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

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

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Quite close to Russia, in a country recently dismembered by the Emperor
Alexander with the consent of Napoleon, there was preparing at this time
an event which was soon to assure to the fifth European coalition one of
its most useful supports. The King of Sweden, Gustavus IV., unstable,
violent, and eccentric enough to warrant doubts as to the soundness of his
reason, had been deposed on the 10th of May, 1809, by the assembled
States, as the result of a military conspiracy. His uncle, the Duke of
Sudermania, elevated to the throne under the title of Charles XIII., had
no children; the Diet designated as his successor the Duke of
Augustenburg. This prince expired suddenly, in the midst of a review. The
claimants were numerous, and the King of Sweden desired to know the wish
of Napoleon. The latter secretly favored the King of Denmark, but the
States were not well disposed in his favor: the emperor refused to give a
decision. "A word from his Majesty would suffice to decide everything,"
said Desaugiers, the charge-d'affaires at Stockholm. Some proposed to
choose a stranger, and Marshal Bernadotte was thought of. During our
occupation of Pomerania he had known how to render himself agreeable to
the population over whom he ruled, and to persons of consideration who had
known how to appreciate the vivacity and capacity of his mind. He was a
kinsman of the Bonapartes, and conspicuous amongst the lieutenants of
Napoleon. An obscure member of the Diet repaired to Paris, and knitted the
first threads of an intrigue, destined to succeed by the very fact of the
ignorance and illusions of its authors. By placing Bernadotte upon the
steps of the throne, the States of Sweden thought to assure themselves of
the good-will of the Emperor Napoleon; his name was popular amongst the
lower classes. He was proclaimed Prince Royal of Sweden 17th August, 1810.

Napoleon had delayed too long to express his mind. A messenger arrived at
Stockholm bearing despatches which emphatically disavowed the declarations
of the partisans of Bernadotte. "I cannot think," said Napoleon, "that
these individuals could have had the impudence to assert themselves to be
charged with any mission whatever." The official announcement of the
elevation of the Prince of Pontecorvo was already on its way to Paris. "I
was little prepared for this news," replied Napoleon to the letter of King
Charles XIII. He wished to wrest from Bernadotte a pledge never to bear
arms against France. The marshal formally refused. For a long time in
secret hostility to the emperor, he severely judged the errors of his
ambition, and the consequences that would result for the peace of Europe.
"Go then," said Napoleon, "and let destiny be accomplished!" On the
evening of the 18th Brumaire, Bernadotte wrote to General Bonaparte: "My
idea of liberty differs from yours, and your plan kills it. Three weeks
ago I retired; but if I receive orders from those who have still the right
to give me them, I shall resist all illegal attempts against the
established powers."

The struggle was not to be long in breaking forth between the new heir to
the throne of Sweden and the exacting master who claimed to subject all
European powers to his laws. Everywhere the questions that grew out of the
continental blockade in right as well as in practice, brought about
difficulties, and gave rise to sufferings by which all the governments
were injured. In annexing Holland to France, Napoleon had authorized,
under a duty of 50 per cent., the sale of goods of English production
which the contraband had kept stored up in their warehouses. He conceived
the idea of applying the same duty to all sales of colonial products which
until then had only been able to enter France by virtue of a special
license. All the merchandise of this kind found in store, either in the
countries dependent on the French Empire, or in foreign territories within
four hours' journey of the frontier, were suddenly affected by this tax,
and placed under the obligation of a certificate of origin (5th August,
1810). In default of this justification, the goods were seized as of
English production, and in consequence contraband. The colonial produce
was to be sold; the manufactured articles were to be everywhere burnt. In
Spain, in the Canton of Tessin, at Frankfort, in the Hanseatic towns, at
Stettin, at Custrin, at Dantzig, the troops were ordered to carry out the
searches and seizures. A few dependent or vanquished sovereigns--Saxony or
Prussia, for example--themselves consented to make the required
requisitions. The sums produced by sales made in Prussia were generously
credited by the Emperor Napoleon as deductions from the Prussian debt to
France. A director of the French Customs superintended the Swiss troops in
their inquisitions. At all points of the immense territory subjugated by
Napoleon, the merchants crowded to the markets opened for confiscated
goods, whilst every article proved to be of English manufacture was
delivered to the flames in public. "For confiscation, for expulsion from
the country, they came to substitute the punishment of burning," writes
Mollien in his Memoirs; "and the reading of the correspondence of commerce
might have convinced Napoleon what complaint the bankers and maritime
speculators were making against a policy which, in the most industrious
century, was destroying by fire the creations of industry. Until then,
however, French manufacturers had flattered themselves with being able to
supply the consumers whom English commerce was to lose by so severe a
system of prohibition; but this illusion vanished when Napoleon, seduced
by the hope of assuring to France a part in the enterprises of the
commercial monopoly of England, was seen to be putting in some sort up to
auction the right of introducing into Europe the productions of America
and India, loading several raw materials--such as cotton and wool--with
enormous duties, and, by an inexplicable contradiction, rendering to the
productions of English industry, by these very taxes, more advantages than
prohibition caused them to lose. Then this fictitious system, which was to
free the continent from the domination of English commerce, became patent
to all eyes as nothing else but the most disastrous and false of fiscal
inventions; for it was creating two monopolies in place of one--
aggravating at once the condition of the French manufacturers and that of
the speculators of all countries, and giving up the privilege of
commercial speculation to a few interested adventurers."

