choose a stranger, and Marshal Bernadotte was thought of. During our occupation of Pomerania he had known how to render himself agreeable to the population over whom he ruled, and to persons of consideration who had known how to appreciate the vivacity and capacity of his mind. He was a kinsman of the Bonapartes, and conspicuous amongst the lieutenants of Napoleon. An obscure member of the Diet repaired to Paris, and knitted the first threads of an intrigue, destined to succeed by the very fact of the ignorance and illusions of its authors. By placing Bernadotte upon the steps of the throne, the States of Sweden thought to a.s.sure themselves of the good-will of the Emperor Napoleon; his name was popular amongst the lower cla.s.ses. He was proclaimed Prince Royal of Sweden 17th August, 1810.

Napoleon had delayed too long to express his mind. A messenger arrived at Stockholm bearing despatches which emphatically disavowed the declarations of the partisans of Bernadotte. "I cannot think," said Napoleon, "that these individuals could have had the impudence to a.s.sert themselves to be charged with any mission whatever." The official announcement of the elevation of the Prince of Pontecorvo was already on its way to Paris. "I was little prepared for this news," replied Napoleon to the letter of King Charles XIII. He wished to wrest from Bernadotte a pledge never to bear arms against France. The marshal formally refused. For a long time in secret hostility to the emperor, he severely judged the errors of his ambition, and the consequences that would result for the peace of Europe.

"Go then," said Napoleon, "and let destiny be accomplished!" On the evening of the 18th Brumaire, Bernadotte wrote to General Bonaparte: "My idea of liberty differs from yours, and your plan kills it. Three weeks ago I retired; but if I receive orders from those who have still the right to give me them, I shall resist all illegal attempts against the established powers."

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

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

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

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

Sweden protested in vain. Denmark had been authorized to effect the sale of prohibited merchandise by means of the fifty per cent. tariff; the new Prince of Sweden begged a similar indulgence in favor of his adopted country. The emperor, dissatisfied, was angered. "Choose," said he, "between the cannon-b.a.l.l.s for the English or war with France." Bernadotte consented to commence hostilities against the English; he was without resources, and without defences. "We offer you our arms and our iron,"

wrote he to the emperor; "give us in return the means that nature has refused to us." Other allies were soon to accept the offers of the ill.u.s.trious marshal of the empire.

Meanwhile the months rolled past, and Napoleon did not quit Paris. He had just contracted new ties; he was occupied with the cares necessitated by the internal administration of the empire--with the legal creation of the extraordinary Domain, the fruit of conquests and confiscations, and which had already served to supply without control the divers needs of the emperor. The very appearance of authority was thus little by little escaping from the Corps Legislatif, the retiring deputies of which had their commissions arbitrarily prolonged. The representatives of the new departments had been directly chosen by the Senate. The censors.h.i.+p had been re-established, and its favorable decrees did not always suffice to save works and their authors. The "Germany" of Madame de Stael had received the authorization of the censors, when the edition was seized and placed in the pillory. Madame de Stael was compelled to quit France in twenty-four hours. The rigors of Savary with regard to the press surpa.s.sed the traditions left by Fouche; the greater number of the journals were subjected to permanent fines, under the form of pensions to literary men.

The erection of eight state prisons seemed to presage times still more harsh; however, the emperor demanded from the Council of State, in order to explain the motive for these erections, a couple of pages of clauses "containing liberal ideas." He had for a long time exercised towards France the power of words; he knew their influence and weight. More than once, in deeds of warfare his acts had gone beyond his promises; the day had come when he was about to promise more than he could perform. Liberal phrases no longer concealed from the nation the yoke which crushed it. The pompous declarations against the English leopard, hurled forth at the opening of the session of the Corps Legislatif, in December, 1809, did not hasten the end of the war in Spain. The emperor did not set out as he had solemnly announced. He called Marshal Ma.s.sena, scarcely recovered from his fatigue and his wounds during the war in Germany, and confided to him the task of vanquis.h.i.+ng the English in Portugal. Sir Arthur Wellesley continued to occupy his positions between Badajoz and Alcantara. Since the battle of Talavera and the combats which then accompanied his last movements of troops, the English general had not actively taken part in hostilities.

The war had not, however, ceased in Spain, and the insurgents had not diminished their efforts. General Kellermann had depicted in its true light the particular character of the struggle, when he wrote to Marshal Berthier: "The war in Spain is not at all an ordinary affair. Doubtless one has not to fear reverses and disastrous checks; but this stubborn nation wears away the army with its detailed resistance. Independently of the regular corps, which must be faced, it is also necessary to guard against the numerous swarms of brigands and strong organized bands, which infest the country, and which by their mobility, and above all by the favor of the inhabitants, escape from all pursuit, and come up behind you a quarter of an hour after your return. It is in vain that we beat down on one side the heads of the hydra; they reappear on the other, and without a revolution in the minds of men you will not succeed for a long time in subduing this vast peninsula. It will absorb the population and the treasures of France. They wish to gain time, and to weary us by persistency. We shall only obtain their submission by their exhaustion, and the annihilation of half the population. Such is the spirit which animates this nation, that one cannot even create in it a few partisans.

