_Change in the results formerly produced by the French
Victories--Despondency of the Generals--Decay in the discipline of
the Troops--Views of Austria--Arguments in favour of Peace stated
and discussed--Pertinacity of Napoleon--State of the French
Interior--hid from him by the slavery of the Press--Interview
betwixt Napoleon and the Austrian Minister Metternich--Delays in the
Negotiations--Plan of Pacification proposed by Austria, on 7th
August--The Armistice broken off on the 10th, when Austria joins the
Allies--Sudden placability of Napoleon at this period--Ascribed to
the news of the Battle of Vittoria._
The victories of Lutzen and Bautzen were so unexpected and so brilliant,
that they completely dazzled all those who, reposing a superstitious
confidence in Buonaparte's star, conceived that they again saw it
reviving in all the splendour of its first rising. But the expressions
of Augereau to Fouché, at Mentz,[262] as the latter passed to join
Buonaparte at Dresden, show what was the sense of Napoleon's best
officers. "Alas!" he said, "our sun has set. How little do the two
actions of which they make so much at Paris, resemble our victories in
Italy, when I taught Buonaparte the art of war, which he now abuses. How
much labour has been thrown away only to win a few marches onward! At
Lutzen our centre was broken, several regiments disbanded, and all was
lost but for the Young Guard. We have taught the allies to beat us.
After such a butchery as that of Bautzen, there were no results, no
cannon taken, no prisoners made. The enemy every where opposed us with
advantage, and we were roughly handled at Reichembach, the very day
after the battle. Then one ball strikes off Bessières, another Duroc;
Duroc, the only friend he had in the world. Bruyères and Kirchenner are
swept away by spent bullets. What a war! it will make an end of all of
us. He will not make peace; you know him as well as I do; he will cause
himself be surrounded by half a million of men, for, believe me, Austria
will not be more faithful to him than Prussia. Yes, he will remain
inflexible, and unless he be killed (as killed he will _not_ be,) there
is an end of all of us."[263]
It was, indeed, generally observed, that though the French troops had
all their usual brilliancy of courage, and although their Emperor showed
all his customary talent, the former effect of both upon the allies
seemed in a great measure lost. The rapidity with which Buonaparte's
soldiers made their attacks was now repelled with steadiness, or
anticipated with yet superior alertness; so that the French, who, during
their course of victory, had become so secure as to neglect the
precautions of sentinels and patrols, now frequently suffered for their
carelessness. On the other hand, the allies chose their days and hours
of battle, continued the conflict as long as they found convenient,
suspended it when it became unfavourable, and renewed it when they saw
cause. There was an end to the times when a battle decided the fate of a
campaign, and a campaign the course of the war.
[Sidenote: DISCIPLINE OF THE ARMY.]
It was also seen, that though Buonaparte had been able to renew the
numbers of his army, by an unparalleled effort of exertion, it was not
even in _his_ power to restore the discipline which the old soldiers had
lost in the horrors of the Russian retreat, and which the young levies
had never acquired. The Saxons and Silesians felt that the burdens which
the presence of an armed force always must inflict, were no longer
mitigated by the species of discipline which the French soldiers had
formerly exercised amongst themselves, and which secured against wanton
outrage, and waste of the plunder which they seized. But now, it was an
ordinary thing to see one body of soldiers treading down and destroying
the provisions, for want of which the next battalion was perhaps
starving. The courage and energy of the French soldier were the same,
but the recollection of former distresses had made him more selfish and
more wasteful, as well as more ferocious.
Those who saw matters under this disadvantageous light, went so far,
though friends both to France and Napoleon, as to wish that neither the
battle of Lutzen or Bautzen had been fought, since they became, in their
consequences, the greatest obstacles to a settled pacification. Even
Eugene Beauharnois used this despairing language. It is true, they
allowed that these memorable conflicts had sustained, or even elevated,
the Emperor's military character, and that there was some truth in the
courtly speech of Narbonne, who, when Napoleon desired to know what the
people at Vienna thought of these actions, replied, "Some think you an
angel, Sire; some a devil; but all agree you are more than man."[264]
But according to the sentiments of such persons, these encomiums on a
point of the Emperor's character, which had before rendered him
sufficiently feared, and sufficiently hated, were only calculated to
elevate his mind above prudential considerations, and to render his
chance of effecting a permanent reconciliation with other nations more
difficult, if not altogether impossible. The maxim of Europe at present
seemed to be--
"Odi accipitrem qui semper vivit in armis."[265]
[Sidenote: THE QUESTION OF PEACE.]
