J. G. Lockhart

“ In almost every town of Spain, and almost simultaneously, the flame of patriotic resentment broke out in the terrible form of assassination. The French residents were slaughtered without mercy: the supposed partisans of Napoleon and Godoy (not a few men of worth being causelessly confounded in their fate) were sacrificed in the first tumult of popular rage. At Cadiz, Seville, Carthagena, above all in Valencia, the streets ran red with blood. The dark and vindictive temper of the Spaniards covered the land with scenes, on the details of which it is shocking to dwell. ”

“ Citizens of Paris! A hostile column has descended on Meaux. It advances; but the Emperor follows close behind, at the head of a victorious army. The Council of Regency has provided for the safety of the Empress and the King of Rome. I remain with you. Let us arm ourselves to defend this city, its monuments, its riches, our wives, our children—all that is dear to us. Let this vast capital become a camp for some moments; and let the enemy find his shame under the walls which he hopes to overleap in triumph. The Emperor marches to our succour. ”

“ Such was, or had recently been, the state of affairs when Buonaparte landed at Frejus, and sent before him to Paris, to the inexpressible delight of a nation of late accustomed to hear of nothing but military disasters, the intelligence of that splendid victory which had just destroyed the great Turkish armament at Aboukir. He arrived at a moment when all men, of all parties, were satisfied that a new revolution was at hand; and when the leaders of all the contending factions were equally desirous of invoking arms to their support in the inevitable struggle. ”

“ On the evening of the 19th of May fortune favoured him. A violent gale drove the English off the coast, and disabled some ships so much that Nelson was obliged to go into the harbours of Sardinia to have them repaired. The French general instantly commanded the embarkation of all his troops; and as the last of them got on board, the sun rose on the mighty armament: it was one of those dazzling suns which the soldiery delighted afterwards to call "the suns of Napoleon."
Seldom have the shores of the Mediterranean witnessed a nobler spectacle. ”

“ The slain of the one army were not more numerous than those of the other; and the allies, convinced of their mistake, but neither broken nor discouraged, fell back leisurely on Leipsig, thence on Dresden, and finally across the Elbe to Bautzen, without leaving either prisoners or guns in the hands of the French. The victory of Lutzen was blazoned abroad, as having restored all its glory to the eagle of Napoleon; but he clearly perceived that the days were no more in which a single battle determined the fate of a campaign, and an empire. It was at Lutzen that Marshal Bessieres died. ”

“ Thus, in less than a month, did Napoleon lay the gates of Italy open before him. He had defeated in three battles forces much superior to his own; inflicted on them in killed, wounded and prisoners, a loss of 25,000 men; taken eighty guns and twenty-one standards; reduced the Austrians to inaction; utterly destroyed the Sardinian king's army; and lastly, wrested from his hands Coni and Tortona, the two great fortresses called "the keys of the Alps,"—and indeed, except Turin itself, every place of any consequence in his dominions. ”

“ Such is the price at which ambition does not hesitate to purchase even the chance of what the world has not yet ceased to call glory!
The haughty and imperious spirit of Napoleon sank not under all these miseries. He affected, in so far as was possible, not to see them. He still issued his orders as if his army, in all its divisions, were entire, and sent bulletins to Paris announcing a succession of victories. When his officers came to inform him of some new calamity, he dismissed them abruptly, saying, "Why will you disturb my tranquillity? I desire to know no particulars. ”

“ The Imperialists, as if determined to profit by no lesson, once more descended from the Tyrol upon two different lines of march; Alvinzi himself choosing that of the Upper Adige; while Provera headed a second army, with orders to follow the Brenta, and then, striking across to the Lower Adige, join the marshal before the walls of Mantua. Could they have combined their forces there, and delivered Wurmser, there was hardly a doubt that the French must retreat before so vast an army as would then have faced them. But Napoleon was destined once more to dissipate all these victorious dreams. ”

