Napoleon's Letters To Josephine Part 70

SERIES F

No. 1.

_To Josephine._--She was at Plombieres from August 2 to September 10, but no letter is available for the period, neither to Hortense nor from Napoleon.

_Strasburg._--She is in the former Episcopal Palace, at the foot of the cathedral.

_Stuttgard._--He is driven over from Ludwigsburg on October 4th, and hears the German opera of "Don Juan."

_I am well placed._--On the same day Napoleon writes his brother Joseph that he has already won two great victories--(1) by having no sick or deserters, but many new conscripts; and (2) because the Badenese army and those of Bavaria and Wurtemberg had joined him, and all Germany well disposed.

No. 2.

_Louisburg._--Ludwigsburg.

_In a few days._--To Talleyrand he wrote from Strasburg on September 27: "Within a fortnight we shall see several things."

_A new bride._--This letter, in the collection of his Correspondence ordered by Napoleon III., concludes at this point.

_Electress._--The Princess Charlotte-Auguste-Mathilde (1766-1828), daughter of George III., our Princess Royal, who married Frederick I.

Napoleon says she is "not well treated by the Elector, to whom, nevertheless, she seems much attached" (Brotonne, No. 111). She was equally pleased with Napoleon, and wrote home how astonished she was to find him so polite and agreeable a person.

No. 3.

_I have a.s.sisted at a marriage._--The bride was the Princess of Saxe-Hildburghhausen, who was marrying the second son of the Elector.

No. 5.

Written at Augsburg. On October 15th he reaches the abbey of Elchingen, which is situated on a height, from whence a wide view is obtained, and establishes his headquarters there.

No. 6.

_Spent the whole of to-day indoors._--This is also mentioned in his Seventh Bulletin (dated the same day), which adds, "But repose is not compatible with the direction of this immense army."

_Vicenza._--Ma.s.sena did not, however, reach this place till November 3rd. The French editions have _Vienna_, but _Vicenza_ is evidently meant.

No. 7.

He is still at Elchingen, but at Augsburg the next day. On the 21st he issues a decree to his army that Vendemiaire,[58] of which this was the last day but one, should be counted as a campaign for pensions and military services.

_Elchingen._--Meneval speaks of this village "rising in an amphitheatre above the Danube, surrounded by walled gardens, and houses rising one above the other." From it Napoleon saw the city of Ulm below, commanded by his cannon. Marshal Ney won his t.i.tle of Duke of Elchingen by capturing it on October 14th, and fully deserved it. The Emperor used to leave the abbey every morning to go to the camp before Ulm, where he used to spend the day, and sometimes the night. The rain was so heavy that, until a plank was found, Napoleon sat in a tent with his feet in water (Savary, vol. ii. 196).

_Such a catastrophe._--At Ulm General Mack, with eight field-marshals, seven lieutenant-generals, and 33,000 men surrender. Napoleon had despised Mack even in 1800, when he told Bourrienne at Malmaison, "Mack is a man of the lowest mediocrity I ever saw in my life; he is full of self-sufficiency and conceit, and believes himself equal to anything. He has no talent. I should like to see him some day opposed to one of our good generals; we should then see fine work. He is a boaster, and that is all. He is really one of the most silly men existing, and besides all that, he is unlucky" (vol. i. 304). Napoleon stipulated for Mack's life in one of the articles of the Treaty of Presburg.

No. 9.

_Munich._--Napoleon arrived here on October 24th.

_Lemarois._--A trusty aide-de-camp, who had witnessed Napoleon's civil marriage in March 1796, at 10 P.M.

_I was grieved._--They had no news from October 12th to 21st in Paris, where they learnt daily that Strasburg was in the same predicament.

Mdme. de Remusat, at Paris, was equally anxious, and such women, in the Emperor's absence, tended by their presence or even by their correspondence to increase the alarms of Josephine.

_Amuse yourself._--M. Ma.s.son (_Josephine, Imperatrice et Reine_, p.

424) has an interesting note of how she used to attend lodge at the Orient in Strasburg, to preside at a "loge d'adoption sous la direction de Madame de Dietrich, grand maitresse t.i.tulaire."

_Talleyrand has come._--He was urgently needed to help in the correspondence with the King of Prussia (concerning the French violation of his Ans.p.a.ch territory), with whom Napoleon's relations were becoming more strained.

No. 10.

_We are always in forests._--Baron Lejeune, with his artist's eye, describes his impressions of the Amstetten forest as he travelled through it with Murat the following morning (November 4th). "Those of us who came from the south of Europe had never before realised how beautiful Nature can be in the winter. In this particular instance everything was robed in the most gleaming attire; the silvery rime softening the rich colours of the decaying oak leaves, and the sombre vegetation of the pines. The frozen drapery, combined with the mist, in which everything was more or less enveloped, gave a soft, mysterious charm to the surrounding objects, producing a most beautiful picture. Lit up by the sunshine, thousands of long icicles, such as those which sometimes droop from our fountains and water-wheels, hung like shining l.u.s.tres from the trees. Never did ball-room shine with so many diamonds; the long branches of the oaks, pines, and other forest trees were weighed down by the ma.s.ses of h.o.a.r-frost, while the snow converted their summits into rounded roofs, forming beneath them grottoes resembling those of the Pyrenean mountains, with their shining stalact.i.tes and graceful columns" (vol. i. 24).

_My enemies._--Later in the day Napoleon writes from Lambach to the Emperor of Austria a pacific letter, which contains the paragraph, "My ambition is wholly concentrated on the re-establishment of my commerce and of my marine, and England grievously opposes itself to both."

No. 11.

Written from Lintz, the capital of Upper Austria, where Napoleon was on the 4th.

No. 12.

Napoleon took up his abode at the palace of Schoenbrunn on the 14th, and proves his "two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage" by pa.s.sing through Vienna at that time the following morning.

No. 13.

_They owe everything to you._--Aubenas quotes this, and remarks (vol.

ii. 326): "No one had pride in France more than Napoleon, stronger even than his conviction of her superiority in the presence of other contemporary sovereigns and courts. He wishes that in Germany, where she will meet families with all the pride and sometimes all the haughtiness of their ancestry, Josephine will not forget that she is Empress of the French, superior to those who are about to receive her, and who owe full respect and homage to her."

No. 14.

_Austerlitz._--Never was a victory more needful; but never was the Emperor more confident. Savary says that it would take a volume to contain all that emanated from his mind during that twenty-four hours (December 1-2). Nor was it confined to military considerations.

General Segur describes how he spent his evening meal with his marshals, discussing with Junot the last new tragedy (_Les Templiers_, by Raynouard), and from it to Racine, Corneille, and the fatalism of our ancestors.

_December 2nd_ was a veritable Black Monday for the Coalition in general, and for Russia in particular, where Monday is always looked upon as an unlucky day. Their forebodings increased when, on the eve of the battle, the Emperor Alexander was thrown from his horse (Czartoriski, vol. ii. 106).

No. 17.

_A long time since I had news of you._--Josephine was always a bad correspondent, but at this juncture was reading that stilted but sensational romance--"Caleb Williams;" or hearing the "Achilles" of Paer, or the "Romeo and Juliet" of Zingarelli in the intervals of her imperial progress through Germany. M. Ma.s.son, not often too indulgent to Josephine, thinks her conduct excusable at this period--paying and receiving visits, dressing and redressing, always in gala costume, and without a moment's solitude.