Part 17 (1/2)

This war between France and Austria began its earliest operations on the very first days after the accession of Francis II. The victory of Jemappes, gained by Dumouriez, was the first great event of the campaign. The Austrians were on all sides driven out. Dumouriez made his triumphal entry into Brussels on the 13th of November; and immediately after the occupation of this town the whole of Flanders, Brabant, and Hainault, with the other Belgian provinces, were subjected to France. Soon afterward several pretended deputies from the Belgian people hastened to Paris, and implored the convention to grant them a share of that liberty and equality which was to confer such inestimable blessings on France. Various decrees were issued in consequence; and after the mockery of a public choice, hurried on in several of the towns by hired Jacobins and well-paid patriots, the incorporation of the Austrian Netherlands with the French republic was formally p.r.o.nounced.

The next campaign destroyed this whole fabric of revolution.

Dumouriez, beaten at Nerwinde by the prince of Saxe-Coburg, abandoned not only his last year's conquest, but fled from his own army to pa.s.s the remainder of his life on a foreign soil, and leave his reputation a doubtful legacy to history. Belgium, once again in the possession of Austria, was placed under the government of the archduke Charles, the emperor's brother, who was destined to a very brief continuance in this precarious authority.

During this and the succeeding year the war was continued with unbroken perseverance and a constant fluctuation in its results.

In the various battles which were fought, and the sieges which took place, the English army was, as usual, in the foremost ranks, under the Duke of York, second son of George III. The Prince of Orange, at the head of the Dutch troops, proved his inheritance of the valor which seems inseparable from the name of Na.s.sau. The archduke Charles laid the foundation of his subsequent high reputation.

The emperor Francis himself fought valiantly at the head of his troops. But all the coalesced courage of these princes and their armies could not effectually stop the progress of the republican arms. The battle of Fleurus rendered the French completely masters of Belgium; and the representatives of the city of Brussels once more repaired to the national convention of France, to solicit the reincorporation of the two countries. This was not, however, finally p.r.o.nounced till the 1st of October, 1795, by which time the violence of an arbitrary government had given the people a sample of what they were to expect. The Austrian Netherlands and the province of Liege were divided into nine departments, forming an integral part of the French republic; and this new state of things was consolidated by the preliminaries of peace, signed at Leoben in Styria, between the French general Bonaparte and the archduke Charles, and confirmed by the treaty of Campo-Formio on the 17th of October, 1797.

CHAPTER XXII

FROM THE INVASION OF HOLLAND BY THE FRENCH TO THE RETURN OF THE PRINCE OF ORANGE

A.D. 1794--1818

While the fate of Belgium was decided on the plains of Fleurus, Pichegru prepared to carry the triumphant arms of France into the heart of Holland. He crossed the Meuse at the head of one hundred thousand men, and soon gained possession of most of the chief places of Flanders. An unusually severe winter was setting in; but a circ.u.mstance which in common cases r.e.t.a.r.ds the operations of war was, in the present instance, the means of hurrying on the conquest on which the French general was bent. The arms of the sea, which had hitherto been the best defences of Holland, now became solid ma.s.ses of ice; battlefields, on which the soldiers manoeuvred and the artillery thundered, as if the laws of the elements were repealed to hasten the fall of the once proud and long flouris.h.i.+ng republic. Nothing could arrest the ambitious ardor of the invaders. The Duke of York and his brave army resisted to the utmost; but, borne down by numbers, he was driven from position to position. Batteries, cannons, and magazines were successfully taken; and Pichegru was soon at the term of his brilliant exploits.

But Holland speedily ceased to be a scene of warfare. The discontented portion of the citizens, now the majority, rejoiced to retaliate the revolution of 1787 by another, received the French as liberators. Reduced to extremity, yet still capable by the aid of his allies of making a long and desperate resistance, the stadtholder took the n.o.bler resolution of saving his fellow-citizens from the horrors of prolonged warfare. He repaired to The Hague; presented himself in the a.s.sembly of the states-general; and solemnly deposited in their hands the exercise of the supreme power, which he found he could no longer wield but to entail misery and ruin on his conquered country. After this splendid instance of true patriotism and rare virtue, he quitted Holland and took refuge in England. The states-general dissolved a national a.s.sembly installed at The Hague; and, the stadtholderate abolished, the United Provinces now changed their form of government, their long-cherished inst.i.tutions, and their very name, and were christened the Batavian Republic.

a.s.surances of the most flattering nature were profusely showered on the new state, by the sister republic which had effected this new revolution. But the first measure of regeneration was the necessity of paying for the recovered independence, which was effected for the sum of one hundred million florins. The new const.i.tution was almost entirely modelled on that of France, and the promised independence soon became a state of deplorable suffering and virtual slavery. Incalculable evils were the portion of Holland in the part which she was forced to take in the war between France and England. Her marine was nearly annihilated, and some of her most valuable possessions in the Indies ravished from her by the British arms. She was at the same time obliged to cede to her ally the whole of Dutch Flanders, Maestricht, Venloo, and their dependencies; and to render free and common to both nations the navigation of the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt.

