_View of Napoleon's gigantic Power--The Empress Maria Louisa
delivered of a Son--Criticism on the Title given him, of King of
Rome--Speculations in regard to the advantages or disadvantages
arising from this Event--Retrospect--Ex-Queen of Etruria--Her severe
and unjustifiable Treatment by Napoleon--Lucien Buonaparte is
invited to England, where he writes Epic Poetry--Attempt to deliver
Ferdinand, defeated--Operations in Portugal--Retreat of
Massena--Battles of Fuentes d'Onoro fought by Lord Wellington--On
the South Frontier of Portugal, by Lord Beresford--Of Barossa, by
General Graham--Enterprise of Arroyo-Molinas--Spaniards defeated
under Blake--Valencia captured by the French, and he and his Army
made Prisoners of War--Disunion among the French Generals--Joseph
wishes to abdicate the Throne of Spain._
[Sidenote: ACTUAL DOMINIONS.]
The natural consequences of an overgrown empire were already sapping
that of Napoleon; for extent of territory does not constitute power, any
more than corpulence in the human frame constitutes strength or health;
and Napoleon's real authority was in truth greater some years before,
than now when his dominion was so much enlarged. The war in Spain,
maintained at such an expense of blood and treasure, was a wasting and
consuming sore. The kingdom of Holland had afforded him supplies more
readily, and had more the means of doing so, when under the dominion of
his brother Louis, than the Dutch now either showed or possessed, when
ranked as a constituent part of the French empire. The same might be
said of the states and free towns in the north of Germany; where, in
many instances, strong bands of smugglers, dressed and armed as guerilla
parties, maintained a desultory war with the officers of the French
customs; and, moved equally by national hatred and the love of gain won
by desperate risks, made in some districts a kind of petty civil war.
Yet, though such cankerworms gnawed the root of the tree, the branches
and foliage, to all outward appearance, extended a broader shade than
ever. It was especially when a formal annunciation, both in France and
Austria, called the good subjects of both realms to rejoice in the
prospect that Maria Louisa would soon give an heir to Napoleon, that men
who opened the map of Europe saw with fear and wonder the tremendous
inheritance to which the expected infant was likely to succeed.
The actual dominions of France, governed by Napoleon in his own proper
right as Emperor of the French, had gradually attained the following
extravagant dimensions. They extended, from north-east to south-west,
from Travemunde, on the Baltic ocean, to the foot of the Pyrenees; and,
from north-west to south-east, from the port of Brest to Terracina, on
the confines of the Neapolitan territories. A population of forty-two
millions of people, fitted in various ways to secure the prosperity of a
state, and inhabiting, for wealth, richness of soil, and felicity of
climate, by far the finest portion of the civilized earth, formed the
immediate liege subjects of this magnificent empire.
Yet, to stop here were greatly to undervalue the extent of Napoleon's
power. We have to add to his personal empire Carniola and the Illyrian
provinces, and also the fine kingdom of Italy. Then, in his character of
Mediator of the Helvetian Republic, the Emperor exercised an almost
absolute authority in Switzerland, which furnished him, though
unwillingly, with several fine regiments of auxiliaries. The German
confederation of the Rhine, though numbering kings among their league,
were at the slightest hint bound to supply him each with his prescribed
quota of forces, with a readiness and an affectation of zeal very
different from the slack and reluctant manner in which they formerly
supplied their paltry contingents to the Emperor of Germany.
Murat, with his kingdom of Naples, was at his brother-in-law's disposal;
and if, as Buonaparte's hopes whispered, the Peninsula should ultimately
prove unable to resist the war he waged, then Spain and Portugal would
be added to his immense empire, being now in the state of sturdy and
contumacious rebels, whose resistance seemed in the speedy prospect of
being finally subdued. Thus, an empire of 800,000 square miles, and
containing a population of 85 millions, in territory one-fifth part, and
in the number of inhabitants one-half, of united Europe, was either in
quiet subjection to Napoleon's sceptre, or on the point, as was
supposed, of becoming so.
Of those who shared amongst them the residue of Europe, and still
maintained some claim to independence, Britain might make the proud
boast, that she was diametrically in opposition to the Ruler of the
world; that, in the long-continued strife, she had dealt him injuries as
deep as she had ever received, and had disdained, under any
circumstances, to treat with him on less terms than those of equality.
