England was to have taken place in September, when the death of
Admiral Latouche-Treville at Toulon, August 19th, altered all
Napoleon's plans. Just about this time also _Fulton_ submitted his
steamship invention to Bonaparte. The latter, however, had recently
been heavily mulcted in other valueless discoveries, and refers Fulton
to the savants of the Institute, who report it chimerical and
impracticable. The fate of England probably lay in the balance at this
moment, more than in 1588 or 1798.
Napoleon and Josephine leave Aix for Cologne on September 12, and it
is now the ladies' turn to institute a hunt--the "real chamois hunt";
for each country inn swarms with this pestilence that walketh in
darkness, and which, alas! is no respecter of persons.
No. 5.
Two points are noteworthy in this letter--(1) that like No. 1 of this
series (see note thereto) it commences _Madame and dear Wife_; and (2)
it is signed Bonaparte and not Napoleon, which somewhat militates
against its authenticity.
_Arras, August 29th._--Early on this day he had been at St. Cloud. On
the 30th he writes Cambaceres from Arras that he is "satisfied with
the spirit of this department." On the same day he writes thence to
the King of Prussia and Fouche. To his Minister of Police he writes:
"That detestable journal, _Le Citoyen francais_, seems only to wish to
wallow in blood. For eight days running we have been entertained with
nothing but the Saint Bartholomew. Who on earth is the editor
(_redacteur_) of this paper? With what gusto this wretch relishes the
crimes and misfortunes of our fathers! My intention is that you should
put a stop to it. Have the editor (_directeur_) of this paper changed,
or suppress it." On Friday he is at Mons (writing interesting letters
respecting the removal of church ruins), and reaches his wife on the
Sunday (September 2nd) as his letter foreshadowed.
_I am rather impatient to see you._--The past few months had been an
anxious time for Josephine. Talleyrand (who, having insulted her in
1799, thought her his enemy) was scheming for her divorce, and wished
Napoleon to marry the Princess Wilhelmina of Baden, and thus cement an
alliance with Bavaria and Russia (Constant, vol. i. 240). The
Bonaparte family were very anxious that Josephine should not be
crowned. Napoleon had too great a contempt for the weaknesses of
average human nature to expect much honesty from Talleyrand. But he
was not as yet case-hardened to ingratitude, and was always highly
sensitive to caricature and hostile criticism. Talleyrand had been the
main cause of the death of the Duc d'Enghien, and was now trying to
show that he had wished to prevent it; but possibly the crowning
offence was contained in a lady's diary, that fell into the emperor's
hands, where Talleyrand is said to have called his master "a regular
little Nero" in his system of espionage. The diary in question is in
Constant's "Memoirs," vol. i., and this letter helps to fix the error
in the dates, probably caused by confusion between the Revolutionary
and Gregorian Calendars.
No. 6.
_T._--This may be Talleyrand, whom Mdme. de Remusat in a letter to her
husband (September 21st) at Aix, hinted to be on bad terms with the
Emperor--a fact confirmed and explained by Meneval. It may also have
been Tallien, who returned to France in 1802, where he had been
divorced from his unfaithful wife.
_B._--Doubtlessly Bourrienne, who was in disgrace with Napoleon, and
who was always trying to impose on Josephine's good nature. No sooner
had Napoleon left for Boulogne on July 14th than his former secretary
inflicts himself on the wife at Malmaison.
Napoleon joins Josephine at St. Cloud on or before October 13th, where
preparations are already being made for the Coronation by the
Pope--the first ceremony of the kind for eight centuries.
FOOTNOTES
[57] The Emperor had himself planned the Itinerary, and had mistaken a
projected road for a completed one, between Rethel and Marche.
SERIES F
No. 1.
_To Josephine._--She was at Plombieres from August 2 to September 10,
but no letter is available for the period, neither to Hortense nor
from Napoleon.
_Strasburg._--She is in the former Episcopal Palace, at the foot of
the cathedral.
_Stuttgard._--He is driven over from Ludwigsburg on October 4th, and
hears the German opera of "Don Juan."
_I am well placed._--On the same day Napoleon writes his brother
Joseph that he has already won two great victories--(1) by having no
sick or deserters, but many new conscripts; and (2) because the
Badenese army and those of Bavaria and Wurtemberg had joined him, and
all Germany well disposed.
No. 2.
_Louisburg._--Ludwigsburg.