A point was now reached, when Buonaparte's talents as a soldier were
rather likely to disturb a negotiation, which an opinion of his moderate
views in future, could such have been entertained on plausible grounds,
would certainly have influenced favourably. This was particularly felt
by Austria, who, after having received so many humiliations from
Napoleon, seemed now to be called upon to decide on his destiny. The
views of that power could not be mistaken. She desired to regain her
lost provinces, and her influence in Germany, and unquestionably would
use this propitious hour to obtain both. But then she desired still
farther, for the preservation of her dominions, and of her influence,
that France should desist from her dream of absolute dominion, and
Napoleon from those extravagant claims of universal royalty, which he
had hitherto broadly acted upon. To what purpose, was asked by the
friends of peace, could it avail Buonaparte to maintain large armies in
Germany? To what purpose keep possession of the fortified towns, even on
the eastern frontier of that empire, excepting to show, that, whatever
temporary advantage Napoleon might look for in an alliance with Austria,
it was no part of his plan to abandon his conquests, or to sink from his
claims of supreme dominion, into a co-ordinate prince among the
independent sovereigns of Europe.
If he meant to prosecute the war, they urged, that his lingering in
Saxony and Prussia would certainly induce Austria to join the coalition
against him; and that, supposing Dresden to be the pivot of his
operations, he would be exposed to be taken in flank by the immense
armies of Austria descending upon the valley of the Elbe, from the
passes of the Bohemian mountains.
Another, and a very opposite course of measures, would, said the same
counsellors, be at once a guarantee to Austria of the French Emperor's
peaceable intentions, and tend to check and intimidate the other allies.
Let Napoleon evacuate of free will the blockaded fortresses upon the
Oder and Elbe, and thereby add to his army 50,000 veteran troops. Let
him, with these and his present army, fall back on the Rhine, so often
acknowledged as the natural boundary of France. Who would dare to attack
him on his own strong frontier, with such an army in front, and all the
resources of France in his rear? Not Austria; for, if assured that
Napoleon had abandoned his scheme to make France victorious, and limited
his views to making her happy, that power would surely desire to
maintain a dynasty connected with her own, on a throne which might
become a protection and ornament to Europe, instead of being her scourge
and terror. The northern nations, Russia, Prussia, and Sweden, would
have no motive to undertake so wild a crusade as a march to the Rhine;
and Great Britain, her commerce restored, and the peace of the continent
established, could not, if she were desirous, find any sound reason for
protracting the war, which she had always carried on against the system,
not the person, of Buonaparte, until events showed that they were
indivisible. Thus France, by assuming an attitude which expressed
moderation as well as firmness, might cause the swords of the allies to
fall from their hands without another drop of blood being shed.
Indeed, although it may appear, that by the course recommended Napoleon
must have made great sacrifices, yet, as circumstances stood, he
resigned claims dependent on the chance of war, rather than advantages
in possession, and yielded up little or nothing that was firmly and
effectually part of his empire. This will appear from a glance at the
terms of the supposed surrender.
Spain he must have relinquished all claim to. But Napoleon had just
received accounts of the decisive battle of Vittoria, which sealed the
emancipation of the Peninsula; and he must have been aware, that in this
long-contested point he would lose nothing of which the fate of war had
not previously deprived him, and would obtain for the south-western
provinces of France protection against the army of the Duke of
Wellington, which already threatened invasion.