Not to that fair land be the praise, though she supported many burdens
and endured great losses; but to Providence, who favoured her efforts
and strengthened her resolutions; who gave her power to uphold her own
good cause, which, in truth, was that of European independence, and
courage to trust in the justice of Heaven, when the odds mustered
against her seemed, in earthly calculation, so dreadful as to deprive,
the wise of the head to counsel; the brave, of the heart to resist!
Denmark, so powerful was the voice which France had in her councils,
might almost be accounted humbled to one of the federative
principalities.
Sweden had but a moderate and second-rate degree of power. She felt, as
other German nations, the withering blight of the Continental, or
Anti-social System; but, circumstanced as she was, with the possession
of Swedish Pomerania dependent on French pleasure, she had no other
remedy than to wait her opportunity.
Still more was this the case with Prussia, through all her provinces the
mortal enemy of the French name, but whom the large garrisons which
France had planted in her dominions, and the numerous forces which she
maintained there, compelled for the time to be as submissive as a
handmaiden. It was true that the court were as noiselessly as possible,
endeavouring to revive their military establishment; that they were
dismissing the villains who had sold and betrayed their country, and
replacing them by age which had been tried, or youth which had witnessed
the agony of their country, and been trained up in thinking, that to
avenge her was their dearest duty. True it was, also, that the people in
Prussia, and many other parts of Germany, waited as for the day dawning,
for the hope of winning back their freedom; but outward appearances
indicated nothing of these smothered hopes, wishes, and preparations;
and the general eye saw in Prussia only a nation resigned to her
bondage, without, apparently, any hope of redemption.
Austria, besides the terrible losses which the last war had brought upon
her, was now fettered to Napoleon by a link which gave the proud House
of Hapsburg an apology for the submission, or at least the observance,
which she paid to the son-in-law of her Emperor.
Turkey, though she would have had her turn, had the tide of fortune
continued to keep the course in which it had so long flowed, was not yet
in the way of being comprehended in Napoleon's plan of politics.
Russia was waging with the Porte an impolitic war of acquisition, to
realise some of the selfish plans of aggrandisement which Napoleon had
assented to, or perhaps suggested, at Tilsit and Erfurt. But he now
witnessed them without wishing them success, and listened to the
complaints of Austria, who unwillingly saw the ambitious views of Russia
in these provinces. Of all the continental states, therefore, assuming
even the semblance of independence, Russia seemed alone to possess it in
reality; and from late acts of estrangement--such as the protest on the
subject of the Duchy of Oldenburg, and the reception of British ships
and merchandise into her ports--it certainly appeared that a different
spirit was in the councils of this great empire than had ruled them
during the meetings at Tilsit and Erfurt. Yet there were but few who
thought that Russia, in opposition to the whole continent of Europe,
would dare confront Napoleon; and still fewer, even of the most sanguine
politicians, had any deep-grounded hope that her opposition would be
effectual. Out of such a Cimmerian midnight, to all human views, was the
day-spring of European liberty destined to arise.
America, happy in the Atlantic which severed her from Europe, now an
almost universal scene of war or slavery, looked on in conscious
security, and by reviving at this crisis disputed claims upon Britain,
seemed to listen more to the recollection of recent enmity, than of
mutual language, manners, and descent.
[Sidenote: BIRTH OF THE KING OF ROME.]
Within a year after her marriage with Napoleon, the young Empress was
announced to have been taken with the pains of labour. The case was a
difficult and distressing one; and the professional person employed lost
courage, and was afraid to do what was necessary. Napoleon appeared in
the apartment, and commanded him to proceed as if the patient were the
wife of an ordinary burgess. She was at length successfully and safely
delivered of a fine boy, which Buonaparte, with feelings, doubtless, as
highly strung as after a battle gained, carried into the next apartment,
and exhibited in triumph to the great officers and courtiers, by whom he
was unanimously hailed King of Rome, the dignity which had been destined
to the heir of the French Republic.
