excepted. The Directory raised an army for the invasion of England,
and gave Napoleon the command. Republicans all over Europe, England
included, adored Napoleon as the great champion of popular rights.
England trembled. It was necessary that the people should be taught to
hate this man whom they now worshipped. The English press came to the
rescue of the English government. The most malign and atrocious lies
were published regarding Napoleon. He was represented as a demon in
human form; a monster of profligacy and tyrannical ambition; a robber,
plundering the nations for his own selfish aggrandizement. Regarding
these bitter and false libels Napoleon said: “There is not one which
will reach posterity. When I have been asked to cause answers to be
written to them, I have uniformly replied, ‘My victories and my works
of public improvement are the only response which it becomes me to
make.’ When there shall not be a trace of these libels to be found,
the great monuments of utility which I have reared, and the code of
laws that I have formed, will descend to the most remote ages, and
future historians will avenge the wrongs done me by my contemporaries.”
Napoleon deeming an attack upon England too hazardous, the project was
abandoned.
Then followed Napoleon’s expedition into Egypt. Volumes could be
written upon each one of Napoleon’s marvellous campaigns, but we can
merely give a slight outline. The famous battle of the Pyramids made
Napoleon the undisputed conqueror of Egypt. “Soldiers!” he exclaimed,
as he rode along the ranks, “from those summits forty centuries
contemplate your actions.”
The name of Napoleon became suddenly as renowned in Asia and Africa as
it had previously become in Europe. But twenty-one days had elapsed
since he landed at Alexandria, and now he was sovereign of Egypt. The
Egyptians welcomed him as a friend and liberator. He disclaimed all
sovereignty over Egypt, and organized a government to be administered
by the people themselves. In the mean time Lord Nelson learned that
the French had landed in Egypt. He immediately proceeded thither.
The famous battle of the Nile followed, in which the English were
victorious. The French fleet had been destroyed, and Napoleon was cut
off from Europe. All monarchical Europe rejoiced; all republican
Europe mourned. Napoleon now undertook the Syrian expedition. With ten
thousand men he commenced his march over the desert. We cannot describe
their weary march through the burning sands, their sufferings from
want, and the dreadful plague which soon broke out in the army. We can
only note the siege of Acre. The subjugation of this fortress would
have made Napoleon master of Syria. Sir Sidney Smith conducted the
defence with the combined English and Turkish troops. It was here that
the marvellous affection of Napoleon’s soldiers for their general was
tested. Sir Sidney Smith circulated a proclamation, offering to convey
every French soldier safely to France who would desert Napoleon. It is
not known that a single man was false to Napoleon, whom all adored as a
being seemingly more than mortal.
The siege had continued for sixty days. Napoleon had lost three
thousand men by the sword and the plague. At this time fresh Turkish
troops arrived to join his enemies; and deeming the enterprise
hopeless, Napoleon abandoned the siege. Napoleon was as great in defeat
as in success. Speaking of his power to endure trials, he said: “Nature
seems to have calculated that I should endure great reverses. She has
given me a mind of marble. Thunder cannot ruffle it. The shaft merely
glides along.”
At midnight, on the 25th of July, 1799, Napoleon, with six thousand
men, arrived within sight of the camp of the Turks, upon the shores
of the Bay of Aboukir. Napoleon knew that the Turks were awaiting the
arrival of the Mameluke cavalry from Egypt and of re-enforcements from
Acre and other parts of Syria. Defeat to Napoleon now would have been
utter ruin. But the terrific conflict which followed was not a defeat,
but a victory so complete that the whole Turkish army was destroyed.
Sir Sidney Smith fled in terror to his ships. Not a foe remained. In
the enthusiasm of the moment, Kleber, who had just arrived with a
division of two thousand men, for whom Napoleon had not waited, threw
his arms around the neck of his adored chieftain, exclaiming, “Let me
embrace you, my general; you are great as the universe!”
Napoleon now learned that France was in a terrible state of confusion.
The imbecile government was despised. Plots, conspiracies, and
assassinations filled the land. Napoleon determined to return to
France. As he had no fleet, he could not take his army. The matter was
therefore concealed from them. With a small retinue, Napoleon embarked,
and sailed to France. Then followed the overthrow of the Directory.
France had tried republicanism, and the experiment had failed. The
people were too ignorant to govern themselves. The next morning after
the overthrow of the Directory, the three consuls, Napoleon, Sièyes,
and Ducos, met in the palace of the Luxembourg.
