Part 44 (1/2)
”equality,” ”fraternity,” ”the public welfare,” were heard no more, and gave place to others which equally flattered the feelings of the French people--”the interests of the empire,” ”the splendor of the imperial throne.” From him emanated all glory and power, and the whole structure of the state, executive, judicial, and legislative, depended upon his will. Freedom, in the eyes of the people, was succeeded by glory, and the _eclat_ of victory was more highly prized than any fict.i.tious liberty. The _Code Napoleon_ rapidly progressed; schools of science were improved; arts, manufactures, and agriculture revived.
Great monuments were reared to gratify the national pride and perpetuate the glory of conquests. The dignity of the imperial throne was splendidly maintained, and the utmost duties of etiquette were observed. He encouraged amus.e.m.e.nts, festivities, and _fetes_; and Talma, the actor, as well as artists and scholars, received his personal regard. But his reforms and his policy had reference chiefly to the conversion of France into a nation of soldiers; and his system of conscription secured him vast and disciplined armies, not animated, as were the soldiers of the revolution, by the spirit of liberty, but transformed into mechanical forces. The time was to come, in spite of the military enthusiasm of his veteran soldiers, when it was to be proved that the throne of absolutism is better sustained by love than by mechanism.
[Sidenote: Aggrandizement of Napoleon's Family.]
Napoleon had already elevated his two brothers, Louis and Joseph, to the thrones of Holland and Naples. He now sought to make his brother Joseph the King of Spain. He availed himself of a quarrel between King Charles and his son; acted as mediator, in the same sense that Hastings and Clive acted as mediators in the quarrels of Indian princes; and prepared to seize, not to humble, one of the oldest and proudest monarchies of Europe.
The details of that long war on the Spanish peninsula, which resulted from the appointment of Joseph Bonaparte to the throne of Spain, have been most admirably traced by Napier, in the best military history that has been written in modern times. The great hero of that war was Wellington; and, though he fought under the greatest disadvantages and against superior forces,--though unparalleled sufferings and miseries ensued among all the belligerent forces,--still he succeeded in turning the tide of French conquest.
Spain did not fall without a struggle. The Spanish Juntas adopted all the means of defence in their power; and the immortal defence of Saragossa, the capital of Arragon, should have taught the imperial robber that the Spanish spirit, though degenerate, was not yet extinguished.
It became almost the universal wish of the English to afford the Spaniards every possible a.s.sistance in their honorable struggle, and Sir Arthur Wellesley, the conqueror of the Mahrattas, landed in Portugal in August, 1808. He was immediately opposed by Marshal Junot.
Napoleon could not be spared to defend in person the throne of his brother, but his most ill.u.s.trious marshals were sent into the field; and, shortly after, the battle of Corunna was fought, at which Sir John Moore, one of the bravest of generals, was killed in the moment of victory.
[Sidenote: The Peninsular War.]
Long and disastrous was that Peninsular war. Before it could be closed, Napoleon was called to make new exertions. Austria had again declared war, and the forces which she raised were gigantic. Five hundred and fifty thousand men, in different armies, were put under the command of the Archduke Charles. Napoleon advanced against him, and was again successful, at Abensberg and at Eckmuhl. Again he occupied Vienna; but its fall did not discourage the Austrians, who, soon after, were marshalled against the French at Wagram, which dreadful battle made Napoleon once more the conqueror of Austria. On the 14th of November, 1809, he returned to Paris, and soon after made the grand mistake of his life.
He resolved to divorce Josephine, whom he loved and respected; a woman fully worthy of his love, and of the exalted position to which she was raised. But she had no children, and Napoleon wanted an heir to the universal empire which he sought to erect on the ruins of the ancient monarchies of Europe. The dream of Charlemagne and of Charles V. was his, also--the revival of the great Western Empire. Moreover, Napoleon sought a domestic alliance with the proud family of the German emperor. He sought, by this, to gratify his pride and strengthen his throne. He perhaps also contemplated, with the Emperor of Austria for his father and ally, the easy conquest of Russia. Alexander so supposed. ”His next task,” said he, ”will be to drive me back to my forests.”
The Empress Josephine heard of the intentions of Napoleon with indescribable anguish, but submitted to his will; thus sacrificing her happiness to what she was made to believe would advance the welfare of her country and the interests of that heartless conqueror whom she nevertheless loved with unparalleled devotion. On the 11th of March, 1810, the espousals of Napoleon and Maria Louisa were celebrated at Vienna, the person of the former being represented by his favorite Berthier. A few days afterwards she set out for France; and her marriage, in a domestic point of view, was happy. Josephine had the advantage over her in art and grace, but she was superior in the charms of simplicity and modesty. ”It is singular,” says Sir Walter Scott, ”that the artificial character should have belonged to the daughter of a West India planter; that, marked by nature and simplicity, to a princess of the proudest court in Europe.”
[Sidenote: War in Spain.]