The title did not, indeed, pass uncriticised. Some said, that taking the
regal designation from a city where the very name of king had been
accounted unlucky, had an ominous presage. Catholics objected to it, as
it necessarily carried with it the recollection of the sacrilegious
violence which had stripped the Pope of his temporal possessions. And
lastly, it was asked, what chance there ever was of the execution of
that part of the Italian constitution, which, after Napoleon's death,
guaranteed the succession in the kingdom of Italy to some one different
from the Emperor of France, when the title of King of Rome was assumed
as that of the heir of the French empire?[79]
Such ominous remarks, however, only circulated among the disaffected, or
passed with anti-imperial jests, satires, and calembourgs, through such
saloons of the Faubourg St. Germain, as were still tenanted by the
ancient and faithful adherents of the House of Bourbon. The city of
Paris made as general a show of rejoicing as they ever testified when an
heir was born to one of their most beloved sovereigns; deputations with
addresses came from public bodies of every description; and, that
flattery might sound the very base string of humility, the fashionable
colour of dress for the season bore a name alluding to the young King of
Rome, which delicacy, if not pride, ought to have rejected. But,
perhaps, the strangest circumstance of the whole was, that the old
dethroned King of Spain, and his consort, undertook a journey, for the
purpose of carrying their personal congratulations on the birth of an
heir, to one who had deposed, and was detaining in prison their own
lineage, and had laid Spain, their native dominions, in blood, from the
Pyrenees to the Pillars of Hercules.
Napoleon, and his more devoted admirers, rejoiced in this happy
incident, as that which was most likely, in their eyes, to sustain the
Empire of France, when fate should remove him by whom it was founded.
The protection of the House of Austria, and the charm flung around the
child by the high fame of the father, could not, it was thought, but
ensure a peaceful accession to the throne, and an undisturbed security
in possessing it. His life, too, was ensured in future against such
fanatics as that of Schoenbrun; for what purpose would it serve to cut
off the Emperor, when the empire was to survive, and descend in all its
strength upon his son and heir?
Others there were, who pretended that the advantages arising from the
birth of the King of Rome, were balanced by corresponding
inconveniences. These asserted, that several of the French great
generals had followed the fortunes of Napoleon, in hopes that, upon his
death in battle, or upon his natural decease, they, or some of them,
might, like the successors of Alexander the Great, share amongst them
the ample succession of kingdoms and principalities which were likely to
become the property of the strongest and bravest, in the lottery which
might be expected to take place on the death of the great favourite of
Fortune. These great soldiers, it was surmised, being cut short of this
fair prospect, would no longer have the same motives for serving the
living Napoleon, whose inheritance at his death was now to descend, like
the patrimony of a peasant or burgess, in the regular and lawful line of
inheritance. But the politicians who argued thus, did not sufficiently
regard the pitch of superiority which Napoleon had attained over those
around him; his habit of absolute command, theirs of implicit obedience;
and the small likelihood there was of any one who served under him
venturing to incur his displeasure, and the risk of losing the rank and
fortune which most had actually obtained, by showing any marks of
coldness or dissatisfaction, on account of the disappointment of distant
and visionary hopes.
There were others who augured different consequences, from the effect of
the same event on the feelings of Buonaparte's enemies, both open and
unavowed. It had been a general belief, and certainly was founded on
probability, that the immense but ill-constructed empire which Napoleon
had erected would fall to pieces, so soon as it was not kept steady and
compact by the fear and admiration of his personal talents. Hence the
damp cast by persons affecting a wise caution, upon the general desire
to shake off the yoke of France. They enlarged upon the invincible
talent, upon the inevitable destinies of Napoleon personally; but they
consoled the more impatient patriots, by counselling them to await his
death, before making a daring attempt to vindicate their freedom. Such
counsels were favourably listened to, because men are, in spite of
themselves, always willing to listen to prudent arguments, when they
tend to postpone desperate risks. But this species of argument was
ended, when the inheritance of despotism seemed ready to be transmitted
from father to son in direct descent. There was no termination seen to
the melancholy prospect, nor was it easy for the most lukewarm of
patriots to assign any longer a reason for putting off till Napoleon's
death the resistance which to-day demanded. Under these various lights
was the birth of the King of Rome considered; and it may after all
remain a matter of doubt, whether the blessing of a son and heir,
acceptable as it must necessarily have been to his domestic feelings,
was politically of that advantage to him which the Emperor of France
unquestionably expected.
And now, before we begin to trace the growing differences betwixt France
and Russia, which speedily led to such important consequences, we may
briefly notice some circumstances connected with Spain and with Spanish
affairs, though the two incidents which we are to mention first, are
rather of a detached and insulated nature.
