Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume IV

TOUR THROUGH BELGIUM

The Emperor undertook a tour through the provinces of Flanders and Holland with his young Empress, with the view of enforcing his views and purposes in church and state. In the course of this journey, one or two remarkable circumstances took place. The first was his furious reproaches to the clergy of Brabant, who, more rigorous Papists than in some other Catholic countries, had circulated among their congregations the bull of excommunication fulminated by the Pope against Napoleon. The provocation was certainly considerable, but the mode of resenting it was indecently violent. He was especially angry that they appeared without their canonical dresses. "You call yourselves priests," he said; "where are your vestments? Are you attorneys, notaries, or peasants? You begin by forgetting the respect due to me; whereas, the principle of the Christian Church, as these gentlemen" (turning to the Protestant deputies) "can teach you, is, as they have just professed, to render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's. But you – you will not pray for your sovereign, because a Romish priest excommunicated me. But who gave him such a right? Perhaps it is your wish to bring back tortures and scaffolds, but I will take care to baffle you. I bear the temporal sword, and know how to use it. I am a monarch of God's creation, and you reptiles of the earth dare not oppose me. I render an account of my government to none save God and Jesus Christ. Do you think I am one formed to kiss the Pope's slipper? Had you the power, you would shave my head, clap a cowl on me, and plunge me in a cloister. But if you preach not the Gospel as the Apostles did, I will banish you from the empire, and disperse you like so many Jews. – And, Monsieur le Préfet, see that these men swear to the Concordat; and take care that the orthodox Gospel be taught in the ecclesiastical seminaries, that they may send out men of sense, and not idiots like these." Thus closed this edifying admonition.

The Dutch were under the necessity of assuming the appearance of great rejoicing; yet even the danger of indulging their blunt humour, could not altogether restrain these downright merchants. When the Emperor made a stir about establishing a Chamber of Commerce at Amsterdam, one of the burgomasters gravely observed, there was no need of a chamber, since a closet would hold all the commerce left them. In like manner, when Napoleon was vaunting, that he would soon have a fleet of two hundred sail; "And when you have got them," said a plain-spoken citizen, "the English will have double the number."

But, more formidable than blunt truths and indifferent jests, there appeared, while Buonaparte was in Holland, one of those stern invocations exciting the people against foreign tyranny, which have often occasioned the downfall of unjust power, and always rendered those who possess it unhappy and insecure. "People of Holland," said this singular paper (which may be compared to the tract called Killing no Murder, which drove sleep from Cromwell's pillow,) "why do you fear your oppressor? – he is one, you are many. Appeal to his very soldiers; their desertions in Spain show how they hate him; and even his generals would abandon him, could they secure their own rank and grandeur independent of his. But above all, arise to the task of your own redemption; rise in the fulness of national strength. A general revolt of the Continent will ensue; the oppressor will fall, and your triumph will be a warning to tyrants, and an example to the world." This address produced no perceptible effect at the time, but, with other papers of the kind, it made a profound impression on the public mind.

On his return to Paris, Napoleon set himself still farther to impose the extension of the Continental System, which he was induced to attempt by the appropriation of Holland, and the revolution in Sweden. Holding his plan as much more decisive than it could have been, even if his power and his spleen had been adequate to effect his purpose, he cast his eyes in every direction, to close every aperture, however small, through which British commerce, the victim he hoped entirely to smother, might draw ever so slight a gasp of breath.

It was a feature of Buonaparte's ambition – as indeed it is of inordinate ambition in general – that whatever additions were made to his Empire extended his wish of acquisition. Holland, whose traders were princes, and she herself the Queen of Commerce, had been already devoured, with her ample sea-coast and far-famed harbours. But other cities, less wealthy and famed, yet still venerable from their ancient importance, must become a part of France, ere Buonaparte thought his blockade against British commerce complete and impervious.

