The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte Part 7

Their Emperor, if his vision had been unclouded, would have understood that endurance, suffering, and privation would make such men an untrustworthy dependence in the hour of need. How changed he was himself is clear from the fact that Bonaparte would never have rested until his foe was disorganized and overpowered, while Napoleon saw himself forced to treat with an opponent who, though beaten, was still undaunted and active. If the victor had been fighting for life, his position would have been morally strong; fighting as a world-conqueror, it was illogical; fighting as equal with equal to repel aggression, it was comprehensible. This last was the att.i.tude into which he was forced by the campaign of Aspern, Essling, Wagram. Francis, whose power he had meant to crush, upon whom a few short weeks before he had heaped insult and abuse, had turned out a most dangerous foe. Technically conquered, it would not be well for his opponent to try conclusions with him again in the still uncertain position of the Napoleonic power. Rather reap the field secured, the daunted conqueror reasoned, than risk devastation by grasping for more. This, and no other, is the explanation of that remarkable somersault in Napoleon's diplomacy which followed in the next few weeks.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER XVII.

The Peace of Schonbrunn.[32]

Schill and the Duke of Brunswick - Andreas Hofer - The Armistice of Znaim - The Northern Powers Adhere to France - Wellesley's Successes in the Peninsula - The Walcheren Expedition - Negotiations for Peace - Austria a Second-rate Power - Attempt on Napoleon's Life - His Great Uneasiness - The Tyrol Subdued - The Pope a Prisoner.

Napoleon's course was probably somewhat influenced both by the mutterings of national discontent in France and by the actual insurrections which were taking place in Germany. Schill, after leaving Berlin, had been successively hara.s.sed by the Dutch, the Westphalians, and the Danes, until in despair he threw himself into Stralsund in hope of cooperation from an English fleet. The city was immediately beleaguered, and on May thirty-first it fell. The King of Prussia had already denounced the gallant adventurer and his companions as a robber band of outlaws. As has been told, the daring patriot was killed in the a.s.sault, and only a hundred and fifty of his comrades escaped. The officers who fled into Prussia were court-martialed, and punished by a light sentence of imprisonment. Those captured in Stralsund were taken to Brest and sentenced to penal servitude. Frederick William, the young Duke of Brunswick, deprived by Napoleon of his throne, and determined to avenge his father, had raised, during the progress of the French campaign in Austria, a corps of Bohemian and other adventurers, which was soon famous for its extraordinary exploits, and became world-renowned as the Black Legion. With this force, a.s.sisted by that of the Austrian commandant in Franconia, General Kienmayer, he defeated the Saxons at Nossen, a French army under Junot at Berneck, and repelled King Jerome of Westphalia; he then seized Dresden, Leipsic, and Lindenau, holding at the time of Wagram a considerable portion of Franconia. Napoleon's victory rendered his situation desperate, but with fifteen hundred men he cut his way northward through Leipsic, Halle, Halberstadt, and Brunswick, defeating the Westphalian, Saxon, and Dutch troops which sought to intercept him, and reached the sh.o.r.es of the North Sea at Elsfleth, where, seizing a merchant flotilla, he embarked with his men for England. He was received in London with jubilation, and was richly pensioned for his heroic adventures.

Almost simultaneously the Tyrolese, taking advantage of Lefebvre's withdrawal, rose again. The exploits of their hero, Andreas Hofer, form a romantic episode of history, but they very indirectly affected the central story, if at all. In the five weeks intervening between Aspern and Wagram, that able and devoted man had virtually reorganized his country and cleared it of intruders. Even the double invasion of French and Bavarians, on one side from Klagenfurth, on the other down the valley of the Inn, was successfully repelled. The tactics of Hofer's men were most effective against regular troops, who, marching in thin lines through mountain defiles, were cut down by sharp-shooters, overwhelmed with rocks hurled from high ledges over the precipitous walls of ravines, entrapped by ambushes, or slaughtered by the scythes, clubs, and pitchforks of the peasantry.

Leaving Eugene to hold the Marchfeld, Napoleon and his army pressed on after Marmont in pursuit of Charles. Before Znaim, which was reached on the eleventh, the vanguard had just suffered something very like a repulse, and the Emperor made ready for another battle if it should be necessary. In the very midst of the preparations came a proposition from Charles for an armistice. After a long discussion by the French generals, Napoleon accepted it. "You must fight only when the hope of any fortunate turn is gone," he wrote about this time; "for in its nature the result of a battle is always doubtful." The Archduke's motive was to gain time. The Emperor Francis had accepted a plan proposed by John for a reunion of the Austrian armies on the confines of Hungary to continue the war, and he was still hoping to retrieve the blunder he had made in not negotiating on equal terms with Prussia. He therefore acquiesced in Charles's proposal, though not intending the armistice as a preliminary of peace. Napoleon affected uncertainty, and demanded an enormous cession of territory as the price of a truce. Francis in turn demurred, but finally yielded. To this again Charles, confident in his ability to carry on the war, would not listen. His quarrel with Francis and John was growing more bitter; and the Emperor felt that in order to compose the family difficulties and allay jealousies, time must now be gained at any price. Francis therefore persisted, Charles resigned the command, and the former a.s.sumed it himself.