_In a few days._--To Talleyrand he wrote from Strasburg on September
27: "Within a fortnight we shall see several things."
_A new bride._--This letter, in the collection of his Correspondence
ordered by Napoleon III., concludes at this point.
_Electress._--The Princess Charlotte-Auguste-Mathilde (1766-1828),
daughter of George III., our Princess Royal, who married Frederick I.
Napoleon says she is "not well treated by the Elector, to whom,
nevertheless, she seems much attached" (Brotonne, No. 111). She was
equally pleased with Napoleon, and wrote home how astonished she was
to find him so polite and agreeable a person.
No. 3.
_I have assisted at a marriage._--The bride was the Princess of
Saxe-Hildburghhausen, who was marrying the second son of the Elector.
No. 5.
Written at Augsburg. On October 15th he reaches the abbey of
Elchingen, which is situated on a height, from whence a wide view is
obtained, and establishes his headquarters there.
No. 6.
_Spent the whole of to-day indoors._--This is also mentioned in his
Seventh Bulletin (dated the same day), which adds, "But repose is not
compatible with the direction of this immense army."
_Vicenza._--Massena did not, however, reach this place till November
3rd. The French editions have _Vienna_, but _Vicenza_ is evidently
meant.
No. 7.
He is still at Elchingen, but at Augsburg the next day. On the 21st he
issues a decree to his army that Vendemiaire,[58] of which this was
the last day but one, should be counted as a campaign for pensions and
military services.
_Elchingen._--Meneval speaks of this village "rising in an amphitheatre
above the Danube, surrounded by walled gardens, and houses rising one
above the other." From it Napoleon saw the city of Ulm below,
commanded by his cannon. Marshal Ney won his title of Duke of Elchingen
by capturing it on October 14th, and fully deserved it. The Emperor
used to leave the abbey every morning to go to the camp before Ulm,
where he used to spend the day, and sometimes the night. The rain
was so heavy that, until a plank was found, Napoleon sat in a tent
with his feet in water (Savary, vol. ii. 196).
_Such a catastrophe._--At Ulm General Mack, with eight field-marshals,
seven lieutenant-generals, and 33,000 men surrender. Napoleon had
despised Mack even in 1800, when he told Bourrienne at Malmaison,
"Mack is a man of the lowest mediocrity I ever saw in my life; he is
full of self-sufficiency and conceit, and believes himself equal to
anything. He has no talent. I should like to see him some day opposed
to one of our good generals; we should then see fine work. He is a
boaster, and that is all. He is really one of the most silly men
existing, and besides all that, he is unlucky" (vol. i. 304). Napoleon
stipulated for Mack's life in one of the articles of the Treaty of
Presburg.
No. 9.
_Munich._--Napoleon arrived here on October 24th.
_Lemarois._--A trusty aide-de-camp, who had witnessed Napoleon's civil
marriage in March 1796, at 10 P.M.
_I was grieved._--They had no news from October 12th to 21st in Paris,
where they learnt daily that Strasburg was in the same predicament.
Mdme. de Remusat, at Paris, was equally anxious, and such women, in
the Emperor's absence, tended by their presence or even by their
correspondence to increase the alarms of Josephine.
_Amuse yourself._--M. Masson (_Josephine, Imperatrice et Reine_, p.
424) has an interesting note of how she used to attend lodge at the
Orient in Strasburg, to preside at a "loge d'adoption sous la
direction de Madame de Dietrich, grand maitresse titulaire."
_Talleyrand has come._--He was urgently needed to help in the
correspondence with the King of Prussia (concerning the French
violation of his Anspach territory), with whom Napoleon's relations
were becoming more strained.
No. 10.
_We are always in forests._--Baron Lejeune, with his artist's eye,
describes his impressions of the Amstetten forest as he travelled
through it with Murat the following morning (November 4th). "Those
of us who came from the south of Europe had never before realised
how beautiful Nature can be in the winter. In this particular
instance everything was robed in the most gleaming attire; the
silvery rime softening the rich colours of the decaying oak leaves,
and the sombre vegetation of the pines. The frozen drapery, combined
with the mist, in which everything was more or less enveloped, gave
a soft, mysterious charm to the surrounding objects, producing a
most beautiful picture. Lit up by the sunshine, thousands of long
icicles, such as those which sometimes droop from our fountains and
water-wheels, hung like shining lustres from the trees. Never did
ball-room shine with so many diamonds; the long branches of the
oaks, pines, and other forest trees were weighed down by the
masses of hoar-frost, while the snow converted their summits into
rounded roofs, forming beneath them grottoes resembling those of the
Pyrenean mountains, with their shining stalactites and graceful
columns" (vol. i. 24).
