World's Best Histories Part 15

said he, "are ungovernable in their patriotic pa.s.sion; the Junta ask for one day to bring them back to reason."

"It is in vain for you to use the name of the people," exclaimed Napoleon.

"If you cannot succeed in calming them, it is because you yourselves have excited them, and have led them astray by your falsehoods. Bring together the cures, the heads of convents, the princ.i.p.al proprietors, and let the town surrender between this and six o'clock in the morning, or else it will have ceased to exist. I have no desire to withdraw my troops, nor ought I. You ma.s.sacred the unhappy French prisoners who fell into your hands. A short time ago you allowed to be dragged in the streets and put to death two servants of the Russian amba.s.sador because they were Frenchmen. The want of skill and the cowardice of a general placed in your hands some troops which had capitulated on the battle-field, and the capitulation was violated. What kind of letter, M. Morla, did you write to that general? It became you well to speak of pillaging, you who entered Roussillon and carried off all the women, to divide them among your soldiers like booty. What right had you, on other grounds, to use such language? You were prevented by the capitulation. Consider the conduct of the English, who certainly do not boast of being rigid observers of the rights of nations. They have complained of the convention of Portugal, but they executed it. To violate military treaties is to renounce all civilization; it is to place one's self on a level with the Bedouins of the desert. How dare you ask a capitulation, you who violated that of Baylen? I had a fleet at Cadiz, the ally of Spain, and you turned against it the mortars of the town under your command. Go back to Madrid. I give you till six o'clock in the morning. Return then, if you have nothing to say of the people except that they have submitted: otherwise, you and your troops will all be put to the sword."

The situation left to the insurgents no alternative but that of submission. During the night, the Marquis of Castellar went out with his troops by the gates which the French had not yet seized. At six in the morning, on the 4th December, Madrid surrendered. All the citizens were disarmed. Napoleon took possession of a small country-house at Chamartin, and King Joseph held his court at the Pardo, some distance from Madrid; the rebel town being thus held unworthy to be honored by the presence of its masters. Several great lords were arrested: the Marquis of St. Simon was even condemned to death, as a French emigrant in the Spanish service; but the sentence was badly received by the soldiers, and left unexecuted.

A series of decrees abolished the feudal rights, the Inquisition, and the custom duties in pa.s.sing from one province to another. The number of convents was reduced by a third. The conquests of liberty and civilization thus imposed on the Spanish by their oppressors naturally became hateful to them. Thus one of the results of Napoleon's Spanish campaign was to prepare a reaction in favor of the Inquisition.

While the emperor took possession of Madrid, and endeavored to reduce the undisciplined spirit of the capital, General Gouvion St. Cyr had been appointed to bring Catalonia to submission. A man of skill and prudence, though obstinately attached to his own opinions, St. Cyr was never a favorite with Napoleon, though he knew his merit. He had entrusted him with the duty of reducing an isolated province, where his command ran no risk of being interfered with by contradictory wishes or orders. The general delayed some time at the siege of Rosas, which he was anxious not to leave in his rear, and when he at last advanced towards Barcelona, General Duhesme and his garrison were short of provisions. On his approach the blockade was raised, and, on the 15th December, General Vives offered battle to St. Cyr at Cardeden, before Barcelona. The French having left their artillery behind, so as to advance more quickly, the order was given to open a road through the enemy's ranks with the bayonet. The soldiers obeyed, keeping their heads down as they advanced under the fire of the Spanish; the latter were unable to resist the impetuosity of such an attack, and the columns of our troops pa.s.sed through the enemy's lines, which were soon broken and scattered. The Spanish artillery fell entirely into our hands, and next day the French entered Barcelona. On the 21st the entrenched camp on the Llobregat was taken, and complete dispersion of the Spanish troops in Catalonia soon followed, only a few places still holding out, which General Gouvion St. Cyr prepared to besiege.