The seizure of the poor regions called the Valais, which had hitherto been suffered to exist as a free republic, gave France the absolute command of the road over the Simplon; the property, and perhaps the command of which passage, it being the great means of communication betwixt France and Italy, Napoleon did not incline should remain with a petty republic. It was a sufficient reason, at this unhappy period, for depriving any country of its independence, that France was to be benefited by the change. It was not in this case a bloodless one. The poor mountaineers drew to arms, and it required some fighting before they were compelled to submission, and their barren mountains were annexed to France.

But it was of much greater importance, in Napoleon's eye, to prevent the commerce which he had expelled from Holland from shifting its residence to the trading towns of the north of Germany, composing what was called the Hanseatic League. A new appropriation of territory, therefore, united to France the whole sea-coast along the German Ocean, comprehending the mouths of the Scheldt, the Meuse, and the Rhine; the Ems, the Weser, and the Elbe. And it was the Emperor's proposal to unite these maritime territories to France by a canal, which was to join the Baltic ocean to the Seine. A considerable proportion of the kingdom of Westphalia, and of the Grand Duchy of Berg, both principalities of Napoleon's own creation, fell under this appropriation, and formed another example, had not that of Holland been sufficient, to show how little respect Napoleon was disposed to pay even to those rights which emanated from himself, when they interfered with fresher plans and wider prospects of ambition.

Had Prussia retained her ancient influence as protector of the North, Hamburgh, Bremen, and Lubeck, would not have been thus unceremoniously melted down and confounded with the French Empire. But while these venerable and well-known free cities sunk without protection or resistance under a despotism which threatened to become universal, a petty state of far less consequence, scarce known as having an independent existence by any who was not intimate with the divisions of the north of Germany, found a patron, and a powerful one. This was Oldenburg, a dukedom, the present prince of which was related to the Emperor of Russia, as both were descended of the House of Holstein Gottorp, and was, moreover, Alexander's brother-in-law. This state of Oldenburg had been studiously excepted from the changes made in the North of Germany, after the treaty of Tilsit, which made the present confiscation of its territory an act of more marked slight towards the court of Russia. A formal expostulation being transmitted to Napoleon, he proposed to repair the injury of the Duke of Oldenburg, by assigning to him the town and territory of Erfurt, with the lordship of Blankenheim. But the duke felt himself too strongly supported to be under the necessity of surrendering his dominions, and receiving others in exchange. The offer of indemnity was haughtily rejected; France persevered in her purpose of usurping Oldenburg; and the Emperor Alexander, in a protest, gravely but temperately worded, a copy of which was delivered to every member of the diplomatic body, intimated that he did not acquiesce in the injury done to a prince of his family, although he continued to adhere to that great line of political interest which had occasioned the alliance between France and Russia.

The real truth was, that Napoleon, secure of the friendship of Austria by the late alliance, had not, it would seem, regarded Russia as any longer worthy of the same observance which he had originally found it politic to pay to the Emperor Alexander. The Czar himself felt this; and the very large proportion of his subjects, composing the party of Old Russians, as they termed themselves, who were favourable to the English alliance, and detested the connexion with France, improved the opportunity by pointing out the evils which all classes in the country endured, from the Czar's having, in complaisance to the plans of Napoleon, decreed the abolition of English commerce. They showed that this compliance with the views of France had been attended with great detriment to his own subjects, who could neither sell their commodities, and the produce of their estates, for which Britain always offered a market, nor acquire the colonial produce and British manufactured goods, which the consumption of Russia almost peremptorily demanded.

RUSSIAN PROTEST

An ukase was issued on the 31st of December, 1810, which was drawn up with considerable art; for while in words it seemed to affirm the exclusion of British manufactures from the empire in general, it permitted importations to be made at Archangel, Petersburgh, Riga, Revel, and five or six other seaports, where various articles of merchandise, and, in particular, colonial produce, unless proved to belong to Britain, might be freely imported. So that, while appearing to quote and respect the Continental System, Napoleon could not but be sensible that Russia virtually renounced it. But as Alexander had not ventured to avail himself of the seizure of Oldenburg as a reason for breaking off his alliance with France, so Napoleon, on his part, though the changed tone of Russian policy could not escape him, paused, nevertheless, in coming to a final rupture with an enemy so powerful, upon the subject of the ukase of December 1810.

EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS

Meantime, the French Emperor became probably sensible that peace with England was the surest ground upon which he could secure his throne. In the month of April, 1810, some attempt at obtaining terms of pacification had been made during the mission of Mr. Mackenzie, who was sent to Morlaix as agent on the part of the British Government. It had been not the least cruel peculiarity of this inveterate war, that no cartel for exchange of prisoners had been effected on either side, and, of course, that those unhappy persons whom chance had thrown into the power of the enemy, had no visible alternative but to linger out their lives in a distant and hostile country, or at least remain captives till the conclusion of hostilities, to which no one could presume to assign a date. The original impediment to such an exchange, which has in all civilized countries been considered as a debt indispensably due to soften the rigours of war and lessen the sufferings of its victims, was a demand of Napoleon that the persons possessing no military character, whom he had made prisoners contrary to the law of nations at the commencement of hostilities, should be exchanged against French sailors and soldiers. The British ministers for a long time resisted so unusual an application, to which policy, indeed, forbade them to accede. At length, however, the sufferings of individuals, and of their families, induced the British government to allow the French Emperor the advantage of his oppressive act in detaining these unfortunate persons, and agree that they should be included in the proposed cartel. But when the commissioners met at Morlaix, Mr. Mackenzie found himself as far from approaching an agreement as ever. The number of French prisoners in Britain was more by many thousands than that of the British in France; and Buonaparte, who seldom made a bargain in which he did not secure the advantage to himself, insisted that the surplus of French prisoners should be exchanged for Germans, Spaniards, Portuguese, or others who should be captive in France.

This was readily agreed to, so far as regarded foreign troops in British pay; but it was equally unreasonable and contrary to usage to require that we should restore to France her native subjects, whose services she might use to augment her military force, while we received in exchange foreigners, unconnected with us by service or allegiance, and who, perhaps, when set at liberty, might be as apt to join the French ranks, as those of the nation in whose name they had obtained freedom.

After much wrangling and dispute, Mr. Mackenzie, to show the sincere desire which the British government entertained of releasing the prisoners on both sides, made a proposal that the exchange should commence by liberating as many French prisoners as could be balanced by British captives in the French prisons; that after this, captives of every nation should be exchanged indifferently on both sides; and whatever number of prisoners might remain on either side, after the general balance had been struck, should also be set at liberty, upon an engagement not to serve till regularly exchanged. To this proposal – a more liberal one could hardly be made – the French only answered by starting new demands, and making new objections. Among these, perhaps, it will scarcely be believed, that Moustier, the French commissioner, had the modesty to propose that Lord Wellington and his army, lying in the lines at Torres Vedras, should be reckoned as French prisoners in the proposed cartel! Mr. Mackenzie answered with becoming spirit, that he would neither be the medium through which his Government should be insulted by such a proposal, nor would he proceed in the negotiation until this impertinence were atoned for.

It is needless to proceed farther in the elusory detail of a treaty, which Napoleon had previously determined should be brought to no useful issue. He had calculated which country could best support the absence of their prisoners, or rather to whom their services were of most consequence. He felt that he himself, by the conscription, as well as by the auxiliary troops which he could summon at pleasure from his neighbours or dependents, could always command a sufficiency of men even for his gigantic undertakings; while to Britain, whose soldiers could only be obtained by a high bounty, the deliverance of her prisoners was proportionally more valuable. Whatever was his view in establishing the negotiation, which was probably only to satisfy the French army, by evincing a seeming interest in the unfortunate portion of their brethren in arms who were immured in English prisons, they gave way to the consideration, that while things remained as they were, Britain suffered more in proportion than France.

