World's Best Histories Part 7

Nelson still breathed. "Where is Hardy?" he repeated; "if he does not come to me, it is because he is dead." The captain presently came down, too much moved to utter a word. "How is it now with us?" said the dying man.

"All goes well," said Hardy; "ten vessels have already lowered their flag.

I see that the French are signalling to the vanguard to tack about. If they come against the _Victory_ we will call for aid, and give them a beating." "I hope none of our s.h.i.+ps have surrendered," said Nelson. "There is no danger," replied Hardy, who returned to his post. When he reappeared, Nelson's eyes were closed. The captain stooped over him. "We have fifteen prizes," said he. "I counted upon twenty," murmured the dying man. Then rousing himself, "Anchor, Hardy, anchor; give the signal! Kiss me ... I am satisfied. Thank G.o.d, I have done my duty." He expired,--just forty-seven years of age.

The French Admiral Magon was still defending the _Algesiras_, attacked by the _Tonnant_; he wanted to board her, but his deck was swept by the grape shot of fresh a.s.sailants. Himself threatened with being boarded, the admiral repulsed the English, axe in hand, at the head of his sailors. He was covered with wounds. Bretonniere, become flag officer by the death of his seniors, implored Magon to have his wounds dressed; as he yielded to the request, a cannon-shot penetrating between decks struck him in the chest, and he was dead. The _Algesiras_ at last hauled down her flag, at the moment when the _Achille_, for some time already the prey of flames which the crew had no time to extinguish, blew up with a terrific explosion. Thus ended the battle. Admiral Gravina rallied round him eleven vessels; a few had at an early period withdrawn from the combat. Admiral Dumanoir, who had not succeeded in engaging his vanguard, had already retired. The English carried off seventeen vessels, for the most part too shattered to be of service. The unfortunate French admiral was received by the conquerors with the honor due to his bravery. A few months later, when released by the enemy, Villeneuve in despair was to die by his own hand in an inn at Rennes, writing in the last moment these heartrending words: "What a blessing that I have no child to receive my horrible inheritance, and live under the weight of my name!"

The last orders of Nelson in dying, recommended the fleet to be anch.o.r.ed; Collingwood judged otherwise, and waited till daylight. Already Admiral Gravina had taken his vessels into the port of Cadiz, when a furious tempest broke forth, irresistible by the s.h.i.+ps so dreadfully damaged in the conflict. The English had so much to do in looking after their own safety that they could not attend to their prizes, and the officer having charge of the _Bucentaure_ resigned it to the French commanders: the unfortunate vessel perished on the coast, opposite Cape Diamant.

Indomitable in defeat as in battle, the officers and sailors of the _Algesiras_ forced their guardians to surrender the vessel. They at last escaped death, after two nights of anguish and struggle. At their side the _Indomptable_, all hung with lanterns, its deck crowded with a despairing crew, was forced from its anchors by the hurricane, and shattered against the rocks. The English lost all their prizes but four; they were compelled to sink the _Swiftsure_, captured by Admiral Ganteaume and which they were intent on recapturing from us.

Nelson had made the request in dying, "Do not cast my poor body into the sea." The most extraordinary honors awaited in England the remains of this great seaman: the broken mast of his flag-s.h.i.+p, and one of the French bullets whicn struck him, still attract attention in a room at Windsor.

The whole nation put on mourning; the politicians forgot the embarra.s.sment which he had more than once caused them, and which had drawn from one of them the expression, "He is an heroic c.o.c.kney." The splendor of his military genius, his devotion to his country, the n.o.ble simplicity of his character, inspired all minds with respect. The hero of the struggle against France, he fell at the height of his glory. He had taken part in nearly all the maritime victories which had signalized the war: the names of Aboukir, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar render his memory glorious.

The emperor bore the blow of his defeat without showing despondency or anger. "All this makes no change in my cruising projects," wrote he on the 18th November, to Admiral Decres; "I am even annoyed that all is not ready. They must set out without delay. Cause all the troops that are on board the squadron to come to me by land. They will wait my orders at the first town in France."