The English, however, henceforward united to the cause of the Spanish insurrection by a solemn declaration, published on the 15th December, and everywhere the objects of Napoleon's most persistent hatred, had not yet undergone the shock of his arms. Having only imperfect information as to Sir John Moore's operations, the emperor had reckoned with certainty upon the retreat which that general began at the moment of the attack upon Madrid, when he found that it was absolutely impossible to concentrate his forces in time for resistance. Moore was not hopeful as to the results of the campaign, and had little satisfaction in his Spanish auxiliaries, who always distrusted foreigners, even when allies; when urged by the Junta, however, and after receiving instructions from England, he advanced towards Valladolid, relinquishing his line of retreat upon Portugal, and directing his march to Corunna. From some intercepted despatches he believed he might surprise Marshal Soult in the kingdom of Leon, with inferior forces to his own; and, at the same time, ask Sir David Baird to join him with his troops, and sent to ask the Marquis Romana for reinforcements. On the 21st December, the English army, more than 25,000 men strong, had reached Sahagun, near to Marshal Soult's position.

The emperor was not deceived by the first report, that the English had changed their line of march. He at once penetrated Sir John Moore's object, and resolved to at once fall upon his rear, and crush him by a superiority of forces. In a letter to Paris he says, "The English have at last showed signs of life. They seem now to have abandoned Portugal, and taken another line of operations. They are marching upon Valladolid, and for three days our troops have made operations to manoeuvre them, and advance on their rear. If the English don't make for the sea, and beat us in speed, they will find it hard to escape us, and will pay dear for their daring attempt upon the continent."

On the 22nd, the emperor, uniting the divisions of his army with that rapidity which all his lieutenants had learned from him, set out himself on march with 40,000 men, in the hope of intercepting the advance of the English to the coast. The weather had become wet and cold, and when the French army reached the foot of Guadarrama the snow was falling in thick ma.s.ses. The cha.s.seurs of the guard, dismounting, led their horses by hand, and opened a road to their comrades through the snow. Napoleon himself was on foot. The snow-storm being followed by rain, their progress was slow.

On receiving a message from Soult that he was at Carrion, and that he believed the English were one day's journey distant, Napoleon said, "If they stay one day longer in that position they are lost, for I shall presently be on their flank."

Sir John Moore was a prudent and skilful soldier, and on receiving information sufficient to indicate the emperor's intention, he at once began his retreat towards Corunna. When Marshal Ney, entering Medina from Rio-Seco, was preparing to march upon Benaventa, the English had already reached that post, and, after crossing the Ezla, blew up the bridges. When the French advance-guard, commanded by General Lefebvre-Desnouettes, arrived before the town the last wagons of the English army were disappearing in the distance. The cavalry officer too eagerly made his squadrons ford the river, and Lord Paget, who protected the retreat, repulsed the attack of the French, and took their general prisoner. The first detachments of Napoleon's army entered Astorga a short time after the English had evacuated the place, the Marquis de la Romana, withdrawing as well as his allies, having followed by the same way. The roads were much cut up by the wheels and footsteps, besides being enc.u.mbered by the dead bodies of many horses, which the English had killed when too tired to go on. There were also traces left everywhere by the English army of a troublesome want of discipline; soldiers left drunk because they could not keep up in the rapid march which their leader had ordered, houses pillaged, and the Spanish peasants, oppressed both by their defenders and their enemies, became every day more distrustful and gloomy. Sir John Moore complained that he could obtain neither food nor information from the frightened and discontented population.

On the 2nd January, the Emperor Napoleon changed his plans. Feeling that the danger of a war with Austria became daily more imminent, and finding that the English would reach the sea in spite of any efforts of his to intercept them, and that the brilliant stroke which he intended was daily becoming more impossible of execution, he entrusted the pursuit of the enemy to Marshal Soult, who was then nearer him than Ney, and marched with the imperial guard towards Valladolid. Before arriving there he wrote from Benaventa to King Joseph, on the 6th January, 1809,--

"My brother, I thank you for what you say regarding the New Year. I have no hope of Europe being at peace in 1809. On the contrary, I yesterday signed a decree for a levy of 100,000 men. The hatred of England, the events at Constantinople, everything forewarns that the hour of rest and tranquillity has not yet sounded. As to you, your kingdom appears to me to be almost at peace. The kingdoms of Leon, the Asturias, and New Castile, only want rest. I hope Galicia will soon be pacified, and that the English will leave the country. Saragossa must soon fall; and General St. Cyr, with 30,000 men, will soon attain his object in Catalonia."

