but was almost immediately overpowered by ten strokes, and, with Kinski
and Tzertzski, nearly hewn to pieces. Unglutted yet with blood, Captain
Devereaux, finding his rapier broken, snatched up a partizan, and,
followed by thirty soldiers, rushed to the apartments of Wallenstein;
who, having heard the uproar in the hall, had double-bolted his door
within; and they assailed it with noise and great fury, while Butler
stood, with his sword drawn, on the staircase below. Even the bold
heart of Wallenstein was appalled by the unusual uproar--he leaped from
his bed, and threw on a dressing-gown. He raised the window of the
room; but the wall of the tower was too high for escape, and he cried
aloud--
"Will none here assist me? Alas! is no one here my friend?"
Upon this Devereaux knocked again, and commanded his soldiers to burst
open the door. Five times their united strength failed before it, till
he applied his own shoulder to it; and, being a man of great power, he
broke it to fragments, and then they beheld before them the formidable
Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland and Prince of the Vandal Isles, standing
near a table, in his shirt, pale and composed, but defenceless--for
he had neither sword nor pistols; for Schiller asserts that he was
disturbed in the study of astrology.
"Art thou not the betrayer of Ferdinand and the Empire?" cried Captain
Devereaux, as he charged his partizan; "if so, now thou must die."
Wallenstein made no reply, but opened his arms, as if still more to
expose his naked breast, into which the Irish captain thrust his
weapon, and he expired without a groan, while all the soldiers shrunk
back, as if appalled by the act; yet his naked body, and the bodies of
the Colonels Niemann, Tzertzski, Illo, and Kinski were carried in a
cart through the streets of Egra, and tossed into a ditch. So perished
the magnificent Wallenstein, the dictator of Germany!
James Butler and Devereaux hastened to Vienna, where the Emperor
Ferdinand II. fastened round the neck of the former a valuable chain,
giving, at the same time, his Imperial benison and a gold medal,
saying, "Wear this, Colonel Butler, in memory of an emperor you have
saved from ruin." He then created him a Count of the Holy Roman Empire,
and gave him the gold key of the bedchamber, with extensive estates
in the kingdom of Bohemia; and, to crown all, by an act of abominable
hypocrisy, he ordered three thousand masses to be said for repose of
the murdered general's soul. Devereaux also received a gold chain with
the gold key and a colonelcy; but he left the Imperial service, and
returned home to Ireland in 1638.
Colonel Gordon was created a marquis of the Empire, Colonel-General
of the Imperial army, and High Chamberlain of Austria. Major Walter
Lesley, who was then a captain of the Body Guard, was created Count
Lesley, and Lord of Newstadt, an estate worth two hundred thousand
florins. He died Field-Marshal, Governor of Sclavonia, and Knight of
the Golden Fleece.
James Butler enjoyed his countship only one year; for he died at
Wirtemberg in the early part of the year 1634, leaving a very ample
fortune, and money to found a college of Irish Franciscans, which
still exists in the Bohemian capital. To Laurmayne, confessor to the
emperor, he left a memorial worth twenty pounds by his will. To the
Scottish and Irish colleges at Prague he bequeathed 3300_l._; to the
Irish students at Prague, 500_l._ among them equally; to his sister,
1000_l._; to Walter Devereaux whose partizan slew Wallenstein, 150_l._
His widow, whom he left in easy circumstances, conveyed his body into
Bohemia, escorted by a troop of lancers and cuirassiers, and there she
interred him near his own estates, with great pomp and splendour. In
1638, Thomas Carve, an Irish priest, chaplain of Butler's regiment, and
author of a minute account of these affairs,[15] obtained a commission
as chaplain-general "to all the Scottish and Irish forces in the
Imperial service."
During the development and _denouement_ of this daring conspiracy
against the great Imperialist, his friend, Walter Butler, was in
command at Prague, about seventy miles distant from the castle of
Egra; and he was filled with horror and dismay at the part played
by his brother in the dark and terrible tragedy. It was, moreover,
an unfortunate event for _him_, as he never obtained any place at
court, any military order, or rose one rank higher in the army from
thenceforward--for, as a favourite of Wallenstein, he was an object of
distrust to the emperor.