The Austrian Emperor's first step was to open negotiations in the hope of prolonging them until he could rearrange the control of his army and recuperate his strength, trusting that in the interval the kaleidoscope of European diplomacy might entirely change. He was not disappointed in the fact of a change, but the change was far different from what he had expected. The King of Prussia now definitely withdrew the propositions which he had half-heartedly made before Wagram. He thought it was better to reign behind the Oder than not to reign at all. The Czar kept the promise made at Erfurt most unwillingly; but having at last secured Finland, he felt bound to fulfil the letter of his engagement. Prince Galitzin had been put at the head of thirty thousand unwilling Russians, and sent to invade Galicia. Crossing the frontier, his officers declared their distaste for the task, and knew they were reflecting the sentiments of an overpowering majority of their own nation. The invasion turned out a farce, and was rather in the nature of a friendly reception by the inhabitants.

Francis therefore hoped for something from Alexander's lukewarmness. The latter, however, would do nothing, for nominally, and in occasional skirmishes really, he was fighting Turkey, and meant, after the peace, to claim the fulfilment of Napoleon's promise. It would be impolitic to jeopardize his whole ambition by any deviation from the letter of the Erfurt agreement. Francis therefore was informed that he must make the best terms with Napoleon that he could. As to Great Britain, the chances seemed better. In the seas that bordered Italy and the Ionian Isles, off the coasts of Spain and Portugal, on the waters of the Baltic, her flag was seen. Wellesley had been landed in the Iberian peninsula, and, driving Soult before him, had not only expelled the French from Portugal, but had defeated Victor at Talavera, and was preparing for the invasion of Spain. The English government had in readiness another army of forty thousand men and another fleet of thirty-five s.h.i.+ps of the line. Where best could they employ them? After long deliberation the selfish policy was adopted of using them, not to cripple Napoleon, but for England's immediate advantage. They were not sent to reinforce Wellesley and insure the conquest of Spain, nor to save Schill, nor to strengthen Austria. By any one of these courses the European uprising against the French emperor would have been inaugurated that very year.

As it was, they were despatched to destroy the dockyards of the Netherlands, where it was said, and perhaps believed, that Napoleon was building s.h.i.+ps to dispute British supremacy at sea. After disembarking on the island of Walcheren, the army combined with the fleet in a successful attack on Flus.h.i.+ng, which fell on August fifteenth. This was their only success. Fouche raised an army of national guards, and Bernadotte, who, having incurred the Emperor's displeasure at Wagram for his slowness and lack of success, had been sent home in disgrace, was induced to put himself at its head. The army and navy officers of the English disagreed as to how they should meet him. The result was separation and disaster; the fleet sailed back to England and the army withdrew to Walcheren, where it was held in check while the swamp-fever devastated its ranks. About the same time a plague also broke out in the Austrian army, and, as was claimed, destroyed its efficiency. Wellesley, unsupported, saw himself threatened by a flank movement of Soult and drew back, while, in August, Sebastiani defeated a division of the Spanish army.

These were the circ.u.mstances which turned the pretended peace negotiations of Francis into reality. When proceedings first began at Altenburg they were simply farcical. Napoleon really needed peace, if Prussia and Russia were meditating war; but the first proposal made by Austria he scorned, and talked of Francis's abdication, with a part.i.tion of Hapsburg lands among the new Napoleonic states. When the nominal plenipotentiaries, Champagny and Metternich, actually met, the former still scouted anything like reasonable terms, demanding for his Emperor the lands occupied by French troops. The Austrian, anxious to gain time, replied with equally impossible propositions. But as the summer pa.s.sed, and Francis's hopes of support grew fainter and fainter, he sent a personal representative, General Bubna, to Napoleon, and this plenipotentiary began to display sincerity. Thereupon the Emperor of the French manifested his earnest desire for peace. So far he had relied on the Czar, who stood by the alliance in the face of his people's opposition. How much longer, Alexander must have asked himself, could this state of things continue? It was praiseworthy in him that he cared nothing for popular opinion, but he might not be able to hold out against it much longer. It was very significant that in a formal note just received from St. Petersburg by the hand of a Russian officer, Alexander advised peace. To this messenger, when speaking of the chances for renewing hostilities, Napoleon exclaimed in undisguised horror, "Blood, blood, always blood!" And then, with a sudden change of manner, he said: "I am anxious to get back to Paris." Like his generals, the Emperor of the French was plainly sick of war. His sad countenance, like theirs, was an open book in which the Russian could clearly read this important fact. Indeed, the anxious, war-worn, unsettled Napoleon actually contemplated an alliance with Austria. It was clear that if her territories were left intact she would gladly join in one. He had need to be done with her in order to settle his affairs in Spain and elsewhere. But he feared Francis, and hoped that such a vacillating temporizer might abdicate in favor of some thoroughly trustworthy successor. Napoleon confessed to Bubna that he admired the Austrian troops; they were as good as his own, and under his leaders.h.i.+p would be victorious. Champagny's demands, he admitted, were not final, but certain territories on the south, on the west, and in Galicia he must have.

