Worlds Best Histories France Vol 7 by M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

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The Emperor Alexander joined the Emperor of Austria at Olmuetz. Proud of
his diplomatic successes at Berlin, and convinced that his visit to the
King of Prussia had alone decided him to attach himself to the coalition,
he nursed a military ambition, assiduously encouraged by his young
favorites. The Emperor Francis sent Stadion and Giulay to Bruenn,
commissioned to treat for conditions of peace. Napoleon referred them to
Talleyrand, whom he had sent to Vienna. "They know the state of the
question by what I have said to them in a few words," wrote he; "but you
have to treat it smoothly and at full length. My intention is absolutely
to have the State of Venice, and to reunite it to the kingdom of Italy. I
have good cause to think that the court of Vienna has taken its resolution
on that point."

Napoleon was wishing for peace--immediate, glorious, and fruitful. He had
vainly sought to separate the Austrians from the Russians; he could not
doubt the hostile intentions of Prussia. The very explanations that
Haugwitz had just given him as to the motives for the entry of a Prussian
army into Hanover foreshadowed plenty of approaching hostilities: a
brilliant victory, forestalling the union of the German and Russian
forces, became necessary. For a few days the soldiers rested, recruiting
their forces after their long and perilous marches. The impatience of the
Emperor Alexander had already carried the general quarters of the allies
to Wischau. It was there that General Savary presented himself, intrusted
with aimless negotiations, which gave him opportunity to examine the
condition of the Austro-Russian army. Prince Dolgorouki, sent from Bruenn
with the reply of the Emperor Alexander, was received at the advanced
posts. The young favorite was thoughtless and proud. "What do they want of
me?" said Napoleon. "Why does the Emperor Alexander make war on me? Is he
jealous of the growth of France? Well, let him extend his frontiers at the
expense of his neighbors on the side of Turkey, and all quarrels will be
at an end." Dolgorouki protested the disinterestedness of his master. "The
emperor wishes," said he "for the independence of Europe, the evacuation
of Holland and Switzerland, an indemnity for the King of Sardinia, and
barriers round France for the protection of its neighbors." Napoleon broke
out in a passion: "I will never yield anything in Italy, even if the
Russians should camp upon the heights of Montmartre." He sent back the
negotiator, who had perceived the movements of troops falling back around
Bruenn. Ignorant of the great principle which directed the campaigns of
Napoleon--"divide in order to subsist, concentrate in order to fight"--he
thought he divined the preparations for retreat. The ardor of the Russian
army grew more intense. It advanced towards the position long studied by
Napoleon, and which he destined for his field of battle. In accordance
with the plan of the Austrian general, Weirother, who was in great favor
with the Emperor Alexander, the allies had resolved to turn the right of
the French army, in order to cut off the road to Vienna by isolating
numerous corps dispersed in Austria and Styria. Already the two emperors
and their staff-officers occupied the castle and village of Austerlitz. On
December 1st, 1805, the allies established themselves upon the plateau of
Platzen; Napoleon had by design left it free. Divining, with the sure
instinct of superior genius, the manoeuvres of his enemy, he had cleverly
drawn them into the snare. His proclamation to the troops announced all
the plan of the battle.

"Soldiers," said he, "the Russian army presents itself before you to
avenge the Austrian army of Ulm. These are the same battalions which you
have beaten at Hollabrunn, and that you have constantly pursued to this
place.

"The positions that we occupy are formidable, and whilst they march to
turn my right they will present me their flank.

"Soldiers, I will myself direct your battalions. I will keep myself away
from the firing if, with your accustomed bravery, you carry disorder and
confusion into the enemy's ranks. But if the victory were for a moment
uncertain you would see your emperor expose himself to the brunt of the
attack; for this victory will finish the campaign, and we shall be able to
resume our winter quarters, where we shall be joined by new armies which
are forming in France. Then the peace I shall make will be worthy of my
people, of you, and of me."