_My enemies._--Later in the day Napoleon writes from Lambach to the
Emperor of Austria a pacific letter, which contains the paragraph, "My
ambition is wholly concentrated on the re-establishment of my commerce
and of my marine, and England grievously opposes itself to both."
No. 11.
Written from Lintz, the capital of Upper Austria, where Napoleon was
on the 4th.
No. 12.
Napoleon took up his abode at the palace of Schoenbrunn on the 14th,
and proves his "two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage" by passing through
Vienna at that time the following morning.
No. 13.
_They owe everything to you._--Aubenas quotes this, and remarks (vol.
ii. 326): "No one had pride in France more than Napoleon, stronger
even than his conviction of her superiority in the presence of other
contemporary sovereigns and courts. He wishes that in Germany, where
she will meet families with all the pride and sometimes all the
haughtiness of their ancestry, Josephine will not forget that she is
Empress of the French, superior to those who are about to receive her,
and who owe full respect and homage to her."
No. 14.
_Austerlitz._--Never was a victory more needful; but never was the
Emperor more confident. Savary says that it would take a volume to
contain all that emanated from his mind during that twenty-four hours
(December 1-2). Nor was it confined to military considerations.
General Segur describes how he spent his evening meal with his
marshals, discussing with Junot the last new tragedy (_Les Templiers_,
by Raynouard), and from it to Racine, Corneille, and the fatalism of
our ancestors.
_December 2nd_ was a veritable Black Monday for the Coalition in
general, and for Russia in particular, where Monday is always looked
upon as an unlucky day. Their forebodings increased when, on the eve
of the battle, the Emperor Alexander was thrown from his horse
(Czartoriski, vol. ii. 106).
No. 17.
_A long time since I had news of you._--Josephine was always a bad
correspondent, but at this juncture was reading that stilted but
sensational romance--"Caleb Williams;" or hearing the "Achilles" of
Paer, or the "Romeo and Juliet" of Zingarelli in the intervals of her
imperial progress through Germany. M. Masson, not often too indulgent
to Josephine, thinks her conduct excusable at this period--paying and
receiving visits, dressing and redressing, always in gala costume, and
without a moment's solitude.
No. 19.
_I await events._--A phrase usually attributed to Talleyrand in
1815. However, the Treaty of Presburg was soon signed (December
2nd), and the same day Napoleon met the Archduke Charles at
Stamersdorf, a meeting arranged from mutual esteem. Napoleon had
an unswerving admiration for this past and future foe, and said to
Madame d'Abrantes, "That man has a soul, a golden heart."[59]
Napoleon, however, did not wish to discuss politics, and only
arranged for an interview of two hours, "one of which," he wrote
Talleyrand, "will be employed in dining, the other in talking war and
in mutual protestations."
_I, for my part, am sufficiently busy._--No part of Napoleon's career
is more wonderful than the way in which he conducts the affairs of
France and of Europe from a hostile capital. This was his first
experience of the kind, and perhaps the easiest, although Prussian
diplomacy had needed very delicate and astute handling. But when
Napoleon determined, without even consulting his wife, to cement
political alliances by matrimonial ones with his and her relatives, he
was treading on somewhat new and difficult ground. First and foremost,
he wanted a princess for his ideal young man, Josephine's son Eugene,
and he preferred Auguste, the daughter of the King of Bavaria, to the
offered Austrian Archduchess. But the young Hereditary Prince of Baden
was in love and accepted by his beautiful cousin Auguste; so, to
compensate him for his loss, the handsome and vivacious Stephanie
Beauharnais, fresh from Madame Campan's finishing touches, was sent
for. For his brother Jerome a bride is found by Napoleon in the
daughter of the King of Wurtemberg. Baden, Bavaria, and Wurtemberg
were too much indebted to France for the spoils they were getting from
Austria to object, provided the ladies and their mammas were
agreeable; but the conqueror of Austerlitz found this part the most
difficult, and had to be so attentive to the Queen of Bavaria that
Josephine was jealous. However, all the matches came off, and still
more remarkable, all turned out happily, a fact which certainly
redounds to Napoleon's credit as a match-maker.
