rancour of the americans towards england—their admiration of napoleon—the right of search and consequent disputes—madison's warlike declaration—opposition in congress—condition of canada—capture of michilimachimac—an armistice—repulse of the invasion of canada—naval engagements—napoleon and the czar determine on war—attempts to dissuade napoleon—unpreparedness of russia—bernadotte's advice to alexander—rashness of napoleon—policy of prussia, austria and turkey—overtures to england and russia—napoleon goes to the front—his extravagant language—the war begins—disillusion of the poles—difficulties of the advance—bagration and barclay de tolly—napoleon pushes on—capture of smolensk—battle of borodino—the russians evacuate moscow—buonaparte occupies the city—conflagrations burst out—desperate position of affairs—murat and kutusoff—defeat of murat—the retreat begins—its horrors—caution of kutusoff—passage of the beresina—napoleon leaves the army—his arrival in paris—results of the campaign—england's support of russia—close of 1812—wellington's improved prospects—he advances against joseph buonaparte—battle of vittoria—retreat of the french—soult is sent against wellington—the battle of the pyrenees—the storming of san sebastian—wellington forbids plundering—he goes into winter-quarters—campaign in the south-east of spain—napoleon's efforts to renew the campaign—desertion of murat and bernadotte—alliance between prussia and russia—austrian mediation fails—early successes of the allies—battle of lützen—napoleon's false account of the battle—occupation of hamburg by davoust—battle of bautzen—armistice of pleisswitz—failure of the negotiations—the fortification of dresden—successive defeats of the french by the allies—the aid of england—battle of leipsic—retreat of the french across the rhine—the french yoke is thrown off—castlereagh summons england to fresh exertions—liberation of the pope—failure of buonaparte's attempt to restore ferdinand—wellington's remonstrance with the british ministry—battles of orthez and toulouse—termination of the campaign—exhaustion of france—the allies on the frontier—napoleon's final efforts—the congress of chàtillon—the allies advance on paris—surrender of the capital—a provisional government appointed—napoleon abdicates in favour of his son—his unconditional abdication—return of the bourbons—insecurity of their power—treaty of paris—bad terms to england—visit of the monarchs to london.

from skirmishing at sea the british had now come to direct war with the people of north america. from the period of the american colonists obtaining their independence of great britain, they retained a peculiar animus against the mother country. in the war by which that independence was achieved by the aid of france, holland, and spain, which all combined to attack britain on sea and land, the americans displayed no traces of the magnanimity that usually accompanies bravery. they resorted to many dishonourable practices, amongst which was the breach of contract in retaining prisoners from the army of general burgoyne. the same spirit continued to animate them afterwards. it was natural to suppose that their success would have the usual effect of making them forget enmity when the cause of it was gone by; but this was not the case. in all contests of great britain with revolutionary france, they rejoiced over any disasters which befel her, and were silent in the hour of her victories. though they were bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, and our population was pouring over to swell their numbers, they displayed towards us a hostility that no other nation, france excepted, had ever shown.

but it was not to great britain only that this want of generosity was shown. no people rejoiced more vehemently than they did—none, indeed, so much—over the fall and execution of louis xvi. of france, the one monarch of europe who had been their chief benefactor, without whose powerful aid they would have fought and struggled in vain, and who had, in fact, lost his crown and his head, and his empire to his family, by sending his soldiers to learn republicanism amongst them. there were feasts and public rejoicings in the united states to commemorate the death of louis, who was, in fact, the martyr of america. what was equally extraordinary, whilst they exulted in the french republic, they followed with an equal admiration the career of buonaparte, who crushed that republic, and raised up a despotism opposed in its principles to all the political professions of americans. but it was the idea that he was born to humble and, perhaps, blot out great britain from the list of nations, which served to render napoleon so especially the object of their unbounded eulogies. his victories were celebrated nowhere so vociferously as in the united states, through the press, the pulpit, and in general oratory. with them he was the man of destiny, who was to overthrow all kings but himself, and drive great britain from her dominion of the seas.

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view of washington from arlington heights.

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during the republic of france, and in the worst times of robespierre, the french had their minister, m. genet, in the united states, who excited the democrats to acts of hostility against great britain, and gave them french authority to seize and make prizes of british vessels at sea, though they were nominally at peace with england. and though washington, then president, protested against these proceedings, the main body of the people were against him, and were supported in that spirit by jefferson, who was secretary of state. when jefferson became president, in 1801, and madison his secretary of state, the hatred to great britain was carried to its extreme, and the friendship of buonaparte was cultivated with the utmost zeal. when jefferson was a second time president, in 1807, he violently resisted our right of search of neutral vessels, thus playing into the hands of buonaparte and his berlin decree, in the hope of carrying on a large trade with the european continent at our expense. out of this arose the affair of the leopard and the chesapeake off the capes of virginia, in which the chesapeake, refusing to allow a search for british deserters, was attacked and taken. this put the whole of the democracy of america into a raging fury, though the boarding of the united states war-sloop, the hornet, in the french port of l'orient, for the same purpose, was passed over without a murmur. to prevent such collisions, canning, on the part of the british government, issued orders that search of war-ships should be discontinued. this, however, did not prevent jefferson from making proclamations prohibiting british men-of-war from entering or remaining in american ports; and the utmost indignities were offered to all the officers and crews of our men-of-war who happened to be lying in american harbours. moreover, jefferson issued, in december, 1807, an embargo against all american vessels quitting their own ports, because if at sea they did not submit to be searched to ascertain whether they were carrying goods to french ports, they were treated as hostile by great britain, were attacked and seized. this was in retaliation of buonaparte's berlin decree, and made necessary by it. on the other hand, buonaparte seized any american or other vessel entering into any port of europe under the power of france, which had submitted to search. to prevent this certain seizure of trading vessels, the embargo was issued, and all merchant vessels of all nations were prohibited from entering american ports. a more[34] suicidal act than this could not be conceived, and the people of the united states soon complained loudly of the consequences. in 1809, madison succeeding jefferson in the presidency, and buonaparte having now rendered matters worse by his milan decree, besides his berlin one, madison abolished the general embargo with all nations except france and great britain, and declared this, too, at an end, whenever either or both of these nations withdrew—the one its decrees and the other its orders in council. but in 1810 madison declared that france had withdrawn its decrees so far as america was concerned; though this was notoriously untrue. numbers of american vessels continued to be seized in french ports, though the united states government dared not complain, nor did they ever recover any compensation from napoleon; it was from louis philippe that they first obtained such compensation, and, curiously enough, through the friendly intervention of great britain.

the british government had done all in its power, except annuling the orders in council, to produce a better tone of feeling in america. it put up with many insults and violations of neutrality. it sent mr. foster as envoy to the united states to endeavour to adjust all differences; but in vain. this continued so till 1812, when, on the 20th of may, mr. russell, the american chargé-d'affaires, presented lord castlereagh with a copy of an instrument by which france had, on the 28th of april, abrogated its berlin and milan decrees so far as they related to american vessels. to show an equal liberality, great britain, on the 23rd of june, revoked its orders in council so far as concerned america, on condition that the united states also revoked its non-intercourse act. but this had no effect on the government of america, which had already concluded a secret treaty with france, and was making every preparation for the invasion of our canadian colonies. the americans had the most profound idea of the stability of buonaparte, and could not conceive that the expedition that he was now preparing against russia would prove his overthrow. but they expected that buonaparte would crush russia altogether, and would rule unopposed over europe; that the government of great britain was bankrupt, and that they might assail her with impunity. accordingly, all activity was used in getting ready all kinds of ships to send out as privateers, calculating on a plentiful spoil of british traders in the waters along the american coast and amongst the west indian isles, before they could be put upon their guard. at the same time, on the 14th of april they laid an embargo on all american vessels, so as to keep them at home; and on the 18th of june the president announced to congress that the united states and great britain were in an actual state of war. there was a studied ambiguity in this declaration; it did not candidly take the initiative, and assert that the united states declared war against great britain, but said that the two countries were, somehow or other, already in a state of war.

but this declaration did not issue without a violent debate in congress, where the moderate party stated that the interests of the country were sacrificed to a mischievous war-spirit, and in the east and north of the states there was raised a loud cry for severance, as there had been in the south when jefferson laid his embargo on american vessels. they complained that if, as was now alleged, the french emperor had abrogated his berlin and milan decrees in favour of america as early as the 2nd of march, 1811, why was this not communicated to england before the 20th of may, 1812? and when england had long ago declared that she would rescind her orders in council when such a notification could be made to her, accompanied by a repeal of the american non-intercourse act; and when she did immediately rescind her orders in council on this condition, why should there be all this haste to rush into war with great britain? they complained bitterly that though buonaparte was professed to have abrogated his decrees as early as november, 1810, he had gone on till just lately in seizing american ships, both in the ports of france and by his cruisers at sea. the state of massachusetts addressed a strong remonstrance to the federal government, in which they represented the infamy of the descendants of the pilgrim fathers cooperating with the common enemy of civil liberty to bind other nations in chains, and this at the very moment that the european peoples were uniting for their violated liberties.

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men of war off portsmouth.

from the painting by clarkson stanfield, r.a., in the corporation art gallery, guildhall.

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but the condition of canada was very tempting to the cupidity of madison and his colleagues. we had very few troops there, and the defences had been neglected in the tremendous struggle going on in europe. at this moment it appeared especially opportune for invading the canadas from the states, as britain was engaged not only in the arduous struggle in spain, but its attention was occupied in watching and promoting the measures that were being prepared in russia, in sweden, and throughout germany, against the general oppressor. at such a moment the americans—professed zealots for liberty and independence—thought it a worthy object to filch the colonies of the country which, above all others, was maintaining the contest against the universal despot. they thought the french canadians would rise and join the allies of france against great britain. the american government had accordingly, so early as in 1811, and nearly a year previous to the declaration of war, mustered ten thousand men at boston, ready for this expedition; and long before the note of war was sounded they had called out fifty thousand volunteers. still, up to the very moment of declaring war, madison had continually assured our envoy that there was nothing that he so much wished as the continuance of amicable connections between the two countries.

as he made these professions, he was, from the very commencement of the year 1812, and nearly six months before the avowal of hostilities, drawing the invading force nearer to the frontiers near detroit. general hull had a body of two thousand five hundred men ready for the enterprise, well supplied with artillery and stores; and scarcely was the declaration of war made than he hastened over the frontier line and seized on the british village of sandwich. there he issued a bragging proclamation, calling on the "oppressed" canadians to abandon the despotism of kingship and become free citizens of free america. to meet the invasion, the british had in canada only about four thousand regulars, and the militia might number as many more. to make worse of the matter, the commander-in-chief, sir george prevost, was a very inefficient officer. but major-general brock sent orders to the british officers at fort st. joseph to attack the american port of michilimachimac, which he did on the 17th of july, a month after the american declaration of war. the place was taken, with sixty prisoners and seven pieces of artillery. this raised the courage of the indians in that quarter, who had long thirsted for revenge of the continual injuries received from the americans, and they called on their different tribes to arm and support the british. at the news of the capture of sandwich by hull, brock sent colonel procter to fort amherstberg to operate against him. he also followed quickly himself, and found procter besieging hull in fort detroit, to which he had retreated across the border. by the 10th of august he compelled hull to surrender with his two thousand five hundred men and thirty pieces of artillery. not only fort detroit and a fine american vessel in the harbour were taken, but, by the capitulation, the whole of the michigan territory, which separated the indian country from canada, was ceded to us, much improving our frontier.

major-general brock left colonel procter to defend detroit, and marched hastily towards niagara, to surprise the american forts in that direction. but, in the midst of his preparations, he was thunderstruck to learn that sir george prevost had concluded an armistice with the american general, dearborn, and that this armistice stipulated that neither party should move in any manner till the american government had ratified or annulled the engagement. thus brock had the mortification of feeling that his hands were tied up, whilst the enemy, aroused to the danger of their position, despite the truce, were marching up troops, and strengthening every fort and port along the line. as soon as a force of six thousand three hundred men and stores were ready, madison refused to ratify the armistice. on his part, sir george prevost had done nothing to support brock, and this brave officer found himself with only one thousand two hundred men, partly regulars and partly militia, to repel the swarming invaders.

on the 18th of october the americans crossed the frontier opposite to the village of queenstown with three thousand men, and found only three hundred british to oppose them. but brock was with them, and cheered them so gallantly that they made a desperate resistance. unfortunately, brock was killed, and then the brave three hundred retreated, and the american general, wadsworth, posted himself, with one thousand six hundred men, on the heights behind queenstown. but the same afternoon he was attacked by a fresh body of about one thousand british and canadians, and had nearly his whole force killed or taken prisoners. himself and nine hundred of his men were captured, and four hundred remained on the field slain or severely wounded. the rest, a mere remnant, escaped into the woods, or were drowned in endeavouring to swim back to their own shore. thus ended madison's first attempt to conquer canada.

at sea he was somewhat more fortunate. he took care to have his war-ships, such as they were, in readiness for sea at the very instant that war was proclaimed. the declaration took place on the 18th of june, and on the 21st commodore rogers was already clear of the harbour of new york in his flag-ship, the president, which was[36] called a frigate, but was equal to a seventy-four-gun ship, and attended by a thirty-six-gun frigate, a sloop of war, and a brig-sloop. his hope was to intercept the sugar fleet from the west indies, which was only convoyed by a single frigate and a brig-sloop. instead of the west india merchantmen, about one hundred sail in number, he fell in with the british frigate, the belvedere, commanded by captain richard byron. though the two other vessels of war were in sight, byron did not flinch. he commenced a vigorous fight with the president, and held on for two hours, pouring three hundred round shot into her from his two cabin guns alone. by the explosion of a gun, commodore rogers and fifteen of his men were severely wounded. about half-past six in the evening the president was joined by the congress frigate, and then captain byron cut away several of his anchors, started fourteen tons of water, and otherwise lightening his ship, sailed away, and left the president to repair her damages. by thus detaining rogers for fifteen hours the west india fleet was out of all danger. rogers then continued a cruising sail towards madeira and the azores, and captured a few small merchantmen, and regained an american one, and he then returned home without having secured a single british armed vessel, but having been in great trepidation lest he should fall in with some of our ships of the line.

invasion of canada: red men on the war path. (see p. 35.)

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captain dacres, of the guerrière, returning to halifax to refit after convoying another fleet of merchantmen, fell in with the large united states' frigate constitution, commanded by captain hull. the guerrière was old and rotten, wanting a thorough refit, or, rather, laying entirely aside. in addition to other defects she was badly supplied with ammunition. the guerrière had only two hundred and forty-four men and nineteen boys; the constitution had four hundred and seventy-six men, and a great number of expert riflemen amongst them, which the american men-of-war always carried to pick off the enemy, and especially the officers, from the tops. yet captain dacres stayed and fought the constitution till his masts and yards were blown away, and his vessel[37] was in a sinking state. in this condition dacres, who was himself severely wounded with a rifle-ball, struck, the only alternative being going to the bottom. the old ship was then set on fire, the british crew being first removed to the american ship. though the contest had been almost disgracefully unequal, the triumph over it in the united states was inconceivable. hull and his men were thanked in the most extravagant terms, and a grant of fifty thousand dollars was made them for a feat which would not have elicited a single comment in england. but when our officers and men were carried on board the constitution, they discovered that nearly one-half—a number, in fact, equal to their own—were english or irish. some of the principal officers were english; many of the men were very recent deserters; and so much was the american captain alarmed lest a fellow-feeling should spring up between the compatriots of the two crews, that he kept his prisoners manacled and chained to the deck of his ship during the night after the battle, and for the greater part of the following day.

duel between the "guerrière" and the "constitution." (see p. 36.)

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there were three or four more of these utterly unequal fights, in which the americans succeeded in capturing small british vessels when at the point of sinking. such was the case with the macedon, which, with a crew of two hundred and sixty-two men and thirty-four boys, fought the united states, with more and heavier guns, and with a crew of four hundred and seventy-seven men and one boy. the macedon was a complete wreck before she struck. similar cases were those of the java frigate, captain lambert, which struck to the constitution, and the british eighteen-gun brig-sloop the frolic, which struck to the american brig-sloop wasp, of eighteen guns. here the arms were equal, but the crews most unequal, for the frolic had a small crew, very sickly from five years' service in the west indies, and the ship itself was in bad condition. within a very few hours the frolic was re-captured by the british seventy-four gun-ship, the poictiers, which carried off the american vessel too. in none of these cases was there anything like an equal fight, the americans being too shrewd to risk that if they[38] could avoid it. in all cases a large proportion of the crews was made up of british deserters. the accounts, however, which the americans published of these affairs were as usual of the most vaunting character.

this was the fatal year in which buonaparte, led on by the unsleeping ambition of being the master of all europe, and so of all the world, made his last great attempt—that of subduing russia to his yoke—and thus wrecked himself for ever. from the very day of the treaty of tilsit, neither he nor alexander of russia had put faith in each other. buonaparte felt that the czar was uneasy under the real dictatorship of france which existed under the name of alliance. he knew that he was most restless under the mischief accruing from the stipulated embargo on british commerce, and which, from the ruin which it must bring on the russian merchants, and the consequent distress of the whole population, might, in fact, cause him to disappear from the throne and from life as so many of his ancestors had done. timber, pitch, potash, hemp, tallow, and other articles were the very staple of russia's trade, and the british were the greatest of all customers for these. the landed proprietors derived a large income from these commodities, and they asked why they were to perish that buonaparte might destroy great britain, whence they drew their principal wealth. he knew that alexander looked with deep suspicion on his giving the duchy of warsaw to the king of saxony, a descendant of the royal family of poland. to this act was added the stipulations for a free military road and passage for troops from saxony to warsaw; and also that france should retain dantzic till after a maritime peace. these things seemed to point to the re-establishment of the kingdom of poland, and the demand, at some future day, for the surrender of the rest of the polish territory by russia. so the poles seemed to interpret these matters, for they had, since these arrangements, flocked to his standard, and were fighting buonaparte's battles in spain. to these causes of offence and alarm, which alexander did not hesitate to express, and which napoleon refused to dissipate, were added the seizure of the duchy of oldenburg, guaranteed to alexander's near relative, and the marriage alliance with austria. alexander, on this last occasion, said—"then my turn comes next;" and in anticipation of it he had been strengthening himself by a secret league with sweden.

to the czar it appeared most politic that the war with napoleon, as it must come, should come whilst the british in spain were harassing him and draining his resources; and, on his part, buonaparte, resenting the hostile attitude of alexander, and suspecting his secret understanding with bernadotte, determined, notwithstanding the ominous character of the war in spain, to summon an army utterly overwhelming and crush the czar at once. it was in vain that such of his counsellors as dared urged him to abstain from the russian invasion. they represented the vast extent of russia; its enormous deserts, into which the army could retreat, and which must exhaust so large a host as he contemplated; the inhospitable climate; the difficult rivers; the unprofitableness of the conquest, if it succeeded; and the improbability that success there would put an end to the war in spain, whilst any serious disaster would cause the nations to stand up behind him as one man. these were all arguments of mere policy; for as to the considerations suggested by morality or justice, these had long been abandoned by buonaparte, and therefore were never even adverted to by his friends.

regardless of all advice, buonaparte hastened to precipitate matters with russia. he seized and confiscated fifty swedish merchantmen, and further to express his determination to punish bernadotte for his refusal to be his slave—he boasted before his courtiers that he would have him seized in sweden, and brought to the castle of vincennes, and he is said to have planned doing it—in january of this year he ordered davoust to enter swedish pomerania and take possession of it. buonaparte followed up this act of war by marching vast bodies of troops northwards, overrunning prussia, pomerania, and the duchy of warsaw with them. they were now on the very frontiers of russia, and alexander was in the utmost terror. he saw already four hundred thousand men ready to burst into his dominions, and as many more following. he had only one hundred and forty thousand to oppose them; he had no generals of mark or experience; confusion reigned everywhere. in the utmost consternation he demanded an interview with bernadotte, now the sole hope of europe, at abo; and bernadotte, who had his objects to gain, took his time. when the russian ambassador, in great trepidation, said to him that the emperor waited for him, he rose, laid his hand on his sword, and said, theatrically, "the emperor waits! good! he who knows how to win battles may regard himself as the equal of kings!"

bernadotte took his time, and went. it was in[39] march. at abo, in a solitary hut, he and alexander met, and there the final ruin of napoleon was sketched out by a master's hand—that of his old companion in arms. bernadotte knew all the strength and weakness of napoleon; he had long watched the causes which would ultimately break up the wonderful career of his victories. he listened to the fears of alexander, and bade him dismiss them. he told him that it was the timidity of his opponents which had given to napoleon the victories of austerlitz and wagram; that, as regarded the present war, nothing could equal his infatuated blindness; that, treating the wishes of poland with contempt, neglecting the palpably necessary measures of securing his flanks by the alliance of turkey and sweden, east and west, he was only rushing on suicide in the vast deserts five hundred miles from his frontiers; that all that was necessary on the part of russia was to commence a war of devastation; to destroy all his resources, in the manner of the ancient scythians and parthians; to pursue him everywhere with a war of fanaticism and desolation; to admit of no peace till he was driven to the left bank of the rhine, where the oppressed and vengeful nationalities would arise and annihilate him; that napoleon, so brilliant and bold in attack, would show himself incapable of conducting a retreat of eight hours—a retreat would be the certain signal of his ruin. if he approached st. petersburg, he engaged for himself to make a descent on france with fifty thousand men, and to call on both the republican and constitutional parties to arise and liberate their country from the tyrant. meanwhile, they must close the passage of the beresina against him, when they would inevitably secure his person. they must then proclaim everywhere his death, and his whole dynasty would go to pieces with far greater rapidity than it grew.