Napoleon was then at Znam in Moravia, and the date of his letter told the story of his astonis.h.i.+ng successes. Abandoned by the King of Prussia, with whom the Austrians and the Russians had turned to account the violation of his territory, Napoleon prepared to dispute Hanover with new enemies, without modifying his general plan, and without renouncing his march upon Vienna. The Russian army of Kutuzof alone barred his way; but already it was commencing a clever movement of retreat, never fighting without necessity, firm and resolute, however, when attacked. The Russians pa.s.sed the Danube at Krems, destroying the bridges behind them. They committed great ravages during their march, and had gained the ill-will of the Austrian corps who went with them, and who fell back upon Vienna. With great imprudence General Mortier had been detached on the left bank of the Danube, where he was attacked by the larger portion of the Russian army at the very moment when he found himself separated from the division of Dupont. In spite of the heroic resistance of the French soldiers the danger was imminent. Mortier was urged to take to a boat, and not deliver to the enemy a marshal of France. "Who would leave such brave men?"

replies Mortier; "we will be saved or perish together." A road lay open across the ground occupied by the Russians, to the village of Dernstein; the soldiers of General Dupont entered it at the same time from another direction. They hastened by forced marches to the succor of the marshal.

Napoleon's anger fell heavily on Murat, whom he accused, not without reason, of vainglorious levity. Already the brilliant general of cavalry had presented himself at the gates of Vienna. The Emperor Francis had not wished to expose his capital to the horrors of a siege; when he saw the proposals for an armistice rejected which he had addressed to Napoleon (November 8th) he prepared to quit Vienna. Less menacing than at Ulm, the conqueror no longer invited the Emperor of Austria to meditate upon the fall of empires: he reminded him that the present war was for Russia only a fancy war; "for your Majesty and myself it is a war that absorbs all our means, all our sentiments, all our faculties." Fifteen days later Napoleon entered the palace of Schoenbrunn. Thanks to a ruse, more daring than fair, Murat had succeeded in carrying the bridges of Vienna at the moment when the workmen were preparing to blow them up; he was on the march for Moravia, pursuing the Russians, with the co-operation of Mortier and Bernadotte.

By his superior ability Napoleon struck his enemies at once with terror and astonishment, paralyzing their forces by their anxiety at the unforeseen blows he dealt them. The Archduke Charles had long remained immovable on the Adige; when he at last commenced his retreat he marched to the a.s.sistance of the threatened empire, and was pursued by Ma.s.sena.

The marshal attacked the archduke in his camp of Caldiero after having seized Verona by night, and had fought him on the sh.o.r.es of the Tagliamento; he was now approaching Marmont, who occupied the Styrian Alps. The Archduke Charles rallying the remains of the army of his brother, the Archduke John, was engaged with him in Hungary, in order to rejoin the Russian army in Moravia. Before the two ma.s.ses of the enemy could reach Brunn, and in spite of the clever manoeuvre of Kutuzoff, who succeeded before Hollabrunn in concealing from Murat and Lannes the great bulk of his army, the French were, on the 19th of November, in possession of the capital of Moravia. Napoleon entered it next day.

The Emperor Alexander joined the Emperor of Austria at Olmutz. Proud of his diplomatic successes at Berlin, and convinced that his visit to the King of Prussia had alone decided him to attach himself to the coalition, he nursed a military ambition, a.s.siduously encouraged by his young favorites. The Emperor Francis sent Stadion and Giulay to Brunn, commissioned to treat for conditions of peace. Napoleon referred them to Talleyrand, whom he had sent to Vienna. "They know the state of the question by what I have said to them in a few words," wrote he; "but you have to treat it smoothly and at full length. My intention is absolutely to have the State of Venice, and to reunite it to the kingdom of Italy. I have good cause to think that the court of Vienna has taken its resolution on that point."

