Napoleon's Letters To Josephine Part 73

No. 38.

Probably written from Arensdorf, on the eve of the battle of Eylau (February 9th), on which day a great ball took place in Paris, given by the Minister of Marine.

No. 39.

_Eylau._--The battle of Preussich-Eylau was splendidly fought on both sides, but the Russian general, Beningsen, had all the luck. (1) His Cossacks capture Napoleon's letter to Bernadotte, which enables him to escape all Napoleon's plans, which otherwise would have destroyed half the Russian army. (2) A snowstorm in the middle of the day in the faces of the French ruins Augereau's corps and saves the Russians from a total rout. (3) The arrival of a Prussian army corps, under General Lestocq, robbed Davoust of his glorious victory on the right, and much of the ground gained--including the village of Kuschnitten.

(4) The night came on just in time to save the rest of the Russian army, and to prevent Ney taking any decisive part in the battle.

Bernadotte, as usual, failed to march to the sound of the guns, but, as Napoleon's orders to do so were captured by Cossacks, he might have had an excuse rather better than usual, had not General Hautpoult,[62]

in touch both with him and Napoleon, advised him of his own orders and an imminent battle. Under such circ.u.mstances, no general save the Prince of Ponte-Corvo, says Bignon, would have remained inactive, "but it was the destiny of this marshal to have a role apart in all the great battles fought by the Emperor. His conduct was at least strange at Jena, it will not be less so, in 1809, at Wagram." The forces, according to Matthieu Dumas (_Precis des Evenements Militaires_, volume 18), were approximately 65,000 French against 80,000 allies[63]--the latter in a strong chosen position. Napoleon saved 1500, the wreckage of Augereau's[64] corps, that went astray in the blizzard (costing the French more than half their loss in the two days' fight), by a charge of his Horse Guard, but his Foot Guard never fired a shot. The allies lost 5000 to 6000 dead and 20,000 wounded.

Napoleon told Montholon that his loss at Eylau was 18,000, which probably included 2000 dead, and 15,000 to 16,000 wounded and prisoners. As the French remained masters of the field of battle, the slightly wounded were evidently not counted by Napoleon, who in his bulletin gives 1900 dead and 5700 wounded. The list of wounded inmates of the hospital a month later, March 8th, totalled only 4600, which astonished Napoleon, who sent back for a recount. On receipt of this he wrote Daru (March 15): "From your advices to hand, I see we are not far out of count. There were at the battle of Eylau 4000 or 5000 wounded, and 1000 in the combats preceding the battle."

No. 40.

_Corbineau._--Mlle. d'Avrillon (vol. ii. 101) tells how, in haste to join his regiment at Paris, Corbineau had asked for a seat in her carriage from St. Cloud. She was delighted, as he was a charming man, "with no side on like Lauriston and Lemarois." He had just been made general, and said, "Either I will get killed or deserve the favour which the Emperor has granted me. M'selle, you shall hear me spoken of; if I am not killed I will perform some startling deed."

_Dahlmann._--General Nicholas Dahlmann, commanding the cha.s.seurs of the guard, was killed in the charge on the Russian infantry which saved the battle. On April 22nd Napoleon wrote Vice-Admiral Decres to have three frigates put on the stocks to be called Dahlmann, Corbineau, and Hautpoul, and in each captain's cabin a marble inscription recounting their brave deeds.

No. 41.

_Young Tascher._--The third of Josephine's cousins-germain of that name. He was afterwards aide-de-camp of Prince Eugene, and later major-domo of the Empress Eugenie.

No. 42.

After this letter St. Amand declares that Napoleon's letters to his wife become "cold, short, ba.n.a.l, absolutely insignificant." "They consisted of a few remarks about the rain or the fine weather, and always the same refrain--the invitation to be cheerful.... Napoleon, occupied elsewhere, wrote no longer to his legitimate wife, but as a duty, as paying a debt of conscience." He was occupied, indeed, but barely as the author supposes. It is Bingham (vol. ii. 281) who reminds us that in the first three months of 1807 we have 1715 letters and despatches preserved of his work during that period, while he often rode forty leagues a day, and had instructed his librarian to send him by each morning's courier two or three new books from Paris.