With this understanding, full powers were given to Prince Liechtenstein, and he went direct to Schonbrunn. The terms of peace turned out very hard indeed. A war indemnity of a hundred million francs was first incorporated in the treaty itself; but afterward, in a secret article, Francis was required to reduce his army to a hundred and fifty thousand men, and the indemnity was diminished to eighty-five millions. This would have been an awful burden to lay on the empire even as it had been, and Austrian territory was now to be seriously diminished. Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, and the Inn quarter went to the Confederation of the Rhine, New Galicia to the grand duchy of Warsaw, along with a large district in East Galicia and the town of Cracow. A small strip of the same province was reserved for Russia. But the most deadly blow was the const.i.tution of a subsidiary government, to be known as Illyria, by the surrender directly to France of Gorz, Monfalcone, Triest, Carniola, Willach in Carinthia, and Croatia east of the Save. This made Austria not only a second-cla.s.s, but an inland power, cutting her off entirely from the sea; but she was, nevertheless, to enter the Continental System against England, and recognize all that Napoleon had done or might do in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. These were the hard but imperative conditions which the Emperor laid down. Liechtenstein accepted them subject to his sovereign's approval.

But the conqueror was in haste. On October twelfth there had been a great review of his troops at Schonbrunn. In the crowd was a youth, scarcely more than a child, who pressed forward to gain access to Napoleon. His urgency attracted the attention of Berthier, and he was seized by General Rapp. On his person was a large knife, and he openly avowed his purpose of a.s.sa.s.sination. He was confronted with his intended victim. His name, he said, was Staps, and he was the son of a Protestant pastor at Naumburg. The Emperor coldly asked what he would do if pardoned. "Try again to kill you," was the culprit's reply. He avowed no penitence, but declared he had no personal feeling. He would gladly have reasoned with Napoleon, he further said, if he could but have gained an interview; if unsuccessful in his plan, he would have thought it a deed of honor to smite down the world's oppressor. The would-be a.s.sa.s.sin was secretly shot, and the police had instructions to say, if there should be much talk, that he was crazy. This event seemed deeply to impress the intended victim with the intensity of feeling among the common people of Germany, and he was anxious to be gone. His fears were well founded; a.s.sa.s.sination was in the minds of many unbalanced men. A captain in the Austrian army actually sought a furlough, giving as his reason that he desired to kill Napoleon.

This mania for a.s.sa.s.sination completed the depression of spirits which for some time past had been noticeable in the French emperor. Severely wounded in the great toe at Ratisbon, he had there been compelled to exercise enormous self-control to prevent a panic in the army. Knocked senseless by a fall from his horse on the road to Schonbrunn, he had for the same reason been forced to enjoin silence on nearly two hundred persons who were aware of the fact. At Essling he had thought it necessary to throw himself into the bullet hail to sustain the morale of his troops, and having saved Lannes from drowning during a preliminary reconnaissance of the Danube banks, he had finally lost him under the most distressing circ.u.mstances. To cap the climax of these experiences, it now seemed as if his own life were in constant jeopardy. When, therefore, the official articles of the peace were drawn up on the fourteenth, and Liechtenstein departed to lay them before Francis, the French cannon did not wait for formalities, but proclaimed the peace as already made. The next night Napoleon was on his way to Paris.

The armistice of Znaim had utterly crushed the hopes of the Tyrolese, but they continued to fight in despair. The peace of Schonbrunn set free the entire French army to overwhelm them. A second double invasion was organized. Prince Eugene offered amnesty to the insurgents, and the Austrian ministry advised them to cease resistance. But Hofer had by this time convinced himself that his mission was more than earthly. After some hesitation, he refused to accept Austria's advice, and the conflict was renewed. The Tyrolese were now alone, and after a vain resistance the combatants dispersed among the mountains. The land was again reduced to submission. Hofer remained safely hidden for some time, but he was eventually betrayed, captured, and sent to Mantua for the formality of a trial. Napoleon's directions to Eugene were very concise. Whenever the order should reach him, the viceroy was to name a court-martial, try the prisoner, and have him shot. Throughout suffering and imprisonment the hero displayed the greatest firmness, and met his death with lofty devotion. In the previous spring, when at Austria's instigation the Tyrol had risen, he had been enn.o.bled; ten years later the t.i.tle and estates of Pa.s.seyr were bestowed on his family. Among the eastern Alps the name of Andreas Hofer is like that of William Tell among the mountains of Switzerland. His rugged virtues are celebrated in verse, and tradition lingers about his haunts.

Napoleon's decree of May seventeenth, depriving the Pope of his secular power, reached Rome in due time, and Murat proceeded without delay to execute it. There were no difficulties, for it will be remembered that in February General Miollis had occupied the city. A committee of administration was immediately named, whose duties were to prepare the way for incorporation with Italy. On June tenth formal proclamation was made that Pius VII was no longer a secular prince, his dominion having pa.s.sed to the King of Italy. He was still to reside in Rome as spiritual head of the Catholic Church. That night the Pope promulgated a bull excommunicating Napoleon and his adherents, favorers, and councilors. Unlike similar instruments of his predecessors, it contained a clause declaring the punishment to be purely spiritual, and prohibiting every one from using it as a sanction for attack on the persons of those against whom it was issued. On the night of July fifth a French general with his guard forced the doors of the Quirinal palace, and demanded from Pius a formal renunciation of his secular power. The Pope having firmly and quietly refused, he was informed that he must make ready to leave the city. At three the next morning he was placed in a carriage with a single cardinal, and on a second dignified and solemn refusal to comply was carried to Florence. There he was separated from his one companion and put in charge of the gendarmes. Traveling by day and night, sometimes in a litter, sometimes by sea, the aged man was finally brought to Gren.o.ble. The devout French of that city could not understand the secrecy and haste of his journey, and hastened to pay him homage. So great were the crowds and so intense was the feeling that very soon his presence in France was considered dangerous. He was therefore carried back to Savona, where he remained a state prisoner under rigid supervision in decent but plain apartments until 1812, when he was conducted to Fontainebleau and lodged like a prince.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER XVIII.