The English were in fact preparing to leave Spain; and though the determination was quite recent, it was with a sense of depression, which, in the case of the general, was increased by the sad plight of his array and its want of discipline. Their disorder was at its worst when at last they reached the small town of Lugo (6th January, 1809), exhausted by the bad weather, want of food, and excess of brandy and other strong liquors.

Sir John Moore had resolved to offer battle to the French, and the hope of fighting had restored courage and obedience to the soldiers. He waited three days for Marshal Soult, but the French general's forces were diminished by the rapidity of the pursuit, and he did not accept the offer of fighting. Moore resumed his march towards Corunna, reckoning to find, on his arrival at the coast, the transport vessels which were necessary for his army. When at last, on the 11th January, he came in sight of the sea, not a single sail appeared over its vast extent. The contest becoming inevitable, Sir John ordered the bridges over the Mero to be blown up, and took up his position on the heights which command Corunna.

Marshal Soult had been delayed, by the necessity of repairing the bridges and rallying a division of his army which had fallen behind; and when at last, on the morning of the 16th, he attacked the English positions, the long-expected transports were crowding into the harbor, and a way of escape was open to the English army. A keenly-contested struggle took place, however, around the small village, Elvina, occupied by the troops of Sir David Baird, who was severely wounded. Sir John went to the a.s.sistance of his lieutenant, and when leading his men within range to the front, had his arm and collarbone shattered by a ball. He was carried back to the town by his soldiers, in a dying condition. The English still retaining their positions at nightfall, their embarkment was now certain, and General Hope, who had taken the command, pushed forward the preparations for departure.

Sir John Moore had just expired. "You know well," said he to his friend Colonel Anderson, "that this is how I always wished to die." After a short pause, he added, "I hope the English people will be satisfied; I hope that my country will do me justice." Without losing time in procuring a coffin, his soldiers dug a grave with their swords, and committed to earth the body of their general, still wrapped in his military cloak. The English army, which he had saved by his prudence and resolution, then hurriedly embarked, "and left him alone in his glory," as the poet has finely put it. Several weeks afterwards, when Marshal Ney took possession of Corunna, he had a stone placed on the tomb of his heroic enemy.

From Valladolid, where he was still staying, the Emperor Napoleon directed the movements of his armies; fortifying the defences of Italy, and commanding the movements of the troops intended for Germany, he at the same time wrote to all the princes of the Rheinish Confederation, reminding them peremptorily of their engagements, and referring to the lengthened war preparations of Austria as equivalent to a declaration of war. "Russia, as well as myself, is indignant at the extravagant conduct of Austria," he wrote to the King of Wurtemberg, on the 15th January; "we cannot conceive what madness has taken possession of the court of Vienna.

When your Majesty reads this letter I shall be in Paris. One part of my army of Spain is now returning, to form an army of reserve; but, independently of that, without touching a single man of my army of Spain, I can send into Germany 150,000 men, and be there myself to advance with them upon the Inn at the end of February, without counting the troops of the Confederation. I suppose that your Majesty's troops are ready to march on the slightest movement; you are sensible of the great importance, if war is absolutely necessary, of carrying it on in our enemy's territory, rather than leaving it to settle on that of the Confederation. I beg of your Majesty to let me know in Paris your opinion on all those points. Can the waters of the Danube have acquired the property of the river Lethe?"

At the same time, to instruct King Joseph in the government of Spain, at the moment when that prince was about to visit his capital again, he thus wrote to him, at Prado:--"General Belliard's movement is excellent; a score of worthless fellows ought to be hanged. To-morrow I am to have seven hanged here, known to have had a share in all the excesses, and a nuisance to the respectable people, who have secretly denounced them, and who now regain courage on finding themselves rid of them. You must do the same at Madrid. Five-sixths of the town are good, but honest folks should be encouraged, and they cannot be so except by keeping in check the riff- raff. Unless a hundred or so of rioters and ruffians are got rid of, nothing is done. Of that hundred, get twelve or fourteen shot or hanged, and send the rest into France to the galleys. I think it necessary, especially at the first start, that your government should show a little vigor against the riff-raff. They only like and respect those whom they fear, and their fear alone may procure you the love and esteem of the rest of the nation.

