Walter Scott

“ I have not a single ship of the line in any port in France: But if you arm, I too will take up arms—if you fight, I will fight—you may destroy France, but you cannot intimidate her."
"We desire neither the one nor the other," answered Lord Whitworth, calmly: "We desire to live with her on terms of good intelligence."
"You must respect treaties, then," said Buonaparte, sternly. "Woe to those by whom they are not respected! They will be accountable for the consequences to all Europe." ”

“ In this point of view, the Code of France may be compared to a warehouse built with much attention to architectural uniformity, showy in the exterior, and pleasing from the simplicity of its plan, but too small to hold the quantity of goods necessary to supply the public demand; while the Common Law of England resembles the vaults of some huge Gothic building—dark, indeed, and ill-arranged, but containing an immense store of commodities, which those acquainted with its recesses seldom fail to be able to produce to such as have occasion for them. ”

“ In a fortnight we have finished a campaign: we have expelled the troops of the house of Austria from Bavaria, and re-established our ally in the sovereignty of his estates. That army which, with equal ostentation and imprudence, had posted itself on our frontiers, is annihilated. Soldiers! you owe this success to your unbounded confidence in your Emperor; to your patience in supporting fatigues and privations of every description; and to your singular intrepidity. But we will not stop here. You are impatient to commence a second campaign. ”

“ My descendants shall long preserve this throne; in the camps, they will be the first soldiers of the army, sacrificing their lives in the defence of their country. As magistrates, they will never forget that the contempt of the laws, and the confusion of social order, are only the result of the imbecility and unsteadiness of princes. You, senators, whose councils and support have never failed me in the most difficult circumstances; your spirit will be handed down to your successors. Be ever the props and first counsellors of that throne, so necessary to the welfare of this vast empire. ”

“ There is nothing more praiseworthy in the British, or rather in the English character—for it is they who in this respect give tone to the general feelings of the other two British nations—than the noble candour with which, laying aside all petty and factious considerations, they have at all times united in the same spring-tide of sentiment, when the object in question was in itself heart-stirring and generous. ”

“ It is enough here to say, that scarcely supported by the Austrians, who had too much to do at home, the Tyrolese made, against every odds, the most magnanimous and obstinate defence. It was in vain that a French army, led by Lefebvre, marched into the country, and occupied Inspruck, the capital. The French were a second time compelled by these valiant mountaineers to retreat with immense loss; and if Austria could have maintained her own share of the contest, her faithful provinces of Tyrol and the Vorarlberg must on their side have come off victors. ”

“ We will not again make peace without a sufficient guarantee. Our policy shall no more give way to our generosity. Soldiers, your Emperor is in the midst of you. You are only the advanced guard of a great people. If it should be necessary, they will all rise at my voice to confound and dissolve this new league which has been formed by the hatred and the gold of England. ”

“ Still, whatever might be the personal opinions of the King of Prussia, the counsels of Haugwitz continued to influence his Cabinet; and the Emperor withdrew from Berlin, to place himself at the head of his troops, while the Prussian monarch, assembling an army of observation, assumed the menacing air of a neutral who feels himself able to turn the scale in favour of either of the belligerent powers at his pleasure. This was not the moment for Buonaparte to take offence at these demonstrations, as the doing so might convert a doubtful friend into an avowed and determined enemy. ”

“ Indeed, the Prussians showed in the event, by every species of sacrifice, how fully they had become aware, that the blessing of freedom from foreign control is not to be secured by the efforts of a regular army only, but must be attained and rendered permanent by the general resolution of the nation, from highest to lowest, to dedicate their united exertions to the achievement of the public liberty at every risk, and by every act of self-devotion. ”

“ No man knew better than the Prince of Beneventum, that power is, in enlightened nations, dependent on public opinion, and that the blood of an innocent and high-spirited enemy might indeed stain his master's throne, but could not cement its basis.—Again, if we regard the spirit displayed by the Duke d'Enghien upon his mock trial, when he declared he would not recall his avowed enmity to the French, in conformity to the hints thrown out by the court-martial, how is it possible that the same individual can be supposed capable of having, two days before, crouched to Buonaparte for his life ”