Napoleon's Fatal Decision.[33]

Napoleon's Explanations to Alexander - His New Manner - Sad Plight of Josephine - The Divorce Announced and Confirmed by the Senate - Negotiations for the Czar's Sister - Napoleon's Impatience - His Desire for a Great Match.

The treaty of Schonbrunn was a flagrant violation of the agreement made between Napoleon and Alexander at Erfurt, inasmuch as it materially enlarged the grand duchy of Warsaw and thus menaced Russia with the reconstruction of Poland. "Clearly," said Rumianzoff to Caulaincourt, "you want to be rid of the Russian alliance, and to subst.i.tute for it that with the grand duchy." Alexander was very angry, but, though in the strict observance of forms he had been irreproachable, his conduct in the real support of his ally had not been sincere. His people were more embittered with the French alliance every day, and Napoleon knew how both the nation and the Czar would feel when they were informed that provinces occupied by Russian troops had been a.s.signed to Poland. Francis, wroth as he was, had not dared to disturb the popular joy so loudly expressed over Napoleon's premature announcement of peace. Accordingly, on October twentieth, 1809, the very day in which the papers were signed and ratified, an explanation was sent to Alexander by the Emperor of the French. It pleaded that he could not abandon a friendly people to Austria's vengeance, but declared that he would guarantee their good behavior under Saxon rule; as for the names of Poles and Poland, for all he cared, they might disappear from history. The Czar accepted the excuse with what grace he could, for the part.i.tion of Turkey was not yet accomplished. But the peace of Schonbrunn marked the initiation of a policy which dissolved the peace of Tilsit. There could now no longer be any serious question of marriage between members of the two courts. Compelled by circ.u.mstances to choose between a dual alliance with a first-rate power which must share on equal terms in the dominion of the world, and one with a second-rate power whose armies were surpa.s.sed by none, Napoleon had deliberately chosen the latter, as the shortest way to absolute and complete supremacy, to the a.s.sertion of a sovereign will over a conquered universe.

Napoleon's return to Paris was celebrated in the manner usual after a victorious campaign. The departments of government issued the most fulsome addresses; subsidiary and va.s.sal kings crowded to offer their congratulations; there were the ordinary manifestations of popular joy, and no one seemed to remember that the Emperor had been smitten by the papal bolt. But men remarked a great change in his bearing and expression. Cambaceres said that he seemed to be walking in the midst of his glory. Moreover, he withdrew from the capital, and held his court in Fontainebleau. The air was all surcharged. The Duc de Broglie tells us in his memoirs that he had seen the Empress early that year, surrounded by the brilliant throng of "ladies in waiting, ladies of the court and palace, accompanied by the train of 'readers,' which composed the harem of our sultan, and enabled him for a time to endure the painted old age of the former sultana." The truth which underlies this is notorious, and the scene over the divorce before the Emperor's departure for the campaign just concluded bears witness to the depth to which Josephine had fallen in her desperate attempts to retain both her place and some portion of Napoleon's tenderness.

From the collection of W. C. Crane.

EUGeNE BEAUHARNAIS.

Drawn by Vigneron after Le Gros.

Napoleon himself had long since announced that he was superior to plain virtues, and the list of his paramours was daily growing longer and better known. But all this self-abas.e.m.e.nt on the part of Josephine and all the self-indulgence of Napoleon could not do more than postpone the judgment day. "My enemies," the Emperor was accustomed to cry out-"my enemies make appointments at my tomb." He could not rest content with an empire for himself which he knew would break of its own weight on his death unless he left a legitimate heir. On his return from Austria his resolution to divorce the Empress was taken, and Eugene was summoned to convey it to his mother. Josephine, though forewarned, was still unable to realize the fact. She behaved well; her own long career of intrigue, license, and extravagance forbade recriminations, and besides, she was to enjoy the t.i.tle and state of an empress for life. Still, as women under the Directory loved, she loved her husband, and there had been much tenderness between them, neither taking very seriously the infidelities of the other. To the end, even after the moderate beauty and great physical charm of her middle age were transformed into the faded colors and form of old age (for she was old at forty-five), and when the arts of the toilet could no longer conceal the ravages of time and license, there still continued to exist between the Empress and her second husband a mutual good will and a feeling of comrades.h.i.+p engendered by the memories of adventure, risk, plots, and gains encountered side by side through a married life of thirteen years. She had little intellect and not much character, but she had much feminine sweetness and many soft, winning ways. Her only weapon, therefore, in the hour of defeat was tears, and those she shed abundantly. When the paroxysms of grief were over, the Emperor made a display of tenderness, and the Empress manifested a gentle and affecting courage.