Napoleon was wis.h.i.+ng for peace--immediate, glorious, and fruitful. He had vainly sought to separate the Austrians from the Russians; he could not doubt the hostile intentions of Prussia. The very explanations that Haugwitz had just given him as to the motives for the entry of a Prussian army into Hanover foreshadowed plenty of approaching hostilities: a brilliant victory, forestalling the union of the German and Russian forces, became necessary. For a few days the soldiers rested, recruiting their forces after their long and perilous marches. The impatience of the Emperor Alexander had already carried the general quarters of the allies to Wischau. It was there that General Savary presented himself, intrusted with aimless negotiations, which gave him opportunity to examine the condition of the Austro-Russian army. Prince Dolgorouki, sent from Brunn with the reply of the Emperor Alexander, was received at the advanced posts. The young favorite was thoughtless and proud. "What do they want of me?" said Napoleon. "Why does the Emperor Alexander make war on me? Is he jealous of the growth of France? Well, let him extend his frontiers at the expense of his neighbors on the side of Turkey, and all quarrels will be at an end." Dolgorouki protested the disinterestedness of his master. "The emperor wishes," said he "for the independence of Europe, the evacuation of Holland and Switzerland, an indemnity for the King of Sardinia, and barriers round France for the protection of its neighbors." Napoleon broke out in a pa.s.sion: "I will never yield anything in Italy, even if the Russians should camp upon the heights of Montmartre." He sent back the negotiator, who had perceived the movements of troops falling back around Brunn. Ignorant of the great principle which directed the campaigns of Napoleon--"divide in order to subsist, concentrate in order to fight"--he thought he divined the preparations for retreat. The ardor of the Russian army grew more intense. It advanced towards the position long studied by Napoleon, and which he destined for his field of battle. In accordance with the plan of the Austrian general, Weirother, who was in great favor with the Emperor Alexander, the allies had resolved to turn the right of the French army, in order to cut off the road to Vienna by isolating numerous corps dispersed in Austria and Styria. Already the two emperors and their staff-officers occupied the castle and village of Austerlitz. On December 1st, 1805, the allies established themselves upon the plateau of Platzen; Napoleon had by design left it free. Divining, with the sure instinct of superior genius, the manoeuvres of his enemy, he had cleverly drawn them into the snare. His proclamation to the troops announced all the plan of the battle.

"Soldiers," said he, "the Russian army presents itself before you to avenge the Austrian army of Ulm. These are the same battalions which you have beaten at Hollabrunn, and that you have constantly pursued to this place.

"The positions that we occupy are formidable, and whilst they march to turn my right they will present me their flank.

"Soldiers, I will myself direct your battalions. I will keep myself away from the firing if, with your accustomed bravery, you carry disorder and confusion into the enemy's ranks. But if the victory were for a moment uncertain you would see your emperor expose himself to the brunt of the attack; for this victory will finish the campaign, and we shall be able to resume our winter quarters, where we shall be joined by new armies which are forming in France. Then the peace I shall make will be worthy of my people, of you, and of me."

It was late, and the emperor had just dismissed Haugwitz, whom he had sent back to Vienna. "I shall see you again if I am not carried off to-morrow by a cannon-ball. It will be time then to understand each other." Napoleon went out to visit the soldiers at the bivouac. A great ardor animated the troops; it was remembered that the 2nd December was the anniversary of the coronation of the emperor. The soldiers gathered up the straw upon which they were stretched, making it into bundles, which they lit at the end of poles; a sudden illumination lit up the camp. "Be a.s.sured," said an old grenadier, advancing towards the chief who had so many times led his comrades to victory, "I promise thee that we will bring thee to-morrow the flags and the cannon of the Russian army to signalize the anniversary of the 2nd December."

The fires were extinguished, and the enemies thought they saw in it the indication of a nocturnal retreat. Gathered around a map, the allied generals listened to Weirother, who developed his plan of battle "with a boasting air, which displayed in him a clear persuasion of his own merit and of our incapacity," says General Langeron, a French emigrant officer in the Russian army. Old Kutuzof slept. "If Bonaparte had been able to attack us, he would have done it to-day," was the a.s.surance of Weirother.

"You do not then think him strong?" "If he has 40,000 men, it is all." "He has extinguished his fires; a good deal of noise comes from his camp." "He is either retreating or else he is changing his position; if he takes that of Turas, he will spare us a good deal of trouble, and the dispositions of the troops will remain the same." The day was scarcely begun (2nd December, 1805) when the allied army was on the march. The noise of the preparations in the camps had rea.s.sured Napoleon as to the direction the enemy would take. On the previous evening, whilst listening to the learned lecture of Weirother, Prince Bagration, formerly the heroic defender of the positions of Hollabrunn, had uttered under his long moustache, "The battle is lost!" In seeing his enemies advance towards the right, as he had himself announced to his soldiers, Napoleon could not withhold the signs of his joy. He held the victory in his own hands. He waited patiently until his enemies had deployed their line. The sun had just risen, s.h.i.+ning through the midst of a fog, which it dispersed with its brilliant rays. The plateau of Pratzen was in part abandoned; the emperor gave the signal, and the whole French army moved forward, forming an enormous and compact ma.s.s, eager to hurl itself on the enemy. "See how the French climb the height without staying to respond to our fire!" said Prince Czartoriski, who watched the battle near the two emperors. He was still speaking when already the allied columns, thrown out one after another on the slope, found themselves arrested in their movement and separated from the two wings of the army. Old Kutuzof, badly wounded, strove in vain to send aid to the disordered centre. "See, see, a mortal wound!" he cried, extending his arms towards Pratzen.

