Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume IV

There were others who augured different consequences, from the effect of the same event on the feelings of Buonaparte's enemies, both open and unavowed. It had been a general belief, and certainly was founded on probability, that the immense but ill-constructed empire which Napoleon had erected would fall to pieces, so soon as it was not kept steady and compact by the fear and admiration of his personal talents. Hence the damp cast by persons affecting a wise caution, upon the general desire to shake off the yoke of France. They enlarged upon the invincible talent, upon the inevitable destinies of Napoleon personally; but they consoled the more impatient patriots, by counselling them to await his death, before making a daring attempt to vindicate their freedom. Such counsels were favourably listened to, because men are, in spite of themselves, always willing to listen to prudent arguments, when they tend to postpone desperate risks. But this species of argument was ended, when the inheritance of despotism seemed ready to be transmitted from father to son in direct descent. There was no termination seen to the melancholy prospect, nor was it easy for the most lukewarm of patriots to assign any longer a reason for putting off till Napoleon's death the resistance which to-day demanded. Under these various lights was the birth of the King of Rome considered; and it may after all remain a matter of doubt, whether the blessing of a son and heir, acceptable as it must necessarily have been to his domestic feelings, was politically of that advantage to him which the Emperor of France unquestionably expected.

And now, before we begin to trace the growing differences betwixt France and Russia, which speedily led to such important consequences, we may briefly notice some circumstances connected with Spain and with Spanish affairs, though the two incidents which we are to mention first, are rather of a detached and insulated nature.

THE EX-QUEEN OF ETRURIA

The first of these refers to the Ex-Queen of Etruria, a daughter, it will be remembered, of Charles, King of Spain, and a sister of Ferdinand. Upon this princess and her son, Buonaparte had settled the kingdom of Etruria, or Tuscany. Preparatory to the Bayonne intrigue, he had forcibly deprived her of this dignity, in order to offer it as an indemnification to Ferdinand for the cession, which he proposed to that unhappy prince, of the inheritance of Spain. Having contrived to obtain that cession without any compensation, Buonaparte reserved Etruria to himself, and retained the late Queen as a hostage. For some time she was permitted to reside with her parents at Compeigne; but afterwards, under pretext of conducting her to Parma, she was escorted to Nice, and there subjected to the severe vigilance of the police. The princess appears to have been quicker in her feelings than the greater part of her family, which does not, indeed, argue any violent degree of sensibility. Terrified, however, and alarmed at the situation in which she found herself, she endeavoured to effect an escape into England. Two gentlemen of her retinue were sent to Holland, for the purpose of arranging her flight, but her project was discovered. On the 16th April, 1811, officers of police and gendarmes broke into the residence of the Queen at Nice, seized her person and papers, and, after detaining her in custody for two months, and threatening to try her by a military tribunal, they at length intimated to her a sentence, condemning her, with her daughter (her son had been left very much indisposed at Compeigne,) to be detained close prisoners in a monastery at Rome, to which she was compelled to repair within twenty-four hours after the notice of her doom. Her two agents, who had been previously made prisoners, were sent to Paris. They were condemned to death by a military commission, and were brought out for that purpose to the plain of Gresnelle. One was shot on the spot, and pardon was extended to his companion when he was about to suffer the same punishment. The mental agony of the poor man had, however, affected the sources of life, and he died within a few days after the reprieve. The severity of this conduct towards a princess – a Queen indeed – who had placed her person in Napoleon's hands, under the expectation that her liberty at least should not be abridged, was equally a breach of justice, humanity, and gentlemanlike courtesy.[80 - See Mémoires de Savary, tom. iii., part i., p. 37.]