every one knows how well these instructions were carried out; how the final hope of napoleon was destroyed by the conflagration of moscow, and the terrors of that fearful retreat, in which clouds of cossacks, mingling with those of the snow and hail, completed the most horrible tragedy which the history of wars from the world's foundation contains; with what consummate ability bernadotte led his swedes, through all the great and eventful campaign of 1813, from leipsic to paris, and how he received his reward—the possession of norway, and a family compact between himself and the czar of russia; while denmark, with a fatal blindness to the signs of the times, adhered to the falling power, and became, like saxony, dismembered and debilitated.

to any one viewing the situation of buonaparte at this moment, it can appear nothing but an act of madness to invade russia. the british, in spain, were now defeating his best generals, and this would at an earlier period have caused him to hasten to that country and endeavour to settle the war in person. it is remarkable that he was not desirous to cope with wellington himself, all his ablest generals having failed. but to leave such an enemy in his rear when he proceeded to the north, impresses us with the idea that his enormous success had now turned his head, and that the term of his career had been reached. besides spain, too, there were prussia and austria, with whom it was only politic to enter into some terms of security; for assuredly, if his arms suffered a reverse in russia, all these would rise and join his enemies.

the king of prussia was anxious to unite with russia, and to furnish forty thousand men for the common defence. but all his strongest garrisons were in the hands of france, and alexander did not advise him to subject his territories to the certain misery of being overrun by the french till the contest in russia was decided; for alexander meant to fall back during the early part of the campaign, and could, therefore, lend no aid to prussia. it was agreed, therefore, that prussia should afford the demanded twenty thousand men and sixty pieces of artillery to the army of napoleon, and act according to circumstances. prussia was also to furnish the french army with all that it required during its march across it, the charge to be deducted from the debt of prussia to france.

austria also furnished thirty thousand men, under prince schwarzenberg, but with secret orders to do no more than just keep up appearances, as alexander had done during the campaign of wagram. it was of the utmost consequence that turkey should have been conciliated by napoleon. russia had long been ravaging the outlying provinces of that empire, and nothing could have been more plain than the policy of engaging turkey against russia at this crisis, to divide the latter's attention by menacing its eastern boundaries. but buonaparte ever since the treaty of tilsit had been neglecting the turks, to allow his ally, alexander, to make his aggressions on them, and now he altered his plan too late. when he made overtures, so late as march of this year, not only to put them in possession of moldavia and wallachia, but to recover the[40] crimea for the turks, on condition that they should invade russia from the east with a hundred thousand men, his offer was rejected, the porte having already been persuaded by the british to make peace with russia at bucharest. thus france, entering on this great enterprise, left spain and sweden in open hostility, and carried with her austria and prussia as very dubious allies. at the same time the news arrived of the fall of ciudad rodrigo, in spain, and, with this, the certainty that great britain would do all in her power to arouse and support the enemies of napoleon in every quarter.

under the influence of this persuasion, buonaparte suddenly made overtures of peace to great britain, though, on the conditions which he proposed, they were certain to be rejected. the duke of bassano wrote to lord castlereagh, offering to secure the independence of spain under the present reigning dynasty; that portugal should continue under the rule of the house of braganza, and naples under murat. lord castlereagh replied that if by the present reigning dynasty of spain was meant king joseph, there could be no treaty, and there the matter ended; for even fouché says that napoleon's ministers were ashamed of so clumsy a proposal of ignorance and bad faith. failing with great britain, buonaparte turned to russia herself, intimating a desire for peace, but not finding it in his heart to offer any terms likely to be accepted. in fact, he was now so demented by the ambition which meant soon to destroy him, that he fancied that a mere mention of peace was enough to win over any of his enemies in face of his vast armies. including the forces of his german and italian subsidiaries, he had on foot one million one hundred and eighty-seven thousand men. of these, he led four hundred and seventy thousand men into russia. italy, naples, austria, prussia, würtemberg, baden, saxony, westphalia, and other confederates of the rhine furnished each from twenty thousand to sixty thousand men. to swell up his french portion, he had called out two conscriptions, each of a hundred thousand men, in one year, and had organised a new system of conscription under the name of "national guards," which professedly were only to serve in france as a militia but which were soon drafted off into foreign service. this consisted of three levies, or bans—"the ban," "the second ban," and "the arrière ban." they included all who were capable of bearing arms of all classes. the ban was composed of youths from twenty to twenty-six years of age; the second ban of men from twenty-six to forty, and the arrière ban of those from forty to sixty. by such means was the native population of france being rapidly drawn off into destruction by this modern moloch.

on receiving the emperor alexander's decisive reply that no terms could be entered into with napoleon till he had evacuated both pomerania and prussia, buonaparte—who professed to be greatly insulted by the demand—immediately set out from paris for the northern army, on the 9th of may, and left his passports for the russian ambassador, which were delivered two days afterwards. buonaparte, accompanied by maria louisa, proceeded immediately to dresden, to which place he had invited, or rather summoned, all his allied and vassal monarchs to meet him. there, accordingly, were assembled the emperor and empress of austria—the empress being the sister of the expelled duke of modena, and mother-in-law of the empress of the french,—the solitary king of prussia (whose queen had perished under the calumnies and insults of napoleon), and a crowd of lesser german monarchs. whilst napoleon was playing the host to these crowned heads, and treating them to banquets, plays, and operas, he was closeted with his cabinet, still planning fresh humiliations for them when he had utterly extinguished russia. he declared to them that he should take galicia from austria, and silesia from prussia. he summoned the abbé de pradt, now archbishop of malines, and bade him go and promise the poles the restoration of their kingdom, so as to induce them to follow him in a mass to russia. "i will," he said, "put all poland on horseback! i am on my way to moscow. two battles there will do the business! i will burn thoula! the emperor alexander will come on his knees; and then russia is disarmed. all is ready, and only waits my presence. moscow is the heart of their empire. besides, i make war at the expense of the blood of the poles! i will leave fifty thousand of my frenchmen in poland. i will convert dantzic into another gibraltar."

in this wild but confident manner did this now pride-blinded man talk. and all the time he had no intention whatever of re-establishing the poles; he meant only to use them. once more, however, he sent general lauriston and the count narbonne to the emperor alexander at wilna. the pretext was to invite him to dresden, "where," he said, "all might be arranged;" the real object was to spy out the forces and preparations of the[41] czar. alexander refused to see lauriston, and gave to narbonne a very curt and warlike answer. the french emissaries found the russians neither depressed nor elated, but quietly cheerful and determined.

the cossack's challenge. (see p. 42.)

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buonaparte put his enormous masses in motion. his object was to push rapidly forward, and beat the russians by one of those sudden and decisive blows by which he had won all his victories. he expected that he should not be able to supply his vast army with provisions in russia, and therefore he had had thousands of waggons and carts prepared to draw his stores. he meant to seize one of the capitals of the country—st. petersburg or moscow; and that, he quite imagined, would finish the campaign, the russians being then glad to capitulate; and he resolved to concede no terms but such as should shut out the muscovites from europe, and replace them with poles. "let us march!" he said to his soldiers. "let us cross the niemen; let us carry war into russia. the war will be glorious; and the peace will terminate that haughty influence which she has exercised for more than fifty years on europe." but his old general, bernadotte, had foreseen and defeated his plans. alexander had commanded his generalissimo, barclay de tolly, to show only so much opposition as should draw the french on into the heart of russia, and then—when they were exhausted by famine along a line of desolation, and by their march—to harass them on all sides. should the french succeed in pressing so far, a russian torres vedras was prepared for them on the river düna, at drissa, so as to protect st. petersburg.

of napoleon's monster army, marshal macdonald commanded the left wing; the austrians were on the right under schwarzenberg; and the main body consisted of a succession of vast columns commanded by the most famous french generals, including bessières, lefebvre, mortier, davoust, oudinot, ney, grouchy, king jerome of westphalia, junot, poniatowski, regnier, eugene viceroy of italy, etc.; and murat commanding all the cavalry. buonaparte led this centre of two hundred and fifty thousand men with his imperial[42] guard. to oppose this huge army, composed of numbers and of officers such as the world had not seen before, alexander had about two hundred and sixty thousand men. he lay at wilna, with barclay de tolly and one hundred and twenty thousand men. in different positions, more northwards, lay count essen, prince bagration, the hetman platoff, with twelve thousand cossacks; and, watching the austrian right in volhynia, lay general tormasoff, with twenty thousand men. advancing on them in three vast masses, the french army approached the niemen—the king of westphalia directing his march on grodno, the viceroy of italy on pilony, and buonaparte himself on nagaraiski, three leagues beyond kovno. on the 23rd of june the head of napoleon's column came upon the niemen, and saw the other bank covered with vast and gloomy forests. as the emperor rode up to reconnoitre this scene, his horse stumbled and threw him; and a voice, from the crowd behind him, was heard saying, "a bad omen! a roman would return!" when the head of the column the next morning crossed the river, a single cossack issued from the solemn woods, and demanded their reason for violating the russian soil. the soldiers replied, "to beat you, and take wilna!" the cossack disappeared, and left all solitary as before. three days were required to get the army across, and before they could pitch their tents they were assailed by a violent thunderstorm, accompanied by torrents of rain.

the russians were seen to be falling back as they advanced, and buonaparte—impatient to overtake and rout them—pushed forward his troops rapidly. on reaching the river wilna it was found to be swollen by the rain, and the bridges over it were demolished; but buonaparte ordered a body of polish lancers to cross it by swimming. they dashed into the torrent, and were swept away by it almost to a man, and drowned before the eyes of the whole army. on the 28th of june, however, napoleon managed to reach wilna, which barclay de tolly had evacuated at his approach, and there he remained till the 16th of july, for he had outmarched his supplies, few of his waggons having even reached the niemen, owing to the state of the country through which they had to be dragged, and the russians had taken care to carry off or destroy all provisions for man and horse as they retreated. his vast host began, therefore, at once to feel all the horrors of famine, and of those other scourges that were soon to destroy them by hundreds of thousands. meanwhile, the mission of the abbé de pradt to poland had failed. the abbé, believing in the reality of the promises of buonaparte, had faithfully executed his mission. the poles met in diet at warsaw, and expressed their gratitude to the emperor for his grand design of restoring their nation. the country was all enthusiasm, and a host of soldiers would soon have appeared to join his standard, when napoleon returned them an evasive answer, saying that he could not do all that he wished, as he was under engagement to austria not to deprive her of galicia. as to the provinces held by russia, he assured them that—provided they showed themselves brave in his cause—"providence would crown their good cause with success." this positive information regarding austria—this vague statement regarding russia, at once showed the hollow hypocrisy of the man, and from that moment all faith was lost in him in poland. to have restored poland was in the power of buonaparte, and would have been the act of a great man; but buonaparte was not a great man, morally: he could not form a noble design—he could form only a selfish one. but he immediately felt the consequences of his base deceit. the poles remained quiet; nor did the people of lithuania respond to his calls on them to rise in insurrection against russia. they saw that he had intended to deceive the poles, and they felt that, should he make peace with russia, he would at once sacrifice them. they were about to form a guard of honour for him, but they instantly abandoned the design; and thus his miserable policy destroyed all the effect which he contemplated from the action of the nations on the russian frontiers.

during the eighteen days that buonaparte halted at wilna he was actively employed in endeavouring to cut asunder the russian host. whilst barclay de tolly, under the czar, commanded the main force, which had now fallen back from wilna to drissa, prince bagration was lying far to the south-east in poland, at volkovisk, with seven thousand cossacks under platoff at grodno, and another body of men under dorokhoff as far as lida. buonaparte ordered murat, with his cavalry, to drive the rear of the main russian army in the direction of drissa. murat was followed by a division of infantry, under oudinot and ney, whilst the king of westphalia was ordered to advance eastward to cut off bagration's division from all chance of junction with de tolly, and davoust was to attack him in the rear. he[43] himself proposed to push forward between these bodies towards vitebsk, and thus threaten both st. petersburg and moscow. by this arrangement he made himself sure of destroying bagration's division, or compelling it to surrender. but contrary to his wont, buonaparte was found not to advance with his usual rapidity; and the fact was that there were sufficient reasons for the delay. his supplies had failed already. the country, already impoverished by a bad harvest in the preceding year, was swept by the russians of all possible provisions; and the vast horde of french, germans, and italians now advanced treading down the unripe corn of the present. owing to the state of the roads, flooded by torrents of rain, the provision-waggons could not get along. twenty thousand sick men had to be left behind wherever they could, for they had no good hospitals; and, in crossing lithuania, one hundred thousand men fell from fatigue, from exhaustion, from surprises by the cossacks, and from diseases which they brought with them.

bagration, prevented by jerome of westphalia from pursuing his route towards drissa, changed his course towards minsk; but finding himself outstripped there too, he made for the beresina, and effected a passage at bobruisk. he then ascended the dnieper as far as mohilev; but, finding himself anticipated by davoust, he attacked that general in the hope of cutting his way through. in this he failed, after a sharply-contested engagement, and once more he retired down the dnieper, and crossed at nevoi-bikoff, which enabled him to pursue his course for a union with barclay de tolly, who was making for smolensk. thus bagration, though running imminent hazard of being cut off, managed to out-man?uvre napoleon himself—a new event in his campaigns. on his march, his troops had several encounters with the french and polish cavalry; but platoff showed great gallantry, and often severely punished the enemy.

on the other hand, barclay de tolly, anxious to unite with bagration and reach smolensk, abandoned the strong encampment at drissa, leaving wittgenstein near there to watch the enemy and cover the road to st. petersburg. the french pursued him with great rapidity, which, though it endangered his immediate union with bagration at vitebsk, yet served the russian policy of drawing the enemy into the interior. murat continually rushed forward with his cavalry to attack the rear-guard of de tolly; but the russian infantry maintained steady order, and continually withdrew before him. every evening he was close upon them; every morning he found himself again distanced. the russians appeared in full vigour, and well supplied with everything; the french were sinking with famine and fatigue. at polotsk the emperor alexander left de tolly, and hastened on to moscow to prepare the inhabitants for that grand catastrophe which he already foresaw, and had resolved upon.

on the 14th of july, when barclay de tolly was close pressed by napoleon, he learned that though bagration had been repulsed at mohilev, he was now advancing on smolensk; he therefore himself again retreated before the french towards vitebsk. at that town he had a partial engagement with the french; but he quitted it in good order. here murat and most of the other general officers entreated napoleon to close the campaign for this year; but he refused. the soldiers were dispirited by this continual pursuit without result; murat himself was heartily sick of endeavouring to get a dash at the enemy and being as constantly foiled; king jerome had been disgraced and sent back to his westphalian dominions, on the charge of having let bagration escape by want of sufficient energy; and wittgenstein had, to the great disgust of napoleon, on the 2nd of july, crossed the river, surprised sebastiani's vanguard of cavalry in drissa, and completely routed them. these things had embittered buonaparte; and if he ever intended to encamp for the winter at vitebsk, he now abandoned the idea with indignation. it was still midsummer; the enemy had so far eluded him; he had not been able to strike one of his usual great blows and send terror before him. he was impatient of a pause. "surrounded," says ségur, "by disapproving countenances, and opinions contrary to his own, he was moody and irritable. all the officers of his household opposed him, some with arguments, some with entreaties, some—as berthier—even with tears; but he exclaimed, 'did they think he was come so far only to conquer a parcel of wretched huts? that he had enriched his generals too much; that all to which they now aspired was to follow the pleasures of the chase, and to display their splendid equipages in paris. we must,' he said, 'advance upon moscow, and strike a blow, in order to obtain peace, or winter-quarters and supplies.'"

de tolly halted at rudnia, half way between vitebsk and smolensk, and there was considerable man?uvring between the rival generals to surprise one another, but this resulted in[44] nothing but the loss of several days. on the 14th of august they arrived at the dnieper, and murat dashed across and attacked the rear-guard of the russians on the opposite bank. newerowskoi, the general in command, stood his ground well, and then made a good retreat to smolensk. his retreat was reckoned an advantage on the part of the french; and as it happened to be buonaparte's birthday, and the anniversary of the canonisation of st. napoleon—whom buonaparte had had made a saint,—a hundred guns were fired in commemoration. on the 15th buonaparte pressed after the russians towards smolensk. the united russian army now amounted to one hundred and eighty thousand men, and buonaparte had already lost one-third of his active force. barclay de tolly, therefore, appeared here to make a stand, much to the delight of buonaparte, who cried out, exultingly, "now i have them!"

but de tolly was only remaining to defend the town whilst the inhabitants carried off with them their movable property. whilst on the side of smolensk, when buonaparte arrived, all was silent, and the fields were empty, on the other side it was one vast crowd of people moving away with their effects. buonaparte hoped that the russians would deploy before the gates, and give him battle; but they did nothing of the sort, and he determined to storm the place. its walls were old but very thick, and it might hold out some time, and the assault must cost many lives; but buonaparte determined to make it. the french, however, learned that the russians were already in retreat; and murat observed that to waste these lives was worse than useless, as the city would be theirs without a blow immediately. buonaparte replied in an insulting manner to murat, and ordered the assault the next morning. on this, murat, driven to fury, spurred his horse to the banks of the dnieper, in the face of the enemy, between batteries, and stood there as voluntarily courting death. belliard called out to him not to sacrifice himself—he only pushed on still nearer to the fire of the russian guns, and was forced from the scene by the soldiers. the storming commenced, and tolly defended the place vigorously, killing four or five thousand of the french as they advanced to the attack.

but tolly did not mean to remain longer than was necessary for the inhabitants to have made a safe distance; he was afraid of napoleon making a flank movement and cutting off his way to moscow. in the night fires broke out all over smolensk: they could not be the effect only of the french shells; and buonaparte sat watching them till morning. soon bridges, houses, church spires, all of wood, were enveloped in roaring flames. the next day, the 18th of august, the french entered the place whilst it was still burning around them. the dead, half consumed, lay around the smoking ruins; and the french army marched through this ghostly scene with military music playing, but with hearts struck with consternation and despair at this proof of the inveterate determination of the russians to destroy their whole country rather than suffer it to be conquered. here they were left without shelter, without provisions, without hospitals for the sick, or dressings for the wounded, without a single bed where a man might lie down to die; and all before them was the same. the cossacks beset the flanks of march, and burnt down all villages, and laid waste all fields ere the french could reach them. again the officers entreated that they might form an encampment and remain; but buonaparte replied still, "they must make all haste to moscow."

from riga buonaparte learned that macdonald maintained the blockade, thus keeping courland in awe, and alarming st. petersburg; that st. cyr, more to the south, had compelled wittgenstein, after a severe battle at polotsk, to assume the defensive; and that regnier had defeated tormasoff at gorodeczna, in poland. but tormasoff fell back on the moldavian army, commanded by admiral tchitchigoff; and general steingel was marching with the army of finland to join wittgenstein. these distinct successes, therefore, were but of small moment in comparison with the lowering prospects before him.

napoleon dispatched murat with his cavalry, junot, ney, and davoust, in pursuit of the russians, whom they overtook at a place called valoutina, where a desperate battle was fought, and many men were killed on both sides; but the russians moved off again without the loss of guns, prisoners, or baggage. buonaparte, on proceeding to the spot, blamed junot, imputing to him want of activity in the action, and threatening to deprive him of his command. the whole road between smolensk and valoutina was strewn with the dead and wounded; and as he entered the city on his return, he met whole tumbrils of amputated limbs going to be thrown away at a distance. the scene is said to have overcome even his senses, so long hardened to human suffering. on the 24th of august he marched forward to gjatsk, where his advanced guard had halted. there he learned, to his great satisfaction, from a frenchman long resident in russia, that the people and the new levies, impatient of continual retreat and the ravage of their country, had demanded that barclay de tolly, a german, whom they imagined not sufficiently careful of russian property and interests, should be superseded by the old general, kutusoff, and that they should stand and fight. this was precisely what buonaparte wanted, and the prudent de tolly knew to be little better than madness, as it must cause a fearful loss of life, and would not rid the country of the invader, who was better left to starvation and the elements. but alexander, though of de tolly's opinion, gave way, and the russians entrenched themselves on the heights of borodino, de tolly most magnanimously continuing to serve under kutusoff. there, after a march of two hundred and eighty versts in seventeen days, the french came up with them; and, after a halt of two days, they attacked the russian lines.