In the same year his brother died. Walter served with distinguished
bravery at Nordlingen in Swabia, where, on the 26th of August, 1634,
a general engagement was the result of Field-Marshal Gustaf Horne's
attempt to relieve the town, then besieged by the Imperialists, who
obtained a complete victory; for the Swedish army was defeated with
great loss, and had 4000 baggage-waggons, 80 pieces of cannon, and 300
stand of colours taken. The Scottish brigades suffered severely. In
particular the Highland regiment of Colonel Robert Munro, which by the
slaughter of that fatal day was reduced to _one_ company.
By his valour and example Walter Butler, at the head of his
regiment, "decided the victory in favour of the Imperialists." To
quote Harte--"He stood firm, without losing one inch of ground, for
three-and-twenty hours, during a continual fire, and though 16,000
soldiers were killed in that engagement."
Soon after this great battle he died of a severe illness. The
descendants of his brother distinguished themselves repeatedly in the
future wars of the grasping House of Austria, particularly in those
waged against Frederick the Great, King of Prussia; and there is now
living in Bohemia an old nobleman named Baron Bütler, who boasts of
being the fourth in descent from James Butler of Ormond, one of the
slayers of the great Duke of Friedland.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 14: _Swedish Intelligencer, 1632._]
[Footnote 15: Thomas Carve (Tipperariensis), _Itinerarium_, 12mo.
1639-1641.]
MARSHAL CLARKE,
GOVERNOR OF VIENNA AND BERLIN.
Henry James William Clarke, Duc de Feltre, Minister of War under the
Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, and afterwards under the Bourbons, was born
on the 17th October, 1765, at Landrecies, a town of France, situate
on the Sambre, westward of Maubeuge, and about one hundred miles from
Paris.
His father belonged to one of the many exiled Irish families who
followed to France the abdicated James VII. of Scotland, and II. of
England; and after serving King Louis as a subaltern officer, died at
an early age on obtaining the rank of colonel, leaving his son, the
future general, an orphan, to the care of his uncle, Colonel Shee, who
was then "Sécretaire des Commandement du Duc d'Orléans," and afterwards
Prefect of Strasbourg, and a peer of France. It is strange how well
fortune favoured all these Irish exiles in the various lands of their
adoption.
By Colonel Shee, Henry Clarke was well and carefully reared, as he
intended him for the service of Louis XVI. Thus, on the 17th of
September, 1781, he entered the Military School at Paris as a cadet;
and after going through a brief curriculum, left it on the 11th of
November, 1782, to join the regiment of the Duc de Berwick as a
sub-lieutenant. Wishing to join the cavalry, on the 5th of September,
1784, he was appointed cornet of hussars, with the rank of captain in
the regiment of the colonel-general of this branch of the service.
On the 11th of July, 1790, he obtained a captaincy of dragoons, and in
the same year received leave of absence to visit Great Britain, as a
gentleman in the suite of the ambassador.
It was to the friendship and patronage of the Duke of Orleans that
Clarke owed these favours, and generally, his rapid advancement in
the army; and it was to this prince that the hussar regiment of the
colonel-general belonged, according to a custom of the old _régime_.
On his return to France, Clarke applied immediately for active service,
and on the 5th of February, 1792, was appointed a captain of the first
class, and soon after he attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel of
cavalry.
He remained in command of his regiment during all the horrors of
the Revolution; and, at its head, served in the two campaigns which
followed the attack on the Tuileries, the deposition of the king,
and the murders of 1792. In September he assisted very materially at
the capture of Spire, the _ci-devant_ capital of a bishopric in the
palatinate of the Rhine, along the upper circle of which Custine had
spread his brilliant conquests.
The French attacked the Austrians, who were in order of battle in front
of the city. They were outflanked, and driven back; the gates were cut
down by axes, or blown to pieces by cannon, and the republicans stormed
the place, taking 3000 prisoners, with a vast train of cannon and
mortars. Clarke bore a conspicuous part as an active cavalry officer in
all the subsequent operations of the French army, including the capture
of Worms, with all its stores, and of Mentz, before which the army
arrived on the 19th of October, after forced marches, performed amid
torrents of rain; and the taking of Frankfort, which was ransomed from
destruction and pillage on the payment of 500,000 florins.