There was but one arm-chair in the room. Napoleon had seated himself in
it. Sièyes exclaimed, “Gentlemen, who shall take the chair?”
“Bonaparte, surely,” said Ducos; “he already has it. He is the only man
who can save us.”
“Very well, gentlemen,” said Napoleon, promptly; “let us proceed to
business.”
And important business he soon despatched. The revolutionary tribunals
had closed the churches and prohibited the observance of the Sabbath.
Napoleon recalled the banished priests, opened the churches, and
restored religious worship. The treasury was bankrupt. Napoleon
replenished it. The army was starving and ragged. Napoleon addressed
them with his thrilling words of sympathy, and clothed and fed them.
The navy was dilapidated. In every port in France, at the magic word
of this magnetic man, the sound of the ship-hammer was heard, and a
fleet was prepared to send to Egypt to convey to France his soldiers
left there. The Constitution was framed and adopted, and Napoleon was
elected First Consul of France. Civil war was now at an end. Napoleon
wrote two letters, one to the king of England, and the other to the
emperor of Germany, endeavoring to arrange a general peace. Austria was
inclined to listen to this appeal, but England demanded war. She would
have no peace while France continued a republic. So Napoleon was forced
to prepare for war.
“Moreau was sent with a magnificent army into Swabia, to drive back the
Austrians towards their capital; Massena was appointed over the army
of Italy, while Napoleon himself swept down from the heights of San
Bernard, upon the plains of Lombardy.
“At the fierce-fought battle of Marengo he reconquered Italy, while
Moreau chased the vanquished Austrians over the Danube. Victory
everywhere perched on the French standards, and Austria was ready to
agree to an armistice, in order to recover from the disasters she had
suffered. The slain at Montibello, around Genoa, on the plains of
Marengo, in the Black Forest, and along the Danube are to be charged
over to the British government, which refused peace in order to fight
for the philanthropic purpose of giving security to governments.
“Austria, though crippled, let the armistice wear away, refusing to
make a treaty because she was bound for seven months longer to England.
Bonaparte, in the mean time, was preparing to recommence hostilities.
Finding himself unable to conclude a peace, he opened the campaign of
Hohenlinden, and sent Macdonald across the Splugen. Moreau’s victorious
march through Austria, and the success of the operations in Italy, soon
brought Austria to terms, and the celebrated peace of Luneville, of
1801, was signed. The energy and ability, and above all, the success of
the First Consul had now forced the continental powers to regard him
with respect, and in some cases with sympathy, while England, by her
imperious demands, had embroiled herself with all the northern powers
of Europe.”
At length a general peace was concluded at Amiens, and the world was
at rest. Napoleon was now the idol of France. Although his title was
only that of First Consul, and France was nominally a republic, yet he
was in reality the most powerful monarch in Europe. He ruled in the
_hearts_ of forty millions of people. In 1803 the peace of Amiens was
broken, and all impartial historians admit, and even English writers
cannot deny the responsibility of this rupture rests with England. In
that treaty it was expressly stipulated that England should evacuate
Egypt and Malta, while France was to evacuate Naples, Tarento, and the
Roman States. Napoleon had fulfilled his part of the agreement within
two months after the peace. But the English were still in Alexandria
and Malta. Napoleon was right, and England was entirely wrong. If a
violation of a solemn treaty is a just cause for war, Napoleon was
free from blame. England now drew Russia into this new alliance, then
Austria and Sweden. Prussia refused to join the alliance, and sided
with France. The bloody conflict began. For the slain left on the
plains of Italy, for the tens of thousands strewn on the battle-field
of Austerlitz, who is chargeable? Neither Napoleon nor France. Napier,
in his “Peninsular War,” says:
“Up to the peace of Tilsit, the wars of France were _essentially
defensive_; for the bloody contest that wasted the continent for so
many years was not a struggle for pre-eminence between ambitious
powers, nor for the political ascendency of one or other nation, _but
a deadly conflict to determine whether aristocracy or democracy should
predominate,—whether equality or privilege should henceforth be the
principle of European governments_.”