[45]

the retreat from moscow. (after the picture by meissonier.)

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[46]

this most bloody of battles took place on the 7th of september. there were about one hundred and twenty thousand men engaged on each side, and the guns on each side are said to have amounted to one thousand. before the battle, the priests passed along the ranks of the russians, reminding them of the wrongs they had suffered, and promising paradise to all that fell. buonaparte, on his side, issued this proclamation:—"soldiers! here is the battle you have longed for! it is necessary, for it brings us plenty, good winter-quarters, and a safe return to france. behave yourselves so that posterity may say of you—'he was in that great battle under the walls of moscow.'" it was rather a damping circumstance that the day before the battle buonaparte received the news of wellington's victory at salamanca. the battle commenced at seven o'clock in the morning, and continued the greater part of the day, the russians, even to the newest levies, fighting with the most immovable courage. buonaparte demanded of caulaincourt whether the russians were determined to conquer or die? he replied that they had been fanaticised by their leaders, and would be killed rather than surrender. buonaparte then ordered up every possible gun, on his plan of battering an army as he would batter a fortress. still the russians fought on furiously, and berthier urged him to call up his "young guard." but he replied, "and if there is another battle to-morrow, where is my army?"

at length the firing mutually ceased, but the russians did not quit their position; it was the french who drew off, and their outposts, during the following night, were alarmed by the russian cavalry. the russians had fifteen thousand killed and thirty thousand wounded; the french ten thousand killed and above twenty thousand wounded, and of these latter very few recovered, for they were destitute of almost every hospital necessary, even lint. the russians made one thousand prisoners and the french about two thousand. the loss of guns on either side was nearly equal. had the battle been resumed the next day it must have gone hard with the french; but kutusoff was not willing to make such another sacrifice of his men, and he resumed the policy of de tolly and made his retreat, continuing it to moscow in so masterly a manner, that he left neither dead, nor dying, nor wounded, nor any article of his camp equipage behind him, so that the french were at a loss to know where he had really gone. on the 12th they learned, however, that he had retreated to moscow, and buonaparte instantly resumed his march. at krymskoi murat and mortier came upon a strong body of russians, and were repulsed, with the loss of two thousand men. the russian rear-guard then hastened on again towards moscow.

there, a council of war was called, and it was debated whether they should make a stand there or not. the conclusion was that they should not, but should abandon the sacred city—the jerusalem of russia—to the enemy, and, there can now be little doubt, to the flames. rostopchin, the governor of the city, had for some time been preparing for the grand catastrophe. under pretence of pouring down liquid fire on the french from a monster balloon, he had employed great numbers of women in making such a balloon, and men in preparing fireworks and combustibles—the accumulation of the latter being his real object.

on the 14th of september the russian army filed through the streets of their beloved but doomed city, with sad looks, furled banners, and silent drums, and went out at the kolomna gate. the population followed them. rostopschin had encouraged vast numbers already to transplant all their wealth and stores from the place, and, as his last act, he called up two prisoners—a russian traitor, and a frenchman who had dropped hostile expressions. the russian he ordered, with the consent of the culprit's own father, to be put to death; the frenchman he set at liberty, telling him to go to buonaparte and say that but one traitor had been found in russia, and him he had seen cut to pieces. rostopschin then mounted his horse and rode after his countrymen, having first[47] ordered all the gaols to be set open, and their wretched inhabitants to be allowed to make their escape.

on the 14th of september the french army came in sight of moscow, and the soldiers, worn down and miserable with their long and severe march, shouted with joy, "moscow! moscow!" they rushed up the hill called the mount of salvation, because there the natives coming in full view of the city kneel and cross themselves. there the splendid spectacle of the widely-spread ancient capital lay before their eyes, with its spires of thirty churches, its palaces of eastern architecture, and its copper domes glittering in the sun. interspersed were beautiful gardens, and masses of noble trees, and the gigantic palace of the kremlin rising above in colossal bulk. all were struck with admiration of the place which had so long been the goal of their wishes. napoleon himself sat on his horse surveying it, and exclaimed, "behold at last that celebrated city!" but he immediately added, in an under-tone, "it was full time!" he expected to see trains of nobles come out to throw themselves at his feet and offer submission; but no one appeared, and not a sign of life presented itself, no smoke from a single chimney, not a man on the walls. it looked like a city of the dead. the mystery was soon solved by murat, who had pushed forward, sending word that the whole population had abandoned moscow! two hundred and fifty thousand people had forsaken their home in a mass! the tidings struck the invader with wonder and foreboding; but he added, smiling grimly, "the russians will soon learn better the value of their capital." he appointed mortier governor of the place, with strict orders that any man who plundered should be shot; he calculated on moscow as their home for the winter—the pledge of peace with alexander—the salvation of his whole army. but the troops poured into the vast, deserted city, and began everywhere helping themselves, whilst the officers selected palaces and gardens for residences at pleasure.

buonaparte took up his residence at a palace in the suburbs. in the night there was an alarm of fire; it broke out in the quarter full of bazaars and coachmakers' factories. napoleon rushed to the spot, and the flames were extinguished by the exertions of the soldiers. the next day all was quiet, and such french as lived in moscow came out of their hiding-places and joined their countrymen. the following night the fires burst forth again. at first the conflagration had been attributed to accident; now it was felt to be the result of design, and russians were seen fanatically hurrying from place to place with combustibles in their hands—the preparations of rostopschin. buonaparte during the day had taken possession of the kremlin, and it was in imminent danger. when the fire was discovered near it, it came with the wind; it was extinguished, but the wind changed, and fire rose on that side, and again blew towards the palace. this occurred several times during the night; it was clear that there was a determined resolve to burn down the kremlin. the flames defied all the efforts of the soldiers; they hunted down, according to napoleon's twenty-first bulletin, no less than three hundred incendiaries, and shot them on the spot. these were armed with fusees six inches long, and inflammables, which they threw on the roofs. buonaparte, who that day had dispatched a letter to alexander proposing peace, was in the utmost agitation. he walked to and fro in distraction. "these are indeed scythians!" he exclaimed. the equinoctial gales rose in all their wild fury. providence commenced its nemesis. the kremlin was on fire, and all was raging fire around it; churches, palaces, streets, mostly of wood, were roaring in the storm. it was with difficulty that buonaparte could be induced to leave the kremlin, and as he did so he said gloomily, "this bodes us great misfortunes." he began to foresee all the horrors which followed.

the fire raged with unabated fury from the 14th till the 19th—five days. then the city lay a heap of burning ashes. all the wealth which was left behind was burnt or melted down. but there could be no stay at moscow, for all their provisions had to be brought from distant districts by water carriage in summer, and on sledges in winter. but, as the russian population had fled, the russians were only too glad to starve out the french. not a single article of food came near the place. alexander returned no answer to buonaparte's letter. the pledge which he might have made some concessions to redeem had been destroyed by his own orders, and buonaparte had now nothing to offer worthy of his attention. he and his army were awaiting the attack of the wintry elements to join them in the extermination of the invaders. buonaparte dispatched general lauriston to alexander with fresh offers; but alexander refused to see him, and turned him over to kutusoff, who flattered him with hopes and professions of desire for peace, in order to put off the time, for every day nearer to winter was a[48] day gained of incalculable importance. but he said that he must send napoleon's letter to st. petersburg, to the czar, and await his reply. this was on the 6th of october, and the reply could not be received before the 26th; there was nothing for it but to wait, and lauriston waited—a fatal delay for the french!

kutusoff had made a dexterous march and encamped at taroutino, a strong position near kaluga, between moscow and poland, so as to be able to cut off the retreat of the french into the fertile plains of poland, and to cover kaluga and tula, the great russian manufactory of arms and artillery. buonaparte sent murat with the cavalry to watch the camp of kutusoff, and the king of naples established himself in front of the russian lines. murat entered into a sort of armistice with kutusoff whilst waiting for the reply from alexander, in the hope that thus they should obtain supplies from the peasants; but neither food nor firing was obtainable except by fighting for it, nor was the armistice at all observed, except just in the centre, where murat lay. from every quarter cossacks continued to collect to the russian army—strange, wild figures, on small, wild-looking horses with long manes and tails, evidently drawn from the very extremities of the empire. all russia was assembling to the grand destruction of the invaders. behind the camp the french could hear the continued platoon-firing, indicating the perpetual drilling of the peasantry that was going on. other bodies of peasants formed themselves into troops of guerillas, under the chiefs of their neighbourhood. the whole of the russian population since the burning of moscow had become grimly embittered, and had taken arms to have a share in the mighty revenge that was coming. and now, as the sudden descent of winter was at hand, the same men who had pretended to admire the soldier-like figure and gallantry of murat—who galloped about in all his military finery in front of the russian camp—began to ask the officers if they had made a paction with winter. "stay another fortnight," they said, "and your nails will drop off, and your fingers from your hands, like rotten boughs from a tree." others asked if they had no food, nor water, nor wood, nor ground to bury them in france, that they had come so far?

murat sent continual intelligence of these things to napoleon, and urged him to commence his retreat without another day's delay. but, as if deprived of sense and spirit, buonaparte continued to linger on in moscow, vainly hoping for the answer from alexander, which never came, for the czar not only refused to read the letter of the french emperor, but snubbed kutusoff for sending it to him, or receiving lauriston for a moment. sometimes napoleon resolved to make an entrenched camp of moscow, and pass the winter there, but then came the recollection that he could procure no provisions. then, when he resolved upon retreat, he could not renounce his old habit of plundering the country that he invaded, collecting all the pictures, images, and ornaments of the churches which had escaped the fire, and loading them on wains. he had the gigantic cross on the tower of ivan the great, the tallest steeple of moscow, taken down, vainly hoping to display these memorials of his visit to moscow with the other spoils of the nations in paris. he determined to drag away all his artillery with him, and ordered twenty thousand horses to be bought for the purpose of trailing all this encumbrance over a vast marsh, where all the cossacks and fierce tribes of russia would dog his heels, and where winter was sure to prostrate his hosts. but no horses were there, and the command was sheer madness.

but at length the thunder of the russian cannon roused him from this delirious dreaming. kutusoff, inducing murat by a stratagem to declare the armistice at an end, attacked his position and defeated him, with a loss of two thousand men killed, and one thousand five hundred taken prisoners. he took his cannon and baggage, and drove him from his entrenchments. the only food found in the french camp was horseflesh and flayed cats; the king of naples had no better for his table—thus showing the miserable straits to which they were reduced. on the 19th of october buonaparte marched out of moscow, leaving, however, a strong garrison in the kremlin, under mortier, for it would appear that he still intended to return thither. the army which followed him still consisted of nearly one hundred and twenty thousand men, accompanied by five hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, and two thousand artillery waggons. buonaparte spoke with affected cheerfulness to his generals, saying that he would march by kaluga to the frontiers of poland, where they would go into comfortable winter quarters. after the army came another host of camp-followers of french who had been resident at moscow but dared not remain behind, and a vast train of carriages loaded with baggage and the spoils of moscow.[49]

retreat of the french from russia. (see p. 50.)

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buonaparte endeavoured to man?uvre so as to get into kutusoff's rear, and thus to have the way into the fertile provinces beyond him open. he sent forward delzon to occupy maloi-jaroslavitz, a very strong position; but kutusoff penetrated his design, made a rapid march, and encountered delzon in the very streets of maloi-jaroslavitz. a severe battle took place, and the french finally recovered maloi-jaroslavitz, but only to find it, like moscow, in flames, and to lose delzon and his brother, as well as some thousands of men. beyond the burning town they also saw kutusoff and one hundred thousand men drawn up in a position which the french generals declared impregnable. buonaparte received this information with expressions of consternation unusual to him. he determined the next morning to examine this position for himself, and in so doing was very nearly captured by a band of cossack cavalry. a council of war was held in a wretched weaver's hut, and he reluctantly concluded to forego this route, and take that by vereiva and viasma, the same by which he had advanced on moscow. this was, in fact, to doom his army to perdition; for all the way by borodino, smolensk, and vitebsk, the country had been ravaged and desolated in coming; there was nothing in it to keep alive an army. had he waited only a few hours, he would have found[50] kutusoff himself retreating from his strong defiles from fear of being outflanked by the french, and their making their way beyond him to the fertile provinces. thus the two armies were each in retreat at the same moment, but buonaparte's was a retreat upon death and horror.

at vereiva, where buonaparte halted on the 27th of october, mortier arrived from moscow, having blown up the kremlin with gunpowder, and with it a crowd of russians who had rushed in at the moment of his evacuation. mortier on his march had also surprised and captured general winzengerode. from this place buonaparte issued a bulletin, announcing that not only moscow but the kremlin was destroyed; that the two hundred thousand inhabitants of moscow were wandering in the woods existing on roots; and that the french army was advancing towards st. petersburg with every means of success. such was the audacity of lying by which he hoped to conceal the truth from paris. at this moment he was exasperated almost to frenzy by his prospects, and since the defeat of maloi-jaroslavitz he had been gloomy and unapproachable from the violence of his temper. on the march the army passed with horror the field of borodino. "the ground," says segur, "was covered with fragments of helmets and cuirasses, broken drums, gun-stocks, tatters of uniforms, and standards steeped in blood. on this desolate spot lay thirty thousand half devoured corpses. a number of skeletons, left on the summit of one of the hills, overlooked the whole. it seemed as if here death had fixed his empire. the cry, 'it is the field of the great battle!' found a long and doleful murmur. napoleon passed quickly; no one stopped; cold, hunger, and the enemy urged us on. we merely turned our faces as we proceeded to take a last melancholy look at our late companions in arms."

on the 6th of november came down that fierce russian winter of which buonaparte had been so long vainly warned. a thick fog obscured everything, and snow falling in heavy flakes blinded and chilled the soldiers. then commenced wild winds, driving the snow around their heads in whirls, and even dashing them to the earth in their fury. the hollows and ravines were speedily drifted full, and the soldiers by thousands disappeared in the deceitful depths, to reappear no more till the next summer revealed their corpses. numbers of others fell exhausted by the way, and could only be discovered by their following comrades by the slight hillocks that their bodies made under the snow. thus the wretched army struggled and stumbled to smolensk, only to find famine and desolation, seeming to forget, in the mere name of a town, that it was now but a name, having been burnt by the russians. on commencing this terrible march of the 6th of november buonaparte received the ill news that there was insurrection in paris—that produced by mallet, but soon put down; and also that wittgenstein had driven st. cyr from polotsk and vitebsk, and reoccupied the whole course of the düna. to clear his retreat of this obstruction, buonaparte dispatched victor to repulse wittgenstein and support st. cyr. but this was only part of the evil tidings which came in simultaneously with winter. two thousand recruits from france, under baraguay d'hilliers, had been surprised and taken prisoners on the road to kaluga, and other detachments in other quarters. on arriving at smolensk buonaparte's troops had acquired such a wild, haggard, and ragged appearance that the garrison at first refused to admit them; and many perished before they could be relieved from the stores. they had no shelter amid the terrible frost but wretched sheds, reared from half-burnt timber, against the fire-blackened walls.

meanwhile the second and rear divisions of the army under davoust and ney were labouring hard to reach smolensk, assailed by all the horrors of the season, and of the myriad russians collected around them, who killed all who straggled or fell behind from fatigue and starvation. the rearguard of ney suffered most of all, for it was not only more completely exposed to the raids of the cossacks and of the enraged peasants, but they found every house on their way burnt, and nothing around them but treeless, naked plains, over which the freezing winds and the hurrahing cossacks careered in deadly glee. at the passage of the dnieper, it was only by stupendous exertions that ney saved any part of his army. he lost many men, and much of his artillery. on the 13th of november, as he approached smolensk, he was appalled by the apparition of the remains of the army of italy pursued by a cloud of cossacks, who were hewing them down by thousands. eugene, the viceroy of italy, had been sent with this division on a northward route to support oudinot, who was retreating before wittgenstein; but he had found it impossible to reach oudinot, and had again made for smolensk. his passage of the river vop had been no less destructive than the passage of the dnieper by ney. he had lost all his baggage and twenty-three pieces of cannon[51] and was only saved by the fortunate arrival of ney.

buonaparte allowed his army, now reunited in smolensk, five days' rest and enjoyment of the stores there, and on the 14th of november he again marched out to force his way into poland. the second division, under davoust, followed on the 16th, and the rear, still under ney, on the 17th. the worn-down italians of prince eugene could not move till the 15th, and did not overtake buonaparte and assume their proper position till the 17th. the road which buonaparte was taking was by wilna, krasnoi, and borissov to minsk; at the last two places he had his stores. but his way was now hemmed in on all sides by russian armies. wittgenstein was already at vitebsk, and thence advanced on borissov on the beresina, where buonaparte hoped to cross; whilst tchitchagoff, who had joined tormasoff, and thus raised their force to sixty thousand men, had driven the austrians, under schwarzenberg, back on the bug, and had taken minsk on the very day that napoleon marched out of smolensk. at the same time kutusoff, with the grand army of russia, was marching in a parallel line on the left flank of the emperor, ready to fall on him whenever he was reduced to extremities by the other converging russian forces. now was coming the grand crisis. the elements were fighting fearfully against him; his men were wearied, half-starved, and disheartened; his enemies on all sides were alert with hope and revenge. had kutusoff used more alertness, and secured the passage of the beresina as it ought to have been secured, the event which bernadotte had planned must have taken place, and buonaparte, with the remainder of his army, must have remained a prisoner there.

as it was, the extreme caution of kutusoff saved buonaparte and the little remnant of his army that ever reached france again. buonaparte left smolensk with only forty thousand, instead of four hundred and seventy thousand men, which he had on entering russia, and a great part of the italian division of eugene was cut off by the russians before the viceroy could come up with buonaparte. napoleon, therefore, halted at krasnoi, to allow of the two succeeding divisions coming up; but kutusoff took this opportunity to fall on buonaparte's division, consisting of only fifteen thousand men, and attacked it in the rear by cannon placed on sledges, which could be brought rapidly up and as rapidly made to fall back.

sir robert wilson, the british commissioner, urged kutusoff, indeed, to make one general and determined attack on buonaparte and this small body before the other divisions could come up; and there can be no doubt that, had he done so, he would have destroyed the division utterly, and made himself master of napoleon's person. but though kutusoff had fought the battle of borodino, he had now grown over-cautious, and did not do that which it was the plan of barclay de tolly, whom he superseded, to do when the right moment came. whilst kutusoff was thus timidly cannonading, the division of davoust came up, and he retired, allowing both buonaparte and davoust to secure themselves in krasnoi. as for ney, he was left behind wholly surrounded by the russians who had harassed the rear of davoust, and were thus interposed between davoust and himself, as well as swarming on his own flanks and rear. napoleon could not wait for him, even at krasnoi. he learned that the russians were drawing fast towards his crossing-places at the dnieper and the beresina; that prince galitzin with a strong force was about to occupy krasnoi; that the dnieper at liady would be immediately in the hands of the enemy. he therefore called mortier, and squeezing his hand sorrowfully told him that he had not a moment to lose; that the enemy were overwhelming him in all directions; that kutusoff might have already reached liady, perhaps orcha, and the last winding of the dnieper was yet before him. then, with his heart full of ney's misfortunes, he withdrew, in despair at being forced to abandon him, towards liady. he marched on foot at the head of his guard, and often talked of ney. he called to mind his coup-d'?il, so accurate and true, his courage, proof against everything—in short, all the qualities which made him so brilliant on the field of battle. "he is lost! well! i have three hundred millions in the tuileries; i would give them all were he restored to me!"

and, in truth, ney was in the most terrible of situations. when he left smolensk he was at the head of eight thousand men, but followed by an army of stragglers, whom the cannon of platoff caused to evacuate smolensk instantly, leaving behind him five thousand sick and wounded. when they reached the battle-field of krasnoi they saw the carcases of their late comrades lying in heaps on the ground, and, a little beyond, the russians in full force occupying the banks of the losmina, and crowding all the hills around. in spite of this, ney endeavoured to cut his way through, but failed, after a dreadful slaughter, and only saved one thousand five hundred men of his[52] whole force by retreating and taking another route to the river, where he lost all his baggage, and such sick as he brought with him, for the ice broke with their weight. pursued by the cossacks, he came up with davoust's division on the 20th of november. "when napoleon," says segur, "heard that ney had reappeared, he leaped and shouted for joy, saying, 'then i have saved my eagles! i would have given three hundred millions sooner than have lost him.'" the losses which troubled napoleon were those which endangered his own safety or reputation; he thought little of the hundreds of thousands who had perished through this mad expedition; but he rejoiced over the safety of ney, because he deemed it a pledge that his own escape was also assured.