On the 17th of March, after the rout of Bingen, he defended the passage
of the Nahe, a German stream, which falls into the Rhine near the
former place, and there he was of signal service to the retreating
troops. He was present at the affair of Horcheim, which was afterwards
annexed to France, and the capture of Landau, on the 17th of May. His
distinguished bravery on these occasions obtained him the rank of
General of Brigade, provisionally, the commission of which he received
on the field of battle. He then received the command of three regiments
of dragoons, which formed the advanced guard of the army of the Rhine.
Soon afterwards we find him exercising in this army the functions of
_Chef d'Etat-Major Général_; but on the 12th of October, 1793, the
Commissioners of the National Convention, in virtue of a most unjust
decree of that tyrannical assembly, deprived him of his rank, as he
happened to be at that time on their secret list of the _suspected_.
He received intelligence of this on the very evening before the
Austrians stormed the French lines at Weissembourg, on the Lower Rhine,
and he retired at once to Alsace, where he was confined on a species of
parole; nor did he recover his military rank and position until after
the downfall and death of the cruel and infamous Robespierre.
Under the protection of M. Carnot, who was then Minister of Public
Safety, Clarke was placed at the head of a committee of military
topography; and in this service he exhibited the greatest talent as
a director and instructor, and spared no pains to fulfil the duties
imposed upon him. The restless and suspicious Directory, in thus
maintaining M. Carnot at the head of their affairs as minister, caused
also the retention of Clarke, whose importance seemed to increase with
that of his patron.
He was confirmed a General of Brigade in March, 1795; and on his
appointment to the rank of General of Division, on the 17th of
September, in the same year, our Irish exile could scarcely believe
that fate had higher or more brilliant destinies in store for him; but
now his talents as a diplomatist were about to be put in requisition.
This was when the astonishing successes of Napoleon in Italy had
alarmed the Directory, who dispatched Clarke to Vienna, entrusting
to him the difficult mission of preparing the terms of the projected
peace between Republican France and the Imperial Court; but, as he was
adverse to the wishes of the Directory, and inimical to the task, his
arrangements proved unfortunately disadvantageous to the French.
After this he visited the army of Italy, the General-in-Chief of
which, being influenced by the Directory, placed him in a subordinate
position, alike repugnant to his love of freedom and authority. As
simple plenipotentiary, Clarke, after traversing Germany, showed
himself at Vienna to be the political confidant of the powerful
Directory, and, above all, of M. Carnot.
In the minute instructions given to General Clarke by the French
Government we are enabled to trace him in his route, which lay through
Piedmont, Milan, Medina, Bologna, and Venice; and by the Directory
he--more than all their other diplomatic agents--was specially
recommended to observe narrowly the secret purposes of the different
great personages who held important positions at the court of Vienna.
"Your journey, M. Clarke," said the minister De la Croix, in a letter
written on the 17th November, 1796, "will be sufficiently useful when
you have no longer anything to know or to discover for the profit
of the Republic or the cause of humanity." But it was generally
believed--nay, it was openly asserted in Paris--that the mission of
Clarke to Vienna was all a _ruse_, and was meant merely to conceal some
artful plot woven by the Directory against Napoleon Bonaparte, before
whose power and popularity they were beginning to tremble.
However, the Directory really wished a peace, and provisionally
demanded an armistice; but Bonaparte, who had no desire to see a
general peace in Europe, and, least of all, one formed by any person
save himself, by his formidable interference and potent influence,
caused the negotiations entirely to fail. We are enabled to perceive
how the Directory, in their overtures for peace, above everything else
counted on those territories which they could offer in exchange for
Luxembourg and other provinces which they had annexed to France. This
system of compensation admitted of alterations, which their envoy could
vary at his pleasure, on perceiving the effect produced by each offer
on the various members of the Austrian cabinet.