On December fifteenth, 1809, before the grand council held in the Tuileries, the divorce was p.r.o.nounced, and the next day it was confirmed by decree of the senate. Josephine withdrew to Malmaison to drag out her remaining years in empty state, for the support of which she had a grant of two million francs a year. To the hour of her death, five years later, she a.s.serted her love for Napoleon, and in general she displayed great anxiety for his welfare and success. Posterity has always felt a certain tenderness for the unfortunate woman who was raised so high and then cast down so suddenly. She was not virtuous, she was not strong, she was not even very beautiful. Her wrong-doing was like the naughtiness of household pets, impulsive but not malicious, deceitful but without rancor, determined but quickly deprecated. For this reason her misfortune has veiled her weakness and softened the harshness of men's judgment.

Almost a month before the formal divorce Caulaincourt had received instructions to address the Czar on the question of marriage between his sister Anne, now sixteen years of age, and the Emperor of the French. The amba.s.sador was to make no formal demand, but was to ask for some expression of general intentions and feelings. Alexander was in the provinces, and did not return until the middle of December. Meantime Caulaincourt, after careful inquiry, had learned that the young princess was frail in health and not yet of marriageable age. The letter to his master conveying this information was crossed by one of Napoleon's making a formal demand. The difference in confessional adherence was of no account, he said, and an immediate answer was desired. "Take as your standpoint that children are wanted." This put the Czar in a serious dilemma. An alliance with France was still near his heart. By the treaty of Friedrichshamn, which had been signed on September ninth, 1809, he had secured Finland at last, but of the other splendid projects suggested at Tilsit and confirmed at Erfurt not one was realized. Aside from the chagrin he had felt at the war with Austria, and its menacing results in the enlargement of Poland, there was now an additional cause of anxiety; for in the conflict with Turkey his troops had but recently been driven back across the Danube. If he broke with Napoleon he might even lose Moldavia and Wallachia, and realize nothing further. A few weeks had softened the displeasure he felt after Schonbrunn, and he now began to shower favors on Caulaincourt, expressing the greatest anxiety for the match. The youth of the princess was, however, a serious obstacle, and he must consult his empress-mother. Of course the dowager made every objection to the marriage; she was an ardent sympathizer with the old Russian party, and hated Napoleon. There is little doubt that she was entirely right, moreover, in declaring at last as an insuperable obstacle that her daughter was too young. Alexander then turned his whole attention to cajoling the French amba.s.sador in order to gain time. He had always been more Napoleon's friend than his ally, he said; surely the Emperor would grant a delay for a few months.

But this was exactly what the suitor would not do. His dignity forbade him to abide the empress-dowager's time; the divorce had been p.r.o.nounced, and state reasons made his marriage imperative. "To adjourn is to refuse," he replied; "and besides, I want no strange priests in my palace between my wife and me." This was apparently a complete somersault, for it meant that either Alexander must yield or the alliance would be jeopardized. No one can divine from the evidence exactly which alternative Napoleon desired; but in view of his general character, of the treaty he had made with Francis, and of subsequent events, it was probably the latter. He could have used the Czar's compliance to found his dynasty, but he seems to have made up his mind that Austria was the better dependence. Besides, he had very serious reasons of state for urgency. He recognized at every step of his career that his power rested in the popular will, not on tradition or theories. Hence, at every moment two purposes were immediate: first, to keep the popular favor; second, to transform his tenure of power by the infusion of a dynastic element.

In the winter of 1809 the people of France were not comfortable. The promised peace with England seemed again postponed; the war in the Spanish peninsula was still raging; the Continental System was steadily undermining public prosperity. There was stagnation in the great French seaports; hand in hand with commerce, both industry and trade were languis.h.i.+ng. The great southern towns, deprived of their Spanish market, were nearly bankrupt. In addition the clergy and their adherents were thoroughly roused by the treatment of the Pope. On the other hand, the Emperor's personal popularity was also suffering serious ravages. In the new administrative system the places which led to promotion had now for a long time been given to members of the old n.o.bility; the recipients looked on them as their right, and neither they nor their families were grateful, while the st.u.r.dy democracy felt slighted and injured. Even the new n.o.bility grew more unmanageable with every day. In full possession of their estates, t.i.tles, and incomes, they felt their independence, and refused to be longer guided by the hand which had led them into their promised land. They had allied themselves with the oldest families in France, and the haughtiness of family pride led them to feel condescension for the great adventurer whose blood so far flowed in no aristocratic veins. It seemed to Napoleon that in order to secure popular good will he must restore prosperity, which was not easy, and to a.s.sert a moral ascendancy over his court he must make a suitable match, which was easy enough. Neither must be half done; his prestige required a great stroke, and it was better to make the match first, and thereby ease the tension until England could be brought to terms-with Russia's aid if possible, without it if necessary.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER XIX.

The Austrian Marriage.[34]

Anxieties of the Austrian Court - The Plan for a Matrimonial Alliance with Napoleon - Opening of Formal Negotiations - The Deliberations in Paris - Napoleon's Decision - The Czar's Indignation - The Ceremonies at Vienna - Napoleon's Preparations - His Meeting with Maria Louisa - The Wedding - Gifts and Rejoicings - Impressions of the New Empress - The New Dynasty.

1809-10.