napoleon's grand army had now dwindled down to twelve thousand men, with about thirty thousand stragglers, who added little to his strength. they were in poland, and provisions were now more abundant; but they had still to cross the beresina, and at this moment he heard of the fall of minsk, and that victor and oudinot, instead of attacking wittgenstein, had quarrelled about the manner of doing it, and so had not done it at all. wittgenstein and kutusoff were thus at liberty to attack his flanks, and tchitchagoff to occupy the beresina before him. on this, he turned from the route to minsk and made for borissov. at borissov was a bridge of three hundred fathoms in length, and this he had sent dombrowski to secure and hold; but now he heard of dombrowski's defeat, that the bridge was in the hands of the russians, and that they had broken it down. in his agony, he stamped his cane on the ground, and exclaimed, looking upwards—"is it, then, written that we shall commit nothing but errors?"

here he heard his faithful servants, duroc and daru, whispering, as they thought he slept, of their critical situation, and caught the words "prisoner of state." on this, he started up, and demanded whether the reports of his ministers were yet burnt, and being answered in the negative, he had both them and all documents which could give information of his affairs to the enemy put into the fire. segur says that amongst these were materials for writing his life, for, like c?sar, he had determined to be his own historian. in tracing the map for a passage over the beresina, his eye caught the word pultowa, and he said, "ah! charles xii.—pultowa!"

the crossing of the beresina, in the circumstances, was a desperate design, but there was no alternative but surrender. tchitchagoff was posted with his army on the opposite or left bank; wittgenstein and platoff were pressing down to join them; and kutusoff, with the grand army of russia, was in the rear, able, if he could have been induced to do it, to drive buonaparte and his twelve thousand men into the beresina, and destroy them. after reconnoitring the river napoleon determined to deceive tchitchagoff by a feint at passing at borissov, but really to make the attempt at studienka, above borissov. he therefore kept up a show of preparations to cross at borissov, but got ready two bridges at studienka, one for the artillery and baggage, the other for the troops and miscellaneous multitude. at this juncture he was joined by victor and oudinot with their fifty thousand men well provided with everything. thus he was now possessed of sixty-two thousand men besides stragglers; and his design of deceiving tchitchagoff succeeding so completely that the latter withdrew his whole force from opposite to studienka and concentrated it at borissov, he began on the 26th of november to cross the river, and had a strong force already over before tchitchagoff discovered his error and came back to attack him. so far all went so well that buonaparte again boasted of his star.

but whilst tchitchagoff attacked the french on the right bank, wittgenstein attacked them on the left. the russians then threw a bridge of pontoons over the river at borissov, and, being in communication, attacked the french vehemently on both sides of the river at once. buonaparte and the troops who were over the river forced their way across some marshes over wooden bridges, which the russians had neglected to destroy, and reached brelowa, a little above borissov on the other side. but terrible now was the condition of the forces and the camp-followers who had not crossed. wittgenstein, victor, and oudinot were engaged in mortal combat on the left bank at the approach of the bridge, the french generals endeavouring to beat off the russians as the troops and people pressed in a confused crowd over the bridges. every moment the russians drove the french nearer to the bridges, and the scene of horror became indescribable. the throngs rushed to make their way over the bridge; the soldiers, forgetting their discipline, added to the confusion. the weak and helpless were trampled down; thousands were forced over the sides of the bridge, and perished in the freezing waters. in the midst of the struggle a fierce tempest arose, and deluges of rain fell; and to carry the horror to the highest pitch,[53] the bridge over which the baggage was passing broke down, plunging numbers of sick, and women and children, into the flood, amid the most fearful cries and screams. but all night the distracted multitude continued to press over the sole remaining bridge under the fire of the russian artillery, and amongst them passed the troops of victor, who gave up the contest on the left bank, and left those who had not crossed to their fate. thousands of poor wretches were seen, as morning dawned, huddled on the bank of the river, amid baggage-waggons and artillery, surrounded by the infuriated russians, and in dumb despair awaiting their fate. to prevent the crossing of the russians, the french set fire to the bridge, and left those behind to the mercy of the enemy.

napoleon abandoning his army. (see p. 54.)

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no scene in history ever was fraught with such multiplied horrors. thirty thousand french perished in that fatal passage of the beresina; and had kutusoff done what he might, not a man, not napoleon himself, could have escaped. but this cautious old general was contented that winter should finish the work. in the first few days after napoleon had quitted smolensk the russians had taken twenty-six thousand prisoners, including three hundred officers, and two hundred and twenty-eight guns, with numerous standards. they had killed ten thousand frenchmen, and now thirty thousand more had perished. that was enough for kutusoff.

on assembling his remnant of an army in brelowa, buonaparte beheld a state of general disorganisation prevailing. perishing with cold and hunger, every man was only mindful of himself. in a short time the whole village was pulled down to make camp-fires of the timber, for the weather was fiercely cold. he could scarcely prevent them from stripping off the roof under which he had taken shelter. he set out on his march for wilna on the 29th of november. the army hurried along without order or discipline, their only care being to outstrip the russians, who were, like famished wolves, at their heels; the cossacks continually cutting down numbers of their benumbed and ragged comrades, who went along more like spectres than actual men. the thermometer was at twenty degrees below zero.

on the 3rd of december buonaparte announced[54] to his officers his intention to leave them and make the best of his way to paris. he pleaded the state of affairs there, and especially the conspiracy of mallet; but he was now approaching the frontiers of prussia, and as he knew that he had declared that, if he returned successful, he would deprive frederick william altogether of his crown, he was as apprehensive of that monarch as of the russians themselves.

but he went on to smorgony, and there, the remains of the army having come up, he called a council of war on the 5th of december. he told his generals that he had ordered ney to reorganise the army at wilna, and had appointed murat, king of naples, generalissimo in his absence. he assumed a tone of great confidence, promised his army good winter-quarters beyond the niemen, and assured them that he was hasting away to present himself directly at the head of one hundred and twenty thousand men to keep the austrians and prussians firm to their alliance, and thus to make those he left behind more secure than he could do by staying with them. he then passed through the crowd of his officers, who were drawn up in an avenue as he passed, bidding them adieu with forced and melancholy smiles. he then stepped into a sledge with caulaincourt and shut themselves in, and duroc and lobau followed in another sledge; and thus the man who entered russia with nearly half a million of men, stole away, leaving the miserable remnant of his vast army to the elements and the russians!

napoleon reached warsaw on the 10th of december, after a narrow escape of being taken at a village named youpranoui. on the 14th of december he was in dresden, and had a long conversation with his satrap king there; and, after escaping some endeavours of the prussians to seize him, he arrived safely in paris at midnight of the 18th, where the parisians, who had with some indifference suppressed the conspiracy got up by the republicans under general mallet, hastened to overwhelm him with the most fulsome flatteries. the story of his rubbing his hands over the fire on his arrival at the tuileries, and saying, "this is pleasanter than moscow," shows an intensity of selfishness which no history on earth can equal. in this one campaign, that magnificent army, the very flower of french, german, and polish soldiery—perhaps the finest army ever assembled—had perished to a mere fraction, and that amid the most unheard of, the most hitherto unconceived horrors. the remnant of these soldiers was still struggling on in their deserted march, through these horrors even still more intensified. numbers were falling every day all along the frozen desert tracks, exhausted by famine and cold, and the snows immediately buried them. when they approached any place of rest or refreshment, they fought furiously for fragments of firewood or pieces of horse-flesh. when a horse fell under the burdens they had piled upon him, he was torn by them limb from limb, while yet palpitating with life, and devoured raw. such was the weariness of these miserable fugitives over immeasurable deserts of frost and snow, through cutting, scythe-edged winds, that nothing but the sound of the cossack drum, and the howls of the cossack avengers could induce them to rise and pursue their desolate march. and the man who had brought all these terrible calamities upon nearly half a million of men—and more than half a million by far, including women, children, and other camp-followers, to say nothing of the invaded russians—felt not a pang for these vast human sufferings, but only for his own detestable pride.

we need not follow the track of the deserted army with much minuteness. the moment buonaparte was gone, all discipline and command ceased. the chief officers quarrelled vehemently; and murat denounced his imperial brother-in-law in the bitterest terms, and escaped away into italy on the first opportunity. the austrians and prussians marched off, and the french, pursued by the russians till they crossed the niemen, were continually assailed, and dispersed or killed; so that macdonald at length reached k?nigsberg with nine thousand men, the body of french presenting anything but the appearance of an army! in this fatal campaign, boutourlin states that, of this splendid army, one hundred and twenty-five thousand were killed; one hundred and thirty-two thousand died from fatigue, hunger, and the severity of the climate; and one hundred and ninety-three thousand, including forty-eight generals and three thousand officers, were taken prisoners—an awful comment on the assertions of buonaparte that he had beaten the russians everywhere. the nine thousand soldiers who returned with macdonald leave only eleven thousand to be accounted for of the whole four hundred and seventy thousand, besides women, children, and camp servitors, who entered russia. these eleven thousand were, no doubt, dispersed fugitives, some of whom might eventually reach france. such a destruction of human life in one campaign, so utterly unfelt for by the man who[55] occasioned it, stands alone in the history of this world's miserable wars. the crime of it, as it rests on the head of that guilty soul, is beyond mortal calculation.

during this momentous struggle, russia was munificently supported by great britain. the peace which mr. canning, afterwards lord stratford de redcliffe, our ambassador at constantinople, had been the means of effecting between turkey and russia, released admiral tchitchagoff and his army of thirty thousand men to march against buonaparte; and had not that stupid personage suffered himself to be so grossly deceived by the french emperor at the beresina, neither buonaparte nor a man of his army had ever got across that river. at the same time peace was made with russia by great britain, and russia sent her fleet, for security, to an english port during the invasion. peace also was ratified between great britain and sweden; and bernadotte was at liberty to pursue his plans for aiding in the general movement of the north for the final extinction of the buonaparte rule. great britain also bountifully supplied the russians with money and arms, and other necessaries, so that a french officer who accompanied general lauriston to the headquarters of the russian army was astonished to find abundance of british money circulating and in the highest esteem, though buonaparte had represented great britain as on the verge of bankruptcy. "when i saw british bank-notes passing," he said, "as if they were gold, i trembled for our daring enterprise."

whilst the latter scenes of this great tragedy were passing, in britain a new parliament assembled on the 24th of november, and amongst its first acts were, before christmas, to vote one hundred thousand pounds to the marquis of wellington, and two hundred thousand pounds for the relief of sufferers in russia. and thus closed the remarkable year of 1812.

the year 1813 opened in great britain with high hopes. the defeat of napoleon in russia, and the destruction of his army, opened prospects of at length seeing this ambitious and unprincipled man, who had drenched all europe in blood, brought down and removed from the scene. lord liverpool had for some time predicted that one day a british army would march into paris, and encamp on the bois de boulogne, and now it really seemed probable. the nations of the north and centre of europe were mustering to follow the aggressor home, and lord wellington, in spain, was daily advancing towards the southern frontiers of france by victory after victory. true, there was much yet to be done, and enormous calls on the wealth of britain had yet to be made; and at this time, whilst great britain and all europe were engaged in this mighty contest, the people of the united states, instead of sympathising with the grand occasion, were doing all they could to divide our attention and weaken our hands. there were warm debates in parliament on the american question, but government carried addresses expressing approbation of the course which great britain had taken in regard to the united states. but this annoying quarrelsomeness of the americans tended necessarily to raise the amount of the budget, already too much swelled by the aids to russia and our contest in spain. the supplies demanded were seventy-two million pounds—more than had been granted in any former year. amongst the ways and means were a fresh loan of twenty-one million pounds, and vote of credit for six million pounds. it was, however, some consolation that the nation at last saw the beginning of the end.

before pursuing the immediate story of buonaparte and his pursuers from the north, we will narrate the progress of lord wellington during this year. it was a favourable circumstance for him that, although he continued to receive no little trouble, impediment, and discouragement from the proud and thankless spaniards, the turn of affairs in the north compelled napoleon to withdraw some of his best troops and his best general from that country to aid him in his new campaign against russia, sweden, and germany. he had altogether two hundred and seventy thousand men in spain, in one quarter or other, to oppose the small anglo-spanish army in the south, and the miscellaneous army under lord wellington, amounting only to about seventy thousand men. he therefore withdrew one hundred and fifty skeletons of battalions from spain—amounting, nevertheless, to only about twenty thousand men—as a means of disciplining his young conscripts. what was of far more consequence, he withdrew soult, the only general that occasioned wellington much trouble. the nominal commander-in-chief of the french armies in spain was king joseph, but the real commanders were marshal jourdan and generals clausel and foy in the north, general reille at valladolid, drouet at madrid, and suchet at toledo.

the spaniards had at length made lord wellington commander-in-chief of the spanish armies,[56] but this appointment was little more than nominal, for the spanish generals continued as froward and insubordinate as ever; and the spanish government was poorer than ever, its remittances from the south american colonies, which were asserting their independence, being stopped. wellington's dependence, therefore, continued to rest on his army of british and portuguese—sixty-three thousand infantry and six thousand cavalry.

marshal ney.

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about the middle of may wellington entered spain, leading the centre division himself, the right being commanded by general hill, and the left by sir thomas graham, the victor of barrosa. as they advanced, the french hastily retreated towards valladolid, thence towards burgos; and by the 12th of june, wellington being close on that city, they blew up the fortifications of the castle, and retreated beyond the ebro, which they hoped to be able to defend. but wellington left them no time to fortify themselves. on the 14th he crossed the ebro; on the 16th he was in full march after them towards vittoria, for they found the ebro no defence, as they had not time to blow up the bridges. on the 16th and 17th major-general alten harassed their rear, and dispersed a whole brigade in the mountains, killing considerable numbers, and taking three hundred prisoners. on the 19th they found the french army, commanded by joseph buonaparte, with jourdan as his second and adviser, drawn up under the walls of vittoria. it was so placed as to command the passages of the river zadora, and the three great roads from madrid, bilbao, and logro?o. their left extended to the heights of la puebla, and behind this, at the village of gomecha, was posted a reserve. the position was remarkably strong, and commanded by the hills interesting to englishmen as those where the black prince, in his day, had defeated the french army at najera, commanded by the gallant duguesclin. wellington took till the morning of the 21st to reconnoitre the position and to concentrate his army for the attack.[57]

flight of king joseph buonaparte from vittoria. (see p. 58.)

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[58]

in the morning of that day—a fine and sunny day—hill leading on our right drove the french from the heights of la puebla. this was not done without a severe struggle. the spanish general, morillo, led on his brigade bravely, and was wounded. colonel the hon. g. cadogan, in the action on the heights, was also mortally wounded, but refused to quit the field, and was carried to an elevation where he could watch the progress of the battle while he lived. general hill then pushed the french across the river zadora and the defiles and heights beyond to the village of subijana de alava, which he took possession of, and the french left fell back on vittoria. the other divisions, under lord dalhousie, sir thomas picton, and general cole, also crossed the river at different bridges or fords, and everywhere drove the french before them. the scene from the heights, which were crowded with people, was one of the most animating ever beheld; the british everywhere advancing amid the roar of cannon and musketry, the french retiring everywhere on vittoria. in the meantime, our left, under sir thomas graham, having a considerable number of spanish and portuguese troops in it, advanced to the heights beyond the zadora, along the bilbao road, and carried the village of gamara mayor, while the spanish division of longa carried that of gamara monor. both the spanish and portuguese troops behaved admirably. while major-general robertson's brigade carried gamara mayor, colonel halkett's, supported by that of general bradford, carried the village of abechuco. here a determined effort was made by the french to recover this post, but they were driven back by major-general oswald, with the fifth division.

these points being all gained, the french were not left long in possession of vittoria. they were pushed out of the town, and the whole united army joined in chasing them along the road towards pampeluna. so complete was the rout that, according to wellington's dispatch, they left behind them all their baggage, ammunition, every gun but one, and a howitzer.

so close were they upon king joseph, that a party of the british, under captain wyndham, came upon him in his carriage, and fired through the window. joseph had the good fortune to escape to horse, and gallop off, but his carriage fell into the hands of the british, and it was found crammed with the most precious spoil of the churches and palaces of spain. amongst his baggage, which also was taken, were found some of the finest paintings of the spanish masters, rich plate, including a splendid dinner-service, a gorgeous wardrobe, and a number of his women, for he was a perfect sybarite in luxury and voluptuousness. no such scene was witnessed, except on the defeat of some eastern army. the officers had gorged themselves with the spoils of spain, and here they were left, amid crowds of wives and mistresses, monkeys, poodles, parrots, silks, satins, and jewellery. the officers and soldiers had run for it, with nothing but their arms and their clothes on their backs, and all along the roads leading from the city was one vast crowding, jostling mass of waggons, loaded with all sorts of rich spoils, splendid dresses, and wines, and money, and fine ladies in the most terrible hurry and fright. sheep, cattle, lambs, like a great fair, were left behind, and became the booty of the pursuers. there was a vigorous bursting open of packages, and rich wardrobes of both officers and ladies were soon fluttering in the winds—gorgeous uniforms on the backs of common soldiers and portuguese camp-followers—fine silks and satins, and laces and gold chains, on the persons and necks of common women. the military chest was seized, and the soldiers freely helped themselves to its contents. lord wellington says that the troops got about a million of money. planks were placed from waggon to waggon, and a great auction was going on everywhere, the lucky captors converting everything possible—even the heavy spanish dollars—into gold, as more convenient for carriage. the inhabitants of the city made rich bargains, besides managing to help themselves plentifully in the scramble.

the flight of the french through the town of vittoria, june 21st, 1813.

from the painting by robert hillingford.

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the army of joseph dispersed at full speed, and as our cavalry could not pursue them across the hedges and ditches, they managed to escape, and made their way to pampeluna in one wild, chaotic herd. on the field they profess to have left eight thousand men in killed and wounded, but their loss was far greater. they left, also, one hundred and fifty-one pieces of brass ordnance, four hundred and fifteen caissons, more than forty thousand rounds of ammunition, nearly two million musketball cartridges, forty thousand six hundred and sixty-eight pounds of gunpowder, fifty-six forage[59] waggons, and forty-four forge waggons. the allied army had killed, british, five hundred and one; portuguese, one hundred and fifty; spaniards, only eighty-nine: wounded, british, two thousand eight hundred and seven; portuguese, eight hundred and ninety-nine; spanish, four hundred and sixty-four. lord wellington reported the conduct of almost every officer engaged as admirable. king joseph did not stop till he was safe, for a time, within the strong walls of pampeluna, but the garrison there would not admit the rabble herd of fugitives, but sent them off like enemies; and they were forced to continue their flight into the pyrenees.

news of this most extraordinary defeat acted on the french, on all sides, like the concussion of some violent explosion. they fell back and fled in confusion before any enemy appeared. general clausel, who was advancing from logro?o with fifteen thousand men, fled back to saragossa with such precipitation, and thence through the central pyrenees into france, that he left all his artillery and most of his baggage on the road. the same was the case with general foy, who fled from bilbao to bayonne in hot haste, with general graham at his heels. except at san sebastian and pampeluna, where the garrisons were soon besieged, the french were scarcely to be found in spain, except those with suchet in the south-east.

pampeluna and san sebastian being invested, lord wellington proceeded with his main army to occupy the passes of the pyrenees. these, wellington, in his dispatches, says amounted to about seventy, and, in the service of securing these, he complains that he was left very much without the necessary supplies for his army. the british government had, from some cause—he supposed to send them against the americans—reduced the number of convoys, and many of our store-ships were taken by the french frigates and privateers. it was, as much as ever, in vain to expect the spaniards to do anything to supply the deficiency, after all that the english had done for them. as fast as they got rid of the french, they busied themselves in making war on the clergy and putting them down. wellington was, therefore, continually obliged to arrest his marches to wait for provisions. notwithstanding, by the 7th of july he had driven joseph buonaparte through the mountains into france, chased clausel beyond tudela on the ebro, and taken his post on the very edge of france. buonaparte, alarmed at the progress of wellington, displaced jourdan as incapable, and sent back soult to do what neither he, nor ney, nor marmont, nor massena had been able to do before they were necessarily displaced—that is, arrest the onward march of wellington into france.

soult hurried southward, collecting fresh forces to repel the conquering invader, and issued a proclamation, telling the french soldiers that they had at length taught the english to fight, and they must show them that they were still their superiors. whilst wellington was superintending the sieges of san sebastian and pampeluna, soult advanced, having gathered an army of nearly seventy thousand men, and, on the 25th of july, he suddenly attacked our outposts simultaneously in the passes of roncesvalles and of maya. both these passes converged into one leading to pampeluna, where soult hoped to raise the siege. he himself led on thirty thousand fresh men up the roncesvalles pass against generals cole and picton, who had about ten thousand to oppose him. he compelled them to retreat to some greater elevations, but with considerable loss, and he hoped there to have them joined by general d'erlon, who had ascended the maya pass, with thirteen thousand men, against general stewart, who had only four or five thousand men to oppose him. the conflict there had been terrible; the british fighting and giving way only step by step against the superior force. the awful struggle went on, five thousand feet above the plains of france, amid clouds and fogs. stewart did not fall back till he had sixteen hundred of his small force killed and wounded, and the defiles were actually blocked up with the slain.

