Military Career of Napoleon the Great Part 17

"I hastened the preparations for the completion of the treaty, and it was signed. When the Queen learned that Magdeburg had not been given to Prussia she was very angry. She went to the Czar Alexander, and said, with tears in her eyes: 'That man has broken his word with me.' 'Oh, no!' the Czar answered. 'I can hardly think that. I believe I have been present on every occasion when you have met Napoleon, and I have listened more carefully than you have thought. But, if you can prove to me that he made any promise that he has not kept, I pledge you my word as a man I will see that he keeps it.'

"'Oh, but he gave me to understand--'

"'That is precisely the point,' responded the Czar. 'He has promised nothing.' The Queen turned quickly and left the apartment. She was too proud to acknowledge that in her effort to outwit me she had been outwitted."

At a subsequent meeting with Napoleon the Queen said, "Is it possible, that, after having the honor of being so near the hero of the century and of history, he will not leave me the power and satisfaction of being enabled to a.s.sure him he has attached me to him for life?"

"Madam" replied the Emperor, in a serious tone, "I am to be pitied; it is the result of my unhappy stars." He then took leave of the Queen, who, on reaching her carriage, threw herself on the seat in tears.

[Ill.u.s.tration: From a Painting by Baron Gros

MEETING BETWEEN NAPOLEON AND FRANCIS II. OF AUSTRIA]

Alexander was charmed by the presence of Napoleon. They spent some days at Tilsit together, and never did he leave the French Emperor without expressing his unbounded admiration of him. "What a great man," he said incessantly to those who approached him; "What a genius! What extensive views! What a captain! What a statesman! Had I but known him sooner how many faults he might have spared me! What great things we might have accomplished together!"

In July Napoleon hastened back to Paris, arriving there on the 27th. He was received by the Senate and other public bodies as well as by the people with demonstrations similar to those which had been shown him on his return from the victory at Austerlitz. Fetes and celebrations in honor of his achievements dazzled the world. He had now wrung from the last of his reluctant enemies, except England, the recognition of his imperial power, which already embraced a wider territory and a far greater number of subjects than Charlemagne ruled over, as Emperor of the West, a thousand years before. The power of Napoleon, the prosperity of France, and the splendor of Paris may be said to have been at their greatest height at this period. The regulation of the whole Empire lay in the hand of Napoleon himself, and as the glory of France had always been, and continued to be his grand object, every faculty of his intellect was bent to its promotion.

"I am inclined to think that I was happiest at Tilsit," said Napoleon one day to Gourgaud at St. Helena on being asked at what time he was happiest. "I had experienced vicissitudes, cares, and reverses," he continued, "Eylau had reminded me that fortune might abandon me, and I found myself victorious, dictating peace, with emperors and kings to form my court. After all that is not a real enjoyment. Perhaps I was really more happy after my Italian victories hearing the people raise their voices, only to bless their liberator, and all that at twenty-five years of age! From that time I saw what I might become, I already saw the world flying beneath me, as if I had been carried through the air."

Napier, the eminent historian, and himself an actor in many of the scenes he describes, says: "Up to the peace of Tilsit, the wars of France were essentially defensive; for the b.l.o.o.d.y contest that wasted the Continent so many years was not a struggle for pre-eminence between ambitious powers--not a dispute for some acquisition of territory--nor for the political ascendancy of one or another nation--but a deadly conflict to determine whether aristocracy or democracy should predominate--whether aristocracy or privilege should henceforth be the principle of European governments."

On the 15th of August the Emperor repaired in great pomp to Notre Dame, where the Te Deum was sung and thanksgiving offered up for the peace of Tilsit--a peace that gave much glory to France, but which as has generally been conceded, was "poor politics"; but, as Thiers has well said: "In war Napoleon was guided by his genius, in politics by his pa.s.sions."

IX

WAR WITH SPAIN

At the signing of the treaty of Tilsit Napoleon had attained an eminence which, had his career ended at that time, would have left him a name revered by all the world--except, perhaps, it be by those enemies whom he had defeated on the field of battle. His star of destiny, however, was soon to be dimmed by acts which he ever afterwards regretted, and which, as he himself more than once declared, were the means to the end which finally caused his decline and fall.