LUCIEN BUONAPARTE

It is curious, that about the same time when Napoleon treated with so much cruelty a foreign and independent princess, merely because she expressed a desire to exchange her residence from France to England, his own brother, Lucien, was received with hospitality in that island, so heartily detested, so frequently devoted to the fate of a second Carthage. Napoleon, who was always resolute in considering the princes of his own blood as the first slaves in the state, had become of late very urgent with Lucien to dismiss his wife, and unite himself with some of the royal families on the continent, or at least to agree to bestow the hand of his daughter upon young Ferdinand of Spain, who had risen in favour by his behaviour on an occasion immediately to be mentioned. But Lucien, determined at this time not to connect himself or his family with the career of his relative's ambition, resolved to settle in America, and place the Atlantic betwixt himself and the importunities of his Imperial brother. He applied to the British minister at Sardinia for a pass, who was under the necessity of referring him to his Government. On this second application he was invited to England, where he was permitted to live in freedom upon his parole, one officer only having a superintendence of his movements and correspondence.[81 - Lucien landed at Portsmouth in December, 1810, and was conveyed to Ludlow, which he soon after quitted for an estate called Thorngrove, fifteen miles from that town. Restored to personal liberty by the peace of Paris in 1814, he reached Rome in May; and was received by the sovereign pontiff on the very night of his arrival. The holy father immediately conferred on him the dignity of a Roman prince; and on the next day all the nobles came to salute him, by the title of Prince of Canino.] These were in every respect blameless; and the ex-statesman, who had played so distinguished a part in the great revolutionary game, was found able to amuse himself with the composition of an epic poem on the subject of Charlemagne;[82 - Lucien's poem of "Charlemagne, ou l'Eglise Delivrée," an epic in twenty-four books, commenced at Tusculum, continued at Malta, and completed in England, appeared in 1814. It was translated into English by Dr. Butler and Mr. Hodgson. From the eighteenth canto, which was written at Malta, and which opens with a digression personal to the poet, we shall make a short extract: —"Bella gerant alii, tu, felix Austria, nube," &c. – S."Je n'oublirai jamais ta bonté paternelleFavori du très-haut, Clermont, Pontife-roi!Au nouvel hémisphère entrainé loin de toi,Je t'y conserverai le cœur le plus fidèle:Confiant à la mer et ma femme et mes filsSur des bords ennemis,J'espérai vainement un asile éphémère,Par un triste refus rejetté sur les flots,Après avoir long temps erré loin de la terre,Mélite dans son port enferma nos vaisseaux."De la captivité je sens ici le poids!Rien ne plait en ces lieux à mon ame abbattue;Rien ne parle à mon cœur; rien ne s'offre à ma vueAccourez, mes enfants: viens, épouse chérie.Doux charme de ma vie,D'un seul de tes regards viens me rendre la paix.Il n'est plus de désert, ou brille ton sourire,Fuyez, sombres chagrins, souvenirs inquiets,Sur ce roc Africain, je resaissis ma lyre.""Prince Pontiff! loved of heaven – O, Clermont, say,What filial duties shall thy cares repay?E'en on the shores that skirt the western main,Still shall this heart its loyal faith maintain.My precious freight confiding to the deep,Children and wife, I left Frescati's steep,And ask'd a short retreat – I sought no more —But vainly sought it on a hostile shore.Thence by refusal stern and harsh repell'd,O'er the wide wat'ry waste my course I held,In sufferings oft, and oft in perils cast,Till Malta's port received our ships at last."Here sad captivity's dull weight I find;Nought pleases here, nought soothes my listless mind:Nought here can bid my sickening heart rejoice,Speak to my soul, or animate my voice.Run to my knees, my children! cherish'd wife,Come, softest charm and solace of my life,One look from thee shall all my peace restore:Where beams thy smile, the desert is no more.Hence, restless memory – hence, repinings vain! —On Afric's rock I seize my lyre again."]– somewhat more harmlessly than did his brother Napoleon, in endeavouring again to rebuild and consolidate the vast empire of the son of Pepin.

Another intrigue of a singular character, and which terminated in an unexpected manner, originated in an attempt of the English Ministry to achieve the liberty of Ferdinand, the lawful King of Spain. A royal and a popular party had begun to show themselves in that distracted country, and to divert the attention of the patriots from uniting their efforts to accomplish the object of most engrossing importance, the recovery, namely, of their country, from the intruding monarch and the French armies. The English Government were naturally persuaded that Ferdinand, to whose name his subjects were so strongly attached, would be desirous and capable of placing himself, were he at liberty, at their head, putting an end to their disputes by his authority, and giving their efforts an impulse, which could be communicated by no one but the King of Spain to the Spanish nation. It is no doubt true, that, had the Government of England known the real character of this prince, a wish for his deliverance from France, or his presence in Spain, would have been the last which they would have formed. This misapprehension, however, was natural, and was acted upon.

