Array Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne - The Collected Works of Napoleon Bonaparte

Nos. 13 and 14.

Written at Valladolid. Here he received a deputation asking that his brother may reside in Madrid, to which he agrees, and awaits its arrangement before setting out for Paris.

At Valladolid he met De Pradt, whom he mistrusted; but who, like Talleyrand, always amused him. In the present case the Abbé told him that "the Spaniards would never thank him for interfering in their behalf, and that they were like Sganarelle in the farce, who quarrelled with a stranger for interfering with her husband when he was beating her" (Scott's "Napoleon").

He leaves Valladolid January 17th, and is in Paris on January 24th. He rode the first seventy miles, to Burgos, in five and a half hours, stopping only to change horses. 69Well might Savary say, "Never had a sovereign ridden at such a speed."

Eugène has a daughter. —The Princess Eugénie-Hortense, born December 23rd at Milan; married the hereditary Prince of Hohenzollern Hechingen.

They are foolish in Paris —if not worse. Talleyrand, Fouché, and others were forming what amounted to a conspiracy, and the Empress herself, wittingly or unwittingly, had served as their tool. For the first time she answers a deputation of the Corps Législatif, who come to congratulate her on her husband's victories, and says that doubtless his Majesty would be very sensible of the homage of an assembly which represents the nation . Napoleon sees in this remark a germ of aggression on behalf of his House of Commons, more especially when emphasised by 125 blackballs against a Government Bill. He takes the effective but somewhat severe step of contradicting his wife in the Moniteur , or rather declaring that the Empress knew the laws too well not to know that the Emperor was the chief representative of the People, then the Senate, and last the Corps Législatif.

"It would be a wild and even criminal assertion to try to represent the nation before the Emperor."

All through the first half of 1809 another dangerous plot, of which the centre was the Princess of Tour and Taxis, had its threads far and wide. Many of Soult's generals were implicated, and in communication with the English, preventing their commander getting news of Wellesley's movements (Napier). When they find Soult cannot be traduced, they lend a willing ear to stirring up strife between the Emperor and Soult, by suggesting that the latter should be made King of Portugal. Madame d'Abrantès, who heard in 1814 that the idea had found favour with English statesmen, thinks such a step would have seriously injured Napoleon (vol. iv. 53).

1809.

The dangers surrounding Napoleon were immense. The Austrian army, 320,000 strong (with her Landwehr, 544,000 men) and 800 cannon, had never been so great, never so fitted for war. Prussia was already seething with secret societies, of which as yet the only formidable one was the Tugendbund, whose headquarters were Konigsburg, and whose chief members were Stein, Stadion, Blucher, Jahn. Perhaps their most sensible scheme was to form a united German empire, with the Archduke Charles 70as its head. The Archduke Ferdinand invaded the Duchy of Warsaw, and had he taken Thorn with its park of 100 cannon, Prussia was to join Austria. In Italy the Carbonari and Adelphes 71only waited for the French troops to go north to meet the Austrians to spread revolt in Italy. Of the former the head lodge was at Capua and its constitutions written in English, since England was aiding this chouanerie religieuse as a lever against Napoleon. England had an army of 40,000 men ready to embark in any direction—to Holland, Belgium, Naples, or Biscay, while the French troops in Portugal were being tampered with to receive Moreau as their leader, and to march with Spaniards and English for the Pyrenees. At Paris Talleyrand was in partial disgrace, but he and Fouché were still plotting—the latter, says Pelet, forwarding daily a copy of the private bulletin (prepared for Napoleon's eye alone) to the Bourbons. After Essling and the breaking of the Danube bridge, he hesitated between seizing supreme power himself or offering it to Bernadotte.

Up to the last—up to March 27th—the Correspondence proves that Napoleon had hoped that war would be averted through the influence of Russia. "All initiative," he declared, "rested on the heads of the court of Austria." "Menaced on all sides; warned of the intentions of his enemies by their movements and by their intercepted correspondence; seeing from that moment hostilities imminent, he wishes to prove to France and Europe that all the wrongs are on their side, and awaits in his capital the news of an aggression that nothing justifies, nothing warrants. Vain prudence! Europe will accuse him of having been the instigator on every occasion, even in this." 72On April 8th the Austrians violated Bavarian territory, and during his supreme command for the next five days Berthier endangered the safety of the French empire in spite of the most elaborate and lucid instructions from Napoleon, which he failed to comprehend. "Never," says Pelet, "was so much written, never so little done. Each of his letters (Berthier's) attests the great difference which existed between his own correspondence and that which was dictated to him." An ideal chief of staff, he utterly lacked the decision necessary for a commander-in-chief. The arrival of Napoleon changed in a moment the position of affairs. "The sudden apparition of the Emperor produced the effect of the head of Medusa, and paralysed the enemy." 73Within five days the Austrians were four times defeated, and Ratisbon, the passe-partout of Southern Germany and half-way house between Strasburg and Vienna, is once more in the hands of France and her allies. Pelet considers these operations as the finest which have been executed either in ancient or modern times, at any rate those of which the projects are authentically proved. He foretells that military men from every country of Europe, but specially young Frenchmen, will religiously visit the fields of the Laber. They will visit, with Napoleon's Correspondence in their hands, "much more precious than every other commentary, the hills of Pfaffenhofen, the bridge of Landshut, and that of Eckmühl, the mill of Stangl, and the woods of Roking." A few days later the Archduke Charles writes a letter to Napoleon, which is a fair type of those charming yet stately manners which made him at that moment the most popular man in Europe. "Sire," he writes, "your Majesty's arrival was announced to me by the thunder of artillery, without giving me time to compliment you thereon. Scarcely advised of your presence, I was made sensible of it by the losses which you have caused me. You have taken many of my men, Sire; my troops also have made some thousands of prisoners in places where you did not direct the operations. I propose to your Majesty to exchange them man for man, grade for grade, and if that offer is agreeable to you, please let me know your intentions for the place destined for the exchange. I feel flattered, sire, in fighting against the greatest captain of the age. I should be more happy if destiny had chosen me to procure for my country the benefit of a lasting peace. Whichsoever they be, the events of war or the approach of peace, I beg your Majesty to believe that my desires always carry me to meet you, and that I hold myself equally honoured in finding the sword, or the olive branch, in the hand of your Majesty."

No. 1.

Donauwerth. —On the same day Napoleon writes almost an identical letter to Cambacérès, adding, however, the news that the Tyrolese are in full revolt.

On April 20th he placed himself at the head of the Wurtembergers and Bavarians at Abensberg. He made a stirring speech (No. 15,099 of Correspondence ), and Lejeune tells us that the Prince Royal of Bavaria translated into German one sentence after another as the Emperor spoke, and officers repeated the translations throughout the ranks.