Hitherto the United States of America alone had protested equally against
the Emperor Napoleon's system of continental blockade and the English
ordinances. Already, for several months past, an embargo had been placed
in their ports on French and English vessels, unless driven to take refuge
in consequence of a tempest. Mistress, the one of the seas, the other of
the land, it was on the United States that both England and France
lavished their caresses, eager to enrol them in the service of their
hostile passions. For a long time the Emperor Napoleon had required the
seizure of American vessels sailing under a neutral flag, in spite of the
interdiction of their government, and this rigor had been one of the
causes of the dissensions between him and the King of Holland. In the
month of July, 1810, he made known to Congress, that on and after the 1st
of November the Americans should not be subject to the decrees of Berlin
and Milan, and that they might enter into the ports of France, provided
that they could obtain from England a revocation of the ordinances of the
Council. "In continuing to submit to them," Napoleon had formerly said,
"the peoples who are menaced by the pretensions of England would do better
to recognize her sovereignty, and America ought to press forward to return
under the yoke from which she has so gloriously delivered herself."

On its part, the English cabinet revoked the ordinances of the Council
with regard to the Americans, and relieved them of the toll by way of
harbor dues imposed on all other vessels; but it persisted in forbidding
to neutral vessels the entry into French ports, thus confirming its system
of a paper blockade. The measure was insufficient for the satisfaction of
the United States; it did little harm to that commerce and industry of
Great Britain which Napoleon strove so madly to injure by land as well as
by sea.

A sign of the discontent of the Emperor Alexander was his clearly
manifested resolution not to impose upon his subjects new and exorbitant
pecuniary sacrifices. Nearly all the European powers had accepted or
submitted to the decree of the 1st of August. "There are no true
neutrals," maintained Napoleon; "they are all English, masked under divers
flags, and bearers of false papers. They must be confiscated, and England
is lost." Russia constantly refused to yield to these entreaties. Faithful
to the law of the blockade as regards the capture of English vessels, the
Emperor Alexander authorized navigation under a neutral flag. No seizure
was effected in his States.

Sweden protested in vain. Denmark had been authorized to effect the sale
of prohibited merchandise by means of the fifty per cent. tariff; the new
Prince of Sweden begged a similar indulgence in favor of his adopted
country. The emperor, dissatisfied, was angered. "Choose," said he,
"between the cannon-balls for the English or war with France." Bernadotte
consented to commence hostilities against the English; he was without
resources, and without defences. "We offer you our arms and our iron,"
wrote he to the emperor; "give us in return the means that nature has
refused to us." Other allies were soon to accept the offers of the
illustrious marshal of the empire.