[Sidenote: THE EX-QUEEN OF ETRURIA.]
The first of these refers to the Ex-Queen of Etruria, a daughter, it
will be remembered, of Charles, King of Spain, and a sister of
Ferdinand. Upon this princess and her son, Buonaparte had settled the
kingdom of Etruria, or Tuscany. Preparatory to the Bayonne intrigue, he
had forcibly deprived her of this dignity, in order to offer it as an
indemnification to Ferdinand for the cession, which he proposed to that
unhappy prince, of the inheritance of Spain. Having contrived to obtain
that cession without any compensation, Buonaparte reserved Etruria to
himself, and retained the late Queen as a hostage. For some time she was
permitted to reside with her parents at Compeigne; but afterwards, under
pretext of conducting her to Parma, she was escorted to Nice, and there
subjected to the severe vigilance of the police. The princess appears to
have been quicker in her feelings than the greater part of her family,
which does not, indeed, argue any violent degree of sensibility.
Terrified, however, and alarmed at the situation in which she found
herself, she endeavoured to effect an escape into England. Two gentlemen
of her retinue were sent to Holland, for the purpose of arranging her
flight, but her project was discovered. On the 16th April, 1811,
officers of police and gendarmes broke into the residence of the Queen
at Nice, seized her person and papers, and, after detaining her in
custody for two months, and threatening to try her by a military
tribunal, they at length intimated to her a sentence, condemning her,
with her daughter (her son had been left very much indisposed at
Compeigne,) to be detained close prisoners in a monastery at Rome, to
which she was compelled to repair within twenty-four hours after the
notice of her doom. Her two agents, who had been previously made
prisoners, were sent to Paris. They were condemned to death by a
military commission, and were brought out for that purpose to the plain
of Gresnelle. One was shot on the spot, and pardon was extended to his
companion when he was about to suffer the same punishment. The mental
agony of the poor man had, however, affected the sources of life, and he
died within a few days after the reprieve. The severity of this conduct
towards a princess--a Queen indeed--who had placed her person in
Napoleon's hands, under the expectation that her liberty at least should
not be abridged, was equally a breach of justice, humanity, and
gentlemanlike courtesy.[80]
[Sidenote: LUCIEN BUONAPARTE.]
It is curious, that about the same time when Napoleon treated with so
much cruelty a foreign and independent princess, merely because she
expressed a desire to exchange her residence from France to England, his
own brother, Lucien, was received with hospitality in that island, so
heartily detested, so frequently devoted to the fate of a second
Carthage. Napoleon, who was always resolute in considering the princes
of his own blood as the first slaves in the state, had become of late
very urgent with Lucien to dismiss his wife, and unite himself with some
of the royal families on the continent, or at least to agree to bestow
the hand of his daughter upon young Ferdinand of Spain, who had risen
in favour by his behaviour on an occasion immediately to be mentioned.
But Lucien, determined at this time not to connect himself or his family
with the career of his relative's ambition, resolved to settle in
America, and place the Atlantic betwixt himself and the importunities of
his Imperial brother. He applied to the British minister at Sardinia for
a pass, who was under the necessity of referring him to his Government.
On this second application he was invited to England, where he was
permitted to live in freedom upon his parole, one officer only having a
superintendence of his movements and correspondence.[81] These were in
every respect blameless; and the ex-statesman, who had played so
distinguished a part in the great revolutionary game, was found able to
amuse himself with the composition of an epic poem on the subject of
Charlemagne;[82]--somewhat more harmlessly than did his brother
Napoleon, in endeavouring again to rebuild and consolidate the vast
empire of the son of Pepin.
Another intrigue of a singular character, and which terminated in an
unexpected manner, originated in an attempt of the English Ministry to
achieve the liberty of Ferdinand, the lawful King of Spain. A royal and
a popular party had begun to show themselves in that distracted country,
and to divert the attention of the patriots from uniting their efforts
to accomplish the object of most engrossing importance, the recovery,
namely, of their country, from the intruding monarch and the French
armies. The English Government were naturally persuaded that Ferdinand,
to whose name his subjects were so strongly attached, would be desirous
and capable of placing himself, were he at liberty, at their head,
putting an end to their disputes by his authority, and giving their
efforts an impulse, which could be communicated by no one but the King
of Spain to the Spanish nation. It is no doubt true, that, had the
Government of England known the real character of this prince, a wish
for his deliverance from France, or his presence in Spain, would have
been the last which they would have formed. This misapprehension,
however, was natural, and was acted upon.