In the armistice extended to the two armies they wished the terms
to be similar to those given by their general, Napoleon Bonaparte,
when besieging Mantua, viz.:--That they should be supplied daily with
ammunition and provisions, according to their numerical strength. But
Bonaparte declared these terms absurd; and explained to them that
the suspension of arms alone gave to France the prospect of greater
advantages than could accrue from terms based on those framed at
Mantua. But the commands of the Directory were imperative; and the
cabinet of Vienna, on receiving their overtures, had already sent the
Baron Vincent to Vicenza, to confer with General Clarke, who repelled
with all his energy the advice and interference of Bonaparte; but the
latter, on being supported by Barras against him, as one trusted by
Carnot, said plainly to Clarke, "Si vous êtes venu ici pour faire ma
volonté, je vous verrai avec plaisir; si c'est le contraire vous pouvez
retourner d'où vous êtes venu."
By this language he made Clarke feel that his patron, Carnot, was
not secure in office, and that he must prepare other supporters for
himself. Indeed, some rumour of this nature had reached him before.
The result of these disagreements between Clarke and Napoleon caused
the former to omit all praise of the latter in public communications
to the government at Paris; but, in the first report of Clarke to the
minister De la Croix, dated 7th December, 1796, we find him exculpating
Bonaparte of all blame for the awful ravages and atrocities committed
by his troops in Italy.
Bonaparte succeeded in postponing the conferences at Vicenza until the
3rd January, 1797; and so many despatches passed to and fro between the
Directory, Carnot, and Clarke, that the Baron Vincent lost patience,
and declared, that if France had any further communications to make,
they must in future be addressed, not to him, but to Gherardini, the
Austrian minister at Turin. Bonaparte took care that this resolution
of the baron should be effectual. Clarke was several times at Turin
and Lombardy, negotiating; and after happily completing a friendly
arrangement with his general, was left without other duties to fulfil,
than to complete, with the Piedmontese court, those amicable treaties
which were terminated by an alliance with France on the 5th April, 1797.
After this, he brought before the Directory a series of complaints
against certain generals and commissaries of the French army in Italy.
With the substance of the charges against these officers he had been
furnished by Bonaparte; and the result was, that many of them were
displaced and recalled to France.
The complaints or charges furnished to Clarke were sometimes far from
correct; but Bonaparte, by means of the envoy, wished to rid his army
of those devastators and peculators, without drawing upon himself
their lasting and personal hostility. To the honour of Clarke, it
must be confessed that his dislike for those who had been guilty of
mal-demeanour in Italy was at least sincere; and in this he proved
himself worthy to be the friend of Carnot.
He found himself again at Turin during the discussion which ensued
concerning the preliminaries of Leoben. Bonaparte, who had neither
desire nor authority to conclude anything that resembled a peace,
affected to wish much for the presence of Clarke as a plenipotentiary,
while he secretly contrived such means to delay his journey, that it
was impossible he could arrive in time. Thus ten days passed, and on
the 17th of April Clarke had not appeared, so Bonaparte signed the
articles _alone_; and on the 6th of the following month, the Directory
invested them both with full power to sign the final treaty.
Two negotiators, the Marquis di Gallo and Meerfeldt, had been
appointed by Austria to meet them; but at the very commencement of
their proceedings the proud and haughty spirits of Bonaparte and Gallo
domineered over their colleagues so completely, that they became as
mere machines in their hands. Clarke had, nevertheless, occasionally
sole charge of the negotiations at Udina, a town in Friuli, where they
had many meetings concerning the entangled affairs of France and
Austria; but this was only when the tergiversations of the latter, who
wished to recommence the war, were embarrassing the conferences, which,
according to the caustic expression of Bonaparte, "were nothing more
than a series of pleasantries."