A Piedmontese, of Irish extraction, called the Baron Kolli (or Kelly,) the selected agent of the British government, was furnished with some diamonds and valuable articles, under pretext of disposing of which he was to obtain admission to the Prince, then a prisoner at Valençay, where his chief amusement, it is believed, was embroidering a gown and petticoat, to be presented to the Virgin Mary. Kolli was then to have informed the Prince of his errand, effected Ferdinand's escape by means of confederates among the royalist party, and conveyed him to the coast, where a small squadron awaited the event of the enterprise, designed to carry the King of Spain to Gibraltar, or whither else he chose. In March 1810, Kolli was put ashore in Quiberon bay, whence he went to Paris, to prepare for his enterprise. He was discovered, however, by the police,[83 - "He was discovered by his always drinking a bottle of the best wine, which so ill corresponded with his dress and apparent poverty, that it excited a suspicion amongst some of the spies, and he was arrested, searched, and his papers taken from him." – Napoleon, Voice, &c., vol. ii., p. 119.] and arrested at the moment when he was setting out for Valençay. Some attempts were made to induce him to proceed with the scheme, of which his papers enabled the police to comprehend the general plan, keeping communication at the same time with the French minister. As he disdained to undertake this treacherous character, Kolli was committed close prisoner to the castle of Vincennes, while a person – the same who betrayed his principal, and whose exterior in some degree answered the description of the British emissary – was sent to represent him at the castle of Valençay.

But Ferdinand, either suspicious of the snare which was laid for him, or poor-spirited enough to prefer a safe bondage to a brave risk incurred for liberty, would not listen to the supposed agent of Britain, and indeed denounced the pretended Kolli to Barthemy, the governor of the castle. The false Kolli, therefore, returned to Paris, while the real one remained in the castle of Vincennes till the capture of Paris by the allies. Ferdinand took credit, in a letter to Buonaparte, for having resisted the temptation held out to him by the British Government, who had, as he pathetically observed, abused his name, and occasioned, by doing so, the shedding of much blood in Spain. He again manifested his ardent wish to become the adopted son of the Emperor; his hope that the author and abettors of the scheme to deliver him might be brought to condign punishment; and concluded with a hint, that he was extremely desirous to leave Valençay, a residence which had nothing about it but what was unpleasant, and was not in any respect fitted for him. The hint of Ferdinand about a union with Buonaparte's family, probably led to the fresh importunity on the Emperor's part, which induced Lucien to leave Italy. Ferdinand did not obtain the change of residence he desired, nor does he seem to have profited in any way by his candour towards his keeper, excepting that he evaded the strict confinement, or yet worse fate, to which he might have been condemned, had he imprudently confided in the false Baron Kolli.[84 - See "Report concerning Kolli's Plan for liberating Ferdinand, King of Spain," Annual Register, vol. lii., p. 497.]

MASSENA AND WELLINGTON

In Portugal, the great struggle betwixt Massena and Wellington, upon which, as we formerly observed, the eyes of the world were fixed, had been finally decided in favour of the English general. This advantage was attained by no assistance of the elements – by none of those casual occurrences which are called chances of war – by no dubious, or even venturous risks – by the decision of no single battle lost or won; but solely by the superiority of one great general over another, at the awful game in which neither had yet met a rival.

For more than four months, Massena, with as fine an army as had ever left France, lay looking at the impregnable lines with which the British forces, so greatly inferior in numerical strength, were covering Lisbon, the object of his expedition. To assail in such a position troops, whose valour he had felt at Busaco, would have been throwing away the lives of his soldiers; and to retreat, was to abandon the enterprise which his master had intrusted to him, with a confidence in his skill and his good fortune, which must, in that case, have been thereafter sorely abated. Massena tried every effort which military skill could supply, to draw his foe out of his place of advantage. He threatened to carry the war across the Tagus – he threatened to extend his army towards Oporto; but each demonstration he made had been calculated upon and anticipated by his antagonist, and was foiled almost without an effort. At length, exhausted by the want of supplies, and the interruption of his communications, after lying one month at Alenquer, Massena retreated to Santarem, as preferable winter-quarters; but, in the beginning of March, he found that these were equally untenable, and became fully sensible, that if he desired to save the remnant of a sickly and diminished army, it must necessarily be by a speedy retreat.

This celebrated movement, decisive of the fate of the campaign, commenced about the 4th of March. There are two different points in which Massena's conduct may be regarded, and they differ as light and darkness. If it be considered in the capacity of that of a human being, the indignant reader, were we to detail the horrors which he permitted his soldiers to perpetrate, would almost deny his title to the name. It is a vulgar superstition, that when the Enemy of mankind is invoked, and appears, he destroys in his retreat the building which has witnessed the apparition. It seemed as if the French, in leaving Portugal, were determined that ruins alone should remain to show they had once been there. Military license was let loose in its most odious and frightful shape, and the crimes which were committed embraced all that is horrible to humanity. But if a curtain is dropped on these horrors, and Massena is regarded merely as a military leader, his retreat, perhaps, did him as much honour as any of the great achievements which formerly had made his name famous. If he had been rightly called Fortune's favourite, he now showed that his reputation did not depend on her smile, but could be maintained by his own talents, while she shone on other banners. In retreating through the north of Portugal, a rugged and mountainous country, he was followed by Lord Wellington, who allowed him not a moment's respite. The movements of the troops, to those who understood, and had the calmness to consider them, were as regular consequences of each other, as occur in the game of chess.[85 - Savary, tom. iii., part i., p. 53.]