Some proposals for a general peace had been made during the conferences at Morlaix; and the British Government had stated three different principles, any of which they expressed themselves willing to admit as a basis. These were, first, the state of possession before the war; or, secondly, the present state of possession; or, thirdly, a plan of reciprocal compensations. But none of these principles suited the French Government to act upon; so that the treaty for a general peace, and that for restoring, taking into calculation the prisoners on both sides, upwards of a hundred thousand human beings to liberty, their country, and their home, proved both of them altogether nugatory.

The note of defiance was therefore resumed, so soon as it had been ascertained that Britain would reject any terms of peace which were not founded on equal and liberal principles. An oration of Count Semonville demonstrated, that it was all owing to the persevering ambition of England that Buonaparte had been obliged to possess himself of the sea-coast of Europe – that all his encroachments on the land were the necessary consequences of her empire of the seas. He then demanded, in prophetic fury, to know what in future would be the bounds of possibility. "It is the part of England," he said, "to reply. Let her turn her eyes on the past, and learn to judge from thence the events of the future. France and Napoleon will never change."

CHAPTER LIV

View of Napoleon's gigantic Power – The Empress Maria Louisa delivered of a Son – Criticism on the Title given him, of King of Rome – Speculations in regard to the advantages or disadvantages arising from this Event – Retrospect – Ex-Queen of Etruria – Her severe and unjustifiable Treatment by Napoleon – Lucien Buonaparte is invited to England, where he writes Epic Poetry – Attempt to deliver Ferdinand, defeated – Operations in Portugal – Retreat of Massena – Battles of Fuentes d'Onoro fought by Lord Wellington – On the South Frontier of Portugal, by Lord Beresford – Of Barossa, by General Graham – Enterprise of Arroyo-Molinas – Spaniards defeated under Blake – Valencia captured by the French, and he and his Army made Prisoners of War – Disunion among the French Generals – Joseph wishes to abdicate the Throne of Spain.

ACTUAL DOMINIONS

The natural consequences of an overgrown empire were already sapping that of Napoleon; for extent of territory does not constitute power, any more than corpulence in the human frame constitutes strength or health; and Napoleon's real authority was in truth greater some years before, than now when his dominion was so much enlarged. The war in Spain, maintained at such an expense of blood and treasure, was a wasting and consuming sore. The kingdom of Holland had afforded him supplies more readily, and had more the means of doing so, when under the dominion of his brother Louis, than the Dutch now either showed or possessed, when ranked as a constituent part of the French empire. The same might be said of the states and free towns in the north of Germany; where, in many instances, strong bands of smugglers, dressed and armed as guerilla parties, maintained a desultory war with the officers of the French customs; and, moved equally by national hatred and the love of gain won by desperate risks, made in some districts a kind of petty civil war. Yet, though such cankerworms gnawed the root of the tree, the branches and foliage, to all outward appearance, extended a broader shade than ever. It was especially when a formal annunciation, both in France and Austria, called the good subjects of both realms to rejoice in the prospect that Maria Louisa would soon give an heir to Napoleon, that men who opened the map of Europe saw with fear and wonder the tremendous inheritance to which the expected infant was likely to succeed.

The actual dominions of France, governed by Napoleon in his own proper right as Emperor of the French, had gradually attained the following extravagant dimensions. They extended, from north-east to south-west, from Travemunde, on the Baltic ocean, to the foot of the Pyrenees; and, from north-west to south-east, from the port of Brest to Terracina, on the confines of the Neapolitan territories. A population of forty-two millions of people, fitted in various ways to secure the prosperity of a state, and inhabiting, for wealth, richness of soil, and felicity of climate, by far the finest portion of the civilized earth, formed the immediate liege subjects of this magnificent empire.

Yet, to stop here were greatly to undervalue the extent of Napoleon's power. We have to add to his personal empire Carniola and the Illyrian provinces, and also the fine kingdom of Italy. Then, in his character of Mediator of the Helvetian Republic, the Emperor exercised an almost absolute authority in Switzerland, which furnished him, though unwillingly, with several fine regiments of auxiliaries. The German confederation of the Rhine, though numbering kings among their league, were at the slightest hint bound to supply him each with his prescribed quota of forces, with a readiness and an affectation of zeal very different from the slack and reluctant manner in which they formerly supplied their paltry contingents to the Emperor of Germany.