During this time the right, commanded by Marshal Davout, disputed with the Russians the line of Goldbach, extricating with the division of Friant General Legrand for a moment outflanked. Murat and Lannes attacked on the left eighty-two Russian and Austrian squadrons, under the orders of Prince John of Lichtenstein. The infantry advanced in quick time against the Uhlans sent against them, soon dispersed by the light cavalry of Kellermann. The Russian batteries drowned the sound of all the drums of the first regiment of the division of Cafarelli. General Valhubert had his thigh fractured, and his soldiers wished to carry him away. "Remain at your posts," said he calmly. "I know well how to die alone. We must not for one man lose six." The Russian guard at last turned towards Pratzen. A French battalion, which had let itself be drawn in pursuit, was in danger.

Napoleon, stationed at the centre with the infantry of the guard, and the corps of Bernadotte, perceived the disorder. "Take there the Mamelukes and the cha.s.seurs of the guard," said he to Rapp. When the latter returned to the emperor he was wounded, but the Russians, were repulsed, and Prince Repnin prisoner. A Russian division, isolated at Sokolnitz, had just surrendered; two columns had been thrown back beyond the marshes. The bridge broke under the weight of the artillery. The cold was intense; and the soldiers thought to save themselves by springing upon the ice, but already the French cannon-b.a.l.l.s were breaking it under their feet. With cries of despair they were engulfed in the waters of the lake. Generals Doctoroff and Keinmayer effected their painful retreat, under the fire of our batteries, by a narrow embankment, separating the two lakes of Melnitz and Falnitz. Only the corps of Prince Bagration still kept in order of battle, Marshal Lannes having restrained his troops which were rus.h.i.+ng forward in pursuit.

The day had come to a close; the two emperors had abandoned the terrible battle-field. Behind them resounded the French shouts of victory; around them, before them, they heard the imprecations of the fugitives, the groans of the wounded, unable any longer to keep on their way, the complaints of the peasants ravaged by the furious soldiery. They arrived thus at the imperial castle of Halitsch, where they found themselves next day pressed by Marshal Davout. Austerlitz became the headquarters of the conqueror.

Before even having reached a place of safety the Emperor Francis, gloomy and calm, had in his own mind taken his decision. Prince John of Lichtenstein was sent to ask from Napoleon an armistice and an interview.

The conqueror was still traversing the field of battle, attentive in procuring for his soldiers the care that their bravery merited. "The interview, when the emperor will, the day after to-morrow, at our advanced posts," said he to the Austrian envoy; "until then, no armistice." Whilst Napoleon was speaking to his army and to Europe, Marshal Lannes and the cavalry were already pursuing the vanquished enemy.

"Soldiers, I am satisfied with you," said he in his proclamation of the 3rd December, 1805. "You have upon the day of Austerlitz justified all that I expected from your intrepidity. An army of 100,000 men, commanded by the Emperors of Russia and Austria, has been in less than four hours either cut up or dispersed, and what escaped from your steel is drowned in the lakes. Forty flags, the standards of the Imperial Guard of Russia, a hundred and twenty pieces of cannon, twenty generals, and more than thirty thousand prisoners are the results of this ever-memorable day. In three months this third coalition has been vanquished and dissolved. Soldiers, when all that is necessary in order to a.s.sure the happiness and prosperity of France shall be accomplished, I will lead you back into France; there you will be the object of my most tender solicitude. My people will see you again with joy, and it will suffice for you to say, 'I was at the battle of Austerlitz,' to receive the reply, 'There is a hero!'"

The army rested, intoxicated with pride and joy. The losses, considerable in themselves, were small in comparison with the disasters inflicted on the coalition; the arrogance of the Russians had undergone a most painful check; the youthful illusions of their Czar cruelly dissipated. The Emperor of Austria informed him of his pacific intentions, and Alexander hastened to release his allies from their engagements; he was in a hurry to retire and disengage himself from a war which could procure for him no other advantage than a vain hope of glory.

