Conspiracy of Mallet--Napoleon's reception in Paris--his Military
Preparations--Prussia declares War--Austria negotiates with
Napoleon--Bernadette appears in Germany--The Russians advance into
Silesia--Napoleon heads his Army in Saxony--Battle of
Lutzen--Battle of Bautzen.
Some allusion has already been made to the news of a political
disturbance in Paris, which reached Napoleon during his retreat from
Moscow, and quickened his final abandonment of the army. The occurrence
in question was the daring conspiracy headed by General Mallet. This
officer, one of the ancient noblesse, had been placed in confinement in
1808, in consequence of his connection with a society called the
_Philadelphes_, which seems to have sprung up within the French army, at
the time when Napoleon seized the supreme power, and which had for its
immediate object his deposition--while some of the members contemplated
the restoration of a republican government, and others, of whom Mallet
was one, the recall of the royal family of Bourbon. The people of Paris
had for some weeks received no official intelligence from the grand
army, and rumours of some awful catastrophe were rife among all classes,
when Mallet conceived the daring project of forging a senatus-consultum,
announcing the fall of Napoleon in a great battle in Russia, and
appointing a provisional government. Having executed this forgery, the
general escaped from his prison, and appeared in full uniform, attended
by a corporal dressed as an aide-de-camp, at midnight, on the 22nd of
October 1812, at the gates of the Minims barracks, then tenanted by some
new and raw levies. The audacity with which he claimed the obedience of
these men to the senatorial decree overawed them. He assumed the
command, and on the instant arrested by their means Savary, minister of
police, and some others of the principal functionaries in the capital.
General Hullin, the military governor, was summoned and hesitated; at
that moment the officer of police, from whose keeping Mallet had
escaped, recognised him, and he was immediately resisted, disarmed, and
confined. The whole affair was over in the course of a few hours, but
the fact that so wild a scheme should have been so nearly successful was
sufficiently alarming. The ease and indifference with which a
considerable body of armed men, in the very heart of Paris, had
transferred their services to a new authority, proclaimed by a stranger,
made Napoleon consider with suspicion the basis of his power. And
ignorant to what extent the conspiracy had actually gone, he heard with
additional alarm, that no fewer than twenty-four persons, including the
leader, had been condemned to death. Of so many he was willing to
believe that some at least had been mere dupes, and apprehended that so
much bloodshed might create a violent revulsion of public feeling. The
Parisians beheld the execution of these men with as much indifference as
their bold attempt; but of this Napoleon was ignorant, until he reached
the Tuileries.
His arrival, preceded as it had been by the twenty-ninth bulletin, in
which the veil was at last lifted from the fatal events of the campaign,
restored for the moment the appearances of composure, amidst a
population of which almost every family had lost a son or a brother.
Such was the influence that still clung to his name. The Emperor was
safe. However great the present calamity, hope remained. The elements,
as they were taught to believe, had not merely quickened and increased,
but wholly occasioned the reverses of the army. The Russian winter was
the only enemy that had been able to triumph over his genius, and the
valour of Frenchmen. The senate, the magistrates, all those public
bodies and functionaries who had the means of approaching the throne,
now crowded to its footsteps with addresses full of adulation yet more
audacious than they had ever before ventured on. Tho voice of applause,
congratulation, and confidence, re-echoed from every quarter, drowned
the whispers of suspicion, resentment, and natural sorrow. Every
department of the public service appeared to be animated with a spirit
of tenfold activity. New conscriptions were called for and yielded.
Regiments arrived from Spain and from Italy. Every arsenal resounded
with the preparation of new artillery--thousands of horses were
impressed in every province. Ere many weeks had elapsed. Napoleon found
himself once more in a condition to take the field with not less than
350,000 soldiers. Such was the effect of his new appeal to the national
feelings of this great and gallant people.