Napoleon now turned his attention to Spain, where scenes shocking to morality were being enacted under the protection of Charles IV., the old and imbecile Bourbon king, in order, as he then believed, to insure the success of his "continental system." Ferdinand, the crown prince, had formed a party against his father and was attempting to dethrone him, while murderous courtiers filled the halls of the royal palace of Madrid, and dictated laws to the crumbling monarchy.

The vast extent to which the prohibited articles and colonial manufactures of England found their way into the Spanish peninsula, and especially into Portugal, and thence through the hands of whole legions of audacious smugglers into France itself, had fixed the attention of Napoleon, who was exasperated at the violation of his "Berlin decrees"

against the continental traffic with England. In truth, a proclamation issued at Madrid shortly before the battle of Jena, and suddenly recalled on the intelligence of that great victory, had prepared the Emperor to regard with keen suspicion the conduct of the Spanish court, and to trace every violation of his system to its deliberate and hostile connivance. Napoleon knew that the Spanish cabinet, like that of Austria, was ready to declare itself the ally of Russia, Prussia and England, when the battle of Jena came to deceive the hopes of the coalition. The last hour of the ancient regime was at hand beyond the Pyrenees; Napoleon felt himself called upon to give the signal to sound the fearful knell of its interment.

A treaty was ratified at Fontainebleau on the 29th of October 1807 between France and Spain, providing for the immediate invasion of Portugal by a force of 28,000 French soldiers, under the orders of Junot, and of 27,000 Spaniards; while a reserve of 40,000 French troops were to be a.s.sembled at Bayonne ready to take the field by the end of November, in case England should lend an army for the defense of Portugal, or the people of that country meet Junot by a national insurrection. Junot forthwith commenced his march through Spain, where the French soldiery were everywhere received with coldness and suspicion, but nowhere by any hostile movement of the people. He arrived in Portugal, on a peremptory order from Napoleon, late in November. The contingent of Spaniards arrived there also, and placed themselves under Junot's command.

On November 29th, and but a few hours before Junot made his appearance at the gates of Lisbon, the prince-regent fled precipitately and sailed for the Brazils. The disgust of the Portugese at this cowardly act was eminently useful to the invaders, and with the exception of one trivial insurrection, when the conqueror took down the Portugese arms and set up those of Napoleon in their place, several months pa.s.sed in apparent tranquility. "The House of the Braganza (Bourbon's), had ceased to reign," as announced in the "Moniteur" at Paris.

Napoleon thus saw Portugal in his grasp; but he had all along considered it as a place of minor importance, and availing himself of the treaty of Fontainebleau,--although there had been no insurrection of the Portugese, he ordered his army of 40,000 men, named in the treaty, to proceed slowly but steadily into the heart of Spain and, without opposition. The royal family quietly acquiesced in this movement for some months, being apparently much more interested in its own petty conspiracies and domestic broils. A sudden panic at length seized the king and his minister, who prepared for flight. On the 18th of March, 1808, the house of G.o.doy, the court favorite, was sacked by the populace, G.o.doy himself a.s.saulted, and his life saved with extreme difficulty by the royal guards, who placed him under arrest. At this Charles IV. abdicated his throne in terror, and on the 20th of March Ferdinand his son was proclaimed king at Madrid amid a tumult of popular applause.

Murat had, ere this, a.s.sumed command of all the French troops in Spain, and hearing of the extremities to which the court factions had gone, he now moved rapidly on Madrid, surrounded the capital with 30,000 troops and on the 23rd of March took possession of it in person at the head of 10,000 more. Charles IV., meanwhile, dispatched messengers both to Napoleon and to Murat a.s.serting that his abdication had been involuntary, and invoking their a.s.sistance against his son.

Ferdinand entered Madrid on the 24th, found the French general in command of the capital, and in vain claimed his recognition as king.

