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

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During the forty days which had elapsed since the battle of Essling, the
Archduke Charles had limited his efforts to fortifying his positions on
the left bank of the Danube, without attempting any offensive operations
against Napoleon, and had in vain waited for the reinforcements that his
brothers, and the generals dispersed over the Austrian territory, were to
bring him. The skilful generals of Napoleon had everywhere intercepted
their communications. However, 130,000 or 140,000 of the enemy prepared to
dispute with us the passage of the Danube. One hundred and fifty thousand
French were assembled around Vienna; Massena had not quitted the island of
Lobau; Napoleon established himself there with his staff on the 1st July.

Skilful and learned in the theory of war, the Archduke Charles felt his
inferiority in face of the unexpected genius of the Emperor Napoleon. He
had carefully fortified Aspern, Essling, Ensdorf, but he had not foreseen
that the place of disembarkation, and the point of attack, would be
changed. The heights which ranged from Neusiedel to Wagram, well occupied
by excellent troops, were not furnished with redoubts; it was, however,
these same heights the conqueror was about to attack.

The bridges which united the right bank to the island of Lobau were at
present out of danger from all inundations and accidents. New and
ingenious inventions had utilized all the resources drawn from the
magazines of Vienna and the vast forests of Austria. A stockade protected
the roadway, and flying bridges of an extraordinary size and solidity
could be thrown in several hours over the small arm of the stream which
separated the island of Lobau from the left bank. Two days previously the
archduke had quitted the heights to approach the banks of the Danube,
waiting uselessly for the attack of the enemy; on the 3rd July he drew
back his forces towards the hills. The columns of the French continued to
defile over the great bridge, and massed themselves little by little on
the island. The cannon-balls of the enemy began to rain on the shores of
Lobau, but the space was too vast to permit the Austrian batteries to
sweep the interior. During the night of the 4th the first bridges were
thrown over the small arm of the Danube between the island and the
mainland; flat-bottomed boats brought over soldiers without interruption,
and these moored the boats and fixed the plankings. The enemy's fire had
become incessant and deadly. The engineers continued their work without
appearing to perceive the danger which threatened them, any more than the
thunder which rolled over their heads, the lightning which flashed through
the darkness, or the rain, which did not cease to fall in torrents. The
batteries of the island of Lobau were at length unmasked, everywhere
furnished with guns of the largest calibre, and the fire was directed
towards the little town of Enzensdorf; after that the Archduke Charles
could not deceive himself as to the menaced point. The troops of the
Austrian General Nordmann, which had occupied the plain, had fallen back
under the fire of the guns. The day rose brilliant and pure, the last
clouds massed by the storm were dispersed by the rays of the sun. The long
files of our troops advanced without precipitation and without disorder;
at the first break of day, the emperor himself had crossed the river.

The Archduke Charles contemplated this scene from the heights of Wagram.
His advanced posts had already been forced to give up to their enemies the
ground they had occupied the day before. The Austrian general had not yet
counted on the irresistible impetuosity of the torrent of men, horses, and
artillery, which the island of Lobau continued to vomit on the shores of
the Danube. "It is true that they have conquered the river." said the
Archduke Charles to his brother the Emperor Francis, standing by his side.
"I allow them to pass, that I may drive them presently into its waves."
"All right," said the emperor, dryly; "but do not let too many pass."
Seventy thousand French already deployed in the plain. As they defiled
past, the soldiers cried, "Long live the emperor !"

The town of Enzensdorf was merely a mass of ruins when Marshal Massena
commanded the attack upon it, and the little corps of Austrians defending
it were soon put to the sword; while on the right, General Oudinot had
taken possession of the chateau of Sachsengang. The entire army advanced,
without obstacle, against the heights of Wagram; Essling and Aspern were
occupied by our troops. The dispositions of the troops of the Archduke
Charles were not made; he was obliged to order detached bodies to retreat,
abandoning positions which were badly defended; the great battle was
deferred till the morrow. A rash attack against the plateau of Wagram was
repulsed, and for a moment several corps were in disorder; the retreat
sounded, and the troops bivouacked at their posts. The last instructions
had been given. Marshal Davout alone still remained with the emperor. The
Archduke Charles did not sleep--the supreme effort of the Austrian
monarchy was to be tried at the break of day.