The French were repeatedly seen drawn up on ground where it seemed impossible to dislodge them; and as often the bayonets of a British column, which had marched by some distant route, were observed twinkling in the direction of their flank, intimating that their line was about to be turned. But this was only the signal for Massena to recommence his retreat, which he did before the English troops could come up; nor did he fail again to halt where opportunity offered, until again dislodged by his sagacious and persevering pursuer. At length the French were fairly driven out of the Portuguese territory, excepting the garrison in the frontier town of Almeida, of which Lord Wellington formed first the blockade, and afterwards the siege.

BATTLE OF FUENTES D'ONORO

So soon as he escaped from the limits of Portugal, Massena hastened to draw together such reinforcements as he could obtain in Castile, collected once more a large force, and within about a fortnight after he had effected his retreat, resumed the offensive, with the view of relieving Almeida, which was the sole trophy remaining to show his triumphant advance in the preceding season. Lord Wellington did not refuse the battle, which took place on the 5th of May, near Fuentes d'Onoro. The conflict was well disputed, but the French general sustained a defeat, notwithstanding his superiority of numbers, and particularly of cavalry. He then retreated from the Portuguese frontier, having previously sent orders for the evacuation of Almeida by the garrison, which the French commandant executed with much dexterity.[86 - "The Emperor recalled Massena, who was quite exhausted by fatigue, and unable to bestow that attention to his troops which was necessary for restoring them to their former state of efficiency; and he selected for his successor in the command Marshal Marmont, the Governor of Illyria." – Savary, tom. iii., part i., p. 54.]

On the more southern frontier of Portugal, Lord Beresford fought also a dreadful and sanguinary battle. The action was in some measure indecisive, but Soult, who commanded the French, failed in obtaining such a success as enabled him to accomplish his object, which was the raising of the siege of Badajos. In Portugal, therefore, and along its frontiers, the British had been uniformly successful, and their countrymen at home began once more to open their ears to the suggestions of hope and courage.

Cadiz, also, the remaining bulwark of the patriots, had been witness to a splendid action. General Graham, with a body of British troops, had sallied out from the garrison in March 1811, and obtained a victory upon the heights of Barossa, which, had he been properly seconded by the Spanish General Lapena, would have been productive of a serious influence upon the events of the siege; and which, even though it remained imperfect, gave heart and confidence to the besieged, and struck a perpetual damp into the besiegers, who found themselves bearded in their own position. There had been much fighting through Spain with various results. But if we dare venture to use such an emblem, the bush, though burning, was not consumed, and Spain continued that sort of general resistance which seemed to begin after all usual means of regular opposition had failed, as Nature often musters her strength to combat a disease which the medical assistants have pronounced mortal.

Catalonia, though her strongholds were lost, continued, under the command of De Lacy and D'Eroles, to gain occasional advantages over the enemy; and Spain saw Figueras, one of her strongest fortresses, recovered by the bold stratagem of Rovira, a doctor of divinity, and commander of a guerilla party. Being instantly besieged by the French, and ill supplied with provisions, the place was indeed speedily regained; but the possibility of its being taken, was, to the peculiarly tenacious spirit of the Spaniards, more encouraging than its recapture was matter of dismay.

But chiefly the auxiliary British, with the Portuguese, who, trained by the care of Lord Beresford, were fit to sustain their part in line by the side of their allies, showed that they were conducted in a different spirit from that which made their leaders in former expeditions stand with one foot on sea and one on land, never venturing from the sight of the ocean, as if they led amphibious creatures, who required the use of both elements to secure their existence; and the scheme of whose campaign was to rout and repel, as they best could, the attacks of the enemy, but seldom to venture upon anticipating or disconcerting his plans. To protect Galicia, for example, when invaded by the French, Lord Wellington, though with a much inferior army than he was well aware could be brought against him, formed the blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo; thus compelling the enemy to desist from their proposed attempt on that province, and to concentrate their forces for the relief of that important place. Such a concentration could not, in the condition of the French armies, be effected without much disadvantage. It afforded breathing space for all the guerillas, and an opportunity, which they never neglected, of acting with their usual courage and sagacity against small parties and convoys of the French, as well as that of seizing upon any posts which the enemy might have been obliged to leave imperfectly defended. And when the French had collected their whole force to overwhelm the British general and his forces, Marmont had the mortification to see the former withdraw from the presence of a superior enemy, with as much calmness and security as if marching through a peaceful country.