“But how much does this ‘up to the peace of Tilsit’ embrace? First,
all the first wars of the French Republic,—the campaigns of 1792, ’93,
’94, ’95, and the carnage and woe that made up their history; second,
eleven out of the eighteen years of Bonaparte’s career,—the campaigns
of 1796, in Italy and Germany, the battles of Montenotte, Millesimo,
Dego, Lodi, Arcola, Castiglione, and Rivoli, the campaigns of 1797,
and the bloody battle-fields that marked their progress. It embraces
the wars in Italy and Switzerland while Bonaparte was in Egypt; the
campaign of Marengo, and its carnage; the havoc around and in Genoa;
the slain thousands that strewed the Black Forest and the banks of
the Danube, where Moreau struggled so heroically; the campaign of
Hohenlinden, and its losses. And yet this is but a fraction to what
remains. This period takes in also the campaign of Austerlitz and its
bloody battle, and the havoc the hand of war was making in Italy; the
campaign of Jena, and the fierce conflicts that accompanied it; the
campaign of Eylau and the battles of Pultusk, Golymin, Heilsberg,
crowned by the dreadful slaughter of Eylau; the campaigns of Friedland
and Tilsit, and the multitudes they left on the plains of Europe. All
these terrible campaigns, with their immense slaughter, does an English
historian declare to be the result of a defensive war on the part of
France, not merely a defence of territory, _but of human rights against
tyranny_. Let republicans ponder this before they adopt the sentiments
of prejudiced historians, and condemn as a monster the man who was
toiling over battle-fields to save his country from banded oppressors.”
The 2d of December, 1804, dawned clear and cold. It was Sunday, and
upon this day Napoleon was to be crowned emperor at the church of Nôtre
Dame. All Paris assembled to witness this imposing ceremony. The church
was draped in costly velvet of richest hues. At one end a gorgeous
throne was erected. The Emperor left the Tuileries in a splendid
carriage, whose sides were of glass, thus allowing his magnificent
robes to be seen. He wore a golden laurel wreath upon his head.
The acclamations of the immense crowds thronging the streets filled the
air. As Napoleon entered the church, five hundred musicians intoned a
solemn chant. The Pope anointed the Emperor and blessed the sword and
the sceptre. Then Napoleon lifted the crown and placed it upon his own
head. Napoleon then took up the crown intended for the Empress, and
approaching Josephine as she knelt before him, he placed it tenderly
upon her brow. Their eyes met for one moment in a long and loving
gaze of mutual affection, and tears filled the eyes of the beautiful
Josephine as she glanced with undisguised adoration upon the husband
she so reverenced and worshipped. And the lofty arches of Nôtre Dame
resounded with shouts of “_Vive l’Empereur!_”
The Cisalpine Republic had witnessed the change of France from a
republic to an empire with great satisfaction. A deputation from
Italy was now sent to Napoleon, begging him to assume the crown of
Charlemagne. On the 20th of May, the coronation took place in the
Cathedral of Milan. The ceremony was conducted with a magnificence not
exceeded at Nôtre Dame. The iron crown of Charlemagne had reposed for
a thousand years in the church of Monza. The Empress first appeared
gorgeously dressed and glittering with jewels. Then Napoleon entered,
arrayed in imperial robes, with the diadem upon his brow and the
sceptre and crown of Charlemagne in his hands. He placed the crown upon
his own head, saying, solemnly, “God has given it to me; woe to him who
touches it!”
Meanwhile, hostilities had commenced in the midst of Germany. Austria
and Russia had united with England. The Austrians had passed the Inn;
Munich was invaded; war was inevitable.
Then followed the campaign of Ulm. Napoleon writes to Josephine, Dec.
5, 1805:—
“I have concluded a truce. The Russians have implored it. The victory
of Austerlitz is the most illustrious of all which I have gained. We
have taken forty-five flags, 150 pieces of cannon, and twenty generals.
More than 20,000 are slain. It is an awful spectacle. I have beaten the
Russian and Austrian armies commanded by the two emperors.”
In 1806 England, Russia, and Prussia formed a new alliance against the
French. Then followed the bloody battles of Jena and Auerstadt. On
the 28th of October Napoleon made a triumphal entry into Berlin, and
established himself in the king’s palace. While there he visited the
tomb of Frederick the Great, at Potsdam. The sword of the Prussian was
suspended over his grave. Napoleon took it down, saying, “I will send
it to the governor of the Invalides.” General Rapp ventured to reply,
“Were I in your place, I should not be willing to part with this sword.
I should keep it for myself.”
Napoleon jestingly answered, “_Have I not then a sword of my own,
Mr. Giver of Advice?_” The Prussian monarchy was destroyed upon the
fields of Jena and of Auerstadt. But England and Russia were yet
clamorous for war. Again Napoleon tried to make overture for peace,
again he was repulsed. Then followed the terrible battle-field of
Eylau. Amid winter’s snow and ice and storms this famous battle was
won. As Napoleon passed over the gory field after the awful carnage,
he exclaimed with deep emotion, “To a father who loses his children
victory has no charms.”