A Piedmontese, of Irish extraction, called the Baron Kolli (or Kelly,)
the selected agent of the British government, was furnished with some
diamonds and valuable articles, under pretext of disposing of which he
was to obtain admission to the Prince, then a prisoner at Valençay,
where his chief amusement, it is believed, was embroidering a gown and
petticoat, to be presented to the Virgin Mary. Kolli was then to have
informed the Prince of his errand, effected Ferdinand's escape by means
of confederates among the royalist party, and conveyed him to the coast,
where a small squadron awaited the event of the enterprise, designed to
carry the King of Spain to Gibraltar, or whither else he chose. In March
1810, Kolli was put ashore in Quiberon bay, whence he went to Paris, to
prepare for his enterprise. He was discovered, however, by the
police,[83] and arrested at the moment when he was setting out for
Valençay. Some attempts were made to induce him to proceed with the
scheme, of which his papers enabled the police to comprehend the general
plan, keeping communication at the same time with the French minister.
As he disdained to undertake this treacherous character, Kolli was
committed close prisoner to the castle of Vincennes, while a person--the
same who betrayed his principal, and whose exterior in some degree
answered the description of the British emissary--was sent to represent
him at the castle of Valençay.
But Ferdinand, either suspicious of the snare which was laid for him, or
poor-spirited enough to prefer a safe bondage to a brave risk incurred
for liberty, would not listen to the supposed agent of Britain, and
indeed denounced the pretended Kolli to Barthemy, the governor of the
castle. The false Kolli, therefore, returned to Paris, while the real
one remained in the castle of Vincennes till the capture of Paris by the
allies. Ferdinand took credit, in a letter to Buonaparte, for having
resisted the temptation held out to him by the British Government, who
had, as he pathetically observed, abused his name, and occasioned, by
doing so, the shedding of much blood in Spain. He again manifested his
ardent wish to become the adopted son of the Emperor; his hope that the
author and abettors of the scheme to deliver him might be brought to
condign punishment; and concluded with a hint, that he was extremely
desirous to leave Valençay, a residence which had nothing about it but
what was unpleasant, and was not in any respect fitted for him. The hint
of Ferdinand about a union with Buonaparte's family, probably led to the
fresh importunity on the Emperor's part, which induced Lucien to leave
Italy. Ferdinand did not obtain the change of residence he desired, nor
does he seem to have profited in any way by his candour towards his
keeper, excepting that he evaded the strict confinement, or yet worse
fate, to which he might have been condemned, had he imprudently confided
in the false Baron Kolli.[84]
[Sidenote: MASSENA AND WELLINGTON.]
In Portugal, the great struggle betwixt Massena and Wellington, upon
which, as we formerly observed, the eyes of the world were fixed, had
been finally decided in favour of the English general. This advantage
was attained by no assistance of the elements--by none of those casual
occurrences which are called chances of war--by no dubious, or even
venturous risks--by the decision of no single battle lost or won; but
solely by the superiority of one great general over another, at the
awful game in which neither had yet met a rival.
For more than four months, Massena, with as fine an army as had ever
left France, lay looking at the impregnable lines with which the British
forces, so greatly inferior in numerical strength, were covering Lisbon,
the object of his expedition. To assail in such a position troops, whose
valour he had felt at Busaco, would have been throwing away the lives of
his soldiers; and to retreat, was to abandon the enterprise which his
master had intrusted to him, with a confidence in his skill and his
good fortune, which must, in that case, have been thereafter sorely
abated. Massena tried every effort which military skill could supply, to
draw his foe out of his place of advantage. He threatened to carry the
war across the Tagus--he threatened to extend his army towards Oporto;
but each demonstration he made had been calculated upon and anticipated
by his antagonist, and was foiled almost without an effort. At length,
exhausted by the want of supplies, and the interruption of his
communications, after lying one month at Alenquer, Massena retreated to
Santarem, as preferable winter-quarters; but, in the beginning of March,
he found that these were equally untenable, and became fully sensible,
that if he desired to save the remnant of a sickly and diminished army,
it must necessarily be by a speedy retreat.