Meanwhile the French garrisons dispersed over the Prussian territory
were wholly incompetent to overawe that oppressed and insulted nation,
now burning with the settled thirst and the long-deferred hope of
vengeance. The king interposed, indeed, his authority to protect the
soldiers of Napoleon from popular violence; but it presently became
manifest that their safety must depend on their concentrating themselves
in a small number of fortified places; and that even if Frederick
William had been cordially anxious to preserve his alliance with France,
it would soon be impossible for him to resist the unanimous wishes of
his people. Murat was already weary of his command. He found himself
thwarted and controlled by the other generals, none of whom respected
his authority; and one of whom, when he happened to speak of himself in
the same breath with the sovereigns of Austria and Prussia, answered
without ceremony, "You must remember that these are kings by the grace
of God, by descent, and by custom; whereas you are only a king by the
grace of Napoleon, and through the expenditure of French blood." Murat
was moreover jealous of the extent to which his queen was understood to
be playing the sovereign in Naples, and he threw up his command; being
succeeded by Eugene Beauharnois, and insulted anew by Napoleon himself,
in a general order which announced this change, and alleged as its
causes, the superior military skill of the viceroy, and his possession
of "the full confidence of the Emperor." Eugene succeeded to the command
at the moment when it was obvious that Frederick William could no
longer, even if he would, repress the universal enthusiasm of his
people. On the 31st of January, the King made his escape to Breslau, in
which neighbourhood no French were garrisoned, erected his standard, and
called on the nation to rise in arms. Whereon Eugene retired to
Magdeburg, and shut himself up in that great fortress, with as many
troops as he could assemble to the west of the Elbe.
Six years had elapsed since the fatal day of Jena; and, in spite of all
the watchfulness of Napoleon's tyranny, the Prussian nation had
recovered in a great measure its energies. The people now answered the
call of their beloved prince, as with the heart and voice of one man.
Youths of all ranks, the highest and the lowest, flocked
indiscriminately to the standard: the students of the universities
formed themselves into battalions, at the head of which, in many
instances, their teachers marched. The women flung their trinkets into
the king's treasure--the gentlemen melted their plate--England poured in
her gold with a lavish hand. The rapidity with which discipline was
established among the great levies thus assembled, excited universal
astonishment. It spoke the intense and perfect zeal with which a people,
naturally warlike, had devoted themselves to the sacred cause of
independence. The Emperor of Russia was no sooner aware of this great
movement, than he resolved to advance into Silesia. Having masked
several French garrisons in Prussian Poland, and taken others, he pushed
on with his main army to support Frederick William. There was some risk
in leaving a considerable number of hostile fortresses behind him and
his own frontier; but this he encountered cheerfully, rather than permit
the Prussians to stand alone in the first onset of Napoleon, of whose
extensive preparations all Europe was well aware. The two sovereigns,
long attached to each other by the warmest feelings of personal
friendship, though of late compelled by the iron force of circumstances
to put on the disguise of hostility, met at Breslau on the 15th of
March. Tears rushed down the cheeks of Frederick William, as he fell
into the arms of Alexander--"Wipe them," said the Czar; "they are the
last that Napoleon shall ever cause you to shed."
The aged Kutusoff having died, the command of the Russian army was now
given to Witgenstein; while that of the Prussians was entrusted to a
leader, whose name was hailed as the sure pledge of unremitting activity
and indomitable perseverance. This was Blucher, an officer originally
trained under the great Frederick, whose exemplary conduct after the
battle of Jena has already been mentioned. The brave old man had, since
that catastrophe, lived in utter retirement. The soldiery had long
before bestowed on him the _nom-de-guerre_ of _Marshal Forwards_, and
they heard of his appointment with universal delight. Addicted to
drinking, smoking, and gambling, and little conversant with the higher
branches of war as an art, Blucher was at first despised by Napoleon.
But his technical deficiencies were abundantly supplied by the skill of
Scharnforst, and afterwards of Gneisenau; and he himself possessed such
influence over the minds of his men in the day of action, and was sure
to rally them so rapidly after defeat, and to urge them on so keenly
when fortune was more favourable, that ere long the Emperor was forced
to confess that no one gave him so much trouble as that "debauched old
dragoon." Blucher hated the very names of France and Buonaparte with a
perfect hatred; and, once more permitted to draw his sword, he swore
never to sheathe it until the revenge of Prussia was complete.
The Crown Prince of Sweden landed with 35,000 men at Stralsund, and
advanced through Mecklenburg, while the sovereigns of Russia and Prussia
were concentrating their armies in Silesia. It was announced and
expected that German troops would join Bernadotte, so as to enable him
to open the campaign on the lower Elbe with a separate army of 100,000.
Lord Wellington was about to advance once more into Spain, with his
victorious veterans. Three great armies, two of which might easily
communicate with each other, were thus taking the field against him at
once; and yet, such was Napoleon's pride or obstinacy, that he would
make no sacrifice whatever to secure the assistance of Austria. He still
adhered to his resolution of entering into no general peace which should
not recognise Joseph as King of Spain; and refused absolutely to listen
to any proposals which included the cession either of Illyria or the
Tyrol. Ere he once more left Paris, he named Maria Louisa Regent in his
absence; but this was a circumstance not likely to have much weight with
the wavering counsels of the Austrian.