The extent of the field of battle, and the distance between the positions,
presented serious difficulties for both armies. The genius of organization
possessed by the Emperor Napoleon had in some measure obviated this by the
care he had taken of his centre; the Archduke Charles felt it from the
commencement of the combat. Obliged to send his orders great distances, he
saw them badly obeyed; the left wing of his army attacked us first,
whereas the right wing had been intended to take the offensive. Contrary
to his custom, the Emperor Napoleon had ordered his troops to wait for the
enemy.

It was four o'clock in the morning when the fire commenced. Marshal
Bernadotte, who had remained in advance on the field of battle after his
attack of the previous night against the plateau of Wagram, found himself
menaced by the Austrians, and fell back on Marshal Massena, still ill from
a fall from his horse, and commanding his corps from an open carriage. The
two marshals had brought back their troops against the little village of
Aderklaa; but the archduke occupied it; the French were repulsed, and
pushed by the enemy beyond Essling, which had again fallen into the hands
of the Austrians.

Meantime, Marshal Davout, on the extreme right, had vigorously resisted
the first attack of the columns of Rosenberg, and obliged the Austrians to
repass the rivulet of Russbach, and fall back upon Neusiedel. The marshal
threw all his forces immediately against them. It was to him that was
confided the honor of taking the plateau of Wagram.

The emperor had joined Marshal Massena, talking a few minutes with him
under a storm of balls which fell round the carriage: Napoleon walked his
horse across the plain, impatiently waiting the great movement that he had
ordered on the centre. At the head advanced a division of the army of
Italy, commanded by Macdonald, little known to the young soldiers because
of his long disgrace; he marched proudly, attired in his old uniform of
the armies of the republic. Napoleon saw him unmoved under the fire,
attentive to the least incidents of the battle: "Ah, the fine fellow! the
fine fellow!" he repeated in a low voice.

The artillery of the guard arrived at a gallop, supporting by its hundred
guns the impetuous attack of the centre: the Austrians recoiled from this
enormous mass, the irresistible impulse of which nothing could stay.
Macdonald had already reached Sussenbrunn, where the archduke and his
generals had concentrated their last effort; and the French columns were
stopped by their desperate resistance. For a moment they seemed destined
to retreat in their turn; but Davout had succeeded in his attack against
the heights of Neusiedel. The plateau of Wagram was in our hands; General
Oudinot had effected his junction, after taking the position of
Baumersdorf; and the Prince of Hohenzollern retreated before them. In vain
the Archduke Charles had hoped to see his brother, the Archduke John,
arrive in time to restore their chance; the struggle lasted for more than
ten hours--all the positions had fallen into our power; the retreat of the
Austrian army commenced, regular and well ordered, without precipitation
or rout. Disorder, on the contrary, showed itself in the ranks of the
conquerors, when, at the last moments of the struggle, some soldiers of
the vanguard of the Archduke John appeared in the environs of
Leopoldsdorf. The young troops, already disbanded in the joy of the
victory--the servants of the army, the sutlers, the carriers of the
wounded, were seized with a panic terror, and fell back with loud cries on
the main body of the army, announcing that the enemy were returning to
crush us. It was too late; the Archduke John had slowly executed the
orders tardily received. His arrival could not change the issue of the
battle; he fell back upon Hungary. The Archduke Charles had taken the road
to Bohemia before the Emperor Napoleon was well informed of his march. The
pursuit was, therefore, divided between Bohemia and Moravia. The forces of
the enemy were dispersed during their retreat. The archduke had with him
about 60,000 men, when General Marmont, with a corps of only 10,000,
rejoined him at Znaim, on the road to Prague.

It was there that Napoleon arrived on the 11th; Massena was in advance,
and a battle took place on the banks of the Taya, and after a sharp combat
the bridge was forced. But already Prince John of Lichtenstein had come to
ask a suspension of hostilities, announcing openly the intention of the
Austrian government to begin negotiations for peace. The deliberations
were carried on at the head-quarters, while the army ranged itself in the
plain of Znaim. The emperor recapitulated rapidly in his mind the dangers
and chances of a prolonged war. The opinion of several of his generals was
to follow up Austria, and crush the coalition finally. Napoleon felt the
enormous burden weighing on his shoulders: he saw a difficult and
lingering war in Spain, Prussia agitated, Russia cold and secretly ill-
disposed, the difficulties of Rome, England for the future taking her part
in the continental struggle: he cried, "Enough blood has been shed; let us
make peace!" It was necessary to repeat his words several times to the
hostile parties at Znaim, to induce them to cease fighting. The officers
whose duty it was to carry the intelligence to the field of battle were
wounded before they were able to stop the combat.