Napoleon repeated his former sentiments to the Emperor Francis when he met him next day at the mill of Paleny, between Nasiedlowitz and Urschitz. "Do not confound your cause with that of the Emperor Alexander. Russia can to- day only make a fancy war (_une guerre de fantaisie_). Conquered, she retires into her deserts, and you pay all the costs of the war." Then, gracefully returning to the courtesies of society, the all-powerful conqueror made excuses for the poor place in which he was compelled to receive his ill.u.s.trious host.

"These are the palaces," said he, "which your Majesty has compelled me to inhabit for three months past." "Your visit has succeeded sufficiently well for you to have no right to bear me any grudge," replied the Emperor Francis. The two monarchs embraced, and the armistice was concluded. The Russians were to retire by stages, and the seat of negotiations was fixed at Brunn. A formal order from Napoleon was necessary in order to stop the march of Marshal Davout in pursuit of the Russian army. General Savary was entrusted with this order; he brought to the Czar the conditions of the armistice. "I am satisfied, since my ally is," replied Alexander, and he allowed to escape from him the expression of an admiration which was long to exercise over him a profound influence. "Your master has shown himself very great," said he to Savary.

Napoleon left Talleyrand at Brunn exchanging arguments with Stadion and Giulay; he himself repaired to Vienna, where Haugwitz awaited him.

Imperfectly instructed as to the alliance concluded on the 3rd of November at Potsdam between the King of Prussia and the allies, he knew enough of it to break forth in violent reproaches against the perfidy of the Prussian Government. And as Haugwitz made excuses and protests, the Emperor proposed to him all of a sudden that union with France which had been so often discussed. Hanover was to be the price of it. Prussia was uneasy, frightened, divided in her councils, but she accepted; the Marquisate of Ans.p.a.ch, the Princ.i.p.ality of Neufchatel, and the Duchy of Cleves were ceded to France, and the treaty was signed at Schonbrunn on the 15th December, 1805. Prussia recognized all the conquests of Napoleon; the two sovereigns reciprocally guaranteed each other's possessions.

Talleyrand had just quitted Brunn, which had become unhealthy through the overcrowding of the hospitals; the negotiations were being carried on at Presburg. In spite of the wise and prudent counsels of his minister, Napoleon was resolved on exacting from Austria still more than he had declared before Ulm. The defection of Prussia had thoroughly disheartened the plenipotentiaries of the Emperor Francis. The French armies concentrated afresh around Vienna. Napoleon was doubly imperious, threatening to recommence the war; the negotiators at length yielded to necessity. On the 26th of December, 1805, peace was signed at Presburg between France and Austria. The Emperor Francis abandoned to the conqueror Venice, Istria, Frioul, and Dalmatia, which were to become part of the kingdom of Italy; the Tyrol and Vorarlberg, of which Napoleon made a present to Bavaria; the outlying territories of Suabia, handed over to Wurtemberg; the Brisgau, Ortenau, and the city of Constance, which were added to the territories of the Elector of Baden. Napoleon ceded to the Emperor the Princ.i.p.ality of Wurtzburg for one of the archdukes; the secularization of the Teutonic Order was agreed upon to the profit of Austria; the latter power was to pay a war indemnity of forty millions.

The small German princes, who beheld their possessions increased and their t.i.tles made more glorious by the powerful hand of the conqueror, were in their turn to pay the price of the terrible alliance which weighed upon them. The new Kings of Wurtemberg and Bavaria found themselves obliged to give their daughters to Jerome Bonaparte and to Eugene de Beauharnais; the marriage that the former had contracted in America, and the betrothal of the Princess of Bavaria to the son of the Elector of Baden, weighed nothing in the balance in comparison with the iron will of Napoleon.

Intimidated and restless, the Elector of Baden himself broke off the marriage of his son, accepting for him the hand of Stephani de Beauharnais, niece of the Empress Josephine. Before taking the road to France, the Emperor was present at the marriage of the vice-King of Italy with the princess whose portrait he had seen a few days before upon a porcelain cup. Everything had yielded to his power,--sovereigns, families, and hearts. Russia and England alone remained openly enemies. "Rest awhile, my children," said the Archduke Charles in disbanding his army; "rest awhile, until we begin again."