Meanwhile the months rolled past, and Napoleon did not quit Paris. He had
just contracted new ties; he was occupied with the cares necessitated by
the internal administration of the empire--with the legal creation of the
extraordinary Domain, the fruit of conquests and confiscations, and which
had already served to supply without control the divers needs of the
emperor. The very appearance of authority was thus little by little
escaping from the Corps Legislatif, the retiring deputies of which had
their commissions arbitrarily prolonged. The representatives of the new
departments had been directly chosen by the Senate. The censorship had
been re-established, and its favorable decrees did not always suffice to
save works and their authors. The "Germany" of Madame de Stael had
received the authorization of the censors, when the edition was seized and
placed in the pillory. Madame de Stael was compelled to quit France in
twenty-four hours. The rigors of Savary with regard to the press surpassed
the traditions left by Fouche; the greater number of the journals were
subjected to permanent fines, under the form of pensions to literary men.
The erection of eight state prisons seemed to presage times still more
harsh; however, the emperor demanded from the Council of State, in order
to explain the motive for these erections, a couple of pages of clauses
"containing liberal ideas." He had for a long time exercised towards
France the power of words; he knew their influence and weight. More than
once, in deeds of warfare his acts had gone beyond his promises; the day
had come when he was about to promise more than he could perform. Liberal
phrases no longer concealed from the nation the yoke which crushed it. The
pompous declarations against the English leopard, hurled forth at the
opening of the session of the Corps Legislatif, in December, 1809, did not
hasten the end of the war in Spain. The emperor did not set out as he had
solemnly announced. He called Marshal Massena, scarcely recovered from his
fatigue and his wounds during the war in Germany, and confided to him the
task of vanquishing the English in Portugal. Sir Arthur Wellesley
continued to occupy his positions between Badajoz and Alcantara. Since the
battle of Talavera and the combats which then accompanied his last
movements of troops, the English general had not actively taken part in
hostilities.

The war had not, however, ceased in Spain, and the insurgents had not
diminished their efforts. General Kellermann had depicted in its true
light the particular character of the struggle, when he wrote to Marshal
Berthier: "The war in Spain is not at all an ordinary affair. Doubtless
one has not to fear reverses and disastrous checks; but this stubborn
nation wears away the army with its detailed resistance. Independently of
the regular corps, which must be faced, it is also necessary to guard
against the numerous swarms of brigands and strong organized bands, which
infest the country, and which by their mobility, and above all by the
favor of the inhabitants, escape from all pursuit, and come up behind you
a quarter of an hour after your return. It is in vain that we beat down on
one side the heads of the hydra; they reappear on the other, and without a
revolution in the minds of men you will not succeed for a long time in
subduing this vast peninsula. It will absorb the population and the
treasures of France. They wish to gain time, and to weary us by
persistency. We shall only obtain their submission by their exhaustion,
and the annihilation of half the population. Such is the spirit which
animates this nation, that one cannot even create in it a few partisans.
It is in vain to treat it with mode ration and justice; in a difficult
moment, no governor or leader whatever would find ten men who would dare
to arm for his defence. We must, then, have more men. The emperor perhaps
grows weary of sending them, but it is necessary to make an end of the
business, or to be contented with establishing ourselves in one half of
Spain in order afterwards to conquer the other. Meanwhile, resources
diminish, the means perish, money is exhausted or disappears; one knows
not where to direct one's energies to provide for the pay, for the
maintenance of the troops, for the needs of the hospitals, for the
infinite details necessary for an army in need of everything. Misery and
privations increase sickness, and enfeeble the army continually; whilst,
on the other side, the bands that swarm on all sides seize every day upon
small parties or isolated men, who venture into the open country with
extreme imprudence, notwithstanding the most positive, reiterated
prohibitions."

It was the effort of all the generals commanding in Spain to destroy the
bands of guerillas, who harassed their soldiers and slowly decimated their
armies. General Suchet had, more than any other, succeeded in Aragon;
General Gouvion St. Cyr had been absorbed by the siege of Girone, which
had at length just submitted to him when Marshal Augereau was sent into
Catalonia, in order to take from him at once his command and the glory of
his conquest. The end of the campaign of 1809 had been signalized by a
victory, gained on the 19th of November, at Ocana, by Marshal Mortier and
General Sebastiani over the insurgent army of the centre. The central
Junta had confided its powers to a commission, at the head of which was
the Marquis de la Romana, always more active than effective. The
insurrectional government retired into the Ile de Leon, boldly convoking
the Cortes at Madrid for the 1st of March, 1810.