The armistice was signed in the night of the 11th July, and Napoleon
immediately returned to Schoenbrunn. Negotiations had commenced, but their
success was by no means sure. The Austrian armies had been brilliantly
vanquished, but they were neither dispersed nor destroyed, and the efforts
their resistance had cost sufficiently proved the military qualities of
the chief and his soldiers. The Emperor Napoleon, encamped in the centre
of the Austrian monarchy--of which he occupied the capital; he could not,
and durst not in any way, relax his warlike watchfulness. New bodies of
men were summoned from France. The Tyrol not being comprised in the
armistice, the Bavarians and Prince Eugene were ordered to reduce its two
portions, German and Italian. The posts were everywhere fortified, and
works of defence pursued with vigor. The greater part of the army occupied
vast barracks in the suburbs of Vienna. Napoleon distributed rewards to
the officers and soldiers; he even showed his displeasure to Marshal
Bernadotte, who had presumed to address a personal order of the day to the
corps of the army under his direction at Wagram.

"His Majesty commands his army in person," he sent word to the Prince of
Pontecorvo by Major-General Berthier; "it belongs to him alone to
distribute the degree of glory with each merits." Napoleon added, in a
letter to the minister of war, "I am glad also that you are aware that the
Prince of Pontecorvo has not always conducted himself well in this
campaign. The truth is, that this column of bronze has been constantly in
disorder." By thus wounding his vanity, unexpected political difficulties
afterwards arose, by leaving in the heart of Bernadotte implacable
resentment against the emperor.

I wished to pursue without interruption the history of the campaign of
Germany during these three months, so fertile in obstinate combats, in
works as vast as they were novel, in pitched battles, more sanguinary and
important from the number of troops engaged than any which had preceded
them. Germany was not, however, the only theatre of the struggle; and the
attention of Europe, always attracted to the places where Napoleon
commanded in person and carried out his own plans, was occasionally
diverted towards the Spanish and Portuguese peninsula. There several of
the most skilful generals of the emperor fought against populations
eagerly struggling for their independence; there gradually rose to
greatness the name of Sir Arthur Wellesley, and that reputation for
stability and heroic perseverance which at a later date constituted his
power and splendor.

Fighting was carried on in Spain, not without glory or success; the
insurgents having more than once had the honor of annoying the all-
powerful conqueror in the midst of his triumphs. There was no fighting at
Rome, and oppression reigned there without material resistance; yet for
more than a year a struggle continued between the Emperor Napoleon and the
Pope, Pius VII., without all the advantages remaining on the side of
force, or the conqueror feeling certain that he held the prey he had
confided to the care of General Miollis. On the 6th July, 1809, the same
day as the battle of Wagram, the Pope was suddenly taken away from Rome,
and conducted as a prisoner out of that palace and that town which he had
never previously quitted, except to visit Paris for the purpose of
consecrating the very man who was to-day stripping him of his throne.
Since the month of February, 1808, the thoughts and hearts of many had
still found time to seek the aged pontiff at the Quirinal, and they now
followed him with sympathy into exile and captivity.

After the occupation of Rome by General Miollis, when the foreign
cardinals had received orders to return to their respective countries, and
the Pope had recalled his legate from Paris, the Emperor Napoleon, on
stepping into his carriage to visit Bayonne, had ordered Champagny to
transmit to Cardinal Caprara the following note:---

"The _sine qua non_ of the emperor is, that all Italy, Rome, Naples, and
Milan make a league offensive and defensive, so as to remove disorder and
war from the peninsula. If the holy father consents to this proposition,
all is terminated; if he refuses, by that he declares war against the
emperor. The first result of war is conquest, and the first result of
conquest is change of government. This will not occasion any loss to the
spiritual rights of the Pope; he will be Bishop of Rome, as have been all
his predecessors in the eight first centuries, and under Charlemagne. It
will, however, be a subject of regret, which the emperor will be the first
to feel, to see foolish vanity, obstinacy and ignorance destroy the work
of genius, policy and enlightenment.