Germany was indeed partly in Napoleon's possession, as far as the
occupation of fortresses, and such treaties as he had imposed on his
vassal-princes, could give him influence. But the whole nation, in every
city and province, was alienated from France and her ruler, on account
of the paramount sovereignty which he had assumed, and the distresses
which he had brought upon them by the unceasing demand of troops for
distant expeditions, and by his continental system. Besides, the
enfranchisement of Germany was the very question of war and peace; and
that not being granted, Napoleon must have been well aware that he must
fight out the battle with Russia, Prussia, and Sweden, the insurgent
Germans ready to arise on every hand, and all the weighty force of
Austria to back them. If peace was to be established on any terms, the
destruction of the unnatural influence of France on the right side of
the Rhine must have been an indispensable article; and it was better for
Napoleon to make the cession voluntarily, than to wait, till, through
the insurrection of the people, and the discontent of the monarchs
lately his dependents, the whole system should explode and go to pieces
of itself.
England would, doubtless, insist on the liberation of Holland; yet even
this could be no great sacrifice on the part of Napoleon, who would have
retained Flanders, and the whole left side of the Rhine, from Huningen
to Cleves, including the finest territories of the ancient Dukes of
Burgundy, which had never belonged to the former Kings of France. The
emancipation of Holland might have been also compensated, by the
restoration of some of the French colonies. England has never made hard
bargains on the occasion of a general peace.
There might have been difficulties on the subject of Italy; but the near
connexion betwixt the Emperors of Austria and France offered various
means of accommodating these. Italy might, for example, have made an
appanage for Eugene, or, in the case of such existing, for Buonaparte's
second son, so as to insure the kingdoms of France and Italy passing
into distinct and independent sovereignties in the next reign; or, it is
believed, that if Austria had been absolutely determined to break off
the treaty for this sole object, she would have found the belligerent
powers inclined in their turn to act as mediators, and been herself
compelled to listen to moderate terms.
From what has been said, it would appear that such cessions as have been
hinted at, would at once have put an end to the war, leaving Napoleon
still in possession of the fairest kingdom of Europe, augmented to an
extent of territory greatly beyond what her most powerful monarchs
before him had ever possessed; while, on the other hand, the countries
and claims which, in the case supposed, he was called upon to resign,
resembled the wounded mast in the tempest, which the seaman cuts away
purposely, as endangering the vessel which it has ceased to assist. But
it unfortunately happened, that Buonaparte, generally tenacious of his
own opinion, and particularly when his reputation was concerned,
imagined to himself that he could not cut away the mast without striking
the colours which were nailed to it; that he could not resign his high
pretensions, however unreasonable, without dimming his personal glory,
in the lustre of which he placed his happiness.[266]
He would not, therefore, listen to those, who, with such arguments as we
have above stated, pressed him to make a virtue of necessity, and assume
a merit from giving up what he could not attempt to hold, without its
being in all probability wrested from him. He persisted in maintaining
the contrary, referred back to the various instances in which he had
come off in triumph, when every other person had despaired of his
safety, and had previously protested against the hazardous means which
he used to ascertain it. This pertinacity did not arise solely out of
the natural confidence in his own superiority, which always attends
minds so powerful and so determined; it was fostered by the whole course
of his life. "At the age of thirty," he said of himself, "I had gained
victories--I had influenced the world--I had appeased a national
tempest--had melted parties into one--had rallied a nation. I have, it
must be allowed, been spoiled by success--I have always been in supreme
command. From my first entrance into life I have enjoyed high power, and
circumstances and my own force of character have been such, that from
the instant I gained a superiority, I have recognised neither masters
nor laws."[267]
To a confession so ingenuous, the historian can add nothing. It is no
wonder, that one to whom luck had been uniformly favourable, should love
the excitation of the play, and, making cast after cast in confidence of
his own fortune, press the winning game until it became a losing one,
instead of withdrawing from the table, as prudence would have dictated,
when the stakes deepened, and the luck began to change. Napoleon had
established in his own mind, as well as that of others, an opinion, that
he, in his proper person, enjoyed an amnesty from the ordinary chances
of fortune.[268] This was a belief most useful to him, as it was
received by others, but dangerous in his own adoption of it, since it
hindered him from listening in his own case to calculations, which in
that of others he would have allowed to be well founded.
[Sidenote: TALLEYRAND AND FOUCHÉ.]