A dragoon, dreadfully shattered and bleeding from the effects of a
cannon ball, raised his head from the bloody snow, and faintly said,
“Turn your eyes this way, please your Majesty. I believe that I have
got my death wound. I shall soon be in the other world. But no matter
for that; _vive l’Empereur!_”
Napoleon immediately dismounted from his horse and took the hand of
the wounded man, telling his aids to carry him to the ambulance. Large
tears rolled down the cheeks of the dying dragoon, as he fixed his
eyes upon that loved face, fervently exclaiming, “I only wish I had a
thousand lives to lay down for your majesty.” Amidst a heap of dead,
a feeble voice was heard crying, “_Vive l’Empereur!_” Half-concealed
beneath a tattered flag lay a young officer. As Napoleon approached, he
raised himself upon his elbow, though pierced with numerous wounds,
and faintly cried: “God bless your majesty! farewell, farewell! Oh, my
poor mother! To dear France my last sigh!” and falling back, was dead.
Upon this dreadful battle-field, though it was after midnight, he wrote
this fond note to Josephine:—
MY LOVE,—There was a great battle yesterday. Victory
remains with me, but I have lost many men. The loss of
the enemy, still more considerable, does not console
me. I write these two lines myself, though greatly
fatigued, to tell you that I am well, and that I love
you. Wholly thine,
NAPOLEON.
The peace of Tilsit was finally concluded, and Napoleon returned to
Paris.
The French government at this time was composed of three houses,—the
Senate, the Tribunate, and the Legislature. Napoleon blended the
Tribunate and the Legislature in one. He formed the Council of State,
or Cabinet, with the greatest care, choosing the most able men in every
department. The meetings of the Council were held in the palace of
the Tuileries or at St. Cloud. The most perfect freedom of discussion
prevailed in the Council.
In September, 1808, occurred the memorable meeting of the emperors at
Erfurth. Kings, princes, and courtiers came from all parts of Europe to
witness the extraordinary spectacle. Napoleon was the gracious host who
received them as his guests. No more gorgeous retinue had ever followed
a monarch of the blood royal than surrounded the Emperor Napoleon as
he left Paris for the appointed place of meeting. Amid all the royal
magnificence which attended these imperial sovereigns, none appeared
so majestic, so supremely commanding in their personal presence as
Napoleon the Plebeian Monarch, who had raised himself by his own
surprising and irresistible genius to the proudest place amidst the
courts of Europe.
All the other sovereigns trembled before his amazing power; the
imperialism of mind and genius compelled the homage of royal titles and
royal blood.
We do not uphold that Napoleon’s career was free from error, and no
greater blot tarnishes the brightness of his fame than his divorce of
Josephine. From that moment Napoleon fell. From that moment Josephine
mounted an eminence of self-sacrificing, unselfish devotion, of
heart-martyrdom, never reached by woman before. Women have died for
their husbands; but this was worse than death. Women have slaved
and toiled, and been down-trodden by brutal husbands; but this was
worse than that. Never before had woman stepped from so high an
eminence of bliss into so deep an abyss of heart-desolating woe,
and with self-renouncing, almost inconceivable, womanly devotion,
allowed her royal place as wife to be taken by another, that thus a
supposed political power might be gained by the idolized object of her
affection; who, even though his cruel demand thus shattered her hopes,
her heart, and her life, she was still unselfish enough to glory in
her self-renunciatory sacrifice, for the still adored object of her
love. No political excuse can cover this crime committed by Napoleon
at the instigation of Fouché and other ambitious adherents, and worst
of all, at the instigation of his own relations, whom historians
acknowledge were the bitter enemies of his wife. No laxity of the
times, in the sacred laws of marriage, which are the most solemn vows
that human beings can take upon themselves, next to their vows to God,
can excuse this blot upon Napoleon’s fame. By the very eminence of
his genius above all other men, by the very exaltation of his lofty
position, should he have made himself the model as an _upholder_, not a
_desecrator_, of the most sacred human relation ever ordained by God.
“What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder!” was a
weightier obligation than any supposed political advantage, more
binding than any patriotism, more encumbent upon him than any duty of
state or country. No political reasons can palliate in the least degree
this crime; they only weakly _explain_, but do not in any manner excuse
it. That Napoleon, with his marvellous self-sufficiency of will, and
genius, and wise forethought, and keen-eyed intuition, could have been
led into such a deplorable act, is past all comprehension. That it was
the cruel and bitter mistake of his life, he himself has acknowledged.