matters were at this pass when lord wellington, who had heard of the attack, at his headquarters at lezaco, two days before, came galloping up on the morning of the 27th. he found soult only two leagues from pampeluna, and saw him so near that he could plainly discern his features. wellington caused his own presence to be announced to his two bodies of troops, and they answered the announcement with loud cheers. that day the troops of soult were pushed backwards by a regiment of the irish, and a body of spanish infantry, at the point of the bayonet. the next day, the 28th, the french were driven down still farther. on the 29th both armies rested, but on the 30th the fight was renewed with fury; but picton and dalhousie, being sent across the mountains in opposite directions, managed to turn both flanks of soult, and the french fled precipitately as far as olaque. there the pursuing troops fell in with the right of the french, which[60] had been worsted by hill. in the darkness the french continued their flight, and the next morning were found in full retreat for france. the british gave chase, and made many prisoners, taking much baggage. these battles, which have been named "the battles of the pyrenees," wellington describes as some of the most severe that he ever saw. he states the loss of the british in killed at one thousand five hundred, but in killed and wounded at six thousand. the french, he says, admitted that they had lost fifteen thousand men, and he therefore gave them credit for the loss being much more. on one occasion wellington surprised soult, and had so laid his plans for surrounding him that he felt sure of capturing him; but three drunken british soldiers, rambling carelessly beyond the outposts, were taken, and let out the secret of wellington being hidden close at hand, behind the rocks, and thus saved the french commander. a second time he was saved by the spanish generals, longa and barcenas, not being at their posts in a narrow defile near st. estevan, where he could only pass by a slender bridge. still the british were at his heels, and committed dreadful havoc on his troops in this pass. on the 2nd of august there was a fresh encounter with soult's forces near the town of echalar, where they were again beaten, and driven from a lofty mountain called ivantelly. soult retired behind the bidassoa, and concentrated his routed forces; and wellington, having once more cleared the passes of the pyrenees of the french, gave his army some rest, after nine days of incessant and arduous action, where they could look out over the plains of france, which they were ere long to traverse. but the army had not much rest here. the french made determined efforts to raise the siege of san sebastian, while wellington was as active in endeavouring to force pampeluna to capitulate. unfortunately he had still scarcely any proper men or tools for siege-work. he had long urged on the government the formation of companies of sappers and miners. but, after eighteen months, they had formed only one company, whilst, as wellington informed the government, there was no french corps d'armée which had not a battalion of them. this first british company of sappers and miners came out on the 19th of august, and were immediately set to work. sir george collier sent his sailors to assist, and on the 31st wellington considered that he had made sufficient breach for storming. but that morning soult sent across the bidassoa a strong body of french to attack the besiegers. these were met by a division of eight thousand spaniards, who allowed the french to ascend the heights of san marcial, on which they were posted, and then, with a shout, charged with the bayonet down hill, at which sight the french instantly broke, and ran for it. they were pursued to the river, in which many plunged, and were drowned. in the afternoon soult sent over again fifteen thousand men, having put across a pontoon bridge. these, under the eye and encouragement of lord wellington, were charged again by the spaniards, and routed as before; many again rushing into the river, and the rest, crushing upon the bridge, broke it down, and perished in great numbers also. the portuguese troops likewise met and defeated another detachment of french, who had come by another way. these were supported by british troops, under general inglis, and with the same result. wellington was highly delighted to see the spaniards thus, at length, doing justice to their native valour under british discipline, and praised them warmly. soult is said to have lost two thousand men.

while this was going on, the town of san sebastian was stormed by the british. sir thomas graham conducted the assault, which was led on by the brigade of general robinson, bravely supported by a detachment of portuguese under major snodgrass. the place was captured; the french were driven through it to the castle standing on a height, in which they found refuge. seven hundred prisoners were taken. the british lost two thousand men in the assault—a loss which would have been far greater had a mine, containing one thousand two hundred pounds of gunpowder, exploded, but which was fortunately prevented by the falling in of a saucisson. many less would have fallen, however, had general graham allowed shells to be thrown into the town, which he would not, on account of the inhabitants. but the french had not only prepared this great mine, but exploded various other appliances for setting the town on fire. in fact they showed no care for the people or the town. when driven to the castle, after a murderous street fight—in which they picked off our men from behind walls and windows, killing sir richard fletcher, the commanding engineer, and wounding generals robinson, leith, and oswald, besides slaughtering heaps of our men—they continued to fire down the streets, killing great numbers of the inhabitants besides our soldiers. yet, after all, they charged lord wellington with not only throwing shells into the town, but with[61] setting it on fire, and plundering it. his lordship indignantly repelled these accusations in his letter to his brother, sir henry wellesley. he declares that he himself had been obliged to hasten to his headquarters at lezaco, on the morning of the 31st of august, but that he saw the town on fire in various places before our soldiers entered it; in fact, the french had set it on fire in six different places, and had their mine exploded scarcely a fragment of the town would have been left, or a single inhabitant alive. the lenity shown to the town by wellington and graham, who acted for him, was not used towards their calumniators in the castle. it was stoutly bombarded, and being soon almost battered to pieces about the ears of the defenders, the french surrendered on the 8th of september, two thousand five hundred in number; but the siege of both town and fort had cost the allies four thousand men in killed and wounded. had the town been, as the french represented, bombarded like the castle, some thousands of english and portuguese lives would have been spared, but at the expense of the inhabitants.

pampeluna.

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lord wellington, early in october, called down his troops from their cold and miserable posts in the mountains, and marched them over the bidassoa, and encamped them amongst the french hills and valleys of la rhune. the last division moved across on the 10th of november, the town of pampeluna having surrendered on the 31st of october. this was a very agreeable change to the troops; but, before crossing, his lordship issued the most emphatic orders against plundering or ill-using the inhabitants. he told them, and especially the spanish and portuguese, that though the french had committed unheard-of barbarities in their countries, he would not allow of retaliation and revenge on the innocent inhabitants of france; that it was against the universal marauder, buonaparte, and his system, that the british made war, and not against the people of france. but the passions of the portuguese and spaniards were too much excited against their oppressors, and they burnt and plundered whenever they had opportunity. on this, wellington wrote sternly to the spanish general, freyre.[62] "where i command," he said, "no one shall be allowed to plunder. if plunder must be had, then another must have the command. you have large armies in spain, and if it is wished to plunder the french peasantry, you may then enter france; but then the spanish government must remove me from the command of their armies. it is a matter of indifference to me whether i command a large or a small army; but, whether large or small, they must obey me, and, above all, must not plunder." to secure the fulfilment of these orders, he moved back most of the spanish troops to within the spanish frontiers. the strictness with which lord wellington maintained these sentiments and protected the inhabitants produced the best results. the folk of the southern provinces, being well inclined to the bourbons, and heartily wearied of seeing their sons annually dragged away to be slaughtered in foreign countries for buonaparte's ambition, soon flocked into camp with all sorts of provisions and vegetables; and they did not hesitate to express their wishes for the success of the british arms.

under sharp fighting, wellington crossed the nivelle on the 10th of november, and proposed to go into cantonments at st. jean de luz, on the right bank of the nivelle; but he did not find himself in a position to obtain supplies there, and he therefore crossed the nive, and occupied the country between that river and the adour. soult made desperate efforts to drive the enemy back; but he was compelled to fall back on his entrenched camp in front of bayonne; and wellington went into winter-quarters about the middle of december, but quarters extremely uncomfortable. their late conflicts, between the 9th and 13th of december, had been made in the worst of weather, and they had marched over the most terrible roads. during these conflicts they had lost six hundred and fifty killed, and upwards of one thousand wounded and five hundred missing. the french had lost three times that number. but the french were at home amid their own people; while the allies were in a hostile country, suffering every species of want. at this moment britain was sending clothes, arms, and ammunition to the germans, the sclavonians, and dutch; but her own gallant army, which had chased the french out of spain, and which had to maintain the honour of great britain by advancing towards paris, was suffered to want everything, especially great-coats and shoes, in that severe season. wellington had earnestly implored a reinforcement of twenty thousand men, but it did not arrive.

in the south-east of spain the motley army of british and sicilians had done sufficient to keep the attention of suchet engaged, so that he could not quit that post to follow and assist soult against the main british army. lord wellington had instructed sir george murray to embark his troops at alicante, and, sailing to tarragona, endeavour to make himself master of it; if he found the french too strong in that quarter to enable him to effect his purpose, he was to re-embark, return to valencia, and then attack the french lines on the xucar before suchet could make the long march which would be necessary to support them. murray had had his army weakened by the withdrawal of two thousand troops by lord william bentinck, very unnecessarily, to sicily; but he undertook these man?uvres, and might have succeeded in capturing tarragona, but, alarmed at a rumour of suchet and general mathieu having combined their forces, and being in march against him, he abandoned the place panic-stricken, and, in spite of the indignant remonstrances of admiral hallowell, embarked his troops in the utmost precipitation. lord william bentinck arrived on the 17th of june, immediately after the embarkation, but not in time to save nineteen pieces of artillery, which murray had abandoned in the trenches. lord bentinck battered down fort balaguer, and then sailed away to alicante, leaving the spanish general exposed to the enemy, but he saved himself by escaping into the mountains. for this conduct, sir george murray on his return to england was tried by court-martial, and gently reprimanded, but nothing more.

lord william bentinck, after having retired to alicante, once more returned to tarragona, and made himself master of that place. attempting further advantages in this country, he was compelled to fall back on tarragona with considerable loss. he then returned to sicily, and general clinton took the command of the forces, and strengthened the defences of the post. at the same time news arrived of the retreat of buonaparte from russia and the rising of germany, which compelled suchet to disarm his german regiments, and march them into france under guard. he had also to send some of his best french troops to recruit buonaparte's decimated army, and the italian ones to resist the austrians in italy, who were once more in motion through the alps. in these circumstances the campaign in the south-east of spain closed for the year.

during the winter of 1812 and the spring of[63] 1813 buonaparte was making the most energetic exertions to renew the campaign against russia and the german nations that were now uniting with the czar. he called out new conscriptions, and enforced them with the utmost rigour; the militia were drafted extensively into the regular army, and the sailors, whose service had been annihilated by the victorious seamen of great britain, were modelled into regiments, and turned into soldiers. he sent for part of his forces from spain; and in the spring he was enabled to present himself in germany at the head of three hundred and fifty thousand men. but this was a very different army from that which he had led into and lost in russia—an army of practised veterans, familiar with victory through a hundred fights. it was necessarily but ill-disciplined, and much more full of the sense of wrong in having been dragged from home and its ties than of any thirst of glory. the cavalry was especially defective, and had lost the commander who gave it such spirit by his own example. disgusted by the insolence and sarcasms of buonaparte, and believing that his career was about to end, murat quitted his command on the 16th of january, 1813, and hastened to naples, where he was not long in opening negotiations with great britain and the other powers for the acknowledgment of his kingdom as one independent of france, and ranking with the other established powers of europe. nor was this the only alarming circumstance. bernadotte was at the head of an army of swedes against him—bernadotte whom he had driven by the same insolent and unbearable domination into the arms of his enemies, and whom he now denounced as a renegade frenchman who had renounced his country. the truth, however, was that bernadotte had been adopted by a new country, and was bound to defend it.

next came the declaration of war by the king of prussia, which buonaparte styled a treachery; but, on the contrary, the king of prussia had only preserved faith towards his oppressor and insulter too long. not only all prussia, but all germany was on fire to throw off the detested yoke of the oppressor, and frederick william would have been a traitor to his people and to common sense to have hesitated. yet he proposed terms of a mutual settlement. to place himself in a position of independent treaty, he suddenly left berlin on the 22nd of january, and made his way to breslau, where he was out of the reach of french arms, and in certainty of the arrival, at no very distant date, of russian ones. he invited, however, the french ambassador to follow him, and he there proposed an armistice, on the conditions that the french should evacuate dantzic and all the other prussian fortresses on the oder, and retire behind the elbe, on which the czar had promised that he would stop the march of his army beyond the vistula. but buonaparte treated the proposition with contempt; he was determined to give up nothing—to recover everything.

immediately on the rejection of his terms frederick william concluded a treaty with alexander on the 28th of february, and austria was invited to join the league. alexander had joined his army himself on the 22nd of december, and had marched along with it through that horrible winter. on the 1st of march prussia concluded its alliance with alexander, offensive and defensive. on the 15th alexander arrived at breslau, and there was an affecting meeting of the two sovereigns, who had been placed in outward hostility by the power of buonaparte, but who had never ceased to be friends at heart. the king of prussia was moved to tears. "courage, my brother," said alexander; "these are the last tears that napoleon shall cause you."

the next day the war against france was proclaimed, and for the righteous cause of restoring the independence of the nations. prussia, and indeed all germany, had now been trampled on sufficiently to crush the effeminacy out of all classes—to rouse the true soul of liberty in them. men of every rank offered themselves as the defenders and avengers of their country; the students at this moment not only sung, but aided freedom. the volunteers were formed into black bands, and others assumed the dress and arms of the cossacks, who had won much admiration. they were disciplined in the system of scharnhorst, and soon became effective soldiers. a leader was found for them after their own heart—the brave and patriotic blucher, who had been reserving himself for this day, and scharnhorst and gneisenau, better tacticians than himself, were appointed to assist him, and carry out all the strategic movements; whilst blucher, never depressed by difficulties, never daunted by defeat, led them on with the cheer from which he derived his most common appellation of marshal forwards—"forwards! my children, forwards!" all classes hastened to contribute the utmost amount possible to the necessary funds for this sacred war. the ladies gave in their gold chains and bracelets, their diamonds and rubies, and wore as ornaments chains and bracelets of beautifully wrought iron.

[64]

austria stood in a hesitating position. on the one hand, she felt reluctant to join the allies and assist in destroying the throne of the emperor's son-in-law; but at the same time she was anxious to strengthen her own position by giving more strength to her neighbour, prussia. for this purpose austria offered her mediation for a peace on terms that would restore prussia to a more becoming position, and such proposals of mediation were made by the austrian minister to great britain. but these entirely failed. on the one hand, napoleon would concede nothing, but declared that he would entirely annihilate prussia, and would give silesia to austria for her assistance in the war; on the other hand, great britain declared that there could be no peace unless france disgorged the bulk of her usurpations.

on the 15th of april buonaparte quitted paris, for the last time as a permanent abode; on the 16th he was at mainz, and on the 25th at erfurt. before quitting paris he had appointed maria louisa regent in his absence. this he deemed a stroke of policy likely to conciliate the emperor of austria. but the empress's power was merely nominal. she could appear at the council board, but it was only as the instrument of the emperor; he carried all active power along with him, and ruled france from his camp. he had still upwards of fifty thousand troops in the garrisons of prussia, commanded by eugene, the viceroy of italy; and he advanced at the head of three hundred thousand men. eugene beauharnais had been compelled necessarily to evacuate dantzic, berlin, and dresden as the russians and prussians advanced, and to retreat upon the elbe. in the month of may bernadotte, according to concert, crossed over to stralsund with thirty-five thousand men, and awaited the reinforcements of russians and germans which were to raise his division to eighty thousand men, with which he was to co-operate with the allies, and protect hamburg. the allies, under tetterborn, czernicheff, and winzengerode, spread along both sides of the elbe, the germans rising enthusiastically wherever they came. hamburg, lübeck, and other towns threw open their gates to them. the french general, morand, endeavouring to quell the rising of the people of lüneburg, was surprised by the russians, and his detachment of four thousand men was cut to pieces, or taken prisoners. eugene marched from magdeburg to surprise berlin, but was met at m?ckern, defeated, and driven back to magdeburg. such was the success of the allies, and the exulting support of the people, that even denmark and saxony began to contemplate going over to the allies. blucher entered dresden on the 27th of march, driving davoust before him, who blew up an arch of the fine bridge to cover his retreat. the emperor of russia and king of prussia entered the city soon afterwards, and were received by the inhabitants with acclamations. on the 28th of april died the old russian general, kutusoff, at bautzen, and was succeeded by general wittgenstein.

at the approach of the new french levies, eugene beauharnais retreated from magdeburg, and joined them on the saale. the allies and napoleon now lay face to face, the allies cutting off his advance towards leipsic and thence to dresden. he resolved to make a determined attack upon them, and demoralise them by a blow which should make him master of leipsic, dresden, and berlin at once, and give its impression to the whole campaign. in the skirmishes which took place previous to the general engagement at weissenfels and poserna on the 29th of april and the 1st of may, buonaparte gained some advantages; but in the latter action his old commander of the imperial guard, marshal bessières, was killed. his death was deeply lamented, both by his men, who had served under him from the very commencement of buonaparte's career, and by buonaparte himself.

the first great battle was destined to be fought on the very ground where gustavus adolphus fell, 1632. buonaparte marched upon leipsic, expecting to find the allies posted there; but he was suddenly brought to a stand by them at lützen. the allies, who were on the left bank of the elster, crossed to the right, and impetuously attacked the french, whose centre was at the village of kaya, under the command of ney, supported by the imperial guard, and their fine artillery drawn up in front of the town of lützen; the right wing, commanded by marmont, extending as far as the defile of poserna, and the left stretching from kaya to the elster. napoleon did not expect to have met the allies on that side of leipsic, and was pressing briskly forward when the attack commenced. ney was first stopped at gross-g?rschen. had wittgenstein made a decided charge with his whole column, instead of attacking by small brigades, he would assuredly have broken the french lines. but buonaparte rode up, and galloped from place to place to throw fresh troops on the point of attack, and to wheel up both of his wings so as to enclose, if possible, both flanks of the allies. the conflict lasted some[65] hours, during which it was uncertain whether the allies would break the centre of the french, or the french would be able to outflank the allies. blucher was late on the field; the officer who was sent overnight to him with orders from wittgenstein is said to have put them under his pillow and slept on them till roused by the cannon. at length, after a desperate attack by napoleon to recover the village of kaya, out of which he had been driven, the allies observing that the firing of macdonald and bertrand, who commanded the two wings, was fast extending along their flanks, skilfully extricated themselves from the combat, and led back their columns so as to escape being outflanked by the french. yet they did not even then give up the struggle for the day. the allied cavalry made a general attack in the dark, but it failed from the mighty masses of the french on which they had to act. the allies captured some cannon, the french none. the loss of the allies was twenty thousand men, killed and wounded: that of the french was equally severe. seven or eight french generals were killed or wounded. on the side of the allies fell general scharnhorst—an irreparable loss, for no man had done more to organise the prussian landwehr and volunteers. the prince leopold of hesse-homburg and the prince of mecklenburg-strelitz, both allied to the royal family of england, were slain, and blucher himself was wounded; but he had his wounds dressed on the field, and would not quit it till the last moment.

bernadotte (king of sweden).