Aubenas is more just than St. Amand. "If his style is no longer that of the First Consul, still less of the General of Italy, he was solicitous, punctilious, attentive, affectionate even although laconic, in that correspondence (with Josephine) which, in the midst of his much greater preoccupations, seems for him as much a pleasure as a duty."

No. 43.

_I am still at Eylau._--It took Napoleon and his army eight days to bury the dead and remove the wounded. Lejeune says, "His whole time was given up now to seeing that the wounded received proper care, and he insisted on the Russians being as well treated as the French" (vol.

i. 48). The Emperor wrote Daru that if more surgeons had been on the spot he could have saved at least 200 lives; although, to look at the surgical instruments used on these fields, and now preserved in the museum of Les Invalides, it is wonderful that the men survived operations with such ghastly implements of torture. A few days later Napoleon tells Daru on no account to begrudge money for medicines, and especially for quinine.

_This country is covered with dead and wounded._--"Napoleon," says Dumas (vol. i. 18, 41), "having given order that the succour to the wounded on both sides might be multiplied, rode over the field of battle, which all eye-witnesses agree to have been the most horrible field of carnage which war has ever offered. In a s.p.a.ce of less than a square league, the ground covered with snow, and the frozen lakes, were heaped up with 10,000 dead, and 3000 to 4000 dead horses, debris of artillery, arms of all kinds, cannon-b.a.l.l.s, and sh.e.l.ls. Six thousand Russians, expiring of their wounds, and of hunger and thirst, were left abandoned to the generosity of the conqueror."

No. 50.

_Osterode._--"A wretched village, where I shall pa.s.s a considerable time." Owing to the messenger to Bernadotte being captured by Cossacks, the Emperor, if not surprised at Eylau on the second day, found at least all his own intentions antic.i.p.ated. He could not risk the same misfortune again, and at Osterode all his army were within easy hailing distance, "within two marches at most" (Dumas).

Savary speaks of him there, "working, eating, giving audience, and sleeping--all in the same room," alone keeping head against the storm of his marshals, who wished him to retire across the Vistula. He remained over five weeks at Osterode, and more than two months at Finckenstein Castle, interesting himself in the affairs of Teheran and Monte Video, offering prizes for discoveries in electricity and medicine, giving advice as to the most scientific modes of teaching history and geography, while objecting to the creation of poet-laureates or Caesarians whose exaggerated praises would be sure to awaken the ridicule of the French people, even if it attained its object of finding a place of emolument for poets. Bignon says (vol. vi. 227): "From Osterode or from Finckenstein he supervised, as from Paris or St. Cloud, the needs of France; he sought means to alleviate the hindrances to commerce, discussed the best ways to encourage literature and art, corresponded with all his ministers, and while awaiting the renewal of the fray, having a war of figures with his Chancellor of Exchequer."

_It is not as good as the great city._--The day before he had written his brother Joseph that neither his officers nor his staff had taken their clothes off for two months; that he had not taken his boots off for a fortnight; that the wounded had to be moved 120 miles in sledges, in the open air; that bread was unprocurable; that the Emperor had been living for weeks upon potatoes, and the officers upon mere meat. "After having destroyed the Prussian monarchy, we are fighting against the remnant of the Prussians, against Russians, Cossacks, and Kalmucks, those roving tribes of the north, who formerly invaded the Roman Empire."

_I have ordered what you wish for Malmaison._--About this time he also gave orders for what afterwards became the Bourse and the Madeleine, and gave hints for a new journal (March 7th), whose "criticism should be enlightened, well-intentioned, impartial, and robbed of that noxious brutality which characterises the discussions of existing journals, and which is so at variance with the true sentiments of the nation."

No. 54.

_Minerva._--In a letter of March 7th Josephine writes to Hortense: "A few days ago I saw a frightful accident at the Opera. The actress who represented Minerva in the ballet of 'Ulysses' fell twenty feet and broke her arm. As she is poor, and has a family to support, I have sent her fifty louis." This was probably the ballet, "The Return of Ulysses," a subject given by Napoleon to Fouche as a suitable subject for representation. In the same letter Josephine writes: "All the private letters I have received agree in saying that the Emperor was very much exposed at the battle of Eylau. I get news of him very often, sometimes two letters a day, but that does not replace him."