Both Talleyrand and Fouché gave their master the advantage of their
experience on this occasion, and touched with less or more reserve upon
the terror which his ambition had spread, and the determination of the
allies, as well as Austria, not to make peace without such a guarantee
as should protect them against future encroachments. Napoleon rejected
their opinion and advice with disdain, imputing it to their doubts in
the persevering exertions of his genius, or to an anxiety for their own
private fortunes, which induced them to desire at all risks the end of
the war.
His military counsellors endeavoured to enforce similar advice, with the
same want of success. Berthier, with the assistance of the celebrated
engineer, Rogniat, had drawn up a plan for removing the French army,
reinforced with all the garrisons which they had in Germany, from the
line of the Elbe to that of the Rhine.
"Good God!" exclaimed Buonaparte, as he glanced at the labours of his
adjutant-general, "ten lost battles could not bring me so low as you
would have me stoop, and that, too, when I command so many strong places
on the Elbe and Oder. Dresden is the point on which I will manœuvre
to receive all attacks, while my enemies develope themselves like a line
of circumference round a centre. Do you suppose it possible for troops
of various nations, and variously commanded, to act with regularity upon
such an extensive line of operations? The enemy cannot force me back on
the Rhine, till they have gained ten battles; but allow me only one
victory, and I will march on their capitals of Berlin and Breslau,
relieve my garrisons on the Vistula and Oder, and force the allies to
such a peace as shall leave my glory untarnished. Your defensive retreat
does not suit me; besides, I do not ask you for plans, but for
assistance to carry into execution my own projects."[269]
Thus Napoleon silenced his military as well as his civil counsellors.
But there was one adviser whose mouth he had stopt, whose advice, if it
could have reached him, would probably have altered his fatal
resolution. One of Buonaparte's most impolitic as well as unjustifiable
measures had been, his total destruction of every mode by which the
public opinion of the people of France could be manifested. His system
of despotism, which had left no manner of expression whatever, either by
public meetings, by means of the press, or through the representative
bodies, by which the national sentiments on public affairs could be made
known, became now a serious evil. The manifestation of public opinion
was miserably supplied by the voices of hired functionaries, who, like
artificial fountains, merely returned back with various flourishes the
sentiments with which they had been supplied from the common reservoir
at Paris. Had free agents of any kind been permitted to report upon the
state of the public mind, Napoleon would have had before him a picture
which would have quickly summoned him back to France. He would have
heard that the nation, blind to the evils of war, while dazzled with
victory and military glory, had become acutely sensible of them so soon
as these evils became associated with defeats, and the occasion of new
draughts on the population of France. He would have learned that the
fatal retreat of Moscow, and this precarious campaign of Saxony, had
awakened parties and interests which had long been dormant--that the
name of the Bourbons was again mentioned in the west--that 50,000
recusant conscripts were wandering through France, forming themselves
into bands, and ready to join any standard which was raised against the
imperial authority; and that, in the Legislative Body, as well as the
Senate, there was already organised a tacit opposition to his
government, that wanted but a moment of weakness to show itself.
All this, and more, he would have learned; and must have been taught the
necessity of concentrating his forces, returning to the frontiers of
France, recovering the allegiance of those who hesitated, by accepting
the best terms of peace which he could extort from the allies, and
assuming on the Rhine such a firm attitude of defence as should at once
overawe domestic dissatisfaction, and repel foreign invasion. But the
least spiracle, by which the voice of France could find its way to the
ears of her sovereign, was effectually closed. The fate of Napoleon
turned on this circumstance; for the sovereign who deprives himself of
the means of collecting the general sense of the nation over which he
rules, is like the householder who destroys his faithful mastiff. Both
may, perhaps, alarm their master by baying without just cause, or at an
inconvenient time; but when the hour of action comes, no other sentinel
can supply the want of their vigilance.