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napoleon, who had every need of success to regain his former position in the opinion of france, sent off in all haste to paris the most exaggerated account of the battle of lützen, as one of the most[66] decisive victories that he had ever won, and that it had totally scattered the allies, and neutralised all the hopes and schemes of great britain. the empress went in procession to notre dame, where te deum was celebrated by cardinal maury, who drew the most extravagant picture of napoleon's invincible genius. the same false statements were sent also to every friendly court in europe, even to constantinople. the stratagem had its effect. the wavering german princes, who were ready to go over to their own countrymen, still ranged their banners with the french. the king of saxony had gone to prague as a place whence he might negotiate his return to the ranks of his own fatherland; but he now hastened back again, and was in dresden on the 12th of may with napoleon, who conducted him in a kind of triumph through his capital, parading his adhesion before his subjects who had hailed the allies just before with acclamations. the saxon king, in fresh token of amity to napoleon, ceded to him the fortress of torgau, much to the disgust of his subjects.

but the allies had only fallen back behind the elbe, and taken up a strong position at bautzen, on the spree, about twelve leagues from dresden, whilst an army under bülow covered berlin. no sooner did the allies fall back to the right bank of the elbe than davoust attacked hamburg on the 9th of may with five thousand men, and vowed vengeance on the city for having admitted the allies. to their surprise the citizens found themselves defended by a body of danes, from altona, who were the allies of france, but had been just then thinking of abandoning napoleon. but the fate of the battle of lützen changed their views, and they retired in the evening of that day, leaving hamburg to the attacks of the french. bernadotte, not having received the promised reinforcements, did not venture to cover hamburg. davoust entered the place like a devil. he shot twelve of the principal citizens, and drove twenty-five thousand of the inhabitants out of the city, pulled down their houses, compelling the most distinguished men of the town to work at this demolition and at raising the materials into fortifications. the people had long been subjected by the french to every possible kind of pillage and indignity; no women, however distinguished, had been allowed to pass the gate without being subjected to the most indecent examinations. but now the fury of the french commander passed all bounds. he levied a contribution of eighteen millions of dollars: and not satisfied with that, he robbed the great hamburg bank, and declared all his doings to be by orders of the emperor.

napoleon, reinforced by a number of french, bavarian, würtemberg, and saxon troops, moved off to attack the allies at bautzen, on the 19th of may. he had detached lauriston and ney towards berlin to rout bülow, but they were stopped by barclay de tolly and yorck at k?nigswartha and at weissig, and compelled to retreat. on the 21st ney combined with napoleon, and they made a united attack on blucher's position on the fortified heights of klein and klein-bautzen. in this battle german fought against german, the bavarians against bavarians, for they took both sides, such was the dislocated state of the nation. it was not till after a long and desperately-fought battle that the allies were compelled to give ground, and then they retired, without the loss of a single gun, and posted themselves strongly behind the fortress of schweidnitz, so famous in the campaigns of frederick of prussia.

in this battle the allies lost in killed and wounded ten thousand men, the french not less than fifteen thousand. the french generals bruyères, kirchner, and duroc were amongst the killed. duroc had long been one of the most intimate friends and attendants of buonaparte, who was so much cut up by his loss that for the first time in all his terrible campaigns he became unable to attend to further details, but answered every call for orders with "everything tomorrow!" when he came to find that not a gun, not a prisoner was left behind by the germans and russians, napoleon seemed to comprehend the stern spirit in which they were now contending, and exclaimed, "how! no result after such a massacre? no prisoners? they leave me not even a nail!" he advanced to breslau, various slight conflicts taking place on the way, and on the 1st of june he entered that city, the princesses of prussia removing thence into bohemia.

an armistice was now demanded by the allies—it is said at the instance of austria, who desired to act as mediator—and gladly assented to by napoleon, who was desirous of completing his preparations for a more determined attack. the armistice was signed on the 4th of june at the village of pleisswitz.

at the time of this armistice, napoleon, by the great battles of lützen and bautzen, had recovered his prestige sufficiently to induce the german confederates of the rhine to stand by him; but he was by no means what he had been. the[67] opinion of his invincibility had been irreparably damaged by the russian campaign, and the success in these battles was not of a character to give confidence to his own army. they saw that the allies had lost all superstitious fear of him. to assist in the negotiations of this armistice, buonaparte sent for his two ablest heads, fouché and talleyrand, whom he had so long thrown from him for their sound advice. if buonaparte could have heard, too, what was really going on in france, what were the growing feelings there, he would have been startled by a most ominous condition of things. but he had thoroughly shut out from himself the voice of public opinion, by his treatment of the press and of liberty, and he now was to suffer for it. great britain, on the 14th of june, had concluded an alliance with russia and prussia, and promised to send ample materials of assistance, even an army to the north of prussia; and many british officers of the highest rank repaired to the headquarters of the allies. when great britain was asked to take part in this negotiation she refused, declaring it useless, as napoleon would not grant the only demands which the allies ought to make.

austria professed great friendliness to napoleon, and he thought that she would not like to break with him on account of the empress. but austria, on the 27th of june, signed an engagement with russia and prussia, at reichenbach, in silesia, binding herself to break with him if he did not concede the terms which they demanded. these were to restore illyria and the whole of austrian italy; to reinstate the pope; to leave poland to the three powers who had formerly possessed themselves of it, and to renounce spain, holland, switzerland, and the confederation of the rhine. buonaparte treated these demands as sheer madness; but he was nearly mad himself when talleyrand and fouché, and still more, his best military counsellors, advised him at least to fall back to the left bank of the rhine, and make that the boundary of france. he offered to annihilate the grand duchy of warsaw, giving up the whole of poland to russia—such was his gratitude to the poles!—to restore illyria to austria, but to cut down prussia still more by pushing the rhenish confederation to the oder.

his terms were rejected with disdain. yet he had a last interview with metternich, in which he hoped to terrify him by a dread of the future preponderance of russia; but, seeing that it made no impression, he became incensed, and adopted a very insolent tone towards the austrian minister. "well, metternich," he demanded, "how much has england given you to induce you to play this part towards me?" metternich received the insult in haughty silence. buonaparte, to try how far the diplomatist still would preserve his deference towards him, let his hat fall: metternich let it lie. this was a sign that the austrian had taken his part; it was, in fact, the signal of war. yet, at the last moment, napoleon suddenly assumed a tone of conciliation, and offered very large concessions. he had heard the news of the defeat of vittoria. but it was too late. the congress terminated on the 10th of august, and the allies refused to re-open it. on the 12th of august, two days after the termination of the armistice, austria declared herself on the side of the allies, and brought two hundred thousand men to swell their ranks. this redoubtable force was commanded by her general, prince von schwarzenberg.

immediately after the termination of the armistice the russians and prussians joined the great army of the austrians, which had been concentrated at prague. their plan was to fall upon buonaparte's rear. full of activity, that unresting man had been busy, during the whole armistice, in defending his headquarters at dresden by fortifications. he had cut down all the trees which adorned the public gardens and walks, and used them in a chain of redoubts and field-works, secured by fosses and palisades. he was in possession of the strong mountain fortresses of the vicinity, as well as those of torgau, wittenberg, magdeburg, and others, so that the valley of the elbe was in his hands; and he had a bridge of boats at k?nigstein, extending his communications to stolpe: thus guarding against an attack on the side of bohemia. in the beginning of august he assembled two hundred and fifty thousand men in saxony and silesia. of these, sixty thousand lay at leipsic under oudinot, and one hundred thousand in different towns on the borders of silesia, under macdonald; he himself lay at dresden with his imperial guard. eugene beauharnais he had dispatched to italy, where he had forty thousand men. besides these, he had a reserve of bavarians, under general wrede, of twenty-five thousand men.

besides the grand army of the allies, of two hundred thousand, marching from bohemia, one hundred and twenty thousand austrians, and eighty thousand russians and prussians, blucher lay on the road to breslau with eighty thousand; the crown prince of sweden, near berlin, with thirty thousand swedes and sixty thousand[68] prussians and russians; walmoden lay at schwerin, in mecklenburg, with thirty thousand allies; and hiller, with forty thousand austrians, watched the army of italy.

napoleon's interview with metternich. (see p. 67.)

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whilst these gigantic armies were drawing towards each other, in the early part of august, for what was afterwards called "the grand battle of the peoples," the weather seemed as though it would renew its russian miseries on the french. they had to march in constantly deluging rains, up to the knees in mud, and to risk their lives by crossing flooded rivers. amid these buffetings of the elements the conflict began, on the 21st of august, between walmoden and davoust, at vellahn. a few days afterwards, in a skirmish with walmoden's outposts at gadebusch, korner, the youthful tyrt?us of germany, fell.

the plan of the campaign is said to have been laid down by bernadotte, and adopted, after some slight revision, by general moreau. that general, whom the jealousy of buonaparte had expelled from france, and who had retired to america, now returned in the hope of seeing the fall of buonaparte effected, and peace and a liberal constitution given to his country. he came not to fight against france, but against buonaparte. the plan showed that they who devised it knew napoleon's art of war. it was to prevent him from attacking and beating them in detail. whichever party was first assailed was to retire and draw him after them, till the other divisions could close round him, and assail him on all sides. blucher was the first to advance against macdonald and ney. as had been foreseen, buonaparte hastened to support these generals with the imperial guard and a numerous cavalry, under latour-maubourg. but blucher then retired, and, crossing the katzbach, sat down near jauer, so as to cover breslau. the purpose was served, for schwarzenberg, accompanied by the sovereigns of russia and prussia, as well as by moreau, had rushed forward on dresden, driving st. cyr and twenty thousand men before them, who took refuge in dresden. the allies were at his heels, and on the 25th of august began to attack the city. they hoped to win it before buonaparte could return, in which case they would cut off his line of communication with france—stopping the advance both of his[69] supplies and reinforcements. but the very next day, whilst they were in vigorous operation against the city, and had already carried two redoubts, buonaparte was seen advancing in hot haste over the bridges into dresden. warned of its danger, he had left macdonald to defend himself, and now led his troops across the city and out at two different gates upon the enemies. the battle continued that day, and was resumed the next, by buonaparte pushing forward immense bodies of troops from different gates, and concentrating them on the allies. the attempt to take the city in buonaparte's absence had failed, and now they saw themselves in danger of being enclosed by murat—who had again been induced to join the emperor—on the freiberg road, and by vandamme on the road to pirna, by the elbe. they were, therefore, compelled to fall back, and the withdrawal soon proved a flight. napoleon pursued them hotly amid torrents of wind and rain, and made great slaughter, especially of the austrians, who were seized with a panic of the enemy who had so often beaten them. seven or eight thousand french were killed and wounded; but of the allies, chiefly austrians, more than twenty thousand were killed or disabled. during the engagement moreau had both his legs shot away by a cannon ball, and died in a few days.

view in dresden.

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buonaparte continued the pursuit of the allies as far as pirna, whence, owing to indisposition, he returned to dresden; but vandamme, murat, marmont, and st. cyr pushed forward by different ways to cut off the route of the fugitives into the mountains of bohemia. vandamme, however, having passed peterswald, beyond which he had orders not to proceed, was tempted to try for t?plitz, where the allied sovereigns lay, and take it. in doing this he was enclosed, in a deep valley near kulm, by ostermann and other bodies of the allies, completely routed, and taken prisoner, with generals haxo and guyot, the loss of two eagles, and seven thousand prisoners. this was on the 29th of august.

on the 26th blucher had nearly annihilated the division of macdonald. no sooner did he learn the return of buonaparte to dresden than he wheeled round upon macdonald, taking him by surprise, and driving his troops into the rivers[70] katzbach and neisse, swollen by the rains. the battle raged the most fiercely near wahlstadt, and, on the subsidence of the floods, hundreds of corpses were seen sticking in the mud. a part of the french fled for a couple of days in terrible disorder along the right bank of the neisse, and were captured, with their general, by the russian commander, langeron.

the same fate befell the troops of ney, who had been sent to dislodge bernadotte and bülow before berlin. he was beaten at dennewitz on the 6th of september, with a loss of eighteen thousand men and eighty guns. macdonald had lost on the katzbach many thousands slain or dispersed, eighteen thousand prisoners, and a hundred and three guns. his army was nearly annihilated. between this period and the end of september the french generals were defeated in every quarter: davoust by walmoden; another body of french by platoff, on the 29th; jerome by czernicheff, on the 30th; and lefebvre by thielemann and platoff, at altenburg.

these defeats, which were gradually hemming napoleon round by his enemies in dresden, were the direct result of the active aid of great britain to the allies. sir charles stewart, the brother of lord castlereagh, had been dispatched to the headquarters of the allies. by means of the abundant supplies of arms and money, the population of hanover was raised; bernadotte was kept firm to his support of the coalition; and, by sir charles, he was also urged to march on leipsic, and be present at the final conflict. brigadier-general lyon was sent to head the troops in hanover; and the duke of cambridge to conduct the civil government of the country. money was supplied in abundance, in addition to military stores. two millions were advanced to the crown prince of sweden for his army, two millions more to the russians and prussians, and another half million to russia to equip its fleet in the baltic. without these vast supplies the combined armies could not have kept their ground.

from the 24th of september till the commencement of october buonaparte continued to maintain himself at dresden, though the allies were fast gathering round him. occasionally he made a rush from the city, and on one occasion pursued blucher as far as nollendorf, beyond kulm; but these expeditions only served to exhaust his troops, without producing any effect on the enemy. as he chased one body on one side, others were closing up on other sides. seeing that he could not remain long at dresden, and that bernadotte and bülow had quitted the neighbourhood of berlin, he suddenly conceived the design of marching rapidly on that city, and taking up his headquarters there; but this scheme met with universal disapprobation from his officers, and he was compelled to abandon it. he then continued for days, and even weeks, in a state of listless apathy, for hours together mechanically making large letters on sheets of paper, or debating some new schemes with his generals; but the only scheme to which they would listen was that of retreating to the left bank of the rhine. in fact, they and the army were completely worn out and dispirited.

the allies now determined to close in on all sides, and compel the french to a surrender. but buonaparte, after some man?uvres to bring blucher to action—that general and the crown prince of sweden having crossed to the left bank of the elbe—found it at length necessary to retreat to leipsic. he reached that city on the 15th of october, and learned, to his great satisfaction, that whilst his whole force would be under its walls within twenty-four hours, the austrians were advancing considerably ahead of the prussians; and he flattered himself that he should be able to beat the austrians before the other allies could reach them.

leipsic is nearly surrounded by rivers and marshy lands, and only, therefore, accessible by a number of bridges. the pleisse and the elster on the west, in various divisions, stretch under its walls; on the east winds far round the parthe; on the south only rise some higher lands. on the 16th of october, at break of day, the austrians attacked the southern or more accessible side with great fury, headed by generals kleist and mehrfeldt, and were opposed by poniatowski and victor. buonaparte was soon obliged to send up souham to support these generals. lauriston also was attacked by klenau at the village of liebertvolkwitz. after much hard fighting, buonaparte ordered up macdonald, who broke through the austrian line at the village of gossa, followed by murat; latour-maubourg and kellermann galloped through with all their cavalry. napoleon considered this as decisive, and sent word to the king of saxony that the battle was won, and that poor dupe and unpatriotic king set the church bells ringing for joy. but a desperate charge of cossacks reversed all this, and drove back the french to the very walls of the town. in the meantime, blucher had attacked and driven in marmont, taking the village of machern with twenty pieces of cannon and two[71] thousand prisoners. on the side of the pleisse schwarzenberg pushed across a body of horse, under general mehrfeldt, who fell into the hands of the french; but another division, under general giulay, secured the left bank of the pleisse and its bridges, and had he blown them up, would have cut off the only avenue of retreat for the french towards the rhine. night fell on the fierce contest, in which two hundred and thirty thousand allies were hemming in one hundred and thirty-six thousand french; for the allies this time had adopted buonaparte's great rule of conquering by united numbers.

the next day the battle paused, as by mutual consent; and as it was evident that the french must eventually retreat, this day should have been spent in preparing temporary bridges to cross the rivers; but, as at moscow, the presence of mind of buonaparte seemed to have deserted him. he dispatched general mehrfeldt to the allied monarchs, to propose an armistice, on condition that he would yield all demanded at the previous conference—poland, and illyria, the independence of holland, spain, and italy, with the evacuation of germany entirely. before he went mehrfeldt informed him that the bavarians had gone over in a body to the allies. but in vain did buonaparte wait for an answer—none was vouchsafed. the allied monarchs had mutually sworn to hold no further intercourse with the invader till every frenchman was beyond the rhine.

on the morning of the 19th the battle recommenced with fury. the french were now fighting close under the walls of the town, and napoleon, posted on an eminence called thonsberg, watched the conflict. till two o'clock the fight raged all along the line, round the city; and neither party seemed to make any advance. at length the allies forced their way into the village of probstheide, and threw the french on that side into great confusion. ney, on the north side, was also fearfully pressed by blucher and the crown prince of sweden, and was compelled to retreat under the walls. on a sudden, as the russians advanced also against ney, the saxons—ten thousand in number—went over to them with a shout. they were sent to the rear, but their cannon was at once turned against the enemy. by evening it was clear that the french could not hold their position another day. schwarzenberg announced to the allied sovereigns that victory was certain, and they knelt on the field and returned thanks to god. the french knew this better than their opponents, for in the two days they had fired two hundred and fifty thousand cannon-balls, and had only about sixteen thousand cartridges left, which would not serve for more than two hours, much of their artillery having been sent to torgau. the retreat, therefore, commenced in the night. there was only one bridge prepared, of timber, in addition to the regular stone bridge, over which one hundred thousand men must pass, with the enemy at their heels. to add to the misery, the temporary bridge soon broke down. napoleon took a hasty leave of the king and queen of saxony, ordered poniatowski to defend the rear, and himself made for the bridge. it was not without much difficulty, and considerable alarm lest he should be surrounded and taken, that he and his suite got across. then there was a terrible scene of crushing and scrambling; and the enemy, now aware of the flight, were galloping and running from all sides towards the bridge, to cut off the fugitives. soon after buonaparte had got over, the bridge was blown up by the french officer in charge of the mine already made, and twenty-five thousand men were left to surrender as prisoners in the town. amongst these were marshals macdonald and poniatowski; but, disdaining to surrender, they sprang, with their horses, into the pleisse—to swim. macdonald escaped, but poniatowski, though he crossed the pleisse, was again nearly cut off, and plunging into the deep and muddy elster, was drowned. no braver man perished in these tragic campaigns; both allies and french in leipsic followed his remains to the tomb, in sincere honour of his gallantry. the triumph of the allied monarchs was complete. they met in the great square of the city, and felicitated each other. the king of saxony was sent, without any interview, under a guard of cossacks to berlin, and at the general congress he was made to pay dearly in territory for his besotted adhesion to the invader of germany. in this awful battle the french lost three hundred guns. the slain on both sides amounted to eighty thousand, and thousands of the wounded lay for days around the city, exposed to the severe october nights, before they could be collected into lazarettos; and the view of the whole environs of leipsic, covered with dead, was fearful.

on the 23rd of october napoleon reached erfurt, whose fortifications afforded him the means of two days' delay, to collect his scattered forces. as they came straggling in, in a most wretched condition, and without arms, his patience forsook him, and he exclaimed, "they are a set of scoundrels, who are going to the devil! i shall lose[72] eighty thousand before i get to the rhine!" in fact, he had only eighty thousand men left, besides another eighty thousand in the garrisons in the north of germany—thus also lost to him. of his two hundred and eighty thousand men, had utterly perished one hundred and twenty thousand. he sent orders to those in the garrisons to form a junction in the valley of the elbe, and so fight their way home; but this was not practicable; and in a few months they all surrendered, on conditions. he here dismissed such of the saxons and baden troops as remained with him, and offered the same freedom to the poles; but these brave men—with a generosity to which the betrayer of their country had no claim—refused to disband till they had seen him safe over the rhine. murat, with less fidelity, took his leave again, on the plea of raising troops on the frontiers of france to facilitate napoleon's retreat, but in reality to get away to naples and make terms for himself.

before buonaparte quitted erfurt he learned that his late allies, the bavarians, with a body of austrians under general wrede, were marching to cut off his line of retreat to the rhine, and that another body of austrians and prussians were marching from near weimar, on the same point, with the same object. he left erfurt on the 25th of october, amid the most tempestuous weather, and his rear incessantly harassed by the cossacks. he met wrede posted at hanau, but with only forty-five thousand men, so that he was able to force his way, but with a loss of six thousand, inflicting a still greater loss on the austro-bavarians, of nearly ten thousand. on the 30th of october napoleon reached frankfort, and was at mainz the next day, where he saw his army cross, and on the 7th of november he left for paris, where he arrived on the 9th. his reception there was by no means encouraging. in addition to the enormous destruction of life in the russian campaign, the french public now—instead of the reality of those victories which his lying bulletins had announced—saw him once more arrive alone.

when the advanced guard of the allies came in sight of the rhine, over which the last of the hated invaders had fled, they raised such shouts of "the rhine! the rhine!" that those behind rushed forward, supposing that it was a call to action; but they soon learned the true cause, and joined in a mighty acclamation, that proclaimed the haughty and sanguinary oppressor driven out, and the soil of germany at length freed from his licentious and marauding legions. it turned out that they had left behind them one hundred and forty thousand prisoners, and seven hundred and ninety-one guns. on the 2nd of november hanover was again delivered to great britain; the duke of brunswick, who had maintained his stern hatred to buonaparte, also returned to his patrimonial domains; the kingdom of westphalia dissolving like a dream, the different portions of jerome's ephemeral realm reverted to its former owners. the confederacy of the rhine was at an end, the members of it hastening to make peace with the allies, and save as much of their dominions as they could. bernadotte, immediately after the defeat of buonaparte at leipsic, entered denmark, and overran the country of that ally of france. the danish army speedily consented to an armistice, by which it was agreed that the swedes should occupy holstein and a part of schleswig till the french were expelled from all the danish fortresses. it was already stipulated as the price of his co-operation, that the crown prince should receive norway to add to the swedish crown.

holland rose in exultation on the news of the overthrow of buonaparte at leipsic. his dominion over that country had been a bitter thraldom. its sons had been dragged yearly, by conscription, to his great slaughter-houses called battle-fields in distant regions. their trade had been crushed by his continental system; their colonies seized by great britain; their mercantile sources thus dried up—in fact, he had squeezed the wealth and the life out of holland as out of a sponge, and hordes of french officials maintained an insolent dominance all over the country. at news of the russian disasters, the dutch had risen to throw off this hateful and ruinous yoke; but the french forces in holland had then been sufficient to put them down, and to severely punish them for the attempt. but the necessities in germany had nearly drained holland of french troops, and they now rose once more joyfully at amsterdam, on the 15th of november, and at the hague on the 16th. they received the most prompt assurances of assistance from great britain. a man-of-war was immediately put at the service of the prince of orange, and after a nineteen years' exile he embarked on the 25th, and entered amsterdam on the 1st of december as king of holland, amid the most enthusiastic acclamations. an army of twenty-five thousand men was soon enrolled; the allies were at hand; the french authorities fled, after laying hands on all the booty they could carry off; and with the exception of the fortress of[73] bergen-op-zoom, the country was speedily cleared of them.