In the midst of these incertitudes and delays, a new revolution took
place at Paris, on the 4th September, 1797, when the legislative
was entirely absorbed by the executive power, and when the famous
pamphlet of Bailleul, which provoked such a violent debate in the
Council of Five Hundred, was the tocsin of alarm. On this day--the 18th
_Fructidor_--Clarke was declared a "creature of Carnot;" and, as such,
was deprived of all power. Thus Bonaparte was left sole plenipotentiary
of the Republic, and had the honour of signing alone the famous treaty
of Campo Formio, which secured a peace between France and the Emperor
Francis II., and which took its name from the place of meeting--a
castle of maritime Austria, situated on a hill in the province of
Friuli. It was signed on the 17th October, and was undoubtedly more
glorious for France than the treaty which General Clarke had prepared
for the same purpose in November, 1796. But Bonaparte behaved with
great generosity towards his fallen colleague: he defended him against
the virulence of the Parisian pamphleteers and journalists, protected
him while in Italy, and employed him about his staff and person in many
ways. "Could he do less to the star which he had so completely made his
satellite?" exclaims a French writer.
The brilliant reception which awaited Bonaparte on his triumphant
return to France, and still more, the high enthusiasm kindled by his
departure for Egypt, threw Clarke completely into the shade; and he was
almost forgotten by the volatile Parisians during two years that he
lived in retirement.
M. Xavier Audoin, son-in-law of Pache, succeeded Clarke as chief of
the Bureau Topographique et Militaire at the Directory. The Parisian
journals accused the general of having enjoyed the confidence of Carnot
too much, and to be too deeply attached to the House of Orleans, to
which he and his family were indebted for much of their good fortune in
France.
The _Dublin Journal_ of the 7th October, 1797, contains a paragraph to
the effect that it was known that Clarke had been "for forty hours,
during the last week," in that city, "that he had held conferences with
the leaders of the United Irishmen, and having obtained his information
and given his directions, had embarked in a fishing smack from
Killinbay, on Sunday morning last. That he could have no other purpose
than the arrangement of a French invasion we have no doubt," adds the
editor, "and when our readers have learned that there is strong ground
to believe that he has been for some time past in the north of Ireland,
they will naturally join in our opinion. Our readers will recollect
that this General Clarke was announced in the French papers to have
left the Italian army some time since on his way to Vienna to negotiate
with the emperor--there has been _no_ negotiation at Vienna--the treaty
is under discussion at Udina--so that this journey has obviously been
fabricated to _conceal_ his real destination."
But, notwithstanding all these details, there is no solid proof for
believing that General Clarke ever visited the land of his forefathers
on this secret duty.
He ought, perhaps, to have followed Napoleon, even as a volunteer, to
the banks of the Nile; but being of a proud and jealous spirit, he was
unfortunately without this feeling of devotion to his new protector.
Bonaparte appeared to feel this; for on his return from his distant and
dangerous expedition, and finding himself master of the government, by
the 18th _Brumaire_ (9th November, 1799), he seemed to look coldly on
the general at times.
Clarke now neglected nothing that might serve to reinstate him in the
good graces of the First Consul, who, in September, 1800, intrusted
him finally with the charge of the negotiations at Luneville, and soon
after with the military command of that large city, which lies in the
departement of the Meurthe. But Clarke felt that these two posts were
alike insignificant and unworthy one of his talent and enterprise; for
the recent victories in Germany and Italy had greatly simplified his
duties as a negotiator, and the little that remained Bonaparte directed
in Paris. When the arrangements were completed, to the infinite
annoyance of Clarke, he sent his brother Joseph to sign them.
Clarke had meanwhile been preparing for the departure of a body of
Russian officers who were prisoners of war at Lisle; and the kindness
with which he did so, caused the Emperor Paul I. to present him with a
magnificent sword, and other marks of his approbation.
Such is the weakness of the human heart, that these honours inflated
Clarke so much, that for a time he appeared to feel himself equal to
the First Consul, and indeed he was rash enough, and unwise enough, to
say so.
Coming early one evening to the opera, he entered the box usually
appropriated to Napoleon, and assumed that august person's place in the
front seat. When the First Consul came, Clarke had the bad taste to sit
still during the performance, and leave to his master the second place!
These mistakes of temper, united to his punctilious spirit, in affairs
of state, and love of diplomatic work, caused the French government to
give him the office of minister of France at Florence, that he might
be away from Paris and near the young Duke of Parma, who wished to
be named King of all Italy; but this post, say the _Memoirs of St.
Helena_, proved exceedingly distasteful to him.