This celebrated movement, decisive of the fate of the campaign,
commenced about the 4th of March. There are two different points in
which Massena's conduct may be regarded, and they differ as light and
darkness. If it be considered in the capacity of that of a human being,
the indignant reader, were we to detail the horrors which he permitted
his soldiers to perpetrate, would almost deny his title to the name. It
is a vulgar superstition, that when the Enemy of mankind is invoked, and
appears, he destroys in his retreat the building which has witnessed the
apparition. It seemed as if the French, in leaving Portugal, were
determined that ruins alone should remain to show they had once been
there. Military license was let loose in its most odious and frightful
shape, and the crimes which were committed embraced all that is horrible
to humanity. But if a curtain is dropped on these horrors, and Massena
is regarded merely as a military leader, his retreat, perhaps, did him
as much honour as any of the great achievements which formerly had made
his name famous. If he had been rightly called Fortune's favourite, he
now showed that his reputation did not depend on her smile, but could be
maintained by his own talents, while she shone on other banners. In
retreating through the north of Portugal, a rugged and mountainous
country, he was followed by Lord Wellington, who allowed him not a
moment's respite. The movements of the troops, to those who understood,
and had the calmness to consider them, were as regular consequences of
each other, as occur in the game of chess.[85]
The French were repeatedly seen drawn up on ground where it seemed
impossible to dislodge them; and as often the bayonets of a British
column, which had marched by some distant route, were observed twinkling
in the direction of their flank, intimating that their line was about to
be turned. But this was only the signal for Massena to recommence his
retreat, which he did before the English troops could come up; nor did
he fail again to halt where opportunity offered, until again dislodged
by his sagacious and persevering pursuer. At length the French were
fairly driven out of the Portuguese territory, excepting the garrison in
the frontier town of Almeida, of which Lord Wellington formed first the
blockade, and afterwards the siege.
[Sidenote: BATTLE OF FUENTES D'ONORO.]
So soon as he escaped from the limits of Portugal, Massena hastened to
draw together such reinforcements as he could obtain in Castile,
collected once more a large force, and within about a fortnight after he
had effected his retreat, resumed the offensive, with the view of
relieving Almeida, which was the sole trophy remaining to show his
triumphant advance in the preceding season. Lord Wellington did not
refuse the battle, which took place on the 5th of May, near Fuentes
d'Onoro. The conflict was well disputed, but the French general
sustained a defeat, notwithstanding his superiority of numbers, and
particularly of cavalry. He then retreated from the Portuguese frontier,
having previously sent orders for the evacuation of Almeida by the
garrison, which the French commandant executed with much dexterity.[86]
On the more southern frontier of Portugal, Lord Beresford fought also a
dreadful and sanguinary battle. The action was in some measure
indecisive, but Soult, who commanded the French, failed in obtaining
such a success as enabled him to accomplish his object, which was the
raising of the siege of Badajos. In Portugal, therefore, and along its
frontiers, the British had been uniformly successful, and their
countrymen at home began once more to open their ears to the suggestions
of hope and courage.
Cadiz, also, the remaining bulwark of the patriots, had been witness to
a splendid action. General Graham, with a body of British troops, had
sallied out from the garrison in March 1811, and obtained a victory upon
the heights of Barossa, which, had he been properly seconded by the
Spanish General Lapena, would have been productive of a serious
influence upon the events of the siege; and which, even though it
remained imperfect, gave heart and confidence to the besieged, and
struck a perpetual damp into the besiegers, who found themselves bearded
in their own position. There had been much fighting through Spain with
various results. But if we dare venture to use such an emblem, the bush,
though burning, was not consumed, and Spain continued that sort of
general resistance which seemed to begin after all usual means of
regular opposition had failed, as Nature often musters her strength to
combat a disease which the medical assistants have pronounced mortal.
Catalonia, though her strongholds were lost, continued, under the
command of De Lacy and D'Eroles, to gain occasional advantages over the
enemy; and Spain saw Figueras, one of her strongest fortresses,
recovered by the bold stratagem of Rovira, a doctor of divinity, and
commander of a guerilla party. Being instantly besieged by the French,
and ill supplied with provisions, the place was indeed speedily
regained; but the possibility of its being taken, was, to the peculiarly
tenacious spirit of the Spaniards, more encouraging than its recapture
was matter of dismay.