Marshal Soult had become major-general of the army of Spain, since Marshal
Jourdan had been recalled after the battle of Talavera; he was meditating
a great campaign against Andalusia. Napoleon hesitated to consent to it;
the English alone appeared to him to be formidable, and he had been
wishing to concentrate all his forces against them: Marshal Massena was
not, however, ready to enter on the campaign. King Joseph received the
authorization to advance upon Andalusia; he ordered, at the same time,
Marshals Ney and Suchet to lay siege to Ciudad Rodrigo and Valencia. Both
attempted operations with insufficient forces, and were to fail in an
enterprise which drew upon them the bitter reproaches of the emperor. The
army of the King of Spain advanced towards Seville; the defiles of the
Sierra Morena had been occupied without resistance by Marshal Victor. The
intestine dissensions which divided the capital of Andalusia had deprived
it of its means of defence; a great part of the population took to flight.
A few cannon, pointed from the ramparts, did not arrest for a moment the
march of the French. Marshal Soult summoned the place to surrender, and
the Junta of the province consented to capitulate. All the military chiefs
recently assembled in Seville had succeeded in escaping. King Joseph made
his entry on the 1st of February, 1810. Malaga and Granada were not long
in surrendering.

All the leaders of the insurrection were found henceforth at Cadiz; the
central Junta and its executive commission had abdicated in favor of a
royal regency. The preparations for resistance in this place, fortified on
the side of the land by man, as on the side of the sea by nature,
disquieted King Joseph, who had long been desirous of detaching a _corps
d'armee_ against Cadiz. "Assure me of Seville, and I will assure you of
Cadiz," said Marshal Soult. Now it was found necessary to guard Seville,
Granada, and Malaga; a corps of observation was being maintained before
Badajoz; the forces which were laying siege to Cadiz were necessarily
restrained; everywhere the Spanish armies were forming again.

Napoleon had been for a long time weary of the war in Spain, which he had
at first regarded as an easy enterprise; he had conceived ill-feeling
towards his brother, whom he rightly judged incapable of accomplishing the
work which he himself had been wrong in committing to his charge. The
continual demands for men and money which came to him from the peninsula
hindered his operations and his schemes; he resolved upon modifying the
organization of the government in Spain. On the 28th of January, 1810, he
wrote to the Duke of Cadore (Champagny): "Write by the express, and
several times, to the Sieur Laforest, at Madrid, in order that he may
present notes as to the impossibility of my continuing to sustain the
enormous expenses of Spain; that I have already sent there more than
300,000,000; that such considerable exportations of money exhaust France;
that it is, then, indispensable that the engineers, the artillery, the
administrations, and the soldiers' pay should be henceforth supplied from
the Spanish treasury; that all which I can do is to give a supplemental
grant of two millions per month for the soldiers' pay; that if this
proposition is not agreed to, it will only remain for me to administer the
provinces of Spain on my own account--in that case they will abundantly
supply the maintenance and pay of the army. To see the resources of this
country lost by false measures and a feeble administration, and to send
thither my best blood, is impossible. The provinces have plenty of money,
when the soldier is not paid he will pillage, and I know not what to do
with him."

It was in the midst of his joy and his easy triumph in Andalusia that the
severe protests of Napoleon arrived to surprise King Joseph. A few
liberalities he had permitted himself with regard to his servants had
succeeded in exasperating the emperor. He decreed the state of siege in
all the provinces [Footnote: Catalonia, Aragon, Navarre, and Biscay.] to
the left of the Ebro, confiding the military command to four generals--
Augereau, Suchet, Reille, and Thouvenot. All the administrative powers
were at the same time, committed to these generals, who were to correspond
directly with the emperor. The idea of Napoleon, with which he acquainted
his lieutenants, was to unite to France the territories which he thus
isolated from the rest of the empire, as an indemnity for the sacrifices
which the war had imposed upon him. General Suchet was charged with
completing the conquest of the towns in Catalonia and Aragon which were
still held by the insurgents. He achieved brilliantly the siege of Lerida.