Nothing remained for the French general, save to detail in the pages of the Moniteur, what must have been the fate of the English but for their hasty and precipitate flight, when the well-concerted and boldly-executed enterprise of Arroyo-Molinos, convinced him to his cost that a retreat was no rout. In this village upwards of 1400 French were taken prisoners, at a moment when they least expected to be attacked. This little action showed a spirit of hazard, a disposition to assume the offensive, which the French did not expect from the British forces; and they were, for the first time, foiled in their own military qualities of vigilance, enterprise, and activity. In Britain, also, the nation perceived that their army showed the same courage and the same superiority, which had been considered as the exclusive property of their gallant sailors. The French were defeated under the rock of Gibraltar by the Spanish General Ballasteros, and their general, Godinet, blew out his own brains, rather than face the account, to which Soult, his commander-in-chief, was about to summon him. Tarifa, in the same quarter, was defended successfully by a garrison of mingled Spaniards and British, and the French were computed to have lost before it about two thousand five hundred men.

On the other hand, the French discipline continued to render them superior over the patriots, wherever the latter could be brought to face them in any thing resembling a pitched battle. Thus Blake, after a gallant action, was totally defeated near Murviedro, and that town itself fell into possession of the enemy. A more severe consequence of the battle of Ocana, as that disastrous action was termed, was the capture of Valencia, where Blake and the remainder of his army were made prisoners.

But amid those vicissitudes of good or bad fortune, Spain continued to Buonaparte the same harassing and exhausting undertaking, which it had been almost from the commencement. Sickness and want made more ravages amongst the French troops than the sword of the enemy, though that did not lie idle. Many of the districts are unhealthy to strangers; but of these, as well as others, it was necessary for the invaders to retain possession. There, while numerous deaths happened among the troops, the guerillas watched the remnant, until sickness and fatigue had reduced the garrisons to a number insufficient for defence, and then pounced upon them like birds of prey on a fallen animal, upon whom they have been long in attendance.

JOSEPH WISHES TO ABDICATE

Besides, disunion continued to reign among the French generals. Joseph, although in point of power the very shadow of what a king ought to be, had spirit enough to resent the condition in which he was placed amid the haughty military chiefs who acknowledged no superior beside the Emperor, and listened to no commands save those emanating from Paris. He wrote to his brother a letter, accompanying a formal abdication of the throne of Spain, unless he was to be placed in more complete authority than even the orders of Napoleon himself had hitherto enabled him to attain. But the prospect of a northern war approaching nearer and nearer, Napoleon was induced to postpone his brother's request, although so pressingly urged, and Spain was in some measure left to its fate during the still more urgent events of the Russian campaign.[87 - Fouché, tom. ii., p. 71.]

CHAPTER LV

Retrospect of the causes leading to the Rupture with Russia – originate in the Treaty of Tilsit – Russia's alleged Reasons of Complaint – Arguments of Napoleon's Counsellors against War with Russia – Fouché is against the War – Presents a Memorial to Napoleon upon the Subject – His Answer – Napoleon's Views in favour of the War, as urged to his various Advisers.

RUPTURE WITH RUSSIA

We are now approaching the verge of that fated year, when Fortune, hitherto unwearied in her partiality towards Napoleon, turned first upon himself, personally, a clouded and stormy aspect. Losses he had sustained both by land and sea, but he could still remark, as when he first heard of the defeat at Trafalgar – "I was not there – I could not be every where at once." But he was soon to experience misfortunes, to the narrative of which he could not apply this proud commentary. The reader must be first put in remembrance of the causes of the incipient quarrel betwixt the empire of France and that of Russia.