It was late, and the emperor had just dismissed Haugwitz, whom he had sent
back to Vienna. "I shall see you again if I am not carried off to-morrow
by a cannon-ball. It will be time then to understand each other." Napoleon
went out to visit the soldiers at the bivouac. A great ardor animated the
troops; it was remembered that the 2nd December was the anniversary of the
coronation of the emperor. The soldiers gathered up the straw upon which
they were stretched, making it into bundles, which they lit at the end of
poles; a sudden illumination lit up the camp. "Be assured," said an old
grenadier, advancing towards the chief who had so many times led his
comrades to victory, "I promise thee that we will bring thee to-morrow the
flags and the cannon of the Russian army to signalize the anniversary of
the 2nd December."

The fires were extinguished, and the enemies thought they saw in it the
indication of a nocturnal retreat. Gathered around a map, the allied
generals listened to Weirother, who developed his plan of battle "with a
boasting air, which displayed in him a clear persuasion of his own merit
and of our incapacity," says General Langeron, a French emigrant officer
in the Russian army. Old Kutuzof slept. "If Bonaparte had been able to
attack us, he would have done it to-day," was the assurance of Weirother.
"You do not then think him strong?" "If he has 40,000 men, it is all." "He
has extinguished his fires; a good deal of noise comes from his camp." "He
is either retreating or else he is changing his position; if he takes that
of Turas, he will spare us a good deal of trouble, and the dispositions of
the troops will remain the same." The day was scarcely begun (2nd
December, 1805) when the allied army was on the march. The noise of the
preparations in the camps had reassured Napoleon as to the direction the
enemy would take. On the previous evening, whilst listening to the learned
lecture of Weirother, Prince Bagration, formerly the heroic defender of
the positions of Hollabrunn, had uttered under his long moustache, "The
battle is lost!" In seeing his enemies advance towards the right, as he
had himself announced to his soldiers, Napoleon could not withhold the
signs of his joy. He held the victory in his own hands. He waited
patiently until his enemies had deployed their line. The sun had just
risen, shining through the midst of a fog, which it dispersed with its
brilliant rays. The plateau of Pratzen was in part abandoned; the emperor
gave the signal, and the whole French army moved forward, forming an
enormous and compact mass, eager to hurl itself on the enemy. "See how the
French climb the height without staying to respond to our fire!" said
Prince Czartoriski, who watched the battle near the two emperors. He was
still speaking when already the allied columns, thrown out one after
another on the slope, found themselves arrested in their movement and
separated from the two wings of the army. Old Kutuzof, badly wounded,
strove in vain to send aid to the disordered centre. "See, see, a mortal
wound!" he cried, extending his arms towards Pratzen.

During this time the right, commanded by Marshal Davout, disputed with the
Russians the line of Goldbach, extricating with the division of Friant
General Legrand for a moment outflanked. Murat and Lannes attacked on the
left eighty-two Russian and Austrian squadrons, under the orders of Prince
John of Lichtenstein. The infantry advanced in quick time against the
Uhlans sent against them, soon dispersed by the light cavalry of
Kellermann. The Russian batteries drowned the sound of all the drums of
the first regiment of the division of Cafarelli. General Valhubert had his
thigh fractured, and his soldiers wished to carry him away. "Remain at
your posts," said he calmly. "I know well how to die alone. We must not
for one man lose six." The Russian guard at last turned towards Pratzen. A
French battalion, which had let itself be drawn in pursuit, was in danger.
Napoleon, stationed at the centre with the infantry of the guard, and the
corps of Bernadotte, perceived the disorder. "Take there the Mamelukes and
the chasseurs of the guard," said he to Rapp. When the latter returned to
the emperor he was wounded, but the Russians, were repulsed, and Prince
Repnin prisoner. A Russian division, isolated at Sokolnitz, had just
surrendered; two columns had been thrown back beyond the marshes. The
bridge broke under the weight of the artillery. The cold was intense; and
the soldiers thought to save themselves by springing upon the ice, but
already the French cannon-balls were breaking it under their feet. With
cries of despair they were engulfed in the waters of the lake. Generals
Doctoroff and Keinmayer effected their painful retreat, under the fire of
our batteries, by a narrow embankment, separating the two lakes of Melnitz
and Falnitz. Only the corps of Prince Bagration still kept in order of
battle, Marshal Lannes having restrained his troops which were rushing
forward in pursuit.