This special danger at Eylau is told by Las Cases, who heard it from Bertrand. Napoleon was on foot, with only a few officers of his staff; a column of four to five thousand Russians came almost in contact with him. Berthier instantly ordered up the horses. The Emperor gave him a reproachful look; then sent orders to a battalion of his guard to advance, which was a good way behind, and standing still. As the Russians advanced he repeated several times, "What audacity, what audacity!" At the sight of his Grenadiers of the Guard the Russians stopped short. It was high time for them to do so, as Bertrand said.

The Emperor had never stirred; all who surrounded him had been much alarmed.

No. 55.

"It is the first and only time," says Aubenas, "that, in these two volumes of letters (_Collection Didot_), Napoleon says _vous_ to his wife. But his vexation does not last more than a few lines, and this short letter ends, '_Tout a toi_.' Not content with this softening, and convinced how grieved Josephine will be at this language of cold etiquette, he writes to her the same day, at ten o'clock at night, before going to bed, a second letter in his old style, which ends, '_Mille et mille amities_.'" It is a later letter (March 25th) which ends as described, but No. 56 is, nevertheless, a kind letter.

No. 56.

_Dupuis._--Former princ.i.p.al of the Brienne Military School. Napoleon, always solicitous for the happiness of those whom he had known in his youth, had made Dupuis his own librarian at Malmaison. His brother, who died in 1809, was the learned Egyptologist.

No. 58.

_M. de T----_, _i.e._ M. de Thiard. In _Lettres Inedites de Napoleon I._ (Brotonne), No. 176, to Talleyrand, March 22nd, the Emperor writes: "I have had M. de Thiard effaced from the list of officers. I have sent him away, after having testified all my displeasure, and told him to stay on his estate. He is a man without military honour and civic fidelity.... My intention is that he shall also be struck off from the number of my chamberlains. I have been poignantly grieved at such black ingrat.i.tude, but I think myself fortunate to have found out such a wicked man in time." De Thiard seems to have been corresponding with the enemy from Warsaw.

No. 60.

_Marshal Bessieres._--His chateau of Grignon, now destroyed, was one of the most beautiful of Provence. Madame de Sevigne lived and was buried in the town of Grignon.

_No. 63._

This was printed April 24th in the French editions, but April 14th is evidently the correct date.

No. 67.

"_Sweet, pouting, and capricious._"--Aubenas speaks of these lines "in the style of the Italian period, which seemed in fact to calm the fears of the Empress."

No. 68.

_Madame ----._ His own sister, Madame Murat, afterwards Queen of Naples. See note to Letter 35 for her influence over Junot. The latter was severely reprimanded by Napoleon on his return and banished from Paris. "Why, for example, does the Grand d.u.c.h.ess occupy your boxes at the theatres? Why does she go thither in your carriage? Hey! M. Junot!

you are surprised that I am so well acquainted with your affairs and those of that little fool, Madame Murat?" ("Memoirs of the d.u.c.h.ess d'Abrantes," vol. iii. 328.)

_Measles._--As the poor child was ill four days, it was probably laryngitis from which he died--an ailment hardly distinguishable from croup, and one of the commonest sequelae of measles. He died on May 5th.

The best account is the Memoirs of Stanislaus Giraudin. They had applied leeches to the child's chest, and had finally recourse to some English powders of unknown composition, which caused a rally, followed by the final collapse. King Louis said the child's death was caused by the Dutch damp climate, which was bad for his own health. Josephine hastens to join her daughter, but breaks down at Lacken, where Hortense, more dead than alive, joins her, and returns to Paris with her.

No. 69.

_I trust I may hear you have been rational in your sorrow._--As a matter of fact he had heard the opposite, for the following day (May 15th) he writes to his brother Jerome: "Napoleon died in three days at the Hague; I know not if the King has advised you of it.