Notwithstanding the subsequent personal intimacy which took place betwixt the two sovereigns, and which for five years prevented the springing up of any enmity betwixt Alexander and Napoleon, the seeds of that quarrel were, nevertheless, to be found in the treaty of pacification of Tilsit itself.[88 - Fouché, tom. ii., p. 71.] Russia, lying remote from aggression in every other part of her immense territory, is open to injury on that important western frontier by which she is united with Europe, and in those possessions by virtue of which she claims to be a member of the European republic. The partition of Poland, unjust as it was in every point of view, was a measure of far greater importance to Russia than either to Austria or Prussia; for, while that state possessed its former semi-barbarous and stormy independence, it lay interposed in a great measure betwixt Russia and the rest of Europe, or, in other words, betwixt her and the civilized world. Any revolution which might restore Poland to the independence, for which the inhabitants had not ceased to sigh, would have effectually thrust the Czar back upon his forests, destroyed his interest and influence in European affairs, and reduced him comparatively to the rank of an Asiatic sovereign. This liberation of their country, and the reunion of its dismembered provinces under a national constitution, was what the Poles expected from Buonaparte. For this they crowded to his standard after the battle of Jena; and although he was too cautious to promise any thing explicitly concerning the restoration of Poland to its rank among nations, yet most of his measures indicated a future purpose of accomplishing that work. Thus, when those Polish provinces which had fallen to the portion of Prussia, were formed into the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, as an independent principality, and the sovereignty was conferred, not without a secret meaning, on the King of Saxony, a descendant of the ancient monarchs of Poland, what could this be supposed to indicate, save the commencement of an independent state, to which might be added, as opportunity occurred, the remaining districts of Poland which had been seized upon by Austria and Russia? "To what purpose," asked those statesmen, who belonged to the old Russian or anti-Gallican party in the empire, "are those stipulations for a free military road and passage of troops from Saxony to Warsaw and its territory, through Silesia, if it is not that France may preserve the means of throwing an overpowering force into the duchy, so soon as it shall be her pleasure to undo the work of the sage Catherine, by depriving Russia of those rich Polish provinces, which her policy had added to the empire? Wherefore," asked the same persons, "should there have been a special article in the same treaty of Tilsit, that France should retain Dantzic until a maritime peace, unless it was to serve as a place of arms in the event of a new war with Russia, the probability of which Napoleon, therefore, must certainly have calculated upon, even at the very moment when he cultivated such close personal intimacy with the Emperor Alexander?"

These suspicions were considerably increased by the articles of peace concluded with Austria at Schoenbrun. By that treaty all Western Galicia, together with the city of Cracow, and other territories, were disjoined from Austria, and added to the dukedom of Warsaw, marking, it was supposed, still farther, the intention of Napoleon, at one time or another, to restore in its integrity the ancient kingdom of Poland, of which Russia alone now held the full share allotted to her by the partition treaties.

Other causes led to the same conclusion. The old Russians, a numerous and strong party in the empire, which comprehended the greater part of the large landholders, felt, as they had done under the Emperor Paul, much distress, national and personal, from the interruption of the British trade by Buonaparte's Continental System. Their timber, their pitch, their potash, their hemp, and other bulky and weighty commodities, the chief produce of their estates, for which the British had been ready customers, remained on their hands, while they were deprived of the colonial produce and manufactures of Britain, which they were wont to receive in exchange for those articles, with mutual profit and convenience to both parties. It was in vain that, to reconcile them to this state of interdiction, they saw in the speeches and decrees of Buonaparte, tirades about the freedom of the seas, and the maritime tyranny of England. It seemed an ill-omened species of liberation, which began by the destruction of their commerce and impoverishment of their estates; and the Russian Boyards could no more comprehend the declamation of Buonaparte against the English, than the millers of the Ebro could be made to understand the denunciation of Don Quixote against their customers. These magnates only saw that the Ruler of France wished them to submit to great commercial distress and inconvenience, in order to accelerate his plan of ruining Great Britain, after which achievement he might find it a more easy undertaking to destroy their own natural importance as a European power, by re-establishing Poland, and resuming the fertile provinces on the western boundary; thus leading the Russian Cabinet, if the French interest should remain paramount there, by a very disadvantageous road to a still more disastrous conclusion.

There was, besides, spread through the Russian nation generally, a sense that France was treating their Emperor rather on the footing of an inferior. It is a thing entirely unknown in diplomacy, that one government should pretend a right to dictate to another who is upon terms of equality, the conditions on which she should conduct her commerce; and the assuming such a right, seconded by threatening language in case of non-compliance, has been always held a legitimate cause of war. Indeed, the opinion that the French league disgraced the Russian nation, plunged their country into embarrassments, and was likely to occasion still farther misfortunes to them, became so general, that the Emperor must have paid some attention to the wishes of his people, even if his own friendship with Buonaparte had not been cooled by late occurrences.

The alliance with Austria was of a character calculated to alarm Alexander. Russia and Austria, though they had a common interest to withstand the overpowering strength of Buonaparte, had been in ordinary times always rivals, and sometimes enemies. It was the interference of Austria, which, upon several occasions, checked the progress of the Russians in Turkey, and it was Austria also which formed a barrier against the increase of their power in the south of Europe. The family connexion, therefore, formed by Buonaparte with the House of Hapsburg, made him still more formidable to Russia, as likely to embrace the quarrels and forward the pretensions of that power against the Czar, even if France herself should have none to discuss with him.