“ The Duke of Brunswick was one of the oldest soldiers in Europe, and his unquestioned bravery ought to have recommended him to his junior in arms. He was a reigning prince, and Buonaparte's own aspirations towards confirmation of aristocratical rank should have led him to treat the vanquished with decency. Above all, the duke was defenceless, wounded, dying; a situation to command the sympathy of every military man, who knows on what casual circumstances the fate of battle depends. The answer of Napoleon was, nevertheless, harsh and insulting in the last degree. ”

“ We have already had occasion to observe the immense public works which were undertaken at the expense of Buonaparte's government. Temples, bridges, and aqueducts, are, indeed, the coin with which arbitrary princes, in all ages, have endeavoured to compensate for the liberty of which the people are deprived. Such monuments are popular with the citizens, because the enjoyment of them is common to all, and the monarch is partial to a style of expenditure promising more plausibly than any other, to extend the memory of his present greatness far into the bosom of futurity. ”

“ To conclude, the Spaniards, easily awakened to anger by national aggression, and peculiarly sensible to such on the part of a rival nation, were yet more irresistibly excited to resistance and to revenge, by the insidious and fraudulent manner in which they had seen their country stript of her defenders, deprived of her frontier fortresses, her capital seized, and her royal family kidnapped, by an ally who had not alleged even a shadow of pretext for such enormous violence. ”

“ Napoleon, however, had no cause to regret any circumstance which referred to his military power. It was already far too great, and had destroyed the proper scale of government in France, by giving the military a decided superiority over all men of civil professions, while he himself, with the habits and reasoning of a despotic general, had assumed an almost unlimited authority over the fairest part of Europe. Over foreign countries, the military renown of France streamed like a comet, inspiring universal dread and distrust ”

“ The excellent and patriotic character of Frederick William, on whose rectitude and honour even the misconduct of his ministers had not brought any stain; the distress of his interesting, high-spirited, and beautiful consort; the general sufferings of a brave and proud people, accustomed to assume and deserve the name of Protectors of the Protestant Faith and of the Liberties of Germany, and whose energies, corresponding with the talents of their leader, had enabled them in former times to withstand the combined force of France, Austria, and Russia—excited deep and general sympathy. ”

“ The ruling, almost the sole principle on which the government of Buonaparte rested, was the simple proposition upon which despotism of every kind has founded itself in every species of society; namely, that the individual who is to exercise the authority and power of the state, shall, on the one hand, dedicate himself and his talents exclusively to the public service of the empire, while, on the other, the nation subjected to his rule shall requite this self-devotion on his part by the most implicit obedience to his will. ”

“ A general of an ordinary character might not unreasonably have been so far disgusted with the conduct of those whom he had come to assist, as to feel diminished zeal in a cause which seemed to be indifferent to its natural defenders. But Sir Arthur Wellesley, distinguished as much by his knowledge of mankind as his military talents, knew how to make allowance for the caprice of an individual called suddenly to a command, for which perhaps his former life had not fitted him, and for the ebb and flow of national spirit in the ranks of an insurgent population. ”

“ Buonaparte had indeed availed himself to the utmost of that art of seducing and acting upon the imagination of the French people, in which he accused the Directory of being deficient. He had strung the popular feeling in such a manner, that it was sure to respond to almost every note which he chose to strike upon it. The love of national glory, in itself a praiseworthy attribute, becomes a vice when it rests on success accomplished by means inconsistent with honour and integrity. ”

“ But if there are any to whom such an excuse may appear valid, what can be, or must be, their sentiments of the French Revolution, which, instead of leading to national liberty, equality, and general happiness, brought the country into such a condition, that a victorious soldier was obliged, contrary to the conviction of his own conscience, to assume the despotic power, and subject the whole empire to the same arbitrary rules which directed the followers of his camp? ”