The court of Vienna had regarded what were apparently preparations for a matrimonial alliance between France and Russia with nothing less than consternation. Such an arrangement would, if consummated, temporarily seal the political bond already existing, and might guarantee it indefinitely. The empire of Austria, already shorn of so many fair territories, was no longer a first-rate power. The language used by Napoleon after the armistice of Znaim about Francis and the necessity for his abdication, had made a deep impression in view of the events at Bayonne. Was the ancient monarchy really to be humiliated and remain permanently dismembered? Not if an imperial alliance was the only thing necessary to secure Napoleon's favor. There was an archd.u.c.h.ess of the proper age, and the house of Hapsburg was far more ancient and splendid than the house of Romanoff.

Among the many confidential agents of Napoleon concerned in formulating the treaty of Schonbrunn was a certain Alexandre de Laborde, who had once been in the Austrian service and knew Vienna well. Remaining behind after his employer's departure, he wrote a memoir in December, 1809, which, though sent to Maret, was intended for the Emperor himself, and was seen by him. In it is detailed a conversation with Metternich, in which the latter had first vaguely and then distinctly spoken of a match between Napoleon and the Archd.u.c.h.ess Maria Louisa. This, it was explained, was to be considered only in case the divorce should take place, and the Austrian minister declared that his master knew nothing of the project. There is no reasonable doubt that Laborde's statement was substantially true, for as long as there was glory in being the author of the suggestion Metternich claimed the credit of it, and, in a letter of September eleventh, 1811, categorically a.s.serted that it was his; but after Napoleon's fall he declared that the scheme originated in France, and it was then said that Napoleon had himself taken the initiative, on a hint from Schwarzenberg, the new Austrian amba.s.sador in Paris. Whether Napoleon or Francis was the suitor, it soon transpired that both were willing. When, therefore, the former learned that the fate of the Russian alliance was in the hands of the empress-dowager, he gave the surly answer already quoted, and turned toward Austria. During the pathetic scene of the divorce he formally a.s.serted that having lost hope of offspring by his well-beloved spouse, he was about to sacrifice the tenderest emotions of his heart for the welfare of his people. Being but forty years old, he might still hope to bring up children and train them in his own ideas. Josephine gave her consent to the dissolution of her marriage, because it was an obstacle to the well-being of France, in that it stood in the way of her country's future government by the descendants of a great man.

To emphasize this thought, the Emperor employed two devices. The first was to produce an effect intended for home consumption. After the battle of Wagram, Stadion, the Austrian minister of foreign affairs, who had advocated the war, resigned; Metternich, who had been called from the emba.s.sy at Paris to negotiate the peace on his master's side, remained in Vienna to succeed Stadion, and Prince Schwarzenberg was appointed to France. But the Countess Metternich was still in Paris. The Beauharnais family-Eugene with the Austrian amba.s.sador, Josephine and Queen Hortense with Frau von Metternich-opened the negotiation for securing Maria Louisa as the second Empress of France. To remove all religious scruples, the bishops' court of Paris met, and on January fourteenth p.r.o.nounced Napoleon's first marriage null.

The second device was to lay before an extraordinary council the two alternatives and ask their decision. Murat, Cambaceres, and probably Fouche, voted for Russia. Fouche, like Talleyrand, had long been suspected of playing not for Napoleon's, but for his own interest. A certain independence of conduct and language which he had displayed in raising the national guards to repel the Walcheren expedition had awakened further suspicion in the Emperor's mind, and there had been plain speaking between them. The minister of police, according to one account, now declared that there were only two parties in Europe-those who had gained and those who had lost by the Revolution; that Russia belonged to the former, and was the true ally for the French empire. It was believed that this argument was an endeavor to regain the Emperor's favor, for the words have a Napoleonic ring. The majority of the council, however, was under Maret's leaders.h.i.+p, and after a long, vague harangue from Talleyrand, in which he seemed to concur with Maret, expressed itself in favor of Austria. From immemorial times she had been the pivot of every Continental coalition against France. She was now irritated, and must be soothed.

Napoleon's friends a.s.sert that he himself really favored the Russian alliance, but looked on the request for delay as a covert refusal, and considered himself the victim of circ.u.mstances. This is not probable, for Maret was still his confidential man; at any rate, the Emperor accepted the decision of the majority. Accordingly, a family council was next called, and the matter was laid before them. There was no doubt as to the conclusion: they declared for the Austrian marriage. The formalities of arrangement were speedily concluded. Berthier, the Prince of Neuchatel, was named amba.s.sador extraordinary to marry the Archd.u.c.h.ess by proxy at Vienna, and the date was fixed for March eleventh, 1810. The news was received at the Austrian capital with jubilation. The populace had already lost much of its bitterness against the French, for they had convinced themselves that in the last war their own cabinet had been the aggressor. Stadion's resignation was probably to many minds a confession of the fact, though in reality it merely marked a change of policy. The French wounded were nursed by the Viennese with tender care, and even under the lash many turned to regard the strong hand which wielded it as probably the only power able to restore peace and bring back its blessings. In judicious minds the French alliance, even if not a high-spirited course, was popular because it guaranteed Austria on the east against Russia and on the west against France. If her ident.i.ty were not destroyed, she might hope at some distant day to regain her strength and her place in Europe.