But there was no need to have recourse to remote causes of suspicion. Russia had, and must always have had, direct and immediate cause of jealousy, while France or her Emperor claimed the permanent right of thinking and deciding for her, as well as other nations, in the relations of commerce and others, in which every independent state is most desirous of exercising the right of deliberating for herself. This was the true state of the case. To remain the ally of Buonaparte, Alexander must have become his vassal; to attempt to be independent of him, was to make him his enemy; and it can be no wonder that a sovereign so proud and powerful as the Czar, chose rather to stand the hazard of battle, than diminish the lustre, or compromise the independence, of his ancient crown.

The time, too, for resistance, seemed as favourable as Russia could ever expect. The war of Spain, though chequered in its fortune, was in no respect near a sudden end. It occupied 250,000 of the best and oldest French troops; demanded also an immense expenditure, and diminished, of course, the power of the French Emperor to carry on the war on the frontiers of Russia. A conclusion of these wasting hostilities would have rendered him far more formidable with respect to the quality, as well as the number, of his disposable forces, and it seemed the interest of Russia not to wait till that period should arrive.

The same arguments which recommended to Russia to choose the immediate moment for resisting the extravagant pretensions of France, ought, in point of prudence, to have induced Napoleon to desist from urging such pretensions, and to avoid the voluntarily engaging in two wars at the same time, both of a character decidedly national, and to only one of which he could give the influence of his own talents and his own presence. His best and wisest generals, whom he consulted, or, to speak more properly, to whom he opened his purpose, used various arguments to induce him to alter, or at least defer his resolution. He himself hesitated for more than a year, and was repeatedly upon the point of settling with Russia the grounds of disagreement betwixt them upon amicable terms.

COMPLAINTS OF THE CZAR

The reasons of complaint, on the part of the Czar, were four in number.

I. The alarm given to Russia by the extension of the grand duchy of Warsaw by the treaty of Schoenbrun, as if it were destined to be the central part of an independent state, or kingdom, in Poland, to which those provinces of that dismembered country, which had become part of Russia, were at some convenient time to be united. On this point the Czar demanded an explicit engagement, on the part of the French Emperor, that the kingdom of Poland should not be again established. Napoleon declined this form of guarantee, as it seemed to engage him to warrant Russia against an event which might happen without his co-operation; but he offered to pledge himself that he would not favour any enterprise which should, directly or indirectly, lead to the re-establishment of Poland as an independent state. This modified acquiescence in what was required by Russia fell considerably short of what the Czar wished; for the stipulation, as at first worded, would have amounted to an engagement on the part of France to join in opposing any step towards Polish independence; whereas, according to the modification which it received at Paris, it only implied that France should remain neuter if such an attempt should take place.

II. The wrong done by including the duchy of Oldenburg, though guaranteed by the treaty of Tilsit to its prince, the Czar's near relative and ally, in the territory annexed to France, admitted of being compensated by an indemnification. But Russia desired that this indemnification should be either the city of Dantzic, or some equally important territory, on the frontiers of the grand duchy of Warsaw, which might offer an additional guarantee against the apprehended enlargement of that state. France would not listen to this, though she did not object to compensation elsewhere.

III. The third point in question, was the degree to which the Russian commerce with England was to be restricted. Napoleon proposed to grant some relaxation on the occasions where the produce of Russia was exported in exchange for that of England, to be effected by the way of mutual licenses.

IV. It was proposed to revise the Russian tariff of 1810, so as, without injuring the interests of Russia, it might relax the heavy duties imposed on the objects of French commerce.

From this statement, which comprehends the last basis on which Napoleon expressed himself willing to treat, it is quite evident, that had there not been a deeper feeling of jealousy and animosity betwixt the two Emperors, than those expressed in the subjects of actual debate betwixt them, these might have been accommodated in an amicable way. But as it was impossible for Napoleon to endure being called to account, like a sovereign of the second rate, or at least in the tone of an equal, by the Emperor of Russia; so the latter, more and more alarmed by the motions of the French armies, which were advancing into Pomerania, could not persuade himself, that, in agreeing to admit the present grounds of complaint, Napoleon meant more than to postpone the fatal struggle for superiority, until he should find a convenient time to commence it with a more absolute prospect of success.