The day had come to a close; the two emperors had abandoned the terrible
battle-field. Behind them resounded the French shouts of victory; around
them, before them, they heard the imprecations of the fugitives, the
groans of the wounded, unable any longer to keep on their way, the
complaints of the peasants ravaged by the furious soldiery. They arrived
thus at the imperial castle of Halitsch, where they found themselves next
day pressed by Marshal Davout. Austerlitz became the headquarters of the
conqueror.

Before even having reached a place of safety the Emperor Francis, gloomy
and calm, had in his own mind taken his decision. Prince John of
Lichtenstein was sent to ask from Napoleon an armistice and an interview.
The conqueror was still traversing the field of battle, attentive in
procuring for his soldiers the care that their bravery merited. "The
interview, when the emperor will, the day after to-morrow, at our advanced
posts," said he to the Austrian envoy; "until then, no armistice." Whilst
Napoleon was speaking to his army and to Europe, Marshal Lannes and the
cavalry were already pursuing the vanquished enemy.

"Soldiers, I am satisfied with you," said he in his proclamation of the
3rd December, 1805. "You have upon the day of Austerlitz justified all
that I expected from your intrepidity. An army of 100,000 men, commanded
by the Emperors of Russia and Austria, has been in less than four hours
either cut up or dispersed, and what escaped from your steel is drowned in
the lakes. Forty flags, the standards of the Imperial Guard of Russia, a
hundred and twenty pieces of cannon, twenty generals, and more than thirty
thousand prisoners are the results of this ever-memorable day. In three
months this third coalition has been vanquished and dissolved. Soldiers,
when all that is necessary in order to assure the happiness and prosperity
of France shall be accomplished, I will lead you back into France; there
you will be the object of my most tender solicitude. My people will see
you again with joy, and it will suffice for you to say, 'I was at the
battle of Austerlitz,' to receive the reply, 'There is a hero!'"

The army rested, intoxicated with pride and joy. The losses, considerable
in themselves, were small in comparison with the disasters inflicted on
the coalition; the arrogance of the Russians had undergone a most painful
check; the youthful illusions of their Czar cruelly dissipated. The
Emperor of Austria informed him of his pacific intentions, and Alexander
hastened to release his allies from their engagements; he was in a hurry
to retire and disengage himself from a war which could procure for him no
other advantage than a vain hope of glory.

Napoleon repeated his former sentiments to the Emperor Francis when he met
him next day at the mill of Paleny, between Nasiedlowitz and Urschitz. "Do
not confound your cause with that of the Emperor Alexander. Russia can to-
day only make a fancy war (_une guerre de fantaisie_). Conquered, she
retires into her deserts, and you pay all the costs of the war." Then,
gracefully returning to the courtesies of society, the all-powerful
conqueror made excuses for the poor place in which he was compelled to
receive his illustrious host.

"These are the palaces," said he, "which your Majesty has compelled me to
inhabit for three months past." "Your visit has succeeded sufficiently
well for you to have no right to bear me any grudge," replied the Emperor
Francis. The two monarchs embraced, and the armistice was concluded. The
Russians were to retire by stages, and the seat of negotiations was fixed
at Bruenn. A formal order from Napoleon was necessary in order to stop the
march of Marshal Davout in pursuit of the Russian army. General Savary was
entrusted with this order; he brought to the Czar the conditions of the
armistice. "I am satisfied, since my ally is," replied Alexander, and he
allowed to escape from him the expression of an admiration which was long
to exercise over him a profound influence. "Your master has shown himself
very great," said he to Savary.