But chiefly the auxiliary British, with the Portuguese, who, trained by
the care of Lord Beresford, were fit to sustain their part in line by
the side of their allies, showed that they were conducted in a different
spirit from that which made their leaders in former expeditions stand
with one foot on sea and one on land, never venturing from the sight of
the ocean, as if they led amphibious creatures, who required the use of
both elements to secure their existence; and the scheme of whose
campaign was to rout and repel, as they best could, the attacks of the
enemy, but seldom to venture upon anticipating or disconcerting his
plans. To protect Galicia, for example, when invaded by the French, Lord
Wellington, though with a much inferior army than he was well aware
could be brought against him, formed the blockade of Ciudad Rodrigo;
thus compelling the enemy to desist from their proposed attempt on that
province, and to concentrate their forces for the relief of that
important place. Such a concentration could not, in the condition of the
French armies, be effected without much disadvantage. It afforded
breathing space for all the guerillas, and an opportunity, which they
never neglected, of acting with their usual courage and sagacity against
small parties and convoys of the French, as well as that of seizing upon
any posts which the enemy might have been obliged to leave imperfectly
defended. And when the French had collected their whole force to
overwhelm the British general and his forces, Marmont had the
mortification to see the former withdraw from the presence of a superior
enemy, with as much calmness and security as if marching through a
peaceful country.
Nothing remained for the French general, save to detail in the pages of
the _Moniteur_, what must have been the fate of the English but for
their hasty and precipitate flight, when the well-concerted and
boldly-executed enterprise of Arroyo-Molinos, convinced him to his cost
that a retreat was no rout. In this village upwards of 1400 French were
taken prisoners, at a moment when they least expected to be attacked.
This little action showed a spirit of hazard, a disposition to assume
the offensive, which the French did not expect from the British forces;
and they were, for the first time, foiled in their own military
qualities of vigilance, enterprise, and activity. In Britain, also, the
nation perceived that their army showed the same courage and the same
superiority, which had been considered as the exclusive property of
their gallant sailors. The French were defeated under the rock of
Gibraltar by the Spanish General Ballasteros, and their general,
Godinet, blew out his own brains, rather than face the account, to which
Soult, his commander-in-chief, was about to summon him. Tarifa, in the
same quarter, was defended successfully by a garrison of mingled
Spaniards and British, and the French were computed to have lost before
it about two thousand five hundred men.
On the other hand, the French discipline continued to render them
superior over the patriots, wherever the latter could be brought to face
them in any thing resembling a pitched battle. Thus Blake, after a
gallant action, was totally defeated near Murviedro, and that town
itself fell into possession of the enemy. A more severe consequence of
the battle of Ocana, as that disastrous action was termed, was the
capture of Valencia, where Blake and the remainder of his army were made
prisoners.
But amid those vicissitudes of good or bad fortune, Spain continued to
Buonaparte the same harassing and exhausting undertaking, which it had
been almost from the commencement. Sickness and want made more ravages
amongst the French troops than the sword of the enemy, though that did
not lie idle. Many of the districts are unhealthy to strangers; but of
these, as well as others, it was necessary for the invaders to retain
possession. There, while numerous deaths happened among the troops, the
guerillas watched the remnant, until sickness and fatigue had reduced
the garrisons to a number insufficient for defence, and then pounced
upon them like birds of prey on a fallen animal, upon whom they have
been long in attendance.
[Sidenote: JOSEPH WISHES TO ABDICATE.]
Besides, disunion continued to reign among the French generals. Joseph,
although in point of power the very shadow of what a king ought to be,
had spirit enough to resent the condition in which he was placed amid
the haughty military chiefs who acknowledged no superior beside the
Emperor, and listened to no commands save those emanating from Paris. He
wrote to his brother a letter, accompanying a formal abdication of the
throne of Spain, unless he was to be placed in more complete authority
than even the orders of Napoleon himself had hitherto enabled him to
attain. But the prospect of a northern war approaching nearer and
nearer, Napoleon was induced to postpone his brother's request, although
so pressingly urged, and Spain was in some measure left to its fate
during the still more urgent events of the Russian campaign.[87]
FOOTNOTES:
[79] Jests, as well as serious observations, were made on this occasion.