"The state of Europe compels me to go to spend three weeks in Paris, and if nothing prevent I shall return here about the end of February. I believe I wrote you to make your entry into Madrid on the 14th. Denon wishes to take some paintings. I should prefer you to take all that are in the confiscated houses and suppressed convents, and make me a present of about fifty of its master-pieces, for the Paris museum. At the proper time and place I shall give you others. Send for Denon, and give him a hint of this. You understand that they must be really good; and it is said you are immensely rich in that kind."

King Joseph retook possession of his capital with a great display of magnificence, the brilliant success of the French arms having rallied round him the timid, and the discontented keeping silence. Before setting out for Paris, where he arrived on the 24th, the emperor said, "The attack upon Valentia must not be thought of until Saragossa is taken, which must be during the month of February:" and Marshal Lannes, who had charge of the siege operations for a month, justified the hopes of his master. On the 21st February, 1809, Saragossa at last surrendered, having been the object of several French attacks since June, 1808.

After the battle of Tudela the whole of the army in Aragon had fallen back upon Saragossa. Joseph Palafox had shut himself up in it with his two brothers, and the country population having followed in great numbers, 100,000 human beings were crowded together behind the ramparts of the town, in its old convents, within the dull walls of its embattled houses-- almost everywhere without outside windows, and already threatening the enemy with their gloomy aspect. Throughout the province, at the call of the defenders of Saragossa the insurgent peasants intercepted the convoys of provisions intended for the French army, and the besiegers no less than the besieged suffered from want of food.

Napoleon had undervalued the resistance of the inhabitants of Saragossa.

Always ordering the movements of his troops himself, and from a distance, he had sent Marshal Moncey with insufficient forces; and soon after, Junot was entrusted with the attack. The sallies of the Spanish were easily repulsed, but each a.s.sault cost a large number of men. The Aragonian riflemen, posted on the ramparts or the roofs of the houses, brought down, without exposing themselves, the bravest of our grenadiers. Everywhere the women brought the artillery-men food and ammunition; and one of them, finding a piece abandoned, applied the match to it herself, and continued firing it for several days. The whole of the population fought on the walls until they should have to fight in the streets and houses.

From redoubt to redoubt, from convent to convent, General Junot had slowly advanced, till the middle of January, 1809. When at last Marshal Lannes appeared before Saragossa, he had called to his a.s.sistance large reinforcements; and the troops posted in the suburbs, and who had not yet shared in the action, dispersed the hostile crowd there. The attack commenced with a vigor which quite equalled the energy of the resistance; and on the 27th January, after a general a.s.sault, which was deadly and long-continued, the entire circuit of the walls was carried by the French troops. It is a maxim of war that every town deprived of the protection of its walls capitulates, or surrenders at discretion; but in Saragossa the real struggle--the struggle of the populace--was only beginning. On the 28th, Lannes wrote to the emperor: "Never, sire, have I seen such keen determination as in putting our enemies here on their defence. I have seen women come to be killed at a breach. Every house has to be taken by storm; and without great precaution we should lose many soldiers, there being in the town 30,000 or 40,000 men, besides the inhabitants. We now hold Santa- Engracia as far as the Capucine convent, and have captured fifteen guns.

In spite of all the orders I have given to prevent soldiers from rushing forward, their ardor getting the better of them has given us 200 wounded more than we ought to have."

And a few days afterwards: "The siege of Saragossa resembles in nothing any war we have hitherto had. It is a business requiring great prudence and great energy. We are obliged to take every house by mining or a.s.sault.

These wretches defend themselves with a keen determination which is inconceivable. In a word, sire, it is a horrible war. At this moment three or four parts of the town are on fire, and it is crushed with sh.e.l.ls, yet our enemies are not intimidated. We are laboring might and main to get to the faubourg; and once we are masters of it, I hope the town will not long hold out."