"The recall of your Eminence is notified contrary to custom, against the
formalities in usage, and on the eve of the Passion week--three
circumstances which sufficiently explain the charitable and entirely
evangelical spirit of the holy father. No matter, his Majesty recognizes
your Eminence no more as legate. From this moment the Gallican Church
resumes all the integrity of its doctrine. More learned, more truly
religious, than the Church of Rome, she has no want of the latter. I send
to your eminence the passports you have demanded. We are thus at war, and
his Majesty has given orders in consequence. His Holiness will be
satisfied--he will have the happiness of declaring war in the holy week.
The thunders of the Vatican will be all the more formidable. His Majesty
fears them less than those of the castle of St. Angelo. He who curses
kings, is cursed by God."

At the same time, and by order of Napoleon, a decree was prepared
enumerating all the grievances of which he accused the court of Rome, and
enacting that "the provinces of Urbino, Ancona, Macerata, and Camerino,
should be irrevocably and forever united to the kingdom of Italy, to form
three new departments." The Code Napoleon was to be proclaimed there.

The violent and arbitrary measures employed by the emperor towards the
Pope naturally bore their fruits. In removing from Pius VII. the cardinals
who were not natives of the Roman states, he had deprived the pontiff of
the most enlightened and moderate counsels which could reach his ears, and
had delivered him, in his weakness and just indignation, to all the
influences against which Cardinal Consalvi had constantly struggled. From
this time every despotic act of Napoleon, every rude word of the soldiers
charged to execute his orders, increased the irritation of the Pope, and
urged him to advance on a course of blind resistance. A prohibition to
swear allegiance to the new government was addressed to the bishops and
all the priests of the territories taken away from the pontifical states;
this prohibition was founded upon principles of dogma and religion.
Henceforth the personal will of the Pope, his dignity as a sovereign, and
his conscience as a priest, were all engaged in the struggle against the
Emperor Napoleon. "Those who have succeeded in alarming the conscience of
the holy father are still the strongest," Lefebvre, the charge-d'affaires
of France, who had not yet quitted Rome, wrote to Champagny. "The tenor of
the reply to the ultimatum that I have been instructed to remit to him has
been changed twice this morning--so much did they still hesitate upon the
decision to take. The theologians themselves were divided even in the
Sacred College, and I doubt not that the refusal of his Holiness to agree
with the emperor will throw into consternation a number of his warmest
partisans."

The rupture was from this time official, and the relations of the Pope
with the French authorities who occupied the pontifical city became every
day more bitter. Pius VII. had chosen for his secretary of state, Cardinal
Pacca, witty, amiable, devoted to the holy father, but strongly attached
to the most narrow ideas as to the government of the Roman Church in the
world; in other respects, prudent in his conduct towards General Miollis,
and often excited to action by the Pope, who complained of his timidity.
"They pretend in Rome that we are asleep," said Pius VII. to his minister;
"we must prove that we are awake, and address a vigorous note to the
French general." The protest was posted everywhere in Rome, on the morning
of the 24th August, 1808; eight days later, and under the pretext that the
secretary of state interfered with the recruiting for the civic guard,
Cardinal Pacca received the order to quit Rome in twenty-four hours. "Your
Eminence will find at the gate of St. John an escort of dragoons, whose
duty is to accompany you to Benevento, your native town." In the meantime
a French officer was appointed to watch over the cardinal. The latter was
still talking with his jailer, when Pius VII. suddenly entered the cabinet
of his minister.

"I was then witness of a phenomenon which I had often heard spoken of,"
relates Cardinal Pacca in his memoirs. "In an access of violent anger, the
hair of the holy father bristled up, and his sight was confused. Although
I was dressed as a cardinal, he did not know me. 'Who is there?' he
demanded, in a loud voice. 'I am the cardinal,' I replied, kissing his
hand. 'Where is the officer?' demanded the holy father; and I pointed him
out near me, in a respectful attitude. Then the Pope, turning towards him,
'Go and tell your general that I am weary of suffering so many insults and
outrages from a man who dares still to call himself a Catholic. I command
my minister not to obey the injunctions of an illegitimate authority. Let
your general know, that if force is employed to tear him from me it shall
only be after having broken all the doors; and I declare him beforehand
responsible for the consequences of such an enormous crime.' And making a
sign to the cardinal to follow him, 'Let us go,' said the Pope. The
officer had gone out to carry to the general the message of the holy
father. The secretary of state was installed in an apartment which opened
into the Pope's bedroom. The gates of the Quirinal remained closed to all
the French officers, and General Miollis did not claim his prisoner."