"Have you any commands for France?" said a Frenchman at Naples to an
English friend; "I shall be there in two days."--"In France?" answered
his friend, "I thought you were setting off for Rome."--"True; but Rome,
by a decree of the Emperor, is now indissolubly united to France."--"I
have no news to burden you with," said his friend; "but can I do any
thing for you in England? I shall be there in half an hour."--"In
England?" said the Frenchman, "and in half an hour!"--"Yes," said his
friend, "within that time I shall be at sea, and the sea has been
indissolubly united to the British empire."--S.
[80] See Mémoires de Savary, tom. iii., part i., p. 37.
[81] Lucien landed at Portsmouth in December, 1810, and was conveyed to
Ludlow, which he soon after quitted for an estate called Thorngrove,
fifteen miles from that town. Restored to personal liberty by the peace
of Paris in 1814, he reached Rome in May; and was received by the
sovereign pontiff on the very night of his arrival. The holy father
immediately conferred on him the dignity of a Roman prince; and on the
next day all the nobles came to salute him, by the title of Prince of
Canino.
[82] Lucien's poem of "Charlemagne, ou l'Eglise Delivrée," an epic in
twenty-four books, commenced at Tusculum, continued at Malta, and
completed in England, appeared in 1814. It was translated into English
by Dr. Butler and Mr. Hodgson. From the eighteenth canto, which was
written at Malta, and which opens with a digression personal to the
poet, we shall make a short extract:--
"Je n'oublirai jamais ta bonté paternelle
Favori du très-haut, Clermont, Pontife-roi!
Au nouvel hémisphère entrainé loin de toi,
Je t'y conserverai le cœur le plus fidèle:
Confiant à la mer et ma femme et mes fils
Sur des bords ennemis,
J'espérai vainement un asile éphémère,
Par un triste refus rejetté sur les flots,
Après avoir long temps erré loin de la terre,
Mélite dans son port enferma nos vaisseaux.
"De la captivité je sens ici le poids!
Rien ne plait en ces lieux à mon ame abbattue;
Rien ne parle à mon cœur; rien ne s'offre à ma vue
Accourez, mes enfants: viens, épouse chérie.
Doux charme de ma vie,
D'un seul de tes regards viens me rendre la paix.
Il n'est plus de désert, ou brille ton sourire,
Fuyez, sombres chagrins, souvenirs inquiets,
Sur ce roc Africain, je resaissis ma lyre."
"Prince Pontiff! loved of heaven--O, Clermont, say,
What filial duties shall thy cares repay?
E'en on the shores that skirt the western main,
Still shall this heart its loyal faith maintain.
My precious freight confiding to the deep,
Children and wife, I left Frescati's steep,
And ask'd a short retreat--I sought no more--
But vainly sought it on a hostile shore.
Thence by refusal stern and harsh repell'd,
O'er the wide wat'ry waste my course I held,
In sufferings oft, and oft in perils cast,
Till Malta's port received our ships at last.
"Here sad captivity's dull weight I find;
Nought pleases here, nought soothes my listless mind:
Nought here can bid my sickening heart rejoice,
Speak to my soul, or animate my voice.
Run to my knees, my children! cherish'd wife,
Come, softest charm and solace of my life,
One look from thee shall all my peace restore:
Where beams thy smile, the desert is no more.
Hence, restless memory--hence, repinings vain!--
On Afric's rock I seize my lyre again."
[83] "He was discovered by his always drinking a bottle of the best
wine, which so ill corresponded with his dress and apparent poverty,
that it excited a suspicion amongst some of the spies, and he was
arrested, searched, and his papers taken from him."--NAPOLEON, _Voice,
&c._, vol. ii., p. 119.
[84] See "Report concerning Kolli's Plan for liberating Ferdinand, King
of Spain," Annual Register, vol. lii., p. 497.
[85] Savary, tom. iii., part i., p. 53.
[86] "The Emperor recalled Massena, who was quite exhausted by fatigue,
and unable to bestow that attention to his troops which was necessary
for restoring them to their former state of efficiency; and he selected
for his successor in the command Marshal Marmont, the Governor of
Illyria."--SAVARY, tom. iii., part i., p. 54.
[87] Fouché, tom. ii., p. 71.