Napoleon heard with regret of the action of Murat, who had risked arousing the pride and anger of the Spaniards. He therefore sent Savary, in whose practiced skill he hoped to find a remedy for the military rashness of Murat, and who was to a.s.sume the chief direction of affairs at Madrid.

Ferdinand was at length persuaded by Savary that his best chance of securing the aid and protection of Napoleon lay in meeting him on his way to the Spanish capital and strive to gain his ear before the emissaries of G.o.doy should be able to make an impression concerning Charles' rights. Ferdinand, therefore, took his departure, and pa.s.sing the frontier, arrived at Bayonne on the 20th of April where he was received by Napoleon with courtesy. In the evening he was informed by Savary, who had accompanied him, that his doom was sealed,--"that the Bourbon dynasty had ceased to reign in Spain," and that his personal safety must depend on the readiness with which he should resign all his pretensions into the hands of Napoleon.

Murat was now directed to employ means to have the old king and queen repair also to Bayonne, which they did, arriving there on May 4th.

Following a bitter family quarrel, Charles IV. resigned the crown of Spain for himself and his heirs, accepting in return from the hands of Napoleon a safe retreat in Italy and a splendid mansion. At the first interview Charles IV. and his son were irrevocably judged. "When I beheld them at my feet," Napoleon said later, "and could judge of all their incapacity, I took pity on the fate of a great nation; I seized the only opportunity which fortune presented me with, for regenerating Spain, separating her from England and closely uniting her with our system." A few days afterward Ferdinand VII. followed the example of his father and executed a similar act of resignation.

A suspicion that France meditated the destruction of the national independence in Spain now began to spread, and on the 2nd of May when Don Antonio, president of the Council of Regency at Madrid, and uncle of Ferdinand, began preparations for departing from the capital, the inhabitants became much enraged. A crowd collected around the carriage intended, as they concluded, to convey the last of the royal family out of Spain; the traces were cut and imprecations heaped upon the French.

Colonel La Grange, Murat's aide-de-camp, happening to appear on the spot, was cruelly maltreated, and in a moment the whole capital was in an uproar. The French soldiery were a.s.saulted everywhere, about seven hundred being slain. The French cavalry, hearing the tumult, entered the city and a b.l.o.o.d.y ma.s.sacre ensued. Many hundreds were made prisoners.

The troops then charged through the streets from end to end, released their comrades, and ere nightfall had apparently restored tranquility.

Murat ordered all the prisoners to be tried by a military commission, which doomed them to instant death.

The reports of the insurrection spread rapidly throughout the peninsula, and in almost every town in Spain depredations were committed against the French citizens, many of the acts being fomented by agents of England, whose navies hung along the coast inflaming the pa.s.sions of the mult.i.tude.

Napoleon received this intelligence with alarm, but he had already gone too far to retreat. He proceeded, therefore, to act precisely as if no insurrection had occurred. Tranquility being re-established in Madrid the Council of Castile was convoked and Napoleon's brother Joseph was chosen by an imperial decree as their ruler. Ninety-five notables met him in Bayonne and swore fealty to him and a new const.i.tution. Joseph on entering Spain was met by many demonstrations of disapproval and hatred, but the main road being occupied with Napoleon's troops, he reached Madrid in safety.

England now became anxious to afford the Spaniards every a.s.sistance possible. On the 4th of July the king addressed the English parliament on the subject, declaring that Spain could no longer be considered the enemy of Great Britain, but was recognized by him as a natural friend and ally. Supplies of arms and money were liberally transmitted thither, and Portugal, catching the flame, and bursting into general insurrection, a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive was soon concluded between England and the two kingdoms of the peninsula.

It was impossible for Napoleon to concentrate the whole of his gigantic strength of 500,000 men on the soil of Spain, as his relations with those powers on the Continent whom he had not entirely subdued, were of the most unstable character. His troops, moreover, being drawn from a mult.i.tude of different countries and tongues, could not be united in heart or discipline like the soldiers of a purely national army. On the other hand the military genius at his command had never been surpa.s.sed in any age or country. His officers were accustomed to victory, and his own reputation exerted a magical influence over both friends and foes.