The armistice now afforded an apt occasion for arranging a general
peace, or rather (for that was the real purpose) for giving Austria an
opportunity of declaring what were her real and definitive intentions in
this unexpected crisis, which had rendered her to a great degree
arbitress of the fate of Europe. Napoleon, from his first arrival in
Saxony, had adopted a belief, that although Austria was likely to use
the present crisis as an opportunity of compelling him to restore the
Illyrian provinces, and perhaps other territories of which former wars
had deprived her, yet that in the end, the family connexion, with the
awe entertained for his talents, would prevail to hinder her cabinet
from uniting their cause to that of the allies. An expression had dropt
from the Austrian minister Metternich, which would have altered this
belief, had it been reported to him.
Maret, Duke of Bassano, had pressed the Austrian hard on the ties
arising from the marriage, when the Austrian answered emphatically, "The
marriage--yes, the marriage--it was a match founded on political
considerations; _but_"----
[Sidenote: INTERVIEW WITH METTERNICH.]
This single brief word disclosed as much as does the least key when it
opens the strongest cabinet--it made it clear that the connexion formed
by the marriage would not prevent Austria from taking the line in the
present dispute which general policy demanded. And this was soon seen
when Count Metternich came to Dresden to have an audience of Napoleon.
This celebrated statesman and accomplished courtier had been very
acceptable at the Tuileries, and Napoleon seems to have imagined him one
of those persons whose gaiety and good-humour were combined with a
flexible character, liable to be mastered and guided by one of power and
energy like his own. This was a great mistake. Metternich, a man of
liveliness and address when in society, was firm and decisive in
business. He saw that the opportunity of controlling the absolute power
of France and of Buonaparte had at length arrived, and was determined,
so far as Austria was concerned, and under his administration, that no
partial views or advantages should prevent its being effectually
employed. His interview with Napoleon took place at Dresden on the 28th
June, and the following particulars are accredited:--
Napoleon always piqued himself on a plain, down-right style of
negotiation, or rather upon his system of at once announcing the only
terms on which he would consent to negotiate. He would hear of no
counter-project, and admit of no medium betwixt the resumption of
hostilities, and acceptance of peace upon the terms which it suited him
to dictate. This frank and unanswerable mode of treating greatly tended
to abridge the formalities of diplomacy; it had but this single
disadvantage, that it was only suitable for the lips of a victor, whose
renewal of war was to be, in all human probability, the resuming a
career of victory. Such a tone of negotiation became the Roman Prætor,
when he environed with a circle the feeble Eastern monarch, and insisted
on a categorical answer to the terms he had proposed, ere he should step
beyond the line; and perhaps it became Napoleon, when, at Campo Formio,
he threw down the piece of porcelain, declaring that the Austrian empire
should be destroyed in the same manner, unless they instantly accepted
his conditions. But the same abrupt dictatorial manner was less
felicitously employed, when the question was to persuade Austria not to
throw her force of 200,000 men into the scale of the allies, which
already too equally balanced that of France; yet that ill-chosen tone
may be observed in the following conference.
Napoleon upbraided Metternich with having favoured his adversaries, by
being so tardy in opening the negotiation. He intimated that the
Austrian minister perhaps staid away, in order that France might be
reduced to a lower state than at the opening of the campaign; while now
that he had gained two battles, Austria thrust in her mediation, that he
might be prevented from following up his success. In claiming to be a
negotiator, Austria, he said, was neither his friend nor his impartial
judge--she was his enemy. "You were about to declare yourself," he said,
"when the victory at Lutzen rendered it prudent in the first place to
collect more forces. Now you have assembled behind the screen of the
Bohemian mountains 200,000 men under Schwartzenberg's command. Ah,
Metternich! I guess the purpose of your Cabinet. You wish to profit by
my embarrassments, and seize on the favourable moment to regain as much
as you can of what I have taken from you. The only question with you is,
whether you will make most by allowing me to ransom myself, or by going
to war with me?--You are uncertain on that point; and perhaps you only
come here to ascertain which is your best course. Well, let us drive a
bargain--how much is it you want?"
To this insulting commencement Metternich replied, that "the only
advantage desired by his master, was to see that moderation and respect
for the rights of nations which filled his own bosom, restored to the
general councils of Europe, and such a well-balanced system introduced
as should place the universal tranquillity under the guarantee of an
association of independent states."