At the same time, and in order to take away from King Joseph an authority
which he knew not how to use, the armies in the country were divided into
three corps. The army of the south was confided to Marshal Soult; the army
of Portugal was waiting for the arrival of Marshal Massena; the army of
the centre--the least important of all--was alone left under the personal
direction of King Joseph, who was appointed its general-in-chief. The
embassies of King Joseph, the complaint of his wife, who was still in
Paris, remained without result. In place of a central, powerless, and
insufficient power, Napoleon was desirous of establishing delegates of his
supreme authority. He had sanctioned anarchy; the rights of the hierarchy
had disappeared before the lieutenants of a chief arbitrary, but until now
constantly attended by victory. Far from the presence of Napoleon, in a
country given over for two years to the disorder of civil war, obedience
had given place to mistrust, and regularity to disorder. Scarcely had
Marshal Massena joined the army of Portugal, of which he had accepted the
command with regret, than he had immediately a perception of the
difficulties which awaited it. The emperor had given orders to commence by
the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo and of Almeida. Marshal Ney and General Junot,
whose corps were placed under the command of Massena, made such clamorous
protests that the old marshal was obliged to display all his authority.
"They say that Massena has grown old," cried he with just anger; "they
will see that my will has lost nothing of its force." Already Sir Arthur
Wellesley, become Lord Wellington, was preparing not far from Lisbon,
between the Tagus and the sea, that invulnerable position which history
has designated "the lines of Torres Vedras." It was thither that he
counted on drawing the French army, slowly exhausting its forces before an
enemy patiently unassailable. The orders of Napoleon, and the deference of
Massena to these instructions, had spared us the danger of being attacked
in the rear; when the French army advanced to encounter Lord Wellington,
it had taken possession of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, but the two sieges
had been long and painful, having cost the lives of many soldiers;
important garrisons occupied the places. In accordance with a mental habit
which grew upon him through default of contradiction, the Emperor Napoleon
did not admit the enfeeblement of his forces, whilst depreciating
beforehand those of his enemy. "My cousin," wrote he on the 10th of
September, 1810, to Marshal Berthier, "let a French officer set out
immediately as bearer of a letter for the Prince of Essling, in which you
will make him understand that my intention is that he should attack and
rout the English; that Lord Wellington has no more than 18,000 men, of
which only 15,000 are infantry, and the remainder cavalry and artillery;
that General Hill has no more than 6000 men, infantry and cavalry; that it
would be ridiculous for 25,000 English to hold in suspense 60,000
Frenchmen; that, by not groping about, but by attacking them openly, after
having reconnoitred them, they will be made to experience severe repulses.
The Prince of Essling has four times as many cavalry as he needs for
defeating the enemy's army. I am too far off, and the position of the
enemy changes too often, for me to be able to counsel you as to the manner
of leading the attack, but it is certain that the enemy is not in a state
to resist."

Marshal Massena was wrong in accepting a mission of which he foresaw the
immense dangers, and in refraining from personally impressing the emperor,
by the weight of his old experience, as regards the illusions that were
prevalent in Paris on the subject of the respective situations of the two
armies. Counting upon victory on the day when he should succeed in meeting
the enemy, he became involved, with 50,000 men in the impracticable roads
of Portugal in the vicinity of Lord Wellington, already his equal in
forces, and seconded by the whole Portuguese nation in insurrection
against the French. The lieutenants of Massena, as bold and more youthful,
estimated as he did the disastrous chances of the campaign. "Do not stand
haggling with the English," replied Napoleon. He was obeyed.

Lord Wellington remained in his retreat upon the heights of Busaco, above
the valley of Mondego, in front of Coimbra; he barred the passage to
Marshal Massena, who resolved to give battle. After a furious and
sanguinary combat (27th of September, 1810), the attack of the French was
decisively repulsed. For the first time the Portuguese, mixed with the
English troops, had courageously sustained their allies. "They have shown
themselves worthy of fighting beside English soldiers," says Lord
Wellington in his report. The road remained closed, and the English,
masters of their position, saw already Marshal Massena constrained to
retreat. He had recovered on the field of battle all his indomitable
ardor. "We ought to be able to turn the hills," said he to his
lieutenants, and he detached immediately General Montbrun upon the right,
to traverse an unknown country, hostile, and already enveloped in the
darkness of night. The perspicacity and perseverance of the marshal had
not been deceived; his scouts discovered a passage which the English had
not occupied. On the 29th, at sunset, Lord Wellington learnt all of a
sudden that the French army had defiled by the little village of Bazalva
upon the back of the mountain; it was already debouching upon the plain of
Coimbra, when the English saw themselves compelled to evacuate the town in
all haste: the French passed through behind them, only leaving their sick
and wounded. The Portuguese militia immediately resumed possession of the
town. Massena advanced upon Lisbon by forced marches; on the 11th of
October he arrived before the lines of Torres Vedras, by this time
completely finished, and furnished with 600 pieces of ordnance. Behind
three successive series of formidable entrenchments, supplied with
resources of every kind, and supported on one side by the Tagus and on the
other by the ocean, Lord Wellington had resolved to shut up his army,
until then victorious, and to wait until hunger, sickness, and exhaustion
should at length deliver him from his enemies, whatever might be the
difficulties of the undertaking, and the clamors that might be raised
against him.