“ It had the effect, evidently desired by Napoleon, of disposing the Emperor Alexander to peace. The former could not but feel that he was engaged with a more obstinate enemy in Russia, than any he had yet encountered. After so many bloody battles, he was scarce arrived on the frontiers of an immense empire, boundless in its extent, and almost inexhaustible in resources; while the French, after suffering extremely in defeating an army that was merely auxiliary, could scarce be supposed capable of undertaking a scheme of invasion so gigantic, as that of plunging into the vast regions of Muscovy. ”

“ Under this consciousness of inferiority, the escape of a Spanish or French squadron, when a gale of wind forced, from the port in which they lay, the British blockading vessels, was a matter, the ultimate success of which depended not alone on the winds and waves, but still more upon the chance of their escaping any part of the hostile navy, with whom battle, except with the most exorbitant superiority on their side, was certain and unavoidable defeat. ”

“ No doubt it may be said, so completely was the country identified with its ruler, that as France had nothing but what belonged to its Emperor, he was in fact improving his own estate when he advanced her public works, and could no more be said to lose sight of his own interest, than a private gentleman does, who neglects his garden to ornament his park. But it is not fair to press the motives of human nature to their last retreat, in which something like a taint of self-interest may so often be discovered. ”

“ Portugal was under a singularly weak government. Her army was ruined; the soul and spirit of her nobility was lost; her sole hope for continuing in existence, under the name of an independent kingdom, rested in her power of purchasing the clemency of France, and some belief that Spain would not permit her own territories to be violated for the sake of annihilating an unoffending neighbour and ally. ”

“ Times of revolution do not create great men, but revolutions usually take place in periods of society when great principles have been under discussion, and the views of the young and of the old have been turned, by the complexion of the times, towards matters of grand and serious consideration, which elevate the character and raise the ambition. When the collision of mutual violence, the explosion of the revolution itself actually breaks out, it neither does nor can create talent of any kind. ”

“ Great as he was as a statesman, ardent in patriotism, and comprehensive in his political views, it had been too much the habit of that great minister, to trust, for some re-establishment of the balance of power on the continent, to the exertions of the ancient European governments, whose efforts had gradually become fainter and fainter, and their spirits more and more depressed, when opposed to the power of Buonaparte, whose blows, like the thunderbolt, seemed to inflict inevitable ruin wherever they burst. ”

“ If a citizen had the means of operating the safety, or restoring the liberty of his country, it could not be termed a becoming recompense to surrender to him that very liberty, the re-establishment of which had been his own work. Or what glory, he asked, could accrue to the selfish individual who should claim the surrender of his country's independence in requital of his services, and desire to convert the state which his talents had preserved into his own private patrimony! ”

“ I read on Napoleon's countenance the surprise which the event created, and little imagined that there were men so base as to charge him with so detestable and uncalled-for a murder; for the meeting between Pichegru and Moreau had been fully established."—Joseph Buonaparte.—"What advantage could accrue to me from Pichegru's assassination?—a man who was evidently guilty, against whom every proof was ready, and whose condemnation was certain. ”

“ He cannot, without a compromise of dignity, chaffer or capitulate, or even argue, and of course is incapable of wielding any of the usual, and almost indispensable weapons of negotiators. If it was Napoleon's expectation, by one stunning and emphatic declaration of his pleasure, to beat down all arguments, and confound all opposition, he would have done wisely to remember, that he was not now, as in other cases, a general upon a victorious field of battle, dictating terms to a defeated enemy ”

“ I have, I hope, sufficiently proved to the world, that I fear none of the chances of war; it, besides, presents nothing that I need to fear: peace is the wish of my heart, but war has never been inconsistent with my glory. I conjure your majesty not to deny yourself the happiness of giving peace to the world, nor to leave that sweet satisfaction to your children; for certainly there never was a more fortunate opportunity, nor a moment more favourable, to silence all the passions, and listen only to the sentiments of humanity and reason. ”

“ The strangest struggle ever witnessed in the civilized world began now to be maintained, betwixt Britain and those countries who felt the importation of British goods as a subject not only of convenience, but of vital importance, on the one hand, and France on the other; whose ruler was determined that on no account should Britain either maintain intercourse with the continent, or derive the inherent advantages of a free trade. The decrees of Berlin were reinforced by others of the French Emperor, yet more peremptory and more vexatious. ”