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

The Duke of Montebello, who died this morning. —The same day he writes to La Maréchale as follows:—

" Ma Cousine ,—The Marshal died this morning of the wounds that he received on the field of honour. My sorrow equals yours. I lose the most distinguished general in my whole army, my comrade-in-arms for sixteen years, he whom I looked upon as my best friend. His family and children will always have a special claim on my protection. It is to give you this assurance that I wished to write you this letter, for I feel that nothing can alleviate the righteous sorrow that you will experience." The following year he bestowed the highest honour on the Maréchale that she could receive.

Thus everything ends. —The fourteenth bulletin says that the end was caused by a pernicious fever, and in spite of Dr. Franck, one of the best physicians in Europe. "Thus ends one of the most distinguished soldiers France ever possessed." 77He had received thirteen wounds. The death of Lannes, and the whole of the Essling period, is best told by Marbot. The loss of Lannes was a more serious one to Napoleon than the whole 20,000 men lost in this battle. The master himself has told us that "in war men are nothing, a man is everything." They could be replaced: Lannes never. Like Kléber and Desaix, he stood on a higher platform than the older Marshals—except Massena, who had serious drawbacks, and who was the only one of Napoleon's best generals that Wellington met in the Peninsula. Lannes had always the ear of the Emperor, and always told him facts, not flattery. His life had been specially crowded the last few weeks. Rebuked by Napoleon for tardiness in supporting Massena at Ebersberg, his life was saved by Napoleon himself when he was thrown from his horse into the flooded Danube; and finally, on the field of Essling, he had under his orders Bessières, the man who had a dozen years before prevented his engagement to Caroline Bonaparte by tittle-tattling to Napoleon.

No. 9.

Eugène won a battle. —The remnant of the Archduke John's army, together with Hungarian levies, in all 31,000 men, hold the entrenched camp and banks of the Raab. Eugène defeats it, with a loss of 6000 men, of whom 3700 were prisoners. Napoleon, in commemoration of the anniversary of Marengo (and Friedland) calls it the little granddaughter of Marengo.

No. 11.

The curtain of the war's final act was rung up in the twenty-fourth bulletin. "At length there exists no longer the Danube for the French army; General Count Bertrand has completed works which excite astonishment and inspire admiration. For 800 yards over the most rapid river in the world he has, in a fortnight, constructed a bridge of sixteen arches where three carriages can pass abreast."

Wagram is, according to Pelet, the masterpiece of tactical battles, while the five days' campaign (Thann to Ratisbon) was one long strategic battle. Nevertheless, respecting Wagram, had the Archduke John, with his 40,000 men, turned up, as the Archduke had more right to expect than Wellington had to expect Blucher, Waterloo might have been antedated six years.

Lasalle was a prime favourite of Napoleon, for his sure eye and active bearing. His capture of Stettin with two regiments of hussars was specially noteworthy. Like Lannes he had a strong premonition of his death. Marbot tells a story of how Napoleon gave him 200,000 francs to get married with. A week later the Emperor asked, "When is the wedding?" "As soon as I have got some money to furnish with, sire." "Why, I gave you 200,000 francs to furnish with last week! What have you done with them?" "Paid my debts with half, and lost the other half at cards." Such an admission would have ruined any other general. The Emperor laughed, and merely giving a sharp tug at Lasalle's moustache, ordered Duroc to give him another 200,000.

I am sunburnt , and, as he writes Cambacérès the same day, tired out, having been sixty out of the previous seventy-two hours in the saddle.

No. 12.

Wolkersdorf. —On July 8th he writes General Clarke: "I have the headquarters lately occupied by the craven Francis II., who contented himself with watching the whole affair from the top of a tower, ten miles from the scene of battle." On this day also he dictated his twenty-fifth bulletin, of which the last portion is so skilfully utilised in the last scene of Act V. in L'Aiglon. One concluding sentence is all that can here be quoted: "Such is the recital of the battle of Wagram, a decisive and ever illustrious battle, where three to four hundred thousand men, twelve to fifteen hundred guns, fought for great stakes on a field of battle, studied, meditated on, and fortified by the enemy for many months."

A surfeit of bile. —His usual source of relief after extra work or worry. In this case both. Bernadotte had behaved so badly at Wagram, that Napoleon sent him to Paris with the stern rebuke, "A bungler like you is no good to me." But as usual his anger against an old comrade is short-lived, and he gives General Clarke permission to send Bernadotte to command at Antwerp against the English.

No. 16.

My affairs follow my wishes. —In Austria, possibly, but not elsewhere. Prussia was seething with conspiracy, Russia with ill-concealed hatred, the English had just landed in Belgium, and Wellesley had just won Talavera. Soult was apparently no longer trustworthy, Bernadotte a conceited boaster, who had to be publicly snubbed (see The Order of the Day, August 5th, No. 15,614). Clarke and Cambacérès are so slow that Napoleon writes them (August 10th) "not to let the English come and take you in bed." Fouché shows more energy than every one else put together, calls out National Guards, and sends them off to meet the northern invasion. The Minister of the Interior, M. Cretet, had just died, and the Emperor had wisely put Fouché, the most competent man available, into his place for the time being.

No. 17.

August 21st. —The list of birthday honours (August 15th) had been a fairly long one, Berthier becoming Prince of Wagram, Massena of Essling, Davoust of Eckmühl. Marshals Oudinot and Macdonald, Generals Clarke, Reynier, Gaudin and Champagny, as also M. Maret, became Dukes. Marmont had already, says Savary, been made delirious with the joy of possessing a bâton.

No. 18.

Comedians. —Napoleon found relaxation more after his own heart in conversing with the savants of Germany, including the great mechanic Mäelzel, with whose automaton chess-player he played a game. Constant gives a highly-coloured picture of the sequel: "The automaton was seated before a chess-board, and the Emperor, taking a chair opposite the figure, said laughingly, 'Now, my friend, we'll have a game.' The automaton, bowing, made signs for the Emperor to begin. After two or three moves the Emperor made a wrong one on purpose; the automaton bowed and replaced the piece on the board. His Majesty cheated again, when the automaton bowed again, but this time took the pawn. 'Quite right,' said his Majesty, as he promptly cheated for the third time. The automaton then shook its head, and with one sweep of its hand knocked all the chessmen down."

Women ... not having been presented. —One woman, however, the mistress of Lord Paget, was quite willing to be presented at a late hour and to murder him at the same time—at least so says Constant.

No. 19.

All this is very suspicious. —For perfectly natural reasons Cæsar's wife was now above suspicion, but Cæsar himself was not so. Madame Walewski had been more than a month at Schoenbrunn, and on May 4th, 1810, Napoleon has a second son born, who fifty years later helped to edit his father's Correspondence .

No. 20.

Krems. —He left here to review Davoust's corps on the field of Austerlitz. Afterwards all the generals dined with him, and the Emperor said, "This is the second time I come upon the field of Austerlitz; shall I come to it a third time?" "Sire," replied one, "from what we see every day none dare wager that you will not!" It was this suppressed hatred that probably determined the Emperor to dismantle the fortifications of Vienna, an act that intensified the hatred of the Viennese more than his allowing the poor people to help themselves to wood for the winter in the imperial forests had mollified them.