the palace of fontainebleau

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the swiss acted a more cautious part. fearful that napoleon might yet, by some other wonderful chance, regain his power, they summoned a diet, passed an order for the neutrality of the cantons, and issued an order calling on the allies to respect this, and not attempt to march troops through their country. this would have suited buonaparte extremely well, as it would have closed his eastern frontiers to the austrians, who were marching that way under count bubna; but the austrians informed the swiss authorities that they should certainly march through; and the allied sovereigns dispatched count capo d'istria and herr lebzeltern to zurich to state that the power of france over switzerland was at an end, and to desire them to send deputies to meet them, and to establish an independent government for switzerland. thus assured, the greater part of the cantons sent their deputies to zurich, who proclaimed the restoration of national independence, and gave free consent for the armies of the allies to march through the country.

whilst all the countries which buonaparte, at such an incalculable cost of life and human suffering, had compelled to the dominion of france were thus re-asserting their freedom, buonaparte, in paris, presented the miserable phantom of a vanished greatness. he called on the senate to vote new conscriptions, telling them that theirs had been made by him the first throne of the universe, and they must maintain it as such; that without him they would become nothing. but the allies were now entering france at one end, and wellington was firmly fixed in the other; ere long the insulted nations would be at the gates of paris, and the senate and people demanded peace. buonaparte refused to listen, and the senate voted the conscription of three hundred thousand men, knowing that there was no longer any authority in the country to raise them. la vendée, and all the catholic south, were on the verge of insurrection; murat, in naples, was ready to throw off his last link of adhesion to buonaparte; and the defeated usurper stood paralysed at the approach of his doom.

it was natural that this mighty turn in affairs[74] on the continent should be watched in great britain with an interest beyond the power of words. though this happy country had never felt the foot of the haughty invader, no nation in europe had put forth such energies for the overthrow of the usurper; none had poured forth such a continual flood of wealth to arm, to clothe, to feed the struggling nations, and hold them up against the universal aggressor. parliament met on the 4th of november, and, in the speech of the prince regent and in the speeches in both houses, one strain of exultation and congratulation on the certain prospect of a close to this unexampled war prevailed. at that very moment the "corsican upstart" was on his way to paris, his lost army nearly destroyed, the remains of it chased across the rhine, and himself advancing to meet a people at length weary of his sanguinary ambition, and sternly demanding peace.

lord castlereagh, in recounting the aid given by great britain to the sovereigns of the continent in this grand effort to put down the intolerable military dominance of buonaparte, drew a picture of expenditure such as no country had presented since the commencement of history. he said that the nations of the north of europe were so exhausted by their former efforts, that not one of them could move without our aid; that this year alone we had sent to russia two million pounds; to prussia two million pounds; to austria one million pounds in money, and one hundred thousand stand of arms; to spain two million pounds; to portugal one million pounds; to sicily four hundred thousand pounds. by these aids russia had been able to bring up men from the very extremities of the earth, and prussia to put two hundred thousand men into the field. we had sent during the year five hundred thousand muskets to spain and portugal, and four hundred thousand to other parts of the continent. there was something sublime in the contemplation of one nation, by the force of her wealth and her industry, calling together the armies of the whole world to crush the evil genius of the earth.

but lord castlereagh called on parliament to maintain the same scale of expenditure and exertion till the great drama was completed. he estimated that there would still be wanted for 1814 four million pounds for the peninsula, and six million pounds for germany. he stated that our army in all quarters of the world amounted to two hundred and thirty thousand men, and that it was probable that we should have occasion to send from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand men to holland, which, he recommended, should be raised by drafts from the militia. of seamen, one hundred and forty thousand, and thirty-one thousand marines were voted, as it was resolved to chase the flag of the troublesome americans from the seas. all these proposals were assented to without hesitation, and with the warmest encomiums on the achievements of lord wellington in spain and the south of france, parliament adjourned on the 26th of december till the 1st of march, 1814.

at the opening of the year 1814 buonaparte was busy endeavouring to make good some of his false steps, so as to meet the approaching allies with all possible strength. he made haste to liberate the captive pope, and thus remove one of the causes of the hostility of the italians to him, for in italy the austrians were bearing hard on his viceroy, eugene, who had but about forty-five thousand men there, whilst murat, at naples, so far from supporting the claims of napoleon, was endeavouring to bargain with the allies for the kingdom of naples. buonaparte, at the commencement of the year, sent cardinal maury and the bishops of evreux and plaisance to pius vii. at fontainebleau. but even in such pressing circumstances buonaparte could not make a generous offer. he endeavoured to bargain for the cession of a part of the papal territories, on condition of the surrender of the rest. but pius, who had always shown great spirit, replied that the estates of the church were not his to give, and he would not give his consent to their alienation. foiled on this point, buonaparte then sent word that the pope should be unconditionally liberated. "then," said pius, "so must all my cardinals." this was refused, but he was permitted to go alone, and a carriage and guard of honour were given him. before departing, pius called together the cardinals, seventeen in number, and commanded them to wear no decoration received from the french government, and to assist at no festival to which they should be invited. he then took his leave, on the 24th of january, and reached rome on the 18th of may. thus ended the most foolish of all the arbitrary actions of napoleon. the folly of it was so obvious that he disclaimed having ordered the seizure of the pope, but he showed that this was false by keeping him prisoner more than five years.

another matter which he was eager to set right was the captivity of the king of spain. he had one hundred thousand of his best disciplined and most seasoned troops in spain, and he was anxious to get them out to meet the approaching[75] allies. besides this, he was equally anxious to render the stay of wellington in the south of france indefensible. to effect these purposes, he determined not only to liberate ferdinand of spain, but to send him home under the conditions of a treaty, by which a full exchange of prisoners should be effected, and the continuance of the british there be declared unnecessary. nay, he did all in his power to embroil the spaniards with their deliverers, the british. by a treaty buonaparte recognised ferdinand vii. and his successors as king of spain and the indies, and ferdinand, on his part, bound himself to maintain the integrity of his empire, and to oblige the british immediately to evacuate every part of spain. the contracting powers were to maintain their maritime rights against great britain; and whilst buonaparte surrendered all fortresses held by him in spain, ferdinand was to continue to all the spaniards who had adhered to king joseph the rights, privileges, and property they had enjoyed under him.

could this treaty have been carried out, buonaparte would at once have obtained his one hundred thousand veterans from spain, and completely paralysed the army of lord wellington. the duke de san carlos conveyed the treaty to spain. he was instructed to inquire into the state of the regency and the cortes, whether they were really so infected with infidelity and jacobinism as napoleon had represented; but, whether so or not, he was to procure the ratification of the treaty by these bodies, and ferdinand undertook to deal with them himself when once safe upon the throne. san carlos travelled eastward into spain, and visited the camp of suchet, who very soon communicated to general capons, who was co-operating with general clinton, that there was peace concluded between spain and france, and that there was no longer any use for the british. capons was very ready to act on this information and enter into a separate armistice with suchet; but fortunately for both spain and the british, neither the regency nor the cortes would sign the treaty so long as the king was in durance in france.

lord wellington had been duly informed of the progress of these man?uvres, and they had given him great anxiety; nor were these the only causes of anxiety which affected him. the british ministry were so much absorbed with the business of supporting the allies in their triumphant march after buonaparte, that they seemed to think the necessity of lord wellington's exertions at an end. at the close of 1813 they recalled sir thomas graham and some of his best battalions to send them into holland. they appeared to contemplate still further reductions of the peninsular army, and lord wellington was obliged to address them in very plain terms to impress them with the vital necessity of maintaining the force in this quarter unweakened. he reminded them that thirty thousand british troops had kept two hundred thousand of buonaparte's best troops engaged in spain for five years; that without this assistance spain and portugal would have long ago been completely thrown under the feet of the invader, and the allies of the north would have had to contend against the undivided armies and exertions of napoleon; that to render his own army inefficient would be at once to release one hundred thousand veterans such as the allied armies had not had to deal with. this had the proper effect; and as soon as wellington had obtained the necessary supplies, he resumed his operations to drive soult from under the walls of bayonne.

early in february he commenced his operations, and carried them forward with a vigour most extraordinary. he drove soult from all his entrenchments before bayonne, and again on the 27th he routed him at orthez and pursued him to the banks of the adour. this was a sharply contested field, the british having nearly three hundred killed and two thousand wounded; but the loss of the french was far heavier, for they flung down their arms and ran, and there was a great slaughter of the fugitives. the towns of bayonne and bordeaux being now left uncovered by the french, wellington sent bodies of troops to invest them. bordeaux opened its gates on march 8th, and proclaimed louis xviii. lord wellington had issued orders that the british should take no part in any political demonstrations, but should leave all such decisions to the allies, who would settle by treaty what dynasty should reign. he himself followed soult to tarbes, where he expected that he would give battle; but soult was anxious for the arrival and junction of suchet, who was advancing from spain with upwards of twenty thousand men. soult, therefore, retreated to toulouse, which he reached on the 24th of march.

lord wellington came up with him on the 9th of april, in the meantime having had to get across the rapid garonne, with all his artillery and stores, in the face of the french batteries. the next morning, the 10th, being easter sunday,[76] wellington attacked soult in all his positions. these were remarkably strong, most of his troops being posted on well-fortified heights, bristling with cannon, various strongly-built houses being crammed with riflemen; while a network of vineyards and orchards, surrounded by stone walls, and intersected by streams, protected his men, and rendered the coming at them most difficult. the forces on both sides were nearly equal. soult had about forty-two thousand men, and wellington, besides his army composed of british, germans, and portuguese, had a division of fifteen thousand spaniards. the difficulties of the situation far out-balanced the excess of about three thousand men on the british side; but every quarter was gallantly attacked and, after a severe conflict, carried. soult retired into toulouse, and during the ensuing night he evacuated it, and retreated to carcassonne. the loss of the allies in killed was six hundred, and about four thousand wounded. soult confessed to three thousand two hundred killed and wounded, but we may calculate his total loss at little less than that of the allies, although his troops had been protected by their stone walls and houses.

on the 12th of april wellington entered toulouse amid the acclamations of the people. but lord wellington was accused by the french of fighting the battle five days after the abdication of buonaparte, and therefore incurring a most needless waste of life. the fact was, that it was not till the afternoon of the 12th of april that colonel cooke and the french colonel, st. simon, arrived at toulouse, bringing the official information that buonaparte had abdicated at fontainebleau on the 4th. thus it happened that the battle was fought a week before the knowledge of the peace was received. moreover, we have the evidence of soult's own correspondence, that on the 7th of april, after he had heard of the entrance of the allies into paris, he was determined to fight another battle, and for the very reason that the allies had entered paris. when the english and french colonels arrived at soult's camp with the same news that they had communicated to wellington, soult refused to submit to the provisional government until he received orders from napoleon; nor did he acknowledge this government till the 17th, when wellington was in full pursuit of him towards castelnaudary. on the 18th a convention was signed between wellington and soult, and on the following day a like one was signed between wellington and suchet. on the 21st lord wellington announced to his army that hostilities were at an end, and thanked them "for their uniform discipline and gallantry in the field, and for their conciliatory conduct towards the inhabitants of the country."

in preparing to meet the invasion of the allies napoleon had to encounter the most formidable difficulties. in russia and in this german campaign he had seen the bulk of his veteran army dissipated—nay, destroyed. after all his years of incessant drafts on the life-blood of france, six hundred thousand men could not be readily replaced. to replace a fourth of that number with well-disciplined troops was impossible. he could draw none from germany, for his boasted confederation of the rhine had disappeared as a summer cloud, and the very princes on whom he had relied were marching against him in the vast army of the allies. he could draw none from italy; for there eugene beauharnais was contending, with only about forty-five thousand men, against the much more numerous austrians; whilst his brother-in-law, murat, his dashing cavalry general, was gone over to the enemy. poland would send him no more gallant regiments, for he had grievously deceived the poles; and his trusted ally of denmark lay trodden under foot by his former companion-in-arms, bernadotte. when he turned his eyes over france, which had so long sent forth her hordes to desolate europe at his bidding, he beheld a prospect not much more cheering. the male population, almost to a man, was drained off, and their bones lay bleaching in the torrid sands of egypt and syria, the rugged sierras of spain and portugal, in the fens of holland and the sandy flats of belgium, on many a heath and plain in germany, and far away amid the mocking snows of frozen muscovy. the fields of "la belle france" were being cultivated by old men, by women, and mere boys. those who had been so long buoyed up under the loss of husbands, fathers, and children, by the delusive mirage of the glory of the "grand nation," now cursed the tyrant whose insane ambition had led such millions of the sons of france to the great slaughter-house of war. the conscriptions, therefore, were very little attended to. besides this, buonaparte was well aware that there remained a strong leaven of jacobinism in paris and the large towns, and he was afraid of calling out city guards to set at liberty other soldiers, lest, in the hour of his absence and weakness, they should rise and renounce his authority.

[77]

finding that there remained no other means of reinforcing his army, he drained the garrisons all over france, and drew what soldiers he could from soult and suchet in the south. he was busy daily drilling and reviewing, and nightly engaged in sending dispatches to urge on the provinces to send up their men. the moniteur and other newspapers represented all france as flying to arms; but the truth was they looked with profound apathy on the progress of the allies. these issued proclamation after proclamation, assuring the people that it was not against france that they made war, but solely against the man who would give no peace either to france or any of his neighbours; and the french had come to the conclusion that it was time that buonaparte should be brought to submit to the dictation of force, as he was insensible to that of reason.

attempt of the cossacks to capture napoleon at brienne. (see p. 78.)

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on the 25th of january buonaparte conferred the regency again on maria louisa, appointed king joseph his lieutenant in paris—the poor man who could not take care of the capital which had been conferred on him—and quitted paris to put himself at the head of his army. this army, in spite of all his exertions, did not exceed eighty thousand men; whilst the allies were already in france with at least a hundred and fifty thousand, and fresh bodies marching up in succession from the north. he arrived the next day at chalons, where his army lay, commanded by marmont, macdonald, victor, and ney. the austrians, under schwarzenberg, had entered france on the 21st of december by the upper rhine, and directed their march on lyons. on the 19th of january, a few days before buonaparte quitted paris, they had already taken dijon, and were advancing on lyons, where, however, they received a repulse. blucher, at the head of forty thousand men, called the army of silesia, about the same time entered france lower down, between mannheim and coblenz, at four different points, and pushed forward for joinville, vitry, and st. dizier. another army of swedes, russians, and germans, under the crown prince of sweden, was directed to assist in clearing holland and belgium, as the crown prince naturally wished to take no part in the invasion of his native soil. whilst, therefore,[78] bernadotte remained to protect belgium, sir thomas graham, who, with general bülow, had cleared holland of the french, except such as occupied the fortress of bergen-op-zoom, remained to invest that stronghold, and bülow and winzengerode entered france by its northern frontier.

as blucher was, as usual, much ahead of the other divisions of the allies, buonaparte resolved to attack him before he could form a junction with schwarzenberg. blucher, informed of his purpose, concentrated his forces at brienne, on the aube, fourteen miles below bar. brienne is only a small village, having but two streets, one of them ascending to the chateau—occupied as a military academy, where napoleon himself received his military education—the other leading to arcis-sur-aube. blucher had quartered himself in the chateau, and was at dinner with his staff, on the 27th of january, when he was astonished to find that buonaparte was already upon him. the chateau being surrounded by a woody park, napoleon had approached under cover of it, and suddenly driven in two thousand russians posted there, and was rushing on to capture the general and all his staff. a most miserable look-out must have been kept by the prussian outposts. blucher and his generals, startled by the terrible uproar, had just time to escape by a postern, and by leading their horses down a flight of steps. recovered, however, from their surprise, the russians turned on the french, and were soon supported by the prussians. the cossacks galloped forward, and nearly succeeded in capturing buonaparte at the head of his troops. one man was laying hands on the man in the grey coat, when gourgaud shot him with a pistol. buonaparte gained possession of brienne, but, like moscow, it was burned over his head, and it was not till eleven o'clock at night that blucher, who had only twenty thousand men engaged, retired, and took up a position at la rothière. it could scarcely be styled a victory, yet napoleon proclaimed it a brilliant one, asserting that he had taken fifteen thousand prisoners and forty pieces of cannon, when he had taken no cannon whatever, and only a hundred prisoners.

immediately after this engagement blucher was joined by part of the grand army, under the prince of würtemberg; he therefore determined to attack napoleon, and on the 1st of february drew out his forces. napoleon would have declined the engagement; but he had the deep river aube in his rear, and only the bridge of lesmont by which to pass it. he preferred, on this account, to risk the battle, rather than retreat in such circumstances. blucher attacked at once from the villages of la rothière, dienville, and chaumont. the battle was severely contested for the whole day, the prince of würtemberg greatly distinguishing himself in it. in the end buonaparte was wholly defeated, lost four thousand prisoners and seventy-three guns, and must have been captured himself, had not the austrians, by surprising slowness, allowed him to escape over the bridge. he then retreated towards troyes, where he was joined by his imperial guard; but his losses had been very heavy. had blucher and schwarzenberg, who had now met, marched on united, they must have been in paris in a very short time; but, with the german fatality of dividing, they had no sooner experienced the benefit of a powerful union than they called a council at the chateau of brienne, and agreed to separate again. blucher, joining to his own the divisions of yorck and kleist, proceeded towards paris by the marne, and prince schwarzenberg followed the course of the seine.

buonaparte saw his opportunity, and, making a movement by a body of troops on bar-sur-seine, he alarmed schwarzenberg, who thought he was intending to attack him in full force, and therefore changed his route, separating farther from blucher. this point gained, buonaparte marched after blucher. that general had driven macdonald from chateau thierry, and had established his headquarters at vertus. sacken was in advance as far as ferté-sous-jouarre, and yorck at meaux, much nearer paris than buonaparte himself. paris was in great alarm. but napoleon, taking a cross-country road, and dragging his artillery by enormous exertions over hedges, ditches, and marshes, came upon blucher's rear, to his astonishment, at champaubert. driving in the russians, napoleon defeated him, taking two thousand prisoners, and most of his artillery; and being thus posted between sacken and blucher, he first attacked and defeated sacken, destroying or squandering five thousand men—about one-fourth of his division—and then turned to attack blucher himself, who was marching rapidly up to support sacken. blucher, finding himself suddenly in face of the whole army of buonaparte, in an open country, fell back, but conducted his retreat so admirably that he cut his way through two strong bodies of french, who had posted themselves on the line of his march, and[79] brought off his troops and artillery safe to chalons. napoleon then turned against schwarzenberg, and on the 17th of february he met and defeated him at nangis. such were the immediate consequences of the folly of dividing the allied forces. in these movements napoleon displayed a military ability equal to that of any part of his career.

the parisians were now afforded proofs that napoleon was once more victorious. the prisoners, banners, and cannon which he had taken were sent forward rapidly to the capital, and ostentatiously paraded through the streets. meanwhile, the allies were so alarmed, that the sovereigns wrote to buonaparte, expressing their surprise at his attacks, as they had ordered their plenipotentiaries to accept the terms offered by his ambassador, caulaincourt. these terms had indeed been offered by caulaincourt, duke of vicenza, at a congress held at chatillon-sur-seine on the 5th of february, and which was still sitting; but the allies had never, in fact, accepted them, and now, as he was again in the ascendant, napoleon was not likely to listen to them. he therefore left the letter unanswered till he should have thoroughly defeated the allies, and then he would dictate his reply.

he next attacked and took montereau from the allies, but at a terrible cost of life. finding then that the austrians and prussians were once more contemplating a junction, he sent an answer to the letter of the allied sovereigns, but it was addressed only to the emperor of austria, and its tenor was to persuade the emperor to make a separate peace. "only gain the austrians," he had said to caulaincourt, on sending him to chatillon, "and the mischief is at an end." the emperor sent prince wenceslaus of liechtenstein to napoleon's headquarters, and it was agreed that a conference should be held at lusigny, between him and count flahault, on the 24th of february. but buonaparte did not cease for a moment his offensive movements. on the night of the 23rd he bombarded troyes, and entered the place the next day. the congress at chatillon still continued to sit, caulaincourt amusing the sovereigns and the ambassador of great britain, lord aberdeen, with one discussion after another, but having secret instructions from buonaparte to sign nothing. at length he wrote to him, on the 17th of february, saying, "that when he gave him his carte-blanche it was for the purpose of saving paris, but that paris was now saved, and he revoked the powers which he had given him." the allies, however, continued till the 15th of march their offer of leaving france its ancient limits, and then, the time being expired, they broke up the conference. it is said that as caulaincourt left chatillon he met the secretary of buonaparte bringing fresh powers for treating, but it was now too late. on the 1st of march the allies had signed a treaty at the town of chaumont, pledging themselves to combined action against napoleon, should he still prove to be obstinate.

a succession of battles now took place with varying success, but still leaving the allies nearer to paris than before. if buonaparte turned against blucher, schwarzenberg made an advance towards the capital; if against schwarzenberg, blucher progressed a stage. to check schwarzenberg whilst he attacked blucher, napoleon sent oudinot, macdonald, and gerard against schwarzenberg; but they were defeated, and napoleon himself was repulsed with severe loss from craonne and the heights of laon. but buonaparte getting between the two allied armies, and occupying rheims, the austrians were so discouraged that schwarzenberg gave orders to retreat. the emperor alexander strenuously opposed retreat; but the effectual argument was advanced by lord castlereagh, who declared that the moment the retreat commenced the british subsidies should cease. a sharp battle was fought on the 20th of march, between schwarzenberg and napoleon, at arcis-sur-aube, and napoleon was compelled to retreat. blucher, who had received the order to retreat from schwarzenberg, had treated it with contempt, and replied to it by his favourite word, "forwards!" napoleon had now to weigh the anxious question, whether it was better to push on, and stand a battle under the walls of paris, with his small, much-reduced force, against the allies, and with the capital in a state of uncertainty towards him—or to follow and harass the rear of the enemy. he seems to have shrunk from the chance of a defeat under the eyes of his metropolis, and he therefore, finding a prussian force in vitry, crossed the marne on the 22nd of march, and held away towards his eastern frontiers, as if with some faint, fond hope that the peasantry of franche comté and alsace might rise and fly to his support. but no such movement was likely; all parts of france were mortally sick of his interminable wars, and glad to see an end put to them. the allies had now taken the bold resolve to march on paris and summon it to surrender.

the emperor francis determined to remain at aube, with the division under general ducca, not[80] thinking it becoming him to join in the attack on the french capital where his daughter ruled as empress-regent; and a body of ten thousand cavalry, under command of winzengerode and czernicheff, was ordered to watch the motions of napoleon and intercept his communications with paris, whilst the russian and prussian light troops scoured the roads in advance, stopping all couriers. blucher, at the same time, having thrown open the gates of rheims, was moving on chalons and vitry, to form a junction with the army of schwarzenberg. the flying parties captured, near sommepuix, a convoy of artillery and ammunition; and, on another occasion, they fell in with a courier bearing a budget of the most melancholy intelligence to the emperor—that the british had made a descent on italy; that the austrians had defeated augereau, and were in possession of lyons; that bordeaux had declared for louis xviii.; and that wellington was at toulouse. these tidings gave immense confidence to the allies. near fère-champenoise the allies met, finding blucher in the act of stopping a body of infantry, five thousand in number, which was bearing provisions and ammunition to the army of napoleon. the column consisted of young conscripts and national guards, who had never been in action, but they bravely defended their charge till they were surrounded by the mingling forces of the two armies, and compelled to surrender.

alexander i.