On December 31st, at 1.45 A.M., he entered Munich by torchlight and
under a triumphal arch. His chamberlain, M. de Thiard, assured him
that if he left Munich the marriage with Eugene would fall through,
and he agrees to stay, although he declared that his absence, which
accentuated the Bank crisis, is costing him 1,500,000 francs a day.
The marriage took place on January 14th, four days after Eugene
arrived at Munich and three days after that young Bayard had been
bereft of his cherished moustache. Henceforth the bridegroom is called
"Mon fils" in Napoleon's correspondence, and in the contract of
marriage Napoleon-Eugene de France. The Emperor and Empress reached
the Tuileries on January 27th. The marriage of Stephanie was even more
difficult to manage, for, as St. Amand points out, the Prince of Baden
had for brothers-in-law the Emperor of Russia, the King of Sweden, and
the King of Bavaria--two of whom at least were friends of England.
Josephine had once an uncle-in-law, the Count Beauharnais, whose wife
Fanny was a well-known literary character of the time, but of whom the
poet Lebrun made the epigram--
"Elle fait son visage, et ne fait pas ses vers."
Stephanie was the grand-daughter of this couple, and as Grand-Duchess
of Baden was beloved and respected, and lived on until 1860.
FOOTNOTES
[58] The first month of the Republican calendar.
[59] Memoirs, vol. ii. 165.
SERIES G
No. 1.
Napoleon left St. Cloud with Josephine on September 25th, and had
reached Mayence on the 28th, where his Foot Guard were awaiting him.
He left Mayence on October 1st, and reached Wuerzburg the next day,
whence this letter was written, just before starting for Bamberg.
Josephine was installed in the Teutonic palace at Mayence.
_Princess of Baden_, Stephanie Beauharnais. (For her marriage, see
note, end of Series F.)
_Hortense_ was by no means happy with her husband at the best of
times, and she cordially hated Holland. She was said to be very
frightened of Napoleon, but (like most people) could easily influence
her mother. Napoleon's letter to her of this date (October 5th) is
certainly not a severe one:--"I have received yours of September 14th.
I am sending to the Chief Justice in order to accord pardon to the
individual in whom you are interested. Your news always gives me
pleasure. I trust you will keep well, and never doubt my great
friendship for you."
_The Grand Duke_, _i.e._ of Wuerzburg. The castle where Napoleon
was staying seemed to him sufficiently strong to be armed and
provisioned, and he made a great depot in the city. "Volumes," says
Meneval, "would not suffice to describe the multitude of his
military and administrative measures here, and the precautions which
he took against even the most improbable hazards of war."
_Florence._--Probably September 1796, when Napoleon was hard pressed,
and Josephine had to fetch a compass from Verona to regain Milan, and
thus evade Wurmser's troops.
No. 2.
_Bamberg._--Arriving at Bamberg on the 6th, Napoleon issued a
proclamation to his army which concluded--"Let the Prussian army
experience the same fate that it experienced fourteen years ago. Let
it learn that, if it is easy to acquire increase of territory and
power by means of the friendship of the great people, their enmity,
which can be provoked only by the abandonment of all spirit of wisdom
and sense, is more terrible than the tempests of the ocean."
_Eugene._--Napoleon wrote him on the 5th, and twice on the 7th, on
which date we have _eighteen_ letters in the _Correspondence_.
_Her husband._--The Hereditary Grand Duke of Baden, to whom Napoleon
had written from Mayence on September 30th, accepting his services,
and fixing the rendezvous at Bamberg for October 4th or 5th.
On this day Napoleon invaded Prussian territory by entering Bayreuth,
having preceded by one day the date of their ultimatum--a rhapsody of
twenty pages, which Napoleon in his First Bulletin compares to "one of
those which the English Cabinet pay their literary men L500 per annum
to write." It is in this Bulletin where he describes the Queen of
Prussia (dressed as an Amazon, in the uniform of her regiment of
dragoons, and writing twenty letters a day) to be like Armida in her
frenzy, setting fire to her own palace.
No. 3.