Napoleon left Talleyrand at Bruenn exchanging arguments with Stadion and
Giulay; he himself repaired to Vienna, where Haugwitz awaited him.
Imperfectly instructed as to the alliance concluded on the 3rd of November
at Potsdam between the King of Prussia and the allies, he knew enough of
it to break forth in violent reproaches against the perfidy of the
Prussian Government. And as Haugwitz made excuses and protests, the
Emperor proposed to him all of a sudden that union with France which had
been so often discussed. Hanover was to be the price of it. Prussia was
uneasy, frightened, divided in her councils, but she accepted; the
Marquisate of Anspach, the Principality of Neufchatel, and the Duchy of
Cleves were ceded to France, and the treaty was signed at Schoenbrunn on
the 15th December, 1805. Prussia recognized all the conquests of Napoleon;
the two sovereigns reciprocally guaranteed each other's possessions.

Talleyrand had just quitted Bruenn, which had become unhealthy through the
overcrowding of the hospitals; the negotiations were being carried on at
Presburg. In spite of the wise and prudent counsels of his minister,
Napoleon was resolved on exacting from Austria still more than he had
declared before Ulm. The defection of Prussia had thoroughly disheartened
the plenipotentiaries of the Emperor Francis. The French armies
concentrated afresh around Vienna. Napoleon was doubly imperious,
threatening to recommence the war; the negotiators at length yielded to
necessity. On the 26th of December, 1805, peace was signed at Presburg
between France and Austria. The Emperor Francis abandoned to the conqueror
Venice, Istria, Frioul, and Dalmatia, which were to become part of the
kingdom of Italy; the Tyrol and Vorarlberg, of which Napoleon made a
present to Bavaria; the outlying territories of Suabia, handed over to
Wurtemberg; the Brisgau, Ortenau, and the city of Constance, which were
added to the territories of the Elector of Baden. Napoleon ceded to the
Emperor the Principality of Wurtzburg for one of the archdukes; the
secularization of the Teutonic Order was agreed upon to the profit of
Austria; the latter power was to pay a war indemnity of forty millions.

The small German princes, who beheld their possessions increased and their
titles made more glorious by the powerful hand of the conqueror, were in
their turn to pay the price of the terrible alliance which weighed upon
them. The new Kings of Wurtemberg and Bavaria found themselves obliged to
give their daughters to Jerome Bonaparte and to Eugene de Beauharnais; the
marriage that the former had contracted in America, and the betrothal of
the Princess of Bavaria to the son of the Elector of Baden, weighed
nothing in the balance in comparison with the iron will of Napoleon.
Intimidated and restless, the Elector of Baden himself broke off the
marriage of his son, accepting for him the hand of Stephani de
Beauharnais, niece of the Empress Josephine. Before taking the road to
France, the Emperor was present at the marriage of the vice-King of Italy
with the princess whose portrait he had seen a few days before upon a
porcelain cup. Everything had yielded to his power,--sovereigns, families,
and hearts. Russia and England alone remained openly enemies. "Rest
awhile, my children," said the Archduke Charles in disbanding his army;
"rest awhile, until we begin again."

I have been desirous of conducting General Bonaparte, now become the
Emperor Napoleon, up to the popular summit of his glory. He had already
tainted it by many acts of violence, and by an exclusive devotion to
personal ends, in defiance of justice and liberty. Henceforward and under
the disastrous inspirations of a mad ambition, victory itself was to
become a fatal seduction which by inevitable degrees draws us on to ruin.
Great and terrible lesson of Divine justice on the morality of nations!
Starting from the violation of the peace of Amiens, and in spite of the
glory of the sun of Austerlitz, the history of the glory of the conqueror
includes in germ the history of his fall, and of the ever-increasing
misfortunes of France.