I have been desirous of conducting General Bonaparte, now become the Emperor Napoleon, up to the popular summit of his glory. He had already tainted it by many acts of violence, and by an exclusive devotion to personal ends, in defiance of justice and liberty. Henceforward and under the disastrous inspirations of a mad ambition, victory itself was to become a fatal seduction which by inevitable degrees draws us on to ruin.

Great and terrible lesson of Divine justice on the morality of nations!

Starting from the violation of the peace of Amiens, and in spite of the glory of the sun of Austerlitz, the history of the glory of the conqueror includes in germ the history of his fall, and of the ever-increasing misfortunes of France.

CHAPTER IX.

GLORY AND CONQUEST (1805-1808).

Guizot has said at the commencement of his essay on Was.h.i.+ngton: "There is a spectacle as fine as that of a virtuous man struggling with adversity, and not less salutary to contemplate; it is the spectacle of a virtuous man at the head of a good cause and a.s.suring his triumph."

There is a spectacle, sorrowful and sad, also salutary to contemplate in its austere teachings: it is that of a man of genius bearing along in his train an enthusiastic nation, and squandering all the living forces of his genius and his country in the service of a senseless ambition, as fatal to the sovereign as the people, both foolishly dragged along by a vision of glory towards injustices and crimes not at first foreseen. Such is the spectacle offered to us by the history of the Emperor Napoleon, and of France, after the battle of Austerlitz and the Peace of Presburg.

For the moment a stupor seemed to oppress the whole of Europe. Prussia, humiliated and indignant, had, however, just ratified the treaty of Schonbrunn; Austria was panting and conquered; England had lost her great minister: William Pitt died 23rd January, 1806, struck to the heart in his patriotic pa.s.sion, by the new victory of the conqueror whom he dreaded for the liberty of the world. "Roll up this map of Europe," said he when the news was brought to him as he lay dying in his little house at Putney, "in ten years time there will be no further need for it." Already his rival had succeeded him in office, and Fox did not yet foresee that he would presently be inevitably brought to adopt the policy of resistance to the long increasing power of Napoleon. He was then making cordial advances towards him. The Emperor Alexander had not disarmed, but the appeals to him from the Court of Naples found him immovable. Already the Bourbons were trembling on the thrones they still occupied.

Napoleon announced it in his thirty-seventh bulletin, dated from Vienna.

"General Saint Cyr marches by long stages towards Naples, to punish the treason of the queen, and hurl from the throne this criminal woman who has violated everything that is held sacred among men." Intercession was attempted for her with the Emperor. He replied, "Ought hostilities to recommence, and the nation to sustain a war of thirty years, a perfidy so atrocious cannot he pardoned."

In this struggle between violence and treason the issue could not remain long doubtful. In the name of Joseph Bonaparte, Ma.s.sena commanded the army which came to take possession of the kingdom of Naples. For the second time, King Ferdinand and Queen Charlotte took refuge in Sicily. "It is the interest of France to make sure of the kingdom of Naples by a useful and easy conquest," the _Moniteur_ had formerly declared, in publis.h.i.+ng the treaty of neutrality agreed to by the House of Bourbon. The work was accomplished; on the 30th of March, Joseph Bonaparte was proclaimed King of the Two Sicilies. The city of Gaeta alone was to prolong its resistance.

Two months later, with the appearance of the national consent, Napoleon elevated his brother Louis to the throne which he had inst.i.tuted for him in Holland. The prince had been ordered to protect this country, threatened by the Anglo-Swedish army. After the battle of Austerlitz he presented himself before the Emperor. "Why have you quitted Holland?"

demanded the latter brusquely, "we saw you there with pleasure, and you should have remained there." "Sounds of a monarchical transformation circulate in Holland," replied Louis Bonaparte, "they are not agreeable to this free and worthy nation, nor are they any more pleasant to me."

Napoleon broke out into a pa.s.sion. "He gave me to understand," says Prince Louis in his _Memoires_, "that if I had not been more consulted over this affair, it was for a subject only to obey." At the same time the Emperor wrote to Talleyrand, "I have seen this evening Admiral Verhuell. In two words hear what this question amounts to. Holland is without executive power. It requires that power, and I will give it Prince Louis. In place of the Grand Pensionary Schimmelpenninck, there shall be a king. The argument is that without that I shall not be able to give peace a firm settlement. Prince Louis must make his entry into Amsterdam within twenty days." The accession to the throne of the new monarch was celebrated on the 5th June, 1806.