By this time the Prussian army is already in a tight corner, with its
back on the Rhine, which, as Napoleon says in his Third Bulletin
written on this day, is "_assez bizarre_, from which very important
events should ensue." On the previous day he concludes a letter to
Talleyrand--"One cannot conceive how the Duke of Brunswick, to whom
one allows some talent, can direct the operations of this army in so
ridiculous a manner."
_Erfurt._--Here endless discussions, but, as Napoleon says in his
bulletin of this day--"Consternation is at Erfurt, ... but while they
deliberate, the French army is marching.... Still the wishes of the
King of Prussia have been executed; he wished that by October 8th the
French army should have evacuated the territory of the Confederation
which _has_ been evacuated, but in place of repassing the Rhine, it
has passed the Saal."
_If she wants to see a battle._--_Queen Louise_, great-grandmother of
the present Emperor William, and in 1806 aged thirty. St. Amand says
that "when she rode on horseback before her troops, with her helmet of
polished steel, shaded by a plume, her gleaming golden cuirass, her
tunic of cloth of silver, her red buskins with golden spurs," she
resembled, as the bulletin said, one of the heroines of Tasso. She
hated France, and especially Napoleon, as the child of the French
Revolution.
No. 4.
_I nearly captured him and the Queen._--They escaped only by an hour,
Napoleon writes Berthier. Blucher aided their escape by telling a
French General about an imaginary armistice, which the latter was
severely reprimanded by Napoleon for believing.
No battle was more beautifully worked out than the battle of
Jena--Davoust performing specially well his move in the combinations
by which the Prussian army was hopelessly entangled, as Mack at Ulm a
year before. Bernadotte alone, and as usual, gave cause for
dissatisfaction. He had a personal hatred for his chief, caused by the
knowledge that his wife (Desiree Clary) had never ceased to regret
that she had missed her opportunity of being the wife of Napoleon.
Bernadotte, therefore, was loth to give initial impetus to the
victories of the French Emperor, though, when success was no longer
doubtful, he would prove that it was not want of capacity but want of
will that had kept him back. He was the Talleyrand of the camp, and
had an equal aptitude for fishing in troubled waters.
_I have bivouacked._--Whether the issue of a battle was decisive,
or, as at Eylau, only partially so, Napoleon never shunned the
disagreeable part of battle--the tending of the wounded and the
burial of the dead. Savary tells us that at Jena, as at Austerlitz,
the Emperor rode round the field of battle, alighting from his horse
with a little brandy flask (constantly refilled), putting his hand
to each unconscious soldier's breast, and when he found unexpected
life, giving way to a joy "impossible to describe" (vol. ii. 184).
Meneval also speaks of his performing this "pious duty, in the
fulfilment of which nothing was allowed to stand in his way."
No. 5.
_Fatigues, bivouacs ... have made me fat._--The Austerlitz campaign
had the same effect. See a remarkable letter to Count Miot de Melito
on January 30th, 1806: "The campaign I have just terminated, the
movement, the excitement have made me stout. I believe that if all the
kings of Europe were to coalesce against me I should have a ridiculous
paunch." And it was so!
_The great M. Napoleon_, aged four, and the younger, aged two, are
with Hortense and their grandmother at Mayence, where a Court had
assembled, including most of the wives of Napoleon's generals, burning
for news. A look-out had been placed by the Empress some two miles on
the main-road beyond Mayence, whence sight of a courier was signalled
in advance.
No. 7.
_Potsdam._--As a reward for Auerstadt, Napoleon orders Davoust and his
famous Third Corps to be the first to enter Berlin the following day.
No. 8.
Written from Berlin, where he is from October 28th to November 25th.
_You do nothing but cry._--Josephine spent her evenings gauging
futurity with a card-pack, and although it announced Jena and
Auerstadt before the messenger, it may possibly, thinks M. Masson,
have been less propitious for the future--and behind all was the
sinister portion of the spae-wife's prophecy still unfulfilled.
No. 9A.
_Madame Tallien_ had been in her time, especially in the years
1795-99, one of the most beautiful and witty women in France. Madame
d'Abrantes calls her the Venus of the Capitol; and Lucien Bonaparte
speaks of the court of the voluptuous Director, Barras, where the
beautiful Tallien was the veritable Calypso. The people, however,
could not forget her second husband, Tallien, from whom she was
divorced in 1802 (having had three children born while he was in
Egypt, 1798-1802); and whilst they called Josephine "Notre Dame des
Victoires," they called Madame Tallien "Notre Dame de Septembre."