While Napoleon's military preparations were in progress, he made an
effort to conciliate that large party of his subjects, who had hitherto
looked on him with coldness as the oppressor of the head of the Catholic
church. During his absence in Russia, the Pope had been removed once
more to Fontainebleau, where he now occupied apartments in the palace,
under strict _surveillance_ of the police. The Emperor presented himself
suddenly in his hunter's dress before the holy father on the 13th of
January; and exerted his talents with such success, that preliminary
articles of a new concordat were at length drawn up. But in his
eagerness to produce a favourable impression on the Catholic public,
Napoleon published these preliminary articles, as if they had formed a
definite and ratified treaty; and Pius, indignant at this conduct, which
he considered as equally false and irreverent, immediately announced his
resolution to carry the negotiation no further.
The Pope, however, was the only man in France who as yet durst openly
confront the rage of Buonaparte. As the time when he was expected to
assume once more the command of his army in the field drew near, the
addresses of his apparently devoted subjects increased in numbers, and
still more in the extravagance of their adulations.
Napoleon quitted Paris in the middle of April, and on the 18th reached
the banks of the Saale; where the troops he had been mustering and
organising in France had now been joined by Eugene Beauharnois and the
garrison of Magdeburg. The Czar and his Prussian ally were known to be
at Dresden; and it soon appeared that, while they meditated a march
westwards on Leipsig, the French intended to move eastwards with the
view of securing the possession of that great city. Of the armies thus
about to meet each other's shock in the heart of Saxony, there is no
doubt that Buonaparte's was considerably the more numerous. His activity
had been worthy of his reputation; and a host nearly 200,000 strong was
already concentrated for action, while reserves to nearly a similar
extent were gradually forming behind him on the Rhine. The Russians had
not as yet pushed forward more than half their disposable troops beyond
the Vistula--wherever the blame lay, such was the fact; the Prussians,
unanimous as their patriotism was, had had only three months to
reorganise their establishments. Under such circumstances, the advance
of the allies beyond the Elbe, could only have proceeded from their
ardent wish to stimulate the spirit of insurrection in the kingdom of
Saxony and the neighbouring states. It was obviously Napoleon's interest
to bring them to action while their numbers were thus unequal, and ere
the sole object of their hazardous advance could be realised.
The armies met sooner than he had ventured to hope, on the first of May,
near the town of Lutzen, celebrated already as the scene of the battle
in which King Gustavus Adolphus died. The allies crossed the Elster
suddenly, under the cover of a thick morning fog, and attacked the left
flank of the French, who had been advancing in column, and who thus
commenced the action under heavy disadvantages. But the Emperor so
skilfully altered the arrangement of his army, that, ere the day closed,
the allies were more afraid of being enclosed to their ruin within his
two wings, than hopeful of being able to cut through and destroy that
part of his force which they had originally charged and weakened, and
which had now become his centre. Night interrupted the conflict. They
retreated next morning, leaving Napoleon in possession of the field. But
here the advantage stopped. The slain of the one army were not more
numerous than those of the other; and the allies, convinced of their
mistake, but neither broken nor discouraged, fell back leisurely on
Leipsig, thence on Dresden, and finally across the Elbe to Bautzen,
without leaving either prisoners or guns in the hands of the French. The
victory of Lutzen was blazoned abroad, as having restored all its glory
to the eagle of Napoleon; but he clearly perceived that the days were no
more in which a single battle determined the fate of a campaign, and an
empire. It was at Lutzen that Marshal Bessieres died.
Napoleon entered Dresden on the 6th, and on the 12th was joined there by
the King of Saxony, who certainly had been individually a gainer by his
alliance, and who still adhered to it, in opposition to the wishes both
of his people and his army. The Saxon troops, who had been wavering,
once more submitted to act in concert with the French; and Hamburg,
which city had partaken in the movement of Prussia, and all the country
to the left of the Elbe, fell back, for the moment, into their hands.
The cruelty with which the defection of Hamburg, in particular, was now
revenged on the inhabitants by Marshal Davoust, has consigned to lasting
abhorrence the name of that able but heartless satellite of Napoleon.
All the atrocities of Junot and Massena, in Portugal, in 1808 and 1809,
were equalled on the banks of the Elbe, by Davoust, in the summer of
1813.