At the moment when the insurrection occurred, 20,000 Spanish troops were in Portugal under the orders of Junot; 15,000 more under the Marquis de Roma were serving Napoleon in Holstein. There remained 40,000 Spanish regulars, 11,000 Swiss and 30,000 militia to combat 80,000 French soldiers then in possession of half of the chief fortresses of the country.

After various petty skirmishes, in which the French were uniformly successful, Bessieres came upon the united armies of Castile, Leon and Galicia, commanded by Generals Cuesta and Blak on the 14th of July at Riosecco, and defeated them in a desperate action in which not less than 20,000 Spaniards were killed. This calamitous battle opened the gates of Madrid to the new king, who arrived at the capital on the 20th of the month only to quit it again in less than a fortnight to take up his head quarters at Vittoria to preserve his safety. The English government, meanwhile, had begun its preparations for interfering effectually in the affairs of the peninsula. Thousands of English troops were landed, Dupont, Lefebvre and Junot meeting with reverses that resulted finally in the evacuation of the whole French army from Portugal.

The battle of Baylen was one of the first and most fatal reverses of the French. Here, after a desperate engagement on the 23rd of July, upwards of 18,000 men, under General Dupont, surrendered to the Spaniards, defiled before the Spanish army with the honors of war, and deposited their arms in the manner agreed on by both parties. General Dupont and all the officers concerned in the capitulation, who were permitted to return to France, were arrested and held in prison. Napoleon deeply appreciated the importance of the reverse which his armies had sustained, but he still more bitterly felt the disgrace. It is said that to the latest period of his life he manifested uncontrollable emotion at the mention of this disaster. Subsequently an imperial decree appeared, which prohibited every general, or commander of a body of men, to treat for any capitulation while in the open field; and declared disgraceful and criminal, and as such, punishable with death, every capitulation of that kind, of which the result should be to make the troops lay down their arms.

The catastrophe at Baylen and the valiant defense of Saragossa had in some measure opened the eyes of Napoleon to the character of the nation with whom he was contending. He acknowledged, too late, that he had imprudently entered into war, and committed a great fault in having commenced it with forces too few in number and too wildly scattered. On hearing of the ill-luck of his three generals, he at once perceived that affairs in the peninsula demanded a keener eye and a firmer hand than his brother's, and he at once resolved to take the field himself, to cross the Pyrenees in person at the head of a force capable of sweeping the whole peninsula "at one fell swoop," and restore to his brother's reign the auspices of a favorable fortune.

When setting out from Paris in the early part of October, 1808, the Emperor announced that the peasants of Spain had rebelled against their king, that treachery had caused the ruin of one corps of his army, and that another had been forced by the English to evacuate Portugal.

Recruiting his armies on the German frontier and in Italy, he now ordered his veteran troops to the amount of 200,000, including a vast and brilliant cavalry and a large body of the Imperial Guards, to be drafted from those frontiers and marched through France towards Spain.

As these warlike columns pa.s.sed through Paris Napoleon addressed to them one of those orations that never failed to fill them with enthusiasm.

"Comrades," said he at a grand review which was held at the Tuileries on the 11th of September, "after triumphing on the banks of the Danube and the Vistula, with rapid steps you have pa.s.sed 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 English leopard contaminates the peninsula of Spain and Portugal. In terror he must fly before you. Let us bear our triumphant eagles to the pillars of Hercules; there also we have injuries to avenge. Soldiers! You have surpa.s.sed the renown of modern armies; but you have not yet equalled the glory of those Romans, who, in one and the same campaign were victorious on the Rhine and the Euphrates, in Illyria and on the Tagus! A long peace, a lasting prosperity, shall be the reward of your labors. A real Frenchman could not, should not rest, until the seas are free and open to all. Soldiers, what you have done and what you are about to do, for the happiness of the French people, and for my glory, shall be eternal in my heart."

Having thus dismissed his faithful troops, Napoleon himself traveled rapidly to Erfurt, where he had invited the Emperor Alexander to confer with him. Here they addressed a joint letter to the King of England, proposing once more a general peace, but as they both refused to acknowledge any authority in Spain save that of King Joseph, the answer was in the negative. Austria also positively refused to recognize Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain, and this answer was enough to satisfy Napoleon that she was determined on another campaign.