CHAPTER IX.

GLORY AND CONQUEST (1805-1808).

Guizot has said at the commencement of his essay on Washington: "There is
a spectacle as fine as that of a virtuous man struggling with adversity,
and not less salutary to contemplate; it is the spectacle of a virtuous
man at the head of a good cause and assuring his triumph."

There is a spectacle, sorrowful and sad, also salutary to contemplate in
its austere teachings: it is that of a man of genius bearing along in his
train an enthusiastic nation, and squandering all the living forces of his
genius and his country in the service of a senseless ambition, as fatal to
the sovereign as the people, both foolishly dragged along by a vision of
glory towards injustices and crimes not at first foreseen. Such is the
spectacle offered to us by the history of the Emperor Napoleon, and of
France, after the battle of Austerlitz and the Peace of Presburg.

For the moment a stupor seemed to oppress the whole of Europe. Prussia,
humiliated and indignant, had, however, just ratified the treaty of
Schoenbrunn; Austria was panting and conquered; England had lost her great
minister: William Pitt died 23rd January, 1806, struck to the heart in his
patriotic passion, by the new victory of the conqueror whom he dreaded for
the liberty of the world. "Roll up this map of Europe," said he when the
news was brought to him as he lay dying in his little house at Putney, "in
ten years time there will be no further need for it." Already his rival
had succeeded him in office, and Fox did not yet foresee that he would
presently be inevitably brought to adopt the policy of resistance to the
long increasing power of Napoleon. He was then making cordial advances
towards him. The Emperor Alexander had not disarmed, but the appeals to
him from the Court of Naples found him immovable. Already the Bourbons
were trembling on the thrones they still occupied.

Napoleon announced it in his thirty-seventh bulletin, dated from Vienna.
"General Saint Cyr marches by long stages towards Naples, to punish the
treason of the queen, and hurl from the throne this criminal woman who has
violated everything that is held sacred among men." Intercession was
attempted for her with the Emperor. He replied, "Ought hostilities to
recommence, and the nation to sustain a war of thirty years, a perfidy so
atrocious cannot he pardoned."

In this struggle between violence and treason the issue could not remain
long doubtful. In the name of Joseph Bonaparte, Massena commanded the army
which came to take possession of the kingdom of Naples. For the second
time, King Ferdinand and Queen Charlotte took refuge in Sicily. "It is the
interest of France to make sure of the kingdom of Naples by a useful and
easy conquest," the _Moniteur_ had formerly declared, in publishing the
treaty of neutrality agreed to by the House of Bourbon. The work was
accomplished; on the 30th of March, Joseph Bonaparte was proclaimed King
of the Two Sicilies. The city of Gaeta alone was to prolong its
resistance.

Two months later, with the appearance of the national consent, Napoleon
elevated his brother Louis to the throne which he had instituted for him
in Holland. The prince had been ordered to protect this country,
threatened by the Anglo-Swedish army. After the battle of Austerlitz he
presented himself before the Emperor. "Why have you quitted Holland?"
demanded the latter brusquely, "we saw you there with pleasure, and you
should have remained there." "Sounds of a monarchical transformation
circulate in Holland," replied Louis Bonaparte, "they are not agreeable to
this free and worthy nation, nor are they any more pleasant to me."

Napoleon broke out into a passion. "He gave me to understand," says Prince
Louis in his _Memoires_, "that if I had not been more consulted over this
affair, it was for a subject only to obey." At the same time the Emperor
wrote to Talleyrand, "I have seen this evening Admiral Verhuell. In two
words hear what this question amounts to. Holland is without executive
power. It requires that power, and I will give it Prince Louis. In place
of the Grand Pensionary Schimmelpenninck, there shall be a king. The
argument is that without that I shall not be able to give peace a firm
settlement. Prince Louis must make his entry into Amsterdam within twenty
days." The accession to the throne of the new monarch was celebrated on
the 5th June, 1806.