The internal situation of the unfortunate republic was deplorable.

Under the weight of an enormous and daily increasing debt, all the resources of trade and industry were paralyzed. Universal misery took place of opulence, and not even the consolation of a free const.i.tution remained to the people. They vainly sought that blessing from each new government of the country whose destinies they followed, but whose advantages they did not share. They saw themselves successively governed by the states-general, a national a.s.sembly, and the directory. But these ephemeral authorities had not sufficient weight to give the nation domestic happiness, nor consideration among the other powers.

On the 11th of October, 1797, the English admiral, Sir Adam Duncan, with a superior force, encountered the Dutch fleet under De Winter off Camperdown; and in spite of the bravery of the latter he was taken prisoner, with nine s.h.i.+ps of the line and a frigate. An expedition on an extensive scale was soon after fitted out in England, to co-operate with a Russian force for the establishment of the House of Orange. The Helder was the destination of this armament, which was commanded by Sir Ralph Abercrombie. The Duke of York soon arrived in the Texel with a considerable reinforcement.

A series of severe, and well-contested actions near Bergen ended in the defeat of the allies and the abandonment of the enterprise; the only success of which was the capture of the remains of the Dutch fleet, which was safely conveyed to England.

From this period the weight of French oppression became every day more intolerable in Holland. Ministers, generals, and every other species of functionary, with swarms of minor tyrants, while treating the country as a conquered province, deprived it of all share in the brilliant though checkered glories gained by that to which it was subservient. The Dutch were robbed of national independence and personal freedom. While the words ”liberty” and ”equality” were everywhere emblazoned, the French amba.s.sador a.s.sumed an almost Oriental despotism. The language and forms of a free government were used only to sanction a foreign tyranny; and the Batavian republic, reduced to the most hopeless and degraded state, was in fact but a forced appendage chained to the triumphal car of France.

Napoleon Bonaparte, creating by the force of his prodigious talents the circ.u.mstances of which inferior minds are but the creatures, now rapidly rose to the topmost height of power. He not only towered above the ma.s.s of prejudices which long custom had legalized, but spurned the mult.i.tude by whom these prejudices had been overthrown. Yet he was not of the first order of great minds; for he wanted that grand principle of self-control which is the supreme attribute of greatness. Potent, and almost irresistible in every conflict with others, and only to be vanquished by his own acts, he possessed many of the higher qualities of genius.

He was rapid, resolute, and daring, filled with contempt for the littleness of mankind, yet molding every atom which composed that littleness to purposes at utter variance with its nature.

In defiance of the first essence of republican theory, he built himself an imperial throne on the crushed privileges of a prostrate people; and he lavished t.i.tles and dignities on men raised from its very dregs, with a profusion which made n.o.bility a byword of scorn. Kingdoms were created for his brothers and his friends; and the Batavian republic was made a monarchy, to give Louis a dignity, or at least a t.i.tle, like the rest.

The character of Louis Bonaparte was gentle and amiable, his manners easy and affable. He entered on his new rank with the best intentions toward the country which he was sent to reign over; and though he felt acutely when the people refused him marks of respect and applause, which was frequently the case, his temper was not soured, and he conceived no resentment. He endeavored to merit popularity; and though his power was scanty, his efforts were not wholly unsuccessful. He labored to revive the ruined trade, which he knew to be the staple of Dutch prosperity: but the measures springing from this praiseworthy motive were totally opposed to the policy of Napoleon; and in proportion as Louis made friends and partisans among his subjects, he excited bitter enmity in his imperial brother. Louis was so averse from the continental system, or exclusion of British manufactures, that during his short reign every facility was given to his subjects to elude it, even in defiance of the orders conveyed to him from Paris through the medium of the French amba.s.sador at The Hague.

He imposed no restraints on public opinion, nor would he establish the odious system of espionage cherished by the French police; but he was fickle in his purposes, and prodigal in his expenses.