During the first siege of Saragossa, Marshal Lefebvre, on getting possession of one of the princ.i.p.al convents, sent to Joseph Palafox the short despatch: "Head-quarters, Santa-Engracia. Capitulation." And the defender of the place replied: "Head-quarters, Saragossa. War to the knife." It was war to the knife, to the musket, to the mine, which was pursued from house to house, from story to story. To go along the streets, the French soldiers were obliged to slip past close to the walls, the enemy being so keen and eager that a shako or coat held up on the point of a sword to deceive them was instantly riddled with b.a.l.l.s. More than one detachment after taking a building were suddenly blown up, by being secretly undermined. Our soldiers in their turn replied by some important underground works, which were ably organized by Lacoste, colonel of the engineers. From the 29th January to the 18th February the same struggle was pursued, with the same keen determination. A day was chosen for the a.s.sault of the faubourg, which General Gazan had long invested. The troops were impatient to make this last effort, being both irritated and depressed. They both suffered and saw others suffer. The misery in the town, however, was greater than the besiegers could suspect. A terrible epidemic was decimating those who were left of the defenders of Saragossa.

Joseph Palafox himself was dying.

After the breach was opened in the ramparts of the faubourg, a frightful explosion announced the destruction of the immense University buildings, laying open to our soldiers the Coso, or Holy Street, which pa.s.sed through the whole town. The ground was everywhere mined, and the very heart of Saragossa was at its last extremity, when the Junta of Defence at last yielded to the necessity which was bearing them down, and a messenger presented himself before Marshal Lannes in the name of Don Joseph Palafox.

We have seen the painful illusions created by the isolation of a besieged town: the defenders of Saragossa believed that the Spanish had been victorious everywhere, and it was only on the word of honor of Marshal Lannes that they accepted the sad truth. The 12,000 men of the garrison who had resisted all the horrors of the siege, surrendered as prisoners of war. Of 100,000 inhabitants who had crowded Saragossa, 54,000 had perished. There were heaps of dead bodies round the old church, Our Lady del Pilar, object of the pa.s.sionate devotion of the whole population. In their real heart, and at the first moment of victory, the French soldiers felt for the defenders of Saragossa an admiration mixed with anger and alarm. Rage alone animated the heart of their most ill.u.s.trious leader.

Napoleon had sometimes honored the resistance of his enemies, as at Mantua; now, on his attaining the height of power and glory, he no longer admitted that the Spanish should defend their independence against a usurpation stained with perfidy. "My Brother," he wrote to King Joseph on the 11th March, "I have read an article in the _Madrid Gazette_, giving an account of the taking of Saragossa, in which they eulogize those who defended that town--no doubt to encourage those of Valencia and Seville.

That is certainly a strange policy. I am sure there is not a Frenchman who has not the greatest scorn for those who defended Saragossa. Those who allow such vagaries are more dangerous for us than the insurgents. In a proclamation, mention is already made of Saguntum: that, in my opinion, is most imprudent."

Many things at this juncture chafed the mind of the imperious master of the world. He had left Spain immediately after a series of successes, without deceiving himself as to their importance and decisive value with reference to the permanent establishment of the French monarchy in Madrid.

He foresaw the difficulties and perpetually recurring embarra.s.sments of a command being divided, when the nominal authority of King Joseph was unable to govern lieutenants who were powerful, distinguished, and jealous. To obviate this inconvenience, and maintain that unity of action which he considered an indispensable element of success, he had kept to himself the supreme direction of the military operations, and attempted to govern the war in Spain from a distance, at the moment when he was organizing and recruiting his armies to support in Germany a determined struggle against all the forces of the Austrian empire. Italy, Holland, the Rhenish Confederation, all the states which he had founded or subdued, claimed his support or vigilance. Russia remained quiet because she was powerless and disarmed, but a serious check would have speedily thrown her with ardor on the side of his enemies. Russia, compelled by recent treaties and pressing interests, concealed under friendly phrases a secret indifference, and the beginning of her enmity: being, moreover, occupied by her own conquests, by the uncompleted subjugation of Finland, and a renewal of her struggle with Turkey. England, irritated and humiliated by the check undergone by her attempts at intervention in Spain, was energetically preparing new and more successful efforts. In presence of so many enemies, concealed or declared--compelled to regulate so many affairs, the government, oppression, and conquest of so many races-- Napoleon, on returning to Paris after his Spanish campaign, had found men's dispositions changed, and precursory signs of an open discontent which he was not accustomed to meet or to suffer.

Even in Spain the rumor of this modification of the national thought had already reached Napoleon's ears: he had read it in the letters of his most intimate correspondents, and imagined it even in the eyes of his soldiers.