Napoleon disposed at his will of crowns and appanages, elevating or dethroning kings, magnificently dowering the companions of his military life and the servants of his policy. He had at the same time conceived the idea of forming beyond his States a barrier which should separate them from the great German powers, always secretly hostile. The dukes and the electors whom he had made kings, the princes whose domains he had aggrandized, were to unite in a confederation for the protection of the new State of Germany. The seat of government was established at Frankfort.

The town of Ratisbon, formerly honored by the a.s.semblies of the Diet, had been ceded to Bavaria. The Diet was officially informed that Prussia received a decisive authorization to form in its turn a confederation of the North. Most of the German States having been forcibly taken from him, Francis II voluntarily resigned the vain t.i.tle he still bore; he ceased to be Emperor of Germany, and became Emperor of Austria.

Meanwhile the overtures of Fox towards France had until now remained without result. England refused to treat without Russia, whom the Emperor would not admit to a common negotiation. "Regrets are useless," wrote Fox to Talleyrand on the 10th April, 1806; "but if the great man whom you serve, could see with the same eye with which I behold it, the true glory which would accrue to him from a moderate and just peace, what good fortune would not result from it for France and for all Europe?"

In the depth of his soul and in his secret thoughts Napoleon now desired peace. Amongst the English prisoners detained in France after the rupture of the treaty of Amiens, a few had been exchanged since the advent of Fox to the ministry; one of them, Lord Yarmouth (afterwards Lord Hertford), elegant and dissipated, had been commissioned by his government to talk over familiarly with Talleyrand the chances of peace that existed between the two nations. Napoleon had conceded Hanover to Prussia as the price of peace; he was ready to retrocede it to England, free to indemnify Prussia at the expense of Germany. The negotiation was carried on secretly, the negotiators meeting as men of the world rather than diplomats. Oubril, an envoy from the Emperor Alexander, had just arrived in Paris, charged with rea.s.suring France on the subject of a circ.u.mstance which had recently taken place in Dalmatia. The Russian admiral, Sinavin, animated with unseasonable zeal, with the aid of the Montenegrins had seized the mouths of the Cattaro. The Austrian officers, appointed to hand over the territory to the French, had not opposed any resistance to the Russians.

The two Emperors of Austria and Russia hastened to disavow their agents; on 20th July Oubril signed with France a separate peace.

This was failing in loyalty towards England, who had refused to treat without its ally. The Emperor of Russia perceived it; he had thought the cabinet of London more inclined to conclude peace at any cost. The health of Fox was giving way, and his successors were likely to be less favorable to the demands of Napoleon. Alexander declared that he would not ratify the treaty negotiated by Oubril. This news arrived at Paris on the 3rd of September, 1806. On the 13th of the same month Fox expired in London, amiable and beloved to the last day of his life; ardently devoted to his friends, to freedom, to all n.o.ble and generous causes; a great orator and a great debater; feeble in his political conduct even in opposition, incapable of governing and of sustaining the great struggle which for so long agitated Europe. At his death the party of resistance resumed power in England. In Germany the secret of the negotiations with regard to Hanover had transpired; the disregard of sworn faith which Prussia had more than once practised during the war fell back upon herself with crus.h.i.+ng weight. Napoleon thought nothing of his engagements; he had detached King Frederick William from his natural allies, and showed himself disposed to s.n.a.t.c.h from him the price of his compliance. The nation and the king had with great difficulty accepted the treaty negotiated by Haugwitz; indignation broke forth on every side. It had already betrayed itself for a few weeks past by numerous and violent pamphlets against the Emperor of the French and against the armies of occupation. Napoleon responded to them by a despotic and cruel act which was to bear bitter fruits. On the 5th August he wrote to Marshal Berthier:--

"My cousin,--I imagine that you have had the booksellers of Augsburg and Nuremberg arrested. My intention is that they should be indicted before a military tribunal, and shot within twenty-four hours. It is no ordinary crime to spread libels in places where the French army is stationed, in order to excite the inhabitants against it. It is a crime of high treason.