Months had meanwhile passed away. The emperor had quitted Spain to make
preparations for the campaign of Germany. Without ever ceasing to load the
Pope with unfriendly words and treatment, Napoleon had been engaged in
affairs more important than his troubles with the pontifical court. Public
order was maintained in Rome, thanks to the Italian prudence of the
secretary of state, and the strict discipline which General Miollis knew
how to maintain among his troops, and even among the auxiliaries he had
recruited from the revolutionary middle-class. The time arrived, however,
when this situation, more violent in fact than in form, was suddenly to
assume its real character. Napoleon was at Schoenbrunn, already victor in
the five days' battle which had rendered him master of Vienna, and more
certain than he was immediately after Essling of the promptitude and
extent of his success. It was then that he drew up, and sent by Champagny,
two decrees relating to the taking possession, pure and simple, of the
States of the Pope. He explained the reasons of this to his minister in a
long letter, which was to serve as a basis for Champagny's report, and
which, by its singular mixture of thoughts and principles, showed the
historical heredity connecting the power of Napoleon with that of
Charlemagne, united to the sovereign power which disposed in the name of
conquest of territories and states, were confused in the imagination of
the emperor, and made him look upon the independent attitude of the Pope
as an act of criminal opposition.

"When Charlemagne made the popes temporal sovereigns, he wished them to
remain vassals of the empire; now, far from thinking themselves vassals of
the empire, they are not even willing to form a part of it. The aim of
Charlemagne in his generosity towards the popes was the welfare of
Christianity; and now they claim to ally themselves with Protestants and
the enemies of Christianity. The least impropriety that results from these
arrangements is to see the head of the Catholic religion negotiating with
Protestants; whilst according to the laws of the Church he ought to shun
them, and excommunicate them. (There is a prayer to this effect recited at
Rome.)

"The interest of religion, and the interest of the peoples of France,
Germany and Italy, require that an end should be made of this ridiculous
temporal power--the feeble remnant of the exaggerated pretensions of the
Gregories, who claimed to reign over kings, to give away crowns, and to
have the direction of the affairs of earth as well as of heaven. In the
absence of councils, let the popes have the direction of the affairs of
the Church so far as they do not infringe on the liberties of the Gallican
Church--that is all right; but they ought not to mix themselves up with
armies or state policy. If they are the successors of Jesus Christ, they
ought not to exercise any other dominion than that which He Himself
exercised, and His 'kingdom is not of this world.'

"If your Majesty does not do that which you alone can do, you will leave
in Europe the seeds of dissension and discord. Posterity, whilst praising
you for having re-established religion and re-erected her altars, will
blame you for having left the empire (which is in fact the major portion
of Christendom) exposed to the influence of this fantastic medley,
inimical to religion and the tranquillity of the empire. This obstacle can
only be surmounted by separating the temporal from the spiritual
authority, and by declaring that the states of the Pope form a portion of
the French Empire."

It is too often an error of men, even of the first rank, to believe in the
universal power and duration of their wishes and decisions. The Emperor
Napoleon though he had solved forever this question of the temporal power
of the popes-a question which we have so many times heard discussed by the
most eloquent voices; we have seen armies upholding on fields of battle
contradictory principles on this subject, and diplomacy painfully
accomplishing imperfect settlements.

He displayed towards Pope Pius VII. the most arrogant contempt of the
rights and independence of others, and a passionate self-will as regards
all resistance. Under shelter of ancient authority, of which he
retrospectively took possession, he boldly invoked the highest reasons and
the most venerated names, in order to justify an arbitrary resolution, and
the grasping selfishness which swayed his mind. It was the practice of the
French Revolution to prop up its violent and despotic proceedings by the
loftiest principles; the Emperor Napoleon had not forgotten this
tradition.