The rage of the despot burst forth one day in Valladolid: when pa.s.sing along the ranks of the troops he was leaving behind, on hearing some of them muttering he is said to have s.n.a.t.c.hed from the hand of a grenadier a musket, which seemed awkwardly held, exclaiming, "You wretch! you deserve to be shot, and I have a good mind to have it done! You are all longing to go back to Paris, to resume your habits and pleasures:--well, I shall keep you under arms till you are eighty."

On reaching France, and especially Paris, Napoleon thought the atmosphere felt charged with resistance and disobedience. There was more freedom of speech, and men's thoughts were more daring than their words. Those whom he distrusted now came nearer, and others had taken the liberty to criticise his intentions and his acts. Even in the Legislative Body, the arrangements of the code of criminal justice, recently submitted to the vote, had undergone a rather lively discussion. Fouche had the courage to raise the question of the succession to the throne, when speaking to the Empress Josephine herself about the necessity of a divorce. The most daring had ventured to antic.i.p.ate the possibility of a fatal accident in the chances of war, some affirming that Murat aimed at the crown. The Arch-chancellor Cambaceres, who always showed prudence and ability in his relations with his former colleague, now his master, attempted in vain to calm the increasing irritation of his mind. His anger burst forth against Talleyrand during a sitting of the Ministerial Council. For several months previously a coldness and distrust had reigned between the emperor and this confidant of several of the gravest acts of his life--who was always self-possessed even when he seemed devoted, too clever ever to give himself up entirely, and invariably impa.s.sible in manner and feature.

Napoleon poured forth his displeasure in a long speech, reminding Talleyrand of advice he had formerly given him, being carried away both by his pa.s.sion and the desire to compromise and humiliate a man whose intrigues he was afraid of. At the conclusion of this noisy scene, still more humiliating for the emperor than for the minister, Talleyrand quietly withdrew, limping through the galleries, among the officers and courtiers, astonished at the noise which had reached even them, and looking at him with curiosity or spite. It was the starting-point of that secret animosity to which Talleyrand was afterwards to give cold and biting expression, when, in 1813, after a similar scene, he said, "You have a great man there, but badly brought up!" Napoleon's anger did not last long, although his distrust remained fixed. Talleyrand's pride underwent numerous eclipses. Commencing, however, from that day, the separation between them became irreparable; and when the emperor's decadence began, Talleyrand was already gained over to other hopes, and ready to serve another cause.

It was during the first moments of a growing discontent, already unmistakable in Paris and the large towns, that Napoleon found himself compelled to ask from France new efforts and cruel sacrifices. To make the old contingents equal to the new, he has already, they said, raised 80,000 men by the past conscriptions; the same expedient if soon applied to more remote years will bring to his standards grown-up men able to undergo long fatigue. The contingent of 1810 was at the same time raised to 110,000 men. In order to furnish officers to this enormous ma.s.s of conscripts, the emperor wrote on the 8th March, to General Clarke, minister of war: "I have formed sixteen cohorts of 10,000 conscripts of my guard. Present to me sixteen lists of four pupils in the St. Cyr Military College, to be appointed as sub-lieutenants in those cohorts; that will supply employment to sixty-four scholars. These youths will be under the orders of the officers of my guard, and will a.s.sist them in forming the conscripts, and fulfilling the duties of adjutant. They can also be of use in marching with detachments to the regiments where they will have their definitive appointment. Thus, with the 104 scholars necessary for the fifth battalions, the school must supply 168 pupils this year. Present to me 168 young people to replace those at St. Cyr.

"Let me know what can be supplied by La Fleche School, and the lycees. I have forty lycees; if each of them can furnish ten pupils of eighteen years old, that makes 400 quartermasters. I shall have to send 200 to the different regiments, and 200 to the army of the Rhine. Find also whether the Polytechnic School cannot supply fifty officers; and whether the Compiegne School cannot supply fifty youths of over seventeen, to be incorporated with the companies of artillery workmen."