The profuseness of his expenditure was very offensive to the Dutch notions of respectability in matters of private finance, and injurious to the existing state of the public means. The tyranny of Napoleon became soon quite insupportable to him; so much so, that it is believed that had the ill-fated English expedition to Walcheren in 1809 succeeded, and the army advanced into the country, he would have declared war against France.

After an ineffectual struggle of more than three years, he chose rather to abdicate his throne than retain it under the degrading conditions of proconsulate subserviency. This measure excited considerable regret, and much esteem for the man who preferred the retirement of private life to the meanness of regal slavery.

But Louis left a galling memento of misplaced magnificence, in an increase of ninety millions of florins (about nine millions sterling) to the already oppressive amount of the national debt of the country.

The annexation of Holland to the French empire was immediately p.r.o.nounced by Napoleon. Two-thirds of the national debt were abolished, the conscription law was introduced, and the Berlin and Milan decrees against the introduction of British manufactures were rigidly enforced. The nature of the evils inflicted on the Dutch people by this annexation and its consequences demand a somewhat minute examination. Previous to it all that part of the territory of the former United Provinces had been ceded to France. The kingdom of Holland consisted of the departments of the Zuyder Zee, the mouths of the Maese, the Upper Yssel, the mouths of the Yssel, Friesland, and the Western and Eastern Ems; and the population of the whole did not exceed one million eight hundred thousand souls. When Louis abdicated his throne, he left a military and naval force of eighteen thousand men, who were immediately taken into the service of France; and in three years and a half after that event this number was increased to fifty thousand, by the operation of the French naval and military code: thus about a thirty-sixth part of the whole population was employed in arms. The forces included in the maritime conscription were wholly employed in the navy. The national guards were on constant duty in the garrisons or naval establishments. The cohorts were by law only liable to serve in the _interior_ of the French empire--that is to say, from Hamburg to Rome; but after the Russian campaign, this limitation was disregarded, and they formed a part of Napoleon's army at the battle of Bautzen.

The conscription laws now began to be executed with the greatest rigor; and though the strictest justice and impartiality were observed in the ballot and other details of this most oppressive measure, yet it has been calculated that, on an average, nearly one-half of the male population of the age of twenty years was annually taken off. The conscripts were told that their service was not to extend beyond the term of five years; but as few instances occurred of a French soldier being discharged without his being declared unfit for service, it was always considered in Holland that the service of a conscript was tantamount to an obligation during life. Besides, the regulations respecting the conscription were annually changed, by which means the code became each year more intricate and confused; and as the explanation of any doubt rested with the functionaries, to whom the execution of the law was confided, there was little chance of their constructions mitigating its severity.

But the conscription, however galling, was general in its operation.

Not so the formation of the emperor's guard of honor. The members of this patrician troop were chosen from the most n.o.ble and opulent families, particularly those who were deemed inimical to the French connection. The selection depended altogether on the prefect, who was sure to name those most obnoxious to his political or personal dislike, without regard to their rank or occupation, or even the state of their health. No exemption was admitted--not even to those who from mental or bodily infirmity, or other cause, had been declared unfit for general military duty. The victims were forced to the mockery of volunteering their services; obliged to provide themselves with horses, arms, and accoutrements; and when arrived at the depot appointed for their a.s.sembling, considered probably but as hostages for the fidelity of their relatives.

The various taxes were laid on and levied in the most oppressive manner; those on land usually amounting to twenty-five, and those on houses to thirty per cent of the clear annual rent. Other direct taxes were levied on persons and movable property, and all were regulated on a scale of almost intolerable severity. The whole sum annually obtained from Holland by these means amounted to about thirty millions of florins (or three million pounds sterling), being at the rate of about one pound thirteen s.h.i.+llings four pence from every soul inhabiting the country.

The operation of what was called the continental system created an excess of misery in Holland, only to be understood by those who witnessed its lamentable results. In other countries, Belgium for instance, where great manufactories existed, the loss of maritime communication was compensated by the exclusion of English goods. In states possessed of large and fertile territories, the population which could no longer be employed in commerce might be occupied in agricultural pursuits. But in Holland, whose manufactures were inconsiderable, and whose territory is insufficient to support its inhabitants, the destruction of trade threw innumerable individuals wholly out of employment, and produced a graduated scale of poverty in all ranks. A considerable part of the population had been employed in various branches of the traffic carried on by means of the many ca.n.a.ls which conveyed merchandise from the seaports into the interior, and to the different continental markets. When the communication with England was cut off, princ.i.p.als and subordinates were involved in a common ruin.