At St. Petersburg the news produced different effects. The conservatives were not greatly disturbed, for now they were freed from the possible disgrace of an imperial marriage with the Bonapartes, and they could put up with the insult if only it should break the bonds which tied them to the hated Continental System of Napoleon. But the Czar was outraged; he had been personally insulted, and his policy was toppling. He had secured nothing, he would be the laughing-stock of his people, and he could no longer justify himself in resistance to popular tendencies. He was likewise true-hearted enough to feel the loss of a friend, and proud enough to smart under the feeling that he had been duped. Much of this he concealed, although his suite thought they could discern all these emotions. In the face of both Austria and France he could not attack the deed itself. Caulaincourt a.s.sured him in Napoleon's name that the match had no political character, and changed nothing in the personal friends.h.i.+p which his Emperor continued to feel. He insinuated that the real cause of the decision was the religious difference. But this Alexander would not accept. "Congratulate the Emperor on the choice he has made," was the reply. "He wants children; all France wants them for him. The decision was the one which should have been taken, but it is fortunate that the matter of age stopped us here. Where would we have been if I had not spoken of it to my mother? What reproaches could she not have heaped on me? What must I not have said to you? for it is clear you were dealing in both quarters. Why," he concluded, "has anything been said about the difference in religion, when at the outset the Emperor declared it would be no obstacle?" Thus was reached the second stage in the dissolution of the famous alliance of Tilsit.

The scenes in Vienna were brilliant in the extreme. On the one hand, they marked the Austrian approach to democracy, because for the first time the tricolor was displayed in the streets, and the rigid etiquette of the Hapsburgs, preserved from h.o.a.ry antiquity with pious care, snapped at every turn which Berthier took. On the other hand, they marked the approach of France to absolutism. Napoleon ordered that his bride should receive the same presents as those which Louis XV had ordered for Maria Leszcynska, the splendors of the ceremonial were to be royal, the new Empress's train was arranged according to the same model, the itinerary of her journey was marked out as a royal progress. The civil contract was signed on the tenth; the religious ceremony occurred on the eleventh, as appointed; and then followed a banquet where Berthier was absolved from all the ceremonies considered obligatory upon one of his rank in the Hofburg. Three days later the new Empress was handed to her traveling-carriage by the Archduke Charles, and amid salvos of artillery, mingled with the cheers of the populace, she set forth. There were a few signs of discontent among little knots who collected to curse their national humiliation, and the aristocracy were not reconciled to see Prince Esterhazy in the role of guide to the Prince of Wagram, as Berthier had now been styled by imperial decree in Paris. But, on the whole, Europe was impressed with a sense of Francis's sincerity. The father went forth a day's journey to spend an evening alone with his daughter and bestow in parting his paternal blessing on a child who had saved her country. Her journey through Bavaria and Wurtemberg was one long ovation, for these countries believed their welfare to be bound up with that of France. On the twenty-sixth her cortege, having pa.s.sed by way of Strasburg, was moving toward Soissons.

After the divorce Napoleon had withdrawn in solitude to the Trianon at Versailles, as if to mourn his widowhood the appointed and decent time in silence. The spot chosen had a significance with reference to the coming celebrations. For a week he spent his days in the unaccustomed but truly royal occupation of field sports. Once he visited Josephine at Malmaison. The next months he had spent again in Paris conducting the matrimonial negotiations and arranging every detail of the etiquette to be observed in the c.u.mbrous ceremonial which he had devised for the celebration of his marriage in France. When all was completed to his satisfaction he left for Compiegne to supervise the arrangements made for the reception of his new consort, and spent the last week of waiting there. Of all his family the giddiest and most worldly was his sister Pauline. She and his sister-in-law, the sensible and charming Queen of Westphalia, were chosen to advise and counsel regarding matters of dress and behavior. The latter wrote to her brother a full account of the Emperor's pa.s.sionate expectation. During these days his occupations were singularly human. Much of the time was spent in trying on gorgeous clothes: gold-laced coats, and embroidered waistcoats, which had been sent by Paris tailors. Some of it was pa.s.sed in the acquisition of accomplishments, notably in learning to waltz. Every day he sent a letter with flowers to meet the new Empress at every stage of her progress, and every day he received a reply from her written in correct French.

At last she reached the close of the final stage, and her bridegroom went out to meet her. Half-way between Soissons and Compiegne were pitched three splendid pavilions. Her suite was to remain in that nearest their last lodging, his in that nearest the palace, the bridal pair were to meet in the central tent, where, according to the custom of feudalism, she was to kneel and pay homage to her liege as his foremost subject. But when the Emperor heard that his bride was so near, his impatience seemed to break through all bounds. Entering his carriage without ceremony or warning, and attended by only a single companion, the King of Naples, he drove far past Soissons until the carriages met, when he stepped out of his own, tore open the door of the other, and entered with the eagerness of a youthful lover to embrace his bride. The prearranged stops were countermanded, and the same evening, at ten, the wedding-train reached Compiegne. Such was the lover's ardor that he again flung propriety to the winds, and, claiming the validity of the procuratorial ceremony at Vienna, slept under the same roof with his bride, instead of in the chamber furnished for his use in one of the administrative buildings. As an excuse for this conduct he pleaded the example of Henry IV.