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the allies now advanced in rapid march. they put to flight the divisions of mortier and marmont, whom buonaparte had posted to give them a check. these divisions lost eight thousand men, besides a vast quantity of guns, baggage, and ammunition. a similar fate awaited a body of[81] ten thousand national guards. at meaux mortier and marmont blew up a great powder-magazine as blucher approached, and then retired beneath the walls of paris. the allies, in three days, had marched seventy miles. on the 28th of march they were in full view of paris, and had driven marmont and mortier close under its walls. the north-east side of paris, on which they were approaching, was the only one then fortified. a ridge of hills along that side, including the heights of belleville, romainville, and montmartre, was defended by an old wall, and there the french authorities had placed the defenders of the city—the shattered forces of the two retreating marshals, bodies of the national guard, and youths from the polytechnic schools, many of them mere boys of from twelve to sixteen years old, some of whom served the guns on the batteries. the whole of the forces left to defend the great and wealthy city of paris amounted to between thirty and forty thousand men.

napoleon signing his abdication. (see p. 83.)

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the other side of the city was only defended by the seine, but the allies, who had first to cross that river, feared that buonaparte might come up and attack their rear while they were doing so. they determined, therefore, to attack the line of fortifications. the most lying proclamations were issued by the ex-king joseph to assure the inhabitants that the bodies of the enemy who came in view were only stragglers who had managed to get past the army of the emperor, who was dispersing the allies most triumphantly. the forces in paris—eight thousand troops of the line and thirty thousand of the national guard—were reviewed in front of the tuileries on a sunday, to impress the people with a sense of security; but on the morning of the 29th the empress and her child quitted the palace, attended by a regiment of seven hundred men, and fled to blois, carrying with her the crown jewels and much public treasure, and followed by nearly all the members of government. the population—unlike their fathers, who stopped marie antoinette in her attempt to escape—suffered this departure with murmurs, but without any attempt to prevent it. when she was gone they began heartily to curse buonaparte for the trouble and disgrace he had brought upon them. that very morning joseph issued a most flaming proclamation, assuring the parisians that the emperor was at hand[82], and would annihilate the last traces of the audacious enemy. but already the assault had commenced, and the next day, the 30th of march, it was general all along the line. the parisians fought bravely, especially the boys from the polytechnic schools; and as the allies had to attack stone walls and batteries, their slaughter was great. joseph rode along the line to encourage them in this useless, because utterly hopeless, waste of life. the allied monarchs had, before commencing the assault, issued a proclamation, promising that all life and property should be strictly protected if the city quietly opened its gates; and, in the midst of the storming, they sent in again, by a french prisoner, the same offer, adding that, should the city be carried by assault, no power on earth could prevent it from being sacked by the enraged soldiers, and probably destroyed. yet joseph did not give the order for capitulation till the whole line was in the hands of the allies, except montmartre. the cossacks were already in the faubourg st. antoine, and bombs flying into the chaussée d'antin. then king joseph, whose lying proclamation was still selling on the boulevards at a sou each, ordered marmont to capitulate; and though he had vowed in his proclamation to stand by the parisians to the last gasp, he then fled after the empress to blois. in this defence four thousand french were killed and wounded, and double that number of the allies, as they had to face the towers and batteries crowded with soldiers and to fight their way up hill.

meanwhile buonaparte had taken the route for troyes and dijon, ignorant of the rapid advance of the allies on paris. never in any of his campaigns does he seem to have been so ill-informed of the movements of the enemy as at this most momentous juncture. on the 26th of march he was attacked by the flying squadrons of winzengerode. at doulaincourt he was startled by learning that paris was on the point of being assaulted by the allies. from this place he dispatched one courier after another to command the forces in paris to hold out, and, ordering the army to march with all speed, he himself entered his carriage and was driven in all haste to fontainebleau. thence he was driving to paris, when, at an inn, called la cour de france, he met general belliard with his cavalry, who gave him the confounding information that the empress, king joseph, and the court had fled; that the allies were in paris, and a convention was signed. at this news he began to rave like an insane man, blamed marmont and mortier—as, during his defeats, he had often bitterly upbraided his generals,—blamed joseph, and everybody but himself, and insisted on going to paris, and seeing the allies himself, but was at length persuaded to return to fontainebleau, and ordered his army to assemble, as it came up on the heights of longjumeau, behind the little river essonnes.

on arriving in paris, the emperor alexander took up his quarters at the house of talleyrand, and there the king of prussia, prince schwarzenberg and others came to consult. talleyrand now spoke out, and declared that it would be madness to treat with buonaparte; the only course was to restore the bourbons, under certain limits. as early as the 12th of march the duke of angoulême had entered bourdeaux, and had there proclaimed, amid acclamations, louis xviii. the comte d'artois came along in the rear of the allied army, and had everywhere issued printed circulars, calling on the people to unite under their ancient family, and have no more tyranny, no more war, no more conscriptions. this paper had also been extensively circulated in paris. on the 1st of april the walls of paris were everywhere placarded by two proclamations, side by side, one from the emperor alexander, declaring that the allied sovereigns would no longer negotiate with napoleon nor any of his family, and the other from the municipality of paris, declaring that, in consequence of the tyranny of napoleon, they had renounced the allegiance of the usurper, and returned to that of their legitimate sovereign. on the same day the senate, under the guidance of talleyrand, decreed that he had violated and suppressed the constitution which he had sworn to maintain; had chained up the press, and employed it to disseminate his own false statements; drained the nation, and exhausted its people and resources in wars of mere personal ambition; and, finally, had refused to treat on honourable conditions: for these and other plentifully-supplied causes, he had ceased to reign, and the nation was therefore absolved from all oaths sworn to him. this decree, on the 2nd and 3rd of april, was subscribed by the public bodies in and around paris. a provisional government was appointed.

caulaincourt, who had been sent by buonaparte from fontainebleau to the allied sovereigns to treat on his behalf, returned, and informed buonaparte of all these events. he declared that he would march on paris; and the next day, the 4th of april, he reviewed his troops, and told them that some vile persons had insulted the tricolour cockade in paris, and they would march there at[83] once and punish them. the soldiers shouted, "paris, paris!" but, after the review, the marshals produced the moniteur, told him what had taken place, and that it was necessary that he should submit. he appeared greatly agitated, and asked them what they wished. lefebvre said, bluntly, that he had been advised by his best friends to make peace in time, when he would have saved everything; there was nothing for it now but to abdicate. napoleon then called for a pen, and abdicated in favour of his son. caulaincourt and ney were to carry this to the allied sovereigns. they inquired what terms they should ask for himself. he replied—"none: i ask nothing." yet, the moment the commissioners were gone, he started up and vowed that he would fight with marmont's corps and the guards, and would be in paris on the morrow.

when ney and caulaincourt saw marmont at essonnes, he informed them that he had entered into a convention with the allied sovereigns on his own account. they begged him to suspend it and accompany them, and he consented. whilst the three commissioners were with the emperor alexander, news was brought that count souham, with whom marmont had left the command of his troops, had gone over, and marched the division into the lines of the allies. on this the emperor said they had better return to napoleon, and assure him that the allies would accept nothing short of an absolute and unqualified abdication. when they announced this to him, to their surprise, he exclaimed, "but what provisions are made for me? how am i to be disposed of?" they replied that it was proposed by the emperor alexander that he should retain the title of emperor; should have the island of elba, a guard, a small fleet, and all the attributes of royalty, with a suitable income. with a mood of mind incomprehensible in any other person, he immediately called for maps and books about elba, and began contemplating his future position, as though he had only been changing one france for another; but there can be no doubt that he, in reality, was weighing the facilities of the place for that effort to regain the empire of france, which he certainly never renounced for a moment. on the 11th of april he drew up a form of unconditional abdication, signed, and dispatched it. ney, macdonald, and caulaincourt arrived with the treaty to which the allied sovereigns had agreed. elba was assigned to him—an island twenty leagues in extent, with twelve thousand inhabitants—and he was to have an income of six millions of francs, besides the little revenue of the island. two millions and a half more were assigned as annuities to josephine, and the other members of his family. the empress was to be created duchess of parma, placentia, and guastella, in full sovereignty. the marshals and other officers of his army were received into the same ranks and dignities in the army of the bourbon sovereign. lord castlereagh, who had arrived after the conclusion of this treaty, pointed out the folly of it, which must have been apparent to every man of the slightest reflection; for, to a certainty, napoleon would not for a day longer than he was compelled observe it in a place like elba, in the very vicinity of france. he declined, on the part of great britain, any concern in it; but to avoid a renewal of the war, he offered no formal opposition. napoleon arrived at elba on the 4th of may.

the provisional government of france lost no time in framing a new constitution, in which the limited monarchy and the house of lords of great britain were imitated. they declared louis xviii., the brother of the last king, louis xvi., the rightful occupant of the throne, and his brothers and the other members of the house of bourbon, after him in due succession. talleyrand was the first to put his signature to this document; and the abbé siéyès, though he did not sign it, declared his adhesion to the abdication of buonaparte. on the 11th of april, the same day that napoleon signed his abdication, the brother of louis, the count d'artois, arrived, and the next day was received by the new government in a grand procession into paris. there was a show of much enthusiasm on the part of the people, but this was more show than reality; the bourbonist party was the only one that sincerely rejoiced at the restoration; and when it was seen that a troop of cossacks closed the prince's procession, the people gave unequivocal signs of disapprobation. the duke of angoulême had already entered the city of bourdeaux amid much acclamation, for the bourbonist interest was strong in the south, and he now came on to paris. the new king, who had been living, since the peace of tilsit, at hartwell, in buckinghamshire, a seat of the marquis of buckingham assigned by the british government for his residence, now went over. louis was a quiet, good-natured man, fond of books, and capable of saying witty things, and was much better fitted for a country gentleman than for a throne. he was conducted into london by the prince regent, and by crowds of applauding people. the prince regent also accompanied him[84] to dover, where, on the 24th of april, he embarked on board a vessel commanded by the duke of clarence, afterwards william iv. he was accompanied by the duchess of angoulême, the prince of condé, and his son, the duke of bourbon. on landing at calais, he embraced the duchess of angoulême, saying, "i hold again the crown of my ancestors; if it were of roses, i would place it upon your head; as it is of thorns, it is for me to wear it."

on the 2nd of may, two days only before buonaparte entered his little capital of elba, louis made his public entry into paris amid quite a gay and joyous-seeming crowd; for the parisians are always ready for a parade and a sensation; and none are said to have worn gloomy looks on the occasion except the imperial guard, now, as they deemed themselves, degraded into the royal guard—from the service of the most brilliant of conquerors to that of the most pacific and unsoldierlike of monarchs, who was too unwieldy even to mount a horse. for a time all appeared agreeable enough; but there were too many hostile interests at work for it to remain long so. in the new constitution, by which the senate had acknowledged louis, they had declared him recalled on the condition that he accepted the constitution framed for him; and at the same time they declared the senate hereditary, and possessed of the rank, honours, and emoluments which buonaparte had conferred on the members. louis refused to acknowledge the right of the senate to dictate a constitution to him. he assumed the throne as by his own proper hereditary descent; and he then gave of his free will a free constitution. this was the first cause of difference between the king and the people. the royalists condemned the new constitution as making too much concession, and the republicans resented his giving a charter of freedom, because it made them the slaves of his will. the royalists soon began to monopolise offices and honours, and to clamour for the recovery of their estates, now in the hands of the people, and these were naturally jealous of their prevailing on the king and his family to favour such reclamations. the clergy, who, like the noblesse, had been stripped of their property, and had now to subsist on annuities of five hundred livres, or about twenty-six pounds sixteen shillings and eightpence a-year, looked with resentment on those who were in possession of the spoil; and the well-known disposition of the king and his family to restore the status and the substance of the catholic church, made those who had this property, and those—the greater part of the nation—who had no religion whatever, readily believe that ere long they would attempt to recall what the revolution had distributed. these suspicions were greatly augmented by the folly and bigotry of the clergy. they refused to bury with the rites of the church a mademoiselle raucour, simply because she was an actress. great tumults arose on the occasion, and the government was compelled to interfere and ensure the burial in due form. the more regular observance of the sabbath was treated as bringing back the ancient superstitions; and the taking up of the remains of louis xvi. and marie antoinette and conveying them to the royal place of sepulture in the abbey of st. denis was regarded as a direct censure of the revolution. it was quite natural that louis xviii. should do this, and equally so that he should show some favour to the surviving chiefs of la vendée; but these things had the worst effect on the public mind, as tending to inspire fears of vengeance for the past, or of restoration of all that the past had thrown down. in these circumstances, the royalists were discontented, because they thought louis did too little for them, and the rest of the community because he did too much. the jacobins, who had been suppressed, but not exterminated, by buonaparte, now again raised their heads, under so mild and easy a monarch, with all their old audacity. they soon, however, despaired of reviving the republic, and turned to the son of their old partisan, philip égalité, the duke of orleans, and solicited him to become their leader, promising to make him king. but the present duke—afterwards king louis philippe—was too honourable a man for their purpose; he placed the invitation given him in the hands of louis, and the jacobins, then enraged, were determined to bring back napoleon rather than tolerate the much easier yoke of the bourbons. carnot and fouché soon offered themselves as their instruments. carnot, who had been one of the foremost men of the reign of terror, had refused to acknowledge the rule of buonaparte, who suppressed the revolution, for a long time, but, so late as the present year, he had given in his adhesion, and was appointed engineer for carrying on the fortifications of antwerp. he had now the hardihood to address a memorial to louis xviii., which, under the form of an apology for the jacobins during the revolution, was in truth a direct attack on the royalists, describing them as a contemptible and small body, who had allowed louis xvi. to be destroyed by[85] their cowardice, and now had brought back the king by the hands of englishmen and cossacks to endeavour to undo all that had been done for the people. he represented kings as naturally prone to despotism, and priests and nobles as inciting them to slaughter and rapine. the pretence was to lead the monarch to rely only on the people; the object was to exasperate the people against kings, nobles, and the church.

elba.

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carnot pretended that this memorial had been published during his absence, and without his knowledge, but he did not deny the composition; and it was most industriously circulated throughout paris from little carts, to avoid the penalties which would have fallen on the booksellers had they issued it. as for fouché, he endeavoured to persuade louis to declare himself attached to the revolution—to assume the tricolour flag and cockade. for louis to have ruled according to the more liberal ideas introduced by the revolution would have been wise, without declaring himself formally the disciple of opinions which had sent so many of his family to the guillotine; but to have followed the invidious advice of fouché would have let loose at once that terrible race of jacobins which had never ceased to massacre all other parties and then their own so long as they had the power. the cannon of buonaparte alone had arrested their career; the advice of fouché would have recalled it in all its horrors. not prevailing on louis to do so foolish an act, he wrote to napoleon, advising him to get away to america, or it would not be long before the bourbons, in spite of the treaty, would seize and put him to death; and then fouché entered heart and soul into the plots of the jacobins for the restoration of napoleon.

whilst these elements of a new convulsion were in active operation, the allies had settled to some extent the affairs of europe, and had returned home. on the 30th of may a treaty had been signed at paris, between britain, russia, austria, and prussia, with france. the boundaries of france were settled as they existed in 1792; it was decreed that holland and belgium should be united to form a strong barrier against france; the independence of switzerland was restored; the north of italy was again made over to austria, including[86] venice, but not including sardinia, which was enlarged by the addition of genoa, out of which lord william bentinck, with a british army, had driven the french. murat had assisted the austrians to conquer eugene beauharnais, and hoped to be allowed to retain naples, yet having many fears of his new allies, the austrians, and of the allies generally. the pope was again in peaceful possession of his states; the arms and the money of great britain had triumphed over buonaparte, and had restored the monarchs of europe to their thrones; but it was not to be denied that in restoring them they had restored so many detestable despotisms.

not one of these monarchs, whose subjects had shed their blood and laid down their lives by hundreds of thousands to replace them in their power, had in return given these subjects a recompense by the institution of a more liberal form of government. the german kings and princes had openly promised such constitutions to induce them to expel buonaparte; and, this accomplished, they shamefully broke their word. as lord byron well observed, we had put down one tyrant only to establish ten. in spain, where we had made such stupendous exertions to restore ferdinand, that monarch entered about the end of march; and his arrival was a signal for all the old royalists and priests to gather round him, and to insist on the annihilation of the constitution made by the cortes. he went to gerona, where he was joined by general elio and forty thousand men. thence he marched to saragossa and valencia. at that city te deum was sung for his restoration, and, surrounded by soldiers and priests, he declared that the cortes had never been legally convoked; that they had deprived him of the sovereignty, and the nobles and clergy of their status; and that he would not swear to the constitution which they had prepared. on the 12th of may he entered his capital, amid the most frantic joy of the ignorant populace, and proceeded at once to seize all liberal members of the cortes, and throw them into prison. wellington hastened to madrid, and with his brother, sir henry wellesley, the british ambassador, and general whittingham, in vain urged on ferdinand to establish a liberal constitution, and govern on liberal principles. it was clear there was a time of terrible and bloody strife before spain between the old tyrannies and superstitions and the new ideas.

in balancing accounts at the congress at paris, there was a resignation on the part of great britain of the colonies which she had won with so much cost of money and men. our statesmen never thought of placing some of the enormous sums we had bestowed on the powers we helped against the islands we had conquered. we had dearly purchased them. but great britain gave back to france all the colonies possessed by her in 1792, except tobago, st. lucia, and the isle of france. still more absurdly, we returned pondicherry, in the east indies, as a focus for fresh annoyances there from the french, whom we had expelled at such cost for their meddling and exciting the natives against us. we restored to the french, under certain conditions, the right of fishing on the bank of newfoundland, as they had enjoyed it in 1783; conditions which they boldly violated, and which the british ministry did not venture to insist on being observed. we gave back also to spain several islands and colonies; and the same to holland—namely, demerara, essequibo, berbice, the immense island of java, and the rich one of sumatra, retaining only the cape of good hope and the settlements in ceylon.

these arrangements having been made, the sovereigns of russia and prussia came over to london on a visit to the prince regent, and to take a look at that wonderful capital which had poured out such torrents of gold to bring up their armies to paris. with them came the duchess of oldenburg, the sister of the czar, the two sons of the king of prussia, and a great number of the victorious field-marshals, generals, princes, dukes, barons, and the like. but the two grand favourites of the people were platoff, whose cossacks had charmed the british people so by their wild prowess, and the bluff old marshal blucher. this was a hero exactly after the british heart—blunt, uncompromising, and, like the british, never knowing when he was beaten.