As if to supply the troublesome gaps thus made in the schools by the unexpected removal of so many boys, Napoleon had written beforehand to Fouche from Benaventa (31st December, 1809):

"I am informed that some families of the emigrants are removing their children to avoid conscription, and keeping them in troublesome and culpable idleness. It is clear that the old and rich families who are not for our system are against it. I wish you to get a list drawn up of ten of those princ.i.p.al families in each department, and fifty for Paris, showing the age, fortune, and quality of each member. My intention is to pa.s.s a decree to send to the Military School of St. Cyr the young men belonging to those families whose ages are between sixteen and eighteen. If any objection is made, the only answer to make is, that it is my good pleasure. The future generation should not suffer from the hatred and petty spite of the present generation. If you have to ask the prefects for information, do so in similar terms."

With her will or against it, by the impulse of enthusiasm still left or under the law of good pleasure, France followed her insatiable master upon the ever open battle-fields. Napoleon was not deceived as to his arbitrary measures. "I wish to call out 30,000 men by the conscription of 1810," he wrote on the 21st March to General Lacuee, director-general of the reviews and conscription; "I am obliged to delay the publication of the 'Senatus- consulte,' which can only be done when all the doc.u.ments are published.

Let the good departments be preferred in choosing. The levy for France generally will only be one fourth of this year's conscription. The prefects might manage it without letting the public know, since there is no occasion for their a.s.sembling or drawing lots."

Financial difficulties also began to be felt. For a long time, by war contributions and exactions of every kind imposed upon the conquered countries, Napoleon had formed a military treasury, which he alone managed, and without any check. This resource allowed him to do without increasing taxes or imposing additional burdens. The funds, however, became exhausted, and war alone could renew them. "Reply to Sieur Otto,"

he wrote on the 1st April, 1809, to Champagny, "that I will have nothing said about subsidies. It is not at all the principle of France. It was well enough under the ancient government, because they had few troops, but at the present day the power of France, and the energy impressed upon my peoples, will produce as many soldiers as I wish, and my money is employed in equipping them and putting them on the field."

Negotiations were still being carried on. The fifth coalition was secretly formed, and diplomatic plots were everywhere joining their threads.

Napoleon strove to engage Russia in a common declaration against Austria; England enrolled against France the new government just established at Constantinople by revolution. On both sides the preparations for war became more patent and hurried. Metternich complained at Paris of the hostile att.i.tude of France, and announced the reciprocity imposed upon his master. On the 1st April, Napoleon wrote, "Get articles put in all the journals upon all that is provoking or offensive for the French nation in everything done at Vienna. You can go as far back as the first arming.

There must be an article of this tendency every day in the _Journal de l'Empire_, or the _Publiciste_, or the _Gazette de France_. The aim of these articles is to prove that they wish us to make war."

In France the decided, if not expressed, wish of the Emperor Napoleon, and in Austria the patriotic indignation and warlike excitement of the court and army, must necessarily have brought on a rupture; and the most trifling pretext was enough to cause the explosion. The arrest of a French courier by the Austrians at Braunau, the violation of the imperial territory by the troops of Marshal Davout then posted at Wurzburg, provoked hostilities several days sooner than Napoleon expected; and Metternich had already asked for his pa.s.sports when, on the 10th April, the Archduke Charles crossed the Inn with his army. The Tyrol at the same time rose in insurrection under the orders of a mountain innkeeper, Andrew Hofer; and the Bavarian garrisons were everywhere attacked by hunters and peasants. Like the Spanish, the Tyrolese claimed the independence of their country.

The troops of the Emperor Napoleon already covered Germany; Davout being at Ratisbon, Lannes at Augsburg, and Ma.s.sena at Ulm. Marshal Lefebvre commanded the Bavarians, Augereau was appointed to lead the Wurtembergers, the men of Baden and Hesse; the Saxons were placed under the orders of Bernadotte. On the evening of the 9th April, the Archduke Charles wrote to the King of Bavaria that his orders were to advance, and treat as enemies all the forces which opposed him; that he fondly trusted that no German would resist the liberating army on its march to deliver Germany. The Emperor Napoleon had already offered to the Kings of Saxony and Bavaria one of his palaces in France as an asylum, should they find themselves compelled to temporarily abandon their capitals. The King of Bavaria set out for Augsburg.

The unexpected movement of his enemies modified Napoleon's plan of attack.