“ As these warlike columns passed through Paris, Napoleon addressed to them one of those orations which never failed to swell the resolution and pride of his soldiery on the eve of some great enterprise. "Comrades," said he, "after triumphing on the banks of the Danube and the Vistula, with rapid steps you have passed through Germany. This day, without a moment of repose, I command you to traverse France. Soldiers, I have need of you. The hideous presence of the leopard contaminates the peninsula of Spain and Portugal. In terror he must fly before you. ”

“ Buonaparte was already in the Tuileries, with many troops around him; and the Directorial Guard, being summoned by one of his aides-de-camp, instantly marched thither also, leaving the Luxembourg at his mercy. Barras sent his secretary to expostulate. Napoleon received him with haughtiness. "What have you done," cried he, "for that fair France which I left you so prosperous? For peace I find war; for the wealth of Italy, taxation and misery. Where are the 100,000 brave French whom I knew—where are the companions of my glory?—They are dead." ”

“ On the 19th the capital had been greeted with the news of three great victories, at Charleroi, at Ligny, and at Quatre-Bras—100 cannon fired in honour of the Emperor's successes—his partisans proclaimed that the glory of France was secured—and dejection filled the hearts of the royalists. On the morning of the 21st it transpired that Napoleon had arrived the night before, alone, at the Elysée. The secret could no longer be kept. A great, a decisive field had been fought;—and the French army was no more. ”

“ The retreat of the French through Saxony was accompanied with every disaster which a hostile peasantry, narrowness of supplies, and the persevering pursuit of the Cossacks and other light troops could inflict on a disordered and disheartened mass of men. The soldiers moved on, while under the eye of Napoleon, in gloomy silence: wherever he was not present, they set every rule of discipline at nought, and were guilty of the most frightful excesses. The Emperor conducted himself as became a great mind amidst great misfortunes. ”

“ Music and dance, and festival upon festival, seemed to occupy every hour. The beautiful lakes of Lombardy were covered with gay flotillas; and the voluptuous retreats around their shores received in succession new life and splendour from the presence of Napoleon, Josephine, and the brilliant circle amidst whom they were rehearsing the imperial parts that destiny had in reserve for them. Montebello was the centre from which Buonaparte, during the greater part of this autumn, negotiated with the emperor, controlled all Italy, and overawed the Luxembourg. ”

“ The Spanish insurrection, backed by the victories of Lord Wellington, must have roused alike the hope and the pride of a young and ambitious prince, placed at the head of so great a nation; the inference naturally drawn from Napoleon's marriage into the house of Austria was, that the whole power of that monarchy would, henceforth, act in unison with his views—in other words, that were the Peninsula once thoroughly subdued, the whole of Western Europe would be at his command, for any service he might please to dictate. ”

“ The attention of mankind was never more entirely fixed on one spot than it was, during these fourteen days, upon Dantzick. On the 22nd, Buonaparte broke silence in a bulletin. "Soldiers," said he, "Russia is dragged on by her fate: her destiny must be accomplished. Let us march! let us cross the Niemen: let us carry war into her territories. Our second campaign of Poland will be as glorious as our first: but our second peace shall carry with it its own guarantee: it shall put an end for ever to that haughty influence which Russia has exercised for fifty years on the affairs of Europe." ”

“ The only child of his parents, the young husband and father, were forced, like any others, to abandon fireside, profession, all the ties and all the hopes of life, on a moment's notice: and there is nothing in the history of modern Europe so remarkable, as that the French people should have submitted, during sixteen years, to the constant operation of a despotic law, which thus sapped all the foundations of social happiness, and condemned the rising hopes of the nation to bleed and die by millions in distant wars, undertaken solely for the gratification of one man's insatiable ambition. ”

“ The allied generals, moreover, proclaimed everywhere as they advanced, that they came as the friends not the enemies of the French nation, and that any of the peasantry who took up arms to oppose them must be content to abide the treatment of brigands. This assuredly was a flagrant outrage against the most sacred and inalienable rights of mankind: but Napoleon had set the fatal example himself in Lombardy, and followed it without a blush, in Egypt, in Germany, in Spain, in Portugal, and but yesterday in Russia. ”