It is in vain to treat it with mode ration and justice; in a difficult moment, no governor or leader whatever would find ten men who would dare to arm for his defence. We must, then, have more men. The emperor perhaps grows weary of sending them, but it is necessary to make an end of the business, or to be contented with establis.h.i.+ng ourselves in one half of Spain in order afterwards to conquer the other. Meanwhile, resources diminish, the means perish, money is exhausted or disappears; one knows not where to direct one's energies to provide for the pay, for the maintenance of the troops, for the needs of the hospitals, for the infinite details necessary for an army in need of everything. Misery and privations increase sickness, and enfeeble the army continually; whilst, on the other side, the bands that swarm on all sides seize every day upon small parties or isolated men, who venture into the open country with extreme imprudence, notwithstanding the most positive, reiterated prohibitions."

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

Marshal Soult had become major-general of the army of Spain, since Marshal Jourdan had been recalled after the battle of Talavera; he was meditating a great campaign against Andalusia. Napoleon hesitated to consent to it; the English alone appeared to him to be formidable, and he had been wis.h.i.+ng to concentrate all his forces against them: Marshal Ma.s.sena was not, however, ready to enter on the campaign. King Joseph received the authorization to advance upon Andalusia; he ordered, at the same time, Marshals Ney and Suchet to lay siege to Ciudad Rodrigo and Valencia. Both attempted operations with insufficient forces, and were to fail in an enterprise which drew upon them the bitter reproaches of the emperor. The army of the King of Spain advanced towards Seville; the defiles of the Sierra Morena had been occupied without resistance by Marshal Victor. The intestine dissensions which divided the capital of Andalusia had deprived it of its means of defence; a great part of the population took to flight.

A few cannon, pointed from the ramparts, did not arrest for a moment the march of the French. Marshal Soult summoned the place to surrender, and the Junta of the province consented to capitulate. All the military chiefs recently a.s.sembled in Seville had succeeded in escaping. King Joseph made his entry on the 1st of February, 1810. Malaga and Granada were not long in surrendering.

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

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

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

At the same time, and in order to take away from King Joseph an authority which he knew not how to use, the armies in the country were divided into three corps. The army of the south was confided to Marshal Soult; the army of Portugal was waiting for the arrival of Marshal Ma.s.sena; the army of the centre--the least important of all--was alone left under the personal direction of King Joseph, who was appointed its general-in-chief. The emba.s.sies of King Joseph, the complaint of his wife, who was still in Paris, remained without result. In place of a central, powerless, and insufficient power, Napoleon was desirous of establis.h.i.+ng delegates of his supreme authority. He had sanctioned anarchy; the rights of the hierarchy had disappeared before the lieutenants of a chief arbitrary, but until now constantly attended by victory. Far from the presence of Napoleon, in a country given over for two years to the disorder of civil war, obedience had given place to mistrust, and regularity to disorder. Scarcely had Marshal Ma.s.sena joined the army of Portugal, of which he had accepted the command with regret, than he had immediately a perception of the difficulties which awaited it. The emperor had given orders to commence by the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo and of Almeida. Marshal Ney and General Junot, whose corps were placed under the command of Ma.s.sena, made such clamorous protests that the old marshal was obliged to display all his authority.

"They say that Ma.s.sena has grown old," cried he with just anger; "they will see that my will has lost nothing of its force." Already Sir Arthur Wellesley, become Lord Wellington, was preparing not far from Lisbon, between the Tagus and the sea, that invulnerable position which history has designated "the lines of Torres Vedras." It was thither that he counted on drawing the French army, slowly exhausting its forces before an enemy patiently una.s.sailable. The orders of Napoleon, and the deference of Ma.s.sena to these instructions, had spared us the danger of being attacked in the rear; when the French army advanced to encounter Lord Wellington, it had taken possession of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, but the two sieges had been long and painful, having cost the lives of many soldiers; important garrisons occupied the places. In accordance with a mental habit which grew upon him through default of contradiction, the Emperor Napoleon did not admit the enfeeblement of his forces, whilst depreciating beforehand those of his enemy. "My cousin," wrote he on the 10th of September, 1810, to Marshal Berthier, "let a French officer set out immediately as bearer of a letter for the Prince of Essling, in which you will make him understand that my intention is that he should attack and rout the English; that Lord Wellington has no more than 18,000 men, of which only 15,000 are infantry, and the remainder cavalry and artillery; that General Hill has no more than 6000 men, infantry and cavalry; that it would be ridiculous for 25,000 English to hold in suspense 60,000 Frenchmen; that, by not groping about, but by attacking them openly, after having reconnoitred them, they will be made to experience severe repulses.

The Prince of Essling has four times as many cavalry as he needs for defeating the enemy's army. I am too far off, and the position of the enemy changes too often, for me to be able to counsel you as to the manner of leading the attack, but it is certain that the enemy is not in a state to resist."

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

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

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