A delay in the arrival of the despatches sent to Major-General Berthier caused some difficulty in the first operations of the French army. When the emperor arrived at Donauwerth, on the morning of the 17th, his army was spread over an extent of twenty-five leagues, and was in danger of being cut in two by the Archduke Charles. It was Napoleon's care and study on beginning the campaign to avoid this danger, which soon afterwards he subjected his adversary to. The Austrians, after pa.s.sing the Isar at two places, and driving back the Bavarians who had been appointed to defend the pa.s.sage, advanced towards the Danube.

Already, before touching Donauwerth, Napoleon's orders had begun the concentration of his forces. Ma.s.sena was at Augsburg, and received the order to march upon Neustadt, and similarly Davout left Ratisbon to advance to the same place. The Archduke Charles was also striving to reach it, hoping to gain upon the French by speed, and pa.s.s between the divisions posted at Ratisbon and Augsburg. This manoeuvre was baffled by Napoleon's prompt decision. "Never was there need for more rapidity and activity of movement than now," he wrote on the 18th to Ma.s.sena.

"Activity, activity, speed! Let me have your a.s.sistance."

The emperor's lieutenants did not fail him in this brilliant and scientific movement, everywhere executed with an ability and precision worthy of the great general who had conceived it. The Archduke Charles was a consummate tactician, but often his prudence degenerated into hesitation--a dangerous fault in presence of the most overpowering military genius whom the world had yet beheld. Napoleon himself said of Marshal Turenne that he was the only general whom experience had made more daring. A long military experience had not exercised that happy effect on the archduke; he still felt his way, and neglecting to take advantage of the concentration of his forces, dispersed the different parts of his army. The chastis.e.m.e.nt was not slow in following the fault. On the 19th, Marshal Davout, ascending the Danube from Ratisbon to Abensberg, met and defeated the Austrian troops at Fangen, thus being able to effect his junction with the Bavarians. On the 20th, the emperor attacked the enemy's lines at several points, and forced his way through them towards Rohr after several active engagements, thus securing the point of Abensberg, and separating the Archduke Charles from General Hiller and the Archduke Louis. On the 21st, this last part of the enemy's army precipitated itself in a body upon the important position of Landshut, where all the Austrian war material was collected, with a large number of wounded; but at the same moment the emperor himself came up, eagerly followed by Lannes and Bessieres, commanding their regiments. Ma.s.sena also made haste to join them. The bridges on the Isar were all attacked at once, and bravely defended by the Austrians: when carried they were already in flames. The Archduke Charles, however, attacking Ratisbon, which Davout was obliged to leave protected only by one regiment, easily took possession of that important place, commanding both banks of the Danube. He was thus, on the 22nd, before Eckmuhl opposite Davout. Informed of this movement, which he had partly guessed from the noise of the cannon on the 21st, the emperor directed the main body of his army towards Eckmuhl. His troops had already been fighting for three days, and Napoleon asked a fresh effort from them.

"It is four o'clock," he wrote to Davout, "I have resolved to march, and shall be upon Eckmuhl about midday, and ready to attack the enemy vigorously at three o'clock. I shall have with me 40,000 men. I shall be at Ergoltsbach before midday. If the cannon are heard I shall know I am to attack. If I don't hear it, and you are ready for the attack, fire a salvo of ten guns at twelve, another at one, and another at two. I am determined to exterminate the army of the Archduke Charles to-day, or at the latest to-morrow."

The day was not finished, and the cuira.s.siers were still fighting by moonlight to carry and defend the Ratisbon highway, yet the victory was decisive. The Archduke Charles was beaten, and falling back upon Ratisbon, he, during the night, took the wise step of evacuating the town and withdrawing into Bohemia, where General Bellegarde and his troops awaited him. Henceforth the Austrian army formed two distinct bodies. On the 23rd, Napoleon marched upon Ratisbon, which bravely defended itself. Slightly wounded in the foot by a ball, the emperor remained the whole day on horseback, Marshal Lannes directing the a.s.sault. At one moment the soldiers hesitating because the Austrians shot down one after another of those who carried the ladders, Lannes seized one, and shouted, "I shall show you that your marshal has not ceased to be a grenadier." His aides- de-camp went before him, and they themselves led the troops to the escalade. At last the gates were opened, and Napoleon entered Ratisbon.