“ In ten years I could not hope to have a fleet able to dispute the seas with you: but, on the other hand, the army of France could be recruited in a few weeks to 480,000 men. United, we might govern the world:—Why can we not understand each other?" Lord Whitworth could not but observe the meaning of these hints, and answered, as became him, that the King of England had no wish but to preserve his own rights, and scorned the thought of becoming a partner with France in a general scheme of spoliation and oppression. ”

“ These sentiments underwent no change in consequence of the apparently triumphant course of Napoleon's adventure. All Europe prepared once more for war. It was evident that the usurper owed everything to the French soldiery—that body to which the treaty of Paris had at once restored 150,000 veterans, idle, and indisposed for ordinary labour—and that until this ferocious military were effectually humbled there could be no peace for the world. ”

“ The Abbé expressed his own satisfaction that the Emperor had escaped from so many dangers. "Dangers," cried Napoleon, "there were none—I have beat the Russians in every battle—I live but in dangers—it is for kings of Cockaigne to sit at home at ease. My army is in a superb condition still—it will be recruited at leisure at Wilna, and I go to bring up 300,000 men more from France. I quit my army with regret, but I must watch Austria and Prussia, and I have more weight on my throne than at headquarters. ”

“ Three cannon shot, as before, marked the general termination of the battle.
The loss on either side had been great. Napoleon's army consisted chiefly of very young men—many were merely boys—the produce of his forestalled conscriptions: yet they fought as bravely as the guard. The behaviour of the Germans, on the other hand, at length considering their freedom and independence as hanging on the fortune of a single field, had been answerable to the deep enthusiasm of that thoughtful people. ”

“ It was after one of these affairs that an old Hungarian officer was brought prisoner to Buonaparte, who entered into conversation with him, and among other matters questioned him "what he thought of the state of the war?" "Nothing," replied the old gentleman, who did not know he was addressing the general-in-chief,—"nothing can be worse. Here is a young man who knows absolutely nothing of the rules of war; to-day he is in our rear, to-morrow on our flank, next day again in our front. Such violations of the principles of the art of war are intolerable!" ”

“ Moreover, neither Talleyrand nor any other individual in the world, except Buonaparte, could have had the slightest motive for desiring the death of D'Enghien. On the contrary, every motive that has weight with mankind in general, must have swayed the other way with Talleyrand; a member of one of the noblest families in France; a man unstained by participation in any of the butcheries of the revolution; and, above all, a man whose consummate skill has through life steadily pursued one object, namely, his own personal interest, and who must have been mad to perpetrate a gratuitous murder. ”

“ He told them that it was unworthy of a great Republic to triumph, year after year, in the shedding of an individual enemy's blood. They answered by reminding him that the Athenians and Romans of old recorded, in similar festivals, the downfall of the Pisistratidæ and the exile of the Tarquins. He might have replied, that it is easier for a nation to renounce Christianity in name, than to obliterate altogether the traces of its humanising influence. But this view did not as yet occur to Napoleon—or if it had, could not have been promulgated to their conviction. ”

“ Napoleon said at St. Helena, that during the charge of the Cossacks at Brienne, he recognised a particular tree, under which, when a boy, he used to sit and read the Jerusalem Delivered of Tasso. The field had been, in those days, part of the exercise ground of the students, and the chateau, whence Blucher escaped so narrowly, their lodging. How strange must have been the feelings of the man who, having but yesterday planted his eagles on the Kremlin, now opened his fifteenth campaign amidst the scenes of his own earliest recollections—of the days in which he had never dreamt of empire! ”

“ Witzingerode replied, that "he commanded not the Cossacks, but a part of the regular army; and that, in the character of a Russian soldier, he was at all times prepared for a French bullet." Napoleon, now ascertaining the name, country, and rank of his prisoner, pursued in these angry ejaculations: "Who are you? A man without a country—You have ever been my enemy—You were in the Austrian's ranks at Austerlitz—I now find you in the Russian! Nevertheless, you are a native of the Confederation of the Rhine—therefore my subject—and a rebel.—Seize him, gens-d'armes! ”