While the Emperor paused at Dresden, Ney made various demonstrations in
the direction of Berlin, with the view of inducing the allies to quit
Bautzen; but it soon became manifest that they had resolved to sacrifice
the Prussian capital, if it were necessary, rather than forego their
position; by adhering to which they well knew Buonaparte must ultimately
be compelled to carry his main force into a difficult and mountainous
country, in place of acting in the open plains of Saxony and
Brandenburg. They were, moreover, desirous to remain in the
neighbourhood of Bohemia for another reason. The Austrian Emperor had
again renewed his negotiation with Napoleon; urging him to accept his
mediation for the conclusion of a general peace, and at the same time
giving him to understand that such a peace could not be obtained, unless
he would consent to be satisfied with the frontier of the Rhine, and
restore effectively the independence of the German nation. Napoleon's
conferences with Bubna, the Austrian envoy, were frequent and long; but
they ended where they began. He was well aware, however, that the
Emperor Francis was increasing his military establishment largely, and
that a great body of troops was already concentrated behind the
mountainous frontier of Bohemia. He could not but see that Austria
regarded herself as enabled and entitled to turn the scale on
whichsoever side she might choose; and he determined to crush the army
which had retreated from Lutzen, ere the ceremonious cabinet of Vienna
should have time to come to a distinct understanding with the
headquarters of Alexander and Frederick William. Victory, he clearly
saw, could alone serve his interests with the Austrian.
Having replaced by woodwork some arches of the magnificent bridge over
the Elbe, at Dresden, which the allies had blown up on their retreat,
Napoleon now moved towards Bautzen, and came in sight of the position on
the morning of the 21st of May. Its strength was obviously great. In
their front was the river Spree: wooded hills supported their right, and
eminences well fortified their left. The action began with an attempt to
turn their right, but Barclay de Tolly anticipated this movement, and
repelled it with such vigour, that a whole column of 7000 dispersed and
fled into the hills of Bohemia for safety. The Emperor then determined
to pass the Spree in front of the enemy, and they permitted him to do
so, rather than come down from their position. He took up his quarters
in the town of Bautzen, and his whole army bivouacked in presence of the
allies. The battle was resumed at daybreak on the 22nd; when Ney on the
right, and Oudinot on the left, attempted simultaneously to turn the
flanks of the position; while Soult and Napoleon himself directed charge
after charge on the centre. During four hours the struggle was
maintained with unflinching obstinacy; the wooded heights, where Blucher
commanded, had been taken and retaken several times--the bloodshed, on
either side, had been terrible--ere, the situation of both flanks being
apparent, the allies perceived the necessity either of retiring, or of
continuing the fight against superior numbers on disadvantageous ground.
They withdrew accordingly; but still with all the deliberate coolness of
a parade: halting at every favourable spot, and renewing their
cannonade. "What," exclaimed Napoleon, "no results! not a gun! not a
prisoner!--these people will not leave me so much as a nail." During the
whole day he urged the pursuit with impetuous rage, reproaching even his
chosen generals as "creeping scoundrels," and exposing his own person in
the very hottest of the fire. By his side was Duroc, the grand master of
the palace, his dearest--many said, ere now, his only friend. Bruyeres,
another old associate of the Italian wars, was struck down in their
view. "Duroc," whispered Napoleon, "fortune has a spite at us this day."
A few minutes afterwards, Duroc himself was mortally wounded. The
Emperor instantly ordered a halt, and remained all the afternoon in
front of his tent, surrounded by the guard, who did not witness his
affliction without tears. From this time he would listen to no reports
or suggestions.--"Everything to-morrow," was his invariable answer. He
stood by Duroc while he died; drew up with his own hand an epitaph to be
placed over his remains by the pastor of the place, who received 200
napoleons to defray the expense of a fitting monument; and issued also a
decree in favour of his departed friend's children. Thus closed the
22nd. The allies being strongly posted during most of the day, had
suffered less than the French; the latter had lost 15,000, the former
10,000 men.
They continued their retreat into Upper Silesia; and Buonaparte advanced
to Breslau, and released the garrison of Glogau. Meanwhile the Austrian
having watched these indecisive though bloody fields, once more renewed
his offers of mediation. The sovereigns of Russia and Prussia expressed
great willingness to accept it; and Napoleon also appears to have been
sincerely desirous for the moment of bringing his disputes to a peaceful
termination. He agreed to an armistice, and in arranging its conditions
agreed to fall back out of Silesia; thus enabling the allied princes to
re-open communications with Berlin. The lines of country to be occupied
by the armies, respectively, during the truce, were at length settled,
and it was signed on the 1st of June. The French Emperor then returned
to Dresden, and a general congress of diplomatists prepared to meet at
Prague.