Napoleon disposed at his will of crowns and appanages, elevating or
dethroning kings, magnificently dowering the companions of his military
life and the servants of his policy. He had at the same time conceived the
idea of forming beyond his States a barrier which should separate them
from the great German powers, always secretly hostile. The dukes and the
electors whom he had made kings, the princes whose domains he had
aggrandized, were to unite in a confederation for the protection of the
new State of Germany. The seat of government was established at Frankfort.
The town of Ratisbon, formerly honored by the assemblies of the Diet, had
been ceded to Bavaria. The Diet was officially informed that Prussia
received a decisive authorization to form in its turn a confederation of
the North. Most of the German States having been forcibly taken from him,
Francis II voluntarily resigned the vain title he still bore; he ceased to
be Emperor of Germany, and became Emperor of Austria.

Meanwhile the overtures of Fox towards France had until now remained
without result. England refused to treat without Russia, whom the Emperor
would not admit to a common negotiation. "Regrets are useless," wrote Fox
to Talleyrand on the 10th April, 1806; "but if the great man whom you
serve, could see with the same eye with which I behold it, the true glory
which would accrue to him from a moderate and just peace, what good
fortune would not result from it for France and for all Europe?"

In the depth of his soul and in his secret thoughts Napoleon now desired
peace. Amongst the English prisoners detained in France after the rupture
of the treaty of Amiens, a few had been exchanged since the advent of Fox
to the ministry; one of them, Lord Yarmouth (afterwards Lord Hertford),
elegant and dissipated, had been commissioned by his government to talk
over familiarly with Talleyrand the chances of peace that existed between
the two nations. Napoleon had conceded Hanover to Prussia as the price of
peace; he was ready to retrocede it to England, free to indemnify Prussia
at the expense of Germany. The negotiation was carried on secretly, the
negotiators meeting as men of the world rather than diplomats. Oubril, an
envoy from the Emperor Alexander, had just arrived in Paris, charged with
reassuring France on the subject of a circumstance which had recently
taken place in Dalmatia. The Russian admiral, Sinavin, animated with
unseasonable zeal, with the aid of the Montenegrins had seized the mouths
of the Cattaro. The Austrian officers, appointed to hand over the
territory to the French, had not opposed any resistance to the Russians.
The two Emperors of Austria and Russia hastened to disavow their agents;
on 20th July Oubril signed with France a separate peace.

This was failing in loyalty towards England, who had refused to treat
without its ally. The Emperor of Russia perceived it; he had thought the
cabinet of London more inclined to conclude peace at any cost. The health
of Fox was giving way, and his successors were likely to be less favorable
to the demands of Napoleon. Alexander declared that he would not ratify
the treaty negotiated by Oubril. This news arrived at Paris on the 3rd of
September, 1806. On the 13th of the same month Fox expired in London,
amiable and beloved to the last day of his life; ardently devoted to his
friends, to freedom, to all noble and generous causes; a great orator and
a great debater; feeble in his political conduct even in opposition,
incapable of governing and of sustaining the great struggle which for so
long agitated Europe. At his death the party of resistance resumed power
in England. In Germany the secret of the negotiations with regard to
Hanover had transpired; the disregard of sworn faith which Prussia had
more than once practised during the war fell back upon herself with
crushing weight. Napoleon thought nothing of his engagements; he had
detached King Frederick William from his natural allies, and showed
himself disposed to snatch from him the price of his compliance. The
nation and the king had with great difficulty accepted the treaty
negotiated by Haugwitz; indignation broke forth on every side. It had
already betrayed itself for a few weeks past by numerous and violent
pamphlets against the Emperor of the French and against the armies of
occupation. Napoleon responded to them by a despotic and cruel act which
was to bear bitter fruits. On the 5th August he wrote to Marshal
Berthier:--