On the 14th of October the conference at Erfurt terminated, Napoleon sincerely believing himself the friend of Alexander, and little thinking he would one day say of him: "He is a faithless Greek!" Ten days later Napoleon was present at the opening of the legislative session at Paris, where he spoke with confidence of his designs and hopes in regard to Spain. "I depart in a few days to place myself at the head of my troops," he said, "and, with the aid of G.o.d, to crown the king of Spain in Madrid, and plant my eagles on the forts of Lisbon."

Two days later he left the capital and reached Bayonne on the 3rd of November, where he remained directing the movements of the last columns of his army until the morning of the 8th. He arrived at Vittoria, the headquarters of his brother Joseph, on the same evening. At the gates of the town he was met by the civil and military authorities, where sumptuous preparations had been provided, but instead of accepting their hospitality, entered the first inn he observed, and calling for maps and a detailed report of the position of all the armies, French and Spanish, proceeded instantly to draw up his plan for the prosecution of the war.

Within two hours he had completed his task. Soult, who had accompanied him from Paris, set off on the instant, and within a few hours the whole machinery of the army, comprising 200,000 men, was in motion.

Ere long Napoleon saw the main way to Madrid open before him, except some forces said to be posted at the strong defile of the Somosierra, within ten miles of the capital. Saragossa on the east, the British army in Portugal on the west, and Madrid in front were the only far-separated points on which any show of opposition was still to be traced from the frontiers of France to those of Portugal, and from the sea cost to the Tagus.

Having regulated everything on his wings and rear, the Emperor with his Imperial Guards and the first division of the army, now marched towards Madrid, his vanguard reaching the foot of the Somosierra chain on the 30th of November. Here he found that a corps of 12,000 or 13,000 men had been a.s.sembled for the defense of that pa.s.s under General San Juan, an able and valiant officer who had established an advance guard of 3,000 men at the very foot of the slope which the French would have to ascend, and then distributed over 9,000 men at the pa.s.s of Somosierra, at the bottom of the gorge; there the advancing army would be obliged to go through. One part of San Juan's force, posted on the right and left of the road, which formed numerous windings, was to stop the advance of the French by a double fire of musketry. The others barred the causeway itself, near the most difficult part of the pa.s.s, with the battery. The defile was narrow and excessively steep, and the road completely swept by sixteen pieces of cannon.

At daybreak on the 1st of December the French began their attempts to turn the flank of San Juan, who imagined himself invincible in his position. Three battalions scattered themselves over the opposite sides of the defile and a warm skirmishing fire had begun. At this moment Napoleon came up, at the head of the cavalry of his Guard rode into the mouth of the pa.s.s, surveyed the scene for an instant, and perceiving that his infantry was making no progress, at once conceived the daring idea of causing his brave Polish lancers to charge up the causeway in face of the battery.

The Emperor had stopped near the foot of the mountain and attentively examined the enemy's position, the fire from which seemed to redouble, many b.a.l.l.s falling near him, or pa.s.sing over his head. Colonel Pire was first dispatched at the head of the Poles and having reconnoitred the position, countermanded the advance, and sent an officer to notify Napoleon "that the undertaking was impossible." Upon this information the Emperor much irritated and striking the pommel of his saddle exclaimed, "Impossible! Why, there is nothing impossible to my Poles."

General Wattier, who was present endeavored to calm him but he still continued to exclaim, "Impossible! I know of no such word. What, my Guard checked by the Spaniards,--by armed peasants?" At this moment the b.a.l.l.s began to whistle about him and several officers came forward and persuaded him to withdraw. Among these Napoleon observed Major Philip Segur; to him he said, "Go, Segur, take the Poles, and make them take the Spaniards, or let the Spaniards take them."

Colonel Pire, having informed Kozietulski, commander of the Polish troops, of what the Emperor had said, that officer replied, "Come then alone with me, and see if the devil himself, made of fire as he is, would undertake this business."