Napoleon said afterwards, “In separating myself from Josephine, and in
marrying Maria Louisa, I placed my foot upon an abyss which was covered
with flowers.”
It was an abyss deep and awful; and from this dark and direful abyss
issued forth the horrible reptiles of disappointment, sorrow, and
remorse, which thrust their cruel fangs into the quivering heart of
the lonely exile at St. Helena. Perchance, in the silent anguish of
his agonized but heroic soul, a dumb wail broke forth, “Ah, Josephine!
my only love! bright star of my destiny! when I no longer gazed upward
to thy heavenly light, but tempted by the demons of false counsel,
followed an _ignis fatuus_ o’er the treacherous quicksands of political
ambition, then did I find myself ingulfed in sorrows, and my heart was
shrouded in the black darkness of a rayless night of hopeless despair.
Had I been true to thee, perchance a just and righteous Providence
might have been more merciful to me. Thou wert my star of hope and
love! Thou wert ordained by heaven, my star of destiny! Bitterly do I
remember thy prophetic words upon that memorable night, when the tie
which bound us together was shattered by my blind ambition, ‘Bonaparte,
behold that bright star; it is mine! and remember, to mine, not to
thine, has sovereignty been promised. Separate, then, our fates, and
your star fades!’
“Ah, Josephine, you were right! It is to you alone that I owe the only
few moments of happiness I have known in the world!”
Yes, Josephine was right; that hour marked the commencement of the
downfall of Napoleon. His star, which once blazed forth in matchless
splendor in the heavens, was soon to sink forever. The two greatest
errors of Napoleon were the conquest of Spain and the invasion of
Russia. The first was unjust, the second was unfortunate. We can but
give one picture of the Russian campaign. Napoleon and his army had
marched in triumph more than two thousand miles from his capital.
Victory had accompanied him. He had taken the metropolis of the most
powerful nation on the continent, though that nation had been aided by
England, Spain, Portugal, and Sweden. Moscow was in the possession of
the French. Napoleon was established in the Krémlin.
It was the 16th of September, 1812. At midnight the cry of “Fire!”
resounded through the streets. Moscow was in flames! Mines were sprung,
shells burst, cannons were discharged, wagons of powder exploded;
earthquake succeeded earthquake; volcano followed volcano of flame and
smoke and burning projectiles, until the whole vast city was wrapped
in one wild ocean of flame. Napoleon said of this awful sight: “It
was a spectacle of a sea and billows of fire, a sky and clouds of
flame; mountains of red rolling flames, like immense waves of the sea,
alternately bursting forth and elevating themselves to skies of fire,
and then sinking into the ocean of flame below. Oh! it was the most
grand, the most sublime, the most terrific sight the world ever beheld.”
Nothing was left of Moscow save the remembrance of its former grandeur.
Then followed the terrible retreat of the French army, through the
cold and snow and winter storms. During this unfortunate expedition
the entire army of Napoleon had been destroyed. “During the Russian
campaign France is believed to have lost about three hundred and fifty
thousand soldiers: a hundred thousand were killed in the advance and
retreat, a hundred and fifty thousand died from hunger, fatigue, and
the severity of the climate, and about a hundred thousand remained
prisoners in the hands of the Russians, not more than half of whom ever
returned to France.”
Still, notwithstanding the enormous wars in which Napoleon had been
engaged, he had expended in works of public improvement, for the
embellishment of France, in the course of nine years, more than two
hundred millions of dollars. “These miracles,” says a French writer,
“were all effected by steadiness of purpose, talent armed with power,
and finances wisely and economically applied. If a man of the age of
the Medici, or of Louis XIV., were to revisit the earth, and at the
sight of so many marvels, ask how many ages of peace and glorious
reigns had been required to produce them, he would be answered,
‘_Twelve years of war, and a single man!_’”
But the war was not over. With an army formed of fresh recruits,
again Napoleon was forced to meet his foes. Then followed the battle
of Lützen, which is regarded as one of the most brilliant proofs of
Napoleon’s genius. But now many a Judas appeared in the midst of his
supposed friends. General Jomini deserted the staff of Marshal Ney, and
went over to the Emperor Alexander. Bernadotte, of Sweden, took up arms
against the French; and General Moreau went over to the camp of the
Allies.
[Illustration: NAPOLEON AT FONTAINEBLEAU.]