It was easy to see which way this pointed, and to anticipate the
conclusion. Napoleon affected to treat it as a figure of speech, which
was to cloak the private views of Austria. "I speak clearly," he said,
"and come to the point. Will it suit you to accept of Illyria, and to
remain neuter?--Your neutrality is all I require. I can deal with the
Russians and Prussians with my own army."--"Ah, Sire," replied
Metternich, "it depends solely on your Majesty to unite all our forces
with yours. But the truth must be told. Matters are come to that
extremity that Austria cannot remain neutral--We must be with you, or
against you."[270]
After this explicit declaration, from which it was to be inferred that
Austria would not lay aside her arms, unless Buonaparte would comply
with the terms which she had fixed upon as the conditions of a general
pacification, and that she was determined to refuse all that might be
offered as a bribe for her neutrality, the Emperor of France and the
Austrian statesman retired into a cabinet, apart from the secretaries,
where it is to be presumed Metternich communicated more specifically the
conditions which Austria had to propose. Napoleon's voice was presently
heard exclaiming aloud, "What! not only Illyria, but half of Italy, the
restoration of the Pope, and the abandoning of Poland, and the
resignation of Spain, and Holland, and the confederation of the Rhine,
and Switzerland! Is this your moderation? You hawk about your alliance
from the one camp to the other, where the greatest partition of
territory is to be obtained, and then you talk of the independence of
nations! In plain truth, you would have Italy; Sweden demands Norway;
Prussia requires Saxony; England would have Holland and Belgium--You
would dismember the French empire; and all these changes to be operated
by Austria's mere threat of going to war. Can you pretend to win, by a
single stroke of the pen, so many of the strongest fortresses in Europe,
the keys of which I have gained by battles and victories? And think you
that I will be so docile as to march back my soldiers, with their arms
reversed, over the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, and by subscribing
a treaty, which is one vast capitulation, deliver myself, like a fool,
into the hands of my enemies, and trust for a doubtful permission to
exist, to their generosity? Is it when my army is triumphing at the
gates of Berlin and Breslau, that Austria hopes to extort such a cession
from me, without striking a blow or drawing a sword? It is an affront to
expect it. And is it my father-in-law who entertains such a project? Is
it he who sends you to me? In what attitude would he place me before the
eyes of the French people! He is in a strange mistake if he supposes
that a mutilated throne can, in France, afford shelter to his daughter
and his grandson----Ah, Metternich," he concluded, "what has England
given you to induce you to make war on me?"
The Austrian minister, disdaining to defend himself against so coarse
an accusation, only replied by a look of scorn and resentment. A
profound silence followed, during which Napoleon and Metternich
traversed the apartment with long steps, without looking at each other.
Napoleon dropt his hat, perhaps to give a turn to this awkward
situation. But Metternich was too deeply affronted for any office of
courtesy, and the Emperor was obliged to lift it himself. Buonaparte
then resumed the discourse, in a more temperate strain, and said he did
not yet despair of peace. He insisted that the congress should be
assembled, and that, even if hostilities should recommence, negotiations
for peace should, nevertheless, not be discontinued. And, like a wary
trader, when driving a bargain, he whispered Metternich, that his offer
of Illyria was _not his last word_.[271]
His last word, however, had been in reality spoken, and both he and
Metternich were fully acquainted with each other's views. Metternich had
refused all private conditions which could be offered to detach Austria
from the general cause, and Buonaparte had rejected as an insult any
terms which went to lower him to a rank of equality with the other
sovereigns of Europe. He would be Cæsar or nothing. It did not mend the
prospect of negotiation, that he had formally insulted one of the
persons most influential in the Austrian councils. The chance of peace
seemed farther off than ever.