Murat, with his kingdom of Naples, was at his brother-in-law's disposal; and if, as Buonaparte's hopes whispered, the Peninsula should ultimately prove unable to resist the war he waged, then Spain and Portugal would be added to his immense empire, being now in the state of sturdy and contumacious rebels, whose resistance seemed in the speedy prospect of being finally subdued. Thus, an empire of 800,000 square miles, and containing a population of 85 millions, in territory one-fifth part, and in the number of inhabitants one-half, of united Europe, was either in quiet subjection to Napoleon's sceptre, or on the point, as was supposed, of becoming so.

Of those who shared amongst them the residue of Europe, and still maintained some claim to independence, Britain might make the proud boast, that she was diametrically in opposition to the Ruler of the world; that, in the long-continued strife, she had dealt him injuries as deep as she had ever received, and had disdained, under any circumstances, to treat with him on less terms than those of equality. Not to that fair land be the praise, though she supported many burdens and endured great losses; but to Providence, who favoured her efforts and strengthened her resolutions; who gave her power to uphold her own good cause, which, in truth, was that of European independence, and courage to trust in the justice of Heaven, when the odds mustered against her seemed, in earthly calculation, so dreadful as to deprive, the wise of the head to counsel; the brave, of the heart to resist!

Denmark, so powerful was the voice which France had in her councils, might almost be accounted humbled to one of the federative principalities.

Sweden had but a moderate and second-rate degree of power. She felt, as other German nations, the withering blight of the Continental, or Anti-social System; but, circumstanced as she was, with the possession of Swedish Pomerania dependent on French pleasure, she had no other remedy than to wait her opportunity.

Still more was this the case with Prussia, through all her provinces the mortal enemy of the French name, but whom the large garrisons which France had planted in her dominions, and the numerous forces which she maintained there, compelled for the time to be as submissive as a handmaiden. It was true that the court were as noiselessly as possible, endeavouring to revive their military establishment; that they were dismissing the villains who had sold and betrayed their country, and replacing them by age which had been tried, or youth which had witnessed the agony of their country, and been trained up in thinking, that to avenge her was their dearest duty. True it was, also, that the people in Prussia, and many other parts of Germany, waited as for the day dawning, for the hope of winning back their freedom; but outward appearances indicated nothing of these smothered hopes, wishes, and preparations; and the general eye saw in Prussia only a nation resigned to her bondage, without, apparently, any hope of redemption.

Austria, besides the terrible losses which the last war had brought upon her, was now fettered to Napoleon by a link which gave the proud House of Hapsburg an apology for the submission, or at least the observance, which she paid to the son-in-law of her Emperor.

Turkey, though she would have had her turn, had the tide of fortune continued to keep the course in which it had so long flowed, was not yet in the way of being comprehended in Napoleon's plan of politics.

Russia was waging with the Porte an impolitic war of acquisition, to realise some of the selfish plans of aggrandisement which Napoleon had assented to, or perhaps suggested, at Tilsit and Erfurt. But he now witnessed them without wishing them success, and listened to the complaints of Austria, who unwillingly saw the ambitious views of Russia in these provinces. Of all the continental states, therefore, assuming even the semblance of independence, Russia seemed alone to possess it in reality; and from late acts of estrangement – such as the protest on the subject of the Duchy of Oldenburg, and the reception of British ships and merchandise into her ports – it certainly appeared that a different spirit was in the councils of this great empire than had ruled them during the meetings at Tilsit and Erfurt. Yet there were but few who thought that Russia, in opposition to the whole continent of Europe, would dare confront Napoleon; and still fewer, even of the most sanguine politicians, had any deep-grounded hope that her opposition would be effectual. Out of such a Cimmerian midnight, to all human views, was the day-spring of European liberty destined to arise.