In the meantime, and ere the negotiations were finally broken off, Buonaparte's counsellors urged him with as much argument as they dared, to desist from running the hazard of an enterprise so remote, so hazardous, and so little called for. They contended, that no French interest, and no national point of honour, were involved in the disagreement which had arisen. The principles upon which the points of dispute might be settled, being in a manner agreed upon, they argued that their master should stop in their military preparations. To march an army into Prussia, and to call forth the Prussians as auxiliaries, would, they contended, be using measures towards Russia, which could not but bring on the war which they anxiously deprecated. To submit to menaces supported by demonstrations of open force, would be destructive of the influence of Russia, both at home and abroad. She could not be expected to give way without a struggle.

WAR WITH RUSSIA

These advisers allowed, that a case might be conceived for justifying an exertion to destroy the power of Russia, a case arising out of the transactions between France and the other states of Europe, and out of the apprehension that these states, aggrieved and irritated by the conduct of France, might be tempted to seek a leader, patron, and protector, in the Emperor Alexander. But this extremity, they alleged, could not exist so long as France had the means of avoiding a perilous war, by a mitigation of her policy towards her vassals and auxiliaries; for if the states whose revolt (so to call it) was apprehended, could be reconciled to France by a more lenient course of measures to be adopted towards them, they would lose all temptation to fly to Russia as a protector. In such case the power of Russia would no longer give jealousy to France, or compel her to rush to a dubious conflict, for the purpose of diminishing an influence which could not then become dangerous to the southern empire, by depriving France of her clientage.

It might have been added, though it could not be so broadly spoken out, that in this point of view nothing would have been more easy for France, than to modify or soften her line of policy in favour of the inferior states, in whose favour the Russian interference was expected or apprehended. That policy had uniformly been a system of insult and menace. The influence which France had gained in Europe grew less out of treaty than fear, founded on the recollection of former wars. All the states of Germany felt the melancholy consequences of the existence of despotic power vested in men, who, like Napoleon himself, and the military governors whom he employed, were new to the exercise and enjoyment of their authority; and, on the other hand, the French Emperor and his satellites felt, towards the people of the conquered, or subjected states, the constant apprehension which a conscious sense of injustice produces in the minds of oppressors, namely, that the oppressed only watch for a safe opportunity to turn against them. There was, therefore, no French interest, or even point of honour, which called on Napoleon to make war on Alexander; and the temptation seems to have amounted solely to the desire on Napoleon's part to fight a great battle – to gain a great victory – to occupy, with his victorious army, another great capital – and, in fine, to subject to his arms the power of Russia, which, of all the states on the continent, remained the only one that could be properly termed independent of France.

It was in this light that the question of peace and war was viewed by the French politicians of the day; and it is curious to observe, in the reports we have of their arguments, the total absence of principle which they display in the examination of it. They dwell on the difficulty of Napoleon's undertaking, upon its dangers, upon its expense, upon the slender prospect of any remuneration by the usual modes of confiscation, plunder, or levy of contributions. They enlarge, too, upon the little probability there was that success in the intended war would bring to a conclusion the disastrous contest in Spain; and all these various arguments are insinuated or urged with more or less vehemence, according to the character, the station, or the degree of intimacy with Napoleon, of the counsellor who ventured to use the topics. But among his advisers, none that we read or hear of, had the open and manly courage to ask, Where was the justice of this attack upon Russia? What had she done to merit it? The Emperors were friends by the treaty of Tilsit, confirmed by personal intimacy and the closest intercourse at Erfurt. How had they ceased to be such? What had happened since that period to place Russia, then the friend and confessed equal of France, in the situation of a subordinate and tributary state? On what pretence did Napoleon confiscate to his own use the duchy of Oldenburg, acknowledged as the property of Alexander's brother-in-law, by an express article in the treaty of Tilsit? By what just right could he condemn the Russian nation to all the distresses of his Anti-commercial System, while he allowed them to be a free and independent state? – Above all, while he considered them as a sovereign and a people entitled to be treated with the usual respect due between powers that are connected by friendly treaties, with what pretence of justice, or even decency, could he proceed to enforce claims so unfounded in themselves, by introducing his own forces on their frontier, and arming their neighbours against them for the same purpose? Of these pleas, in moral justice, there was not a word urged; nor was silence wonderful on this fruitful topic, since to insist upon it would have been to strike at the fundamental principle of Buonaparte's policy, which was, never to neglect a present advantage for the sake of observing a general principle. "Let us hear of no general principles," said Buonaparte's favourite minister of the period. "Ours is a government not regulated by theory, but by emerging circumstances."

FOUCHÉ'S MEMORIAL