Next day the ladies and gentlemen of the Empress's court were presented, and formally took the oath of office. On the morrow St. Cloud was reached in the imperial progress; and two days later, on April first, the civil ceremony of marriage was performed in the presence of all the great dignitaries of the empire, including all the cardinals but two. Excepting only those who pleaded their age or infirmities, the entire college had been transplanted from Rome to Paris shortly after the seizure of the Pope. There was the usual festival at night, accompanied by salvos of artillery, with illuminations of the palace grounds and fountains. The weather, like the date, was untoward, but the Parisian populace streamed out in spite of pouring rain to get a foretaste of the more magnificent spectacles soon to follow. The solemn procession of the bridal pair into the capital occurred next day, and the religious ceremony was celebrated in the great gallery of the Louvre, before an a.s.sembly declared at the time to be the most superb ever seen in France, except for one ominous fact-the twenty-seven cardinals were absent. They protested that their absence was an empty form, due only to the circ.u.mstance that Pius VII had not sanctioned the divorce. But Napoleon was as keenly sensitive to the effectiveness of forms as any Roman prelate; the offenders were banished from Paris, stripped of their great revenues, and forbidden to wear the color or insignia of their office. The popular speech dubbed them black cardinals.

In the first outburst of enthusiastic loyalty, Paris and the nation could not sufficiently manifest their joy. The illuminations were lavish, the crowds exuberant, the presents to the Empress superb. Among the latter was a complete toilet service of silver-gilt, including not merely small vessels, but large pieces of furniture, such as an arm-chair and cheval gla.s.s. Apparently the French people felt a.s.sured that they had exchanged an old, worn-out dynasty for a new and vigorous one. They were jubilant at the thought of peace and safety, which seemed to a generation cradled under royalty to be even yet impossible in Europe except in connection with a great conquering family. It was for this they poured forth their sentiment and their substance, not for the affection they bore the new Empress.

Measured by a certain standard, Maria Louisa was beautiful. Her abundant light-brown hair softened the high color of her brilliant complexion, her eyes were blue and mild, her features had the pretty but uncertain fullness of her eighteen years, her glance was frank and untroubled; but her lips were full and heavy, her waist was long and stiff, her form was plump like a child's, and her timidity and self-consciousness were uncontrollable. The French taste inclines to lines in the human form which suggest a lithe and sinewy figure; the French instinct seeks in the expression signs of quick emotion, not to say pa.s.sion; the French eye knows but one standard of taste in dress; that alone is natural to French feeling which is the product of self-control and consummate art. In all these respects the Austrian archd.u.c.h.ess was woefully deficient. She was pious, and, as her letters declare, had spent much of the previous winter in praying that Providence would choose another consort for Napoleon. But with the resignation of her faith, which some call fatalism, and with the obedience which German life demands from all women, even those of the highest station, she had accepted her destiny. These qualities, combined with her capacity for motherhood, soon gained a courteous and affectionate support from her husband, and together they defied both irreconcilable royalists and radical republicans, who, in spite of their ever-waning influence and ever-thinning ranks, still annoyed the Emperor by significant whisperings and glances. Both were in despair because the strongest indictment they had urged was now quashed. One pretext of England, Napoleon declared, had been that he intended to destroy the ancient dynasties of Europe. Circ.u.mstances having opened the way to his choice of a consort, he had used the opportunity in order to destroy the flimsy plea under which Great Britain had disturbed the nations and had stirred up the strife which had inundated Europe with blood. Metternich heard people wondering in Vienna whether a new French dynasty was really to be established for the peace and welfare of France, or whether the alliance was intended to throw the strength of a hitherto implacable and courageous foe into another Napoleonic combination for the conquest of Europe and the world.

The solution of this enigma has never been found. There was at the moment a lull in the storm; for a time it seemed as if it would lengthen into a prolonged calm. During the ceremonies at the Louvre the Austrian amba.s.sador, who had taken to himself the credit of what was pa.s.sing, and had impressively accepted the congratulations showered on him, caught up a wine-gla.s.s from the breakfast-table, and, appearing at the window, announced in a loud voice that he drank to the "King of Rome," a t.i.tle reserved under the Holy Roman Empire for the heir apparent. It was but a short time since Schwarzenberg's proud master had renounced his proudest style, that of Roman emperor. The crowd knew that the toast as now given was intended for Napoleon's issue, and they burst into cheers at this new sign of Austrian amity. The captive Spaniards at Valencay were not to be outdone. They chanted a "Te Deum" in their chapel, and drank toasts to the health "of our august sovereigns, the great Napoleon and Maria Louisa, his august spouse." Ferdinand set a climax to his disgusting obsequiousness in a pet.i.tion begging to be adopted as a son, and asking for permission to appear at court. Compiegne, whither the imperial pair soon returned, was crowded with royal personages, with the most distinguished diplomatists, and with the couriers bearing congratulatory despatches from persons of consequence throughout Europe.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER XX.

Rigors of the Continental System.[35]

Measures of Ecclesiastical Procedure - Reforms in the Church - Napoleon as Suzerain of the Pope - Methods of Defying the Continental System - Measures to Enforce it - Rearrangement of German Lands - Napoleon as a Smuggler - "Simulated Papers" - Evasions of the Imperial Restrictions - Visit to the Netherlands - Napoleon and his Brother Louis - The Latter Defiant - Louis's Negotiations with England - Fouche's Interference - His Counterplot.

1810.