Meanwhile, the war in Spain was prosecuted, and Napoleon was master of its richest and most powerful provinces. Seventy-five thousand men in Andalusia, under Soult; fifty thousand under Marmont, in Leon; sixty thousand under Bessieres, at Valladolid and Biscay; forty-five thousand under Macdonald, at Gerona, to guard Catalonia; thirty thousand under Suchet, twenty thousand under Joseph and Jourdan, fifteen thousand under Regnier, besides many more thousand troops in the various garrisons,--in all over three hundred thousand men,--held Spain in military subjection. Against these immense forces, marshalled under the greatest generals of France, Spain and her allies could oppose only about ninety thousand men, for the most part ill disciplined and equipped.
The vital point of resistance was to be found shut up within the walls of Cadiz, which made a successful defence. But Tortosa, Tarragona, Saguntum, and Valentia, after making most desperate resistance, fell.
But Wellington gained, on the other hand, the great battle of Albuera, one of the bloodiest ever fought, and which had a great effect in raising the spirits of his army and of the Spaniards. The tide of French conquest was arrested, and the English learned from their enemies those arts of war which had hitherto made Napoleon triumphant.
In the next campaign of 1812, new successes were obtained by Wellington, and against almost overwhelming difficulties. He renewed the siege of Badajoz, and carried this frontier fortress, which enabled him now to act on the offensive, and to enter the Spanish territories. The fall of Ciudad Rodrigo was attended with the same important consequences. Wellington now aimed to reduce the French force on the Peninsula, although vastly superior to his own. He had only sixty thousand men; but, with this force, he invaded Spain, defended by three hundred thousand. Salamanca was the first place of consequence which fell: Marmont was totally defeated. Wellington advanced to Madrid, which he entered the 12th of August, amid the enthusiastic shouts of the Spanish population. Soult was obliged to raise the siege of Cadiz, abandon Andalusia, and hasten to meet the great English general, who had turned the tide of French aggression.
Wellington was compelled, of course, to retire before the immense forces which were marching against him, and fell back to Salamanca, and afterwards to Ciudad Rodrigo. The campaign, on the part of the English, is memorable in the annals of successful war, and the French power was effectually weakened, if it was not destroyed.
[Sidenote: Invasion of Russia.]
In the midst of these successes, Napoleon prepared for his disastrous invasion of Russia; the most gigantic and most unfortunate expedition in the whole history of war.
Napoleon was probably induced to invade Russia in order to keep up the succession of victories. He felt that, to be secure, he must advance; that, the moment he sought repose, his throne would begin to totter; that nothing would sustain the enthusiasm of his countrymen but new triumphs, commensurate with his greatness and fame. Some, however, dissuaded him from the undertaking, not only because it was plainly aggressive and unnecessary, but because it was impolitic. Three hundred thousand men were fighting in Spain to establish his family on the throne of the Bourbons, and the rest of Europe was watching his course, with the intention of a.s.sailing him so soon as he should meet with misfortunes.
But neither danger nor difficulty deterred Napoleon from the commission of a gigantic crime, for which no reasonable apology could be given, and which admits of no palliation. He made, however, a fearful mistake, and his rapid downfall was the result. Providence permitted him to humble the powers of Europe, but did not design that he should be permanently aggrandized by their misfortunes.
The forces of all the countries he had subdued were marshalled with the French in this dreadful expedition, and nothing but enthusiasm was excited in all the dominions of the empire. The army of invasion amounted to above five hundred thousand men, only two hundred thousand of whom were native French. To oppose this enormous force, the Russians collected about three hundred thousand men; but Napoleon felt secure of victory.
On the banks of the Niemen he reviewed the princ.i.p.al corps of his army, collected from so many countries, and for the support of which they were obliged to contribute. On the 24th of June, he and his hosts crossed the river; and never, probably, in the history of man, was exhibited a more splendid and imposing scene.
The Russians retreated as the allied armies advanced; and, on the 28th of June, Napoleon was at Wilna, where he foolishly remained seventeen days--the greatest military blunder of his life. The Emperor Alexander hastened to Moscow, collected his armaments, and issued proclamations to his subjects, which excited them to the highest degree of enthusiasm to defend their altars and their firesides.
[Sidenote: Battle of Smolensko.]
Both armies approached Smolensko about the 16th of July, and there was fought the first great battle of the campaign. The town was taken, and the Russians retreated towards Moscow. But before this first conflict began, a considerable part of the army had perished from sickness and fatigue. At Borodino, another b.l.o.o.d.y battle was fought, in which more men were killed and wounded than in any battle which history records.
Napoleon, in this battle, did not exhibit his usual sagacity or energy, being, perhaps, overwhelmed with anxiety and fatigue. His dispirited and broken army continued the march to Moscow, which was reached the 14th of September. The Sacred City of the Russians was abandoned by the army, and three hundred thousand of the inhabitants took to flight. Napoleon had scarcely entered the deserted capital, and taken quarters in the ancient palace of the czars, before the city was discovered to be on fire in several places; and even the Kremlin itself was soon enveloped in flames. Who could have believed that the Russians would have burnt their capital? Such an event surely never entered into a Frenchman's head. The consternation and horrors of that awful conflagration can never be described, or even conceived. Pillage and murder could scarcely add to the universal wretchedness.
Execration, indignation, and vengeance filled the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of both the conquerors and the conquered. But who were the conquerors? Alas! those only, who witnessed the complicated miseries and awful destruction of the retreating army, have answered.