Accordingly, all the proceedings at the Congress of Prague were
lingering and evasive. The meeting had been fixed for the 5th July, and
the dissolution was postponed till the 10th August, in order to allow
time for trying to adjust the disputed claims. England had declined
being concerned with the armistice, alleging she was satisfied that
Napoleon would come to no reasonable terms. Caulaincourt, to whom
Buonaparte chiefly trusted the negotiation, did not appear till 25th
July, detained, it was idly alleged, by his services as an officer of
the palace. Austria spun out the time by proposing that the other
commissioners should hold no direct intercourse, but only negotiate
through the medium of the mediator. Other disputes arose; and, in fact,
it seems as if all parties manœuvred to gain time, with a view to
forward military preparations, rather than to avail themselves of the
brief space allowed for adjusting the articles of peace. At length, so
late as the 7th August, Austria produced her plan of pacification, of
which the bases were the following:--I. The dissolution of the grand
duchy of Warsaw, which was to be divided between Russia, Prussia, and
Austria. II. The re-establishment of the Hanseatic towns in their former
independence. III. The reconstruction of Prussia, assigning to that
kingdom a frontier on the Elbe. IV. The cession to Austria of the
maritime town of Trieste, with the Illyrian provinces. The emancipation
of Spain and Holland, as matters in which England, no party to the
Congress, took chief interest, was not stirred for the present, but
reserved for consideration at the general peace. A concluding article
stipulated that the condition of the European powers, great and small,
as might be settled at the peace, should be guaranteed to all and each
of them, and not innovated upon except by general consent.
Buonaparte in return offered much, but most of his cessions were clogged
with conditions, which at once showed how unwillingly they were made,
and seemed in most cases, to provide the means of annulling them when
times should be favourable.
I. The grand duchy of Warsaw Napoleon agreed to yield up, but stipulated
that Dantzic, with its fortifications demolished, should remain a free
town, and that Saxony should be indemnified for the cession of the
duchy, at the expense of Prussia and Austria. II. The cession of the
Illyrian provinces was agreed to, but the seaport of Trieste was
reserved. III. Contained a stipulation that the German confederation
should extend to the Oder. Lastly, the territory of Denmark was to be
guaranteed.
[Sidenote: AUSTRIA JOINS THE ALLIES.]
Before this tardy agreement to grant some of the terms which the allies
had demanded, could arrive at Prague, the 10th of August, the day which
concluded the armistice, had expired, and Austria had passed from the
friendship of France into the federation of the allies. On the night
betwixt the 10th and 11th, rockets of a new and brilliant kind flickered
in the air from height to height, betwixt Prague and Trachenberg, the
headquarters of the Emperor of Russia and King of Prussia, to announce
to these sovereigns that the armistice was broken off.
Metternich and Caulaincourt still continued their negotiations; and
Napoleon seemed on a sudden sincerely desirous of the peace about which
he had hitherto trifled. Metternich persisted in his demand of Trieste
and the Hanse towns. He rejected the extension of the Confederation of
the Rhine, as a demand made at a time so ill-chosen as to be nearly
ridiculous; and he required that the independence of Germany should be
declared free, as well as that of Switzerland.
Buonaparte at length consented to all these demands, which, if they had
been admitted during his interview with Metternich, on 28th June, or
declared to the Congress before the 10th August, must have availed to
secure peace. It is probable, either that Napoleon was unwilling to make
his mind up to consent to terms which he thought humiliating, or that he
made the concessions at a time when they would not, in all likelihood,
be accepted, in order that he might obtain the chance of war, yet
preserve with his subjects the credit of having been willing to make
peace.
It has been said, with much plausibility, that the allies, on their
part, were confirmed in their resolution to demand high terms, by the
news of the decisive battle of Vittoria, and the probability, that, in
consequence, the Duke of Wellington's army might be soon employed in the
invasion of France. Napoleon entertained the same impression, and sent
Soult, the ablest of his generals to make a stand, if possible, against
the victorious English general and protect at least the territory of
France itself.[272]
FOOTNOTES:
[262] Mémoires de Fouché, tom. ii., p. 139.
[263] "If Augereau did utter such nonsense, he would have bestowed upon
himself the double charge of folly and absurdity. Augereau did not know
Napoleon until the latter had become a general-in-chief; and certainly
Napoleon has sufficiently proved, that he had completed his course of
military study before he commenced his campaigns in Italy. The battles
of Lutzen and Bautzen are at least as memorable in the eyes of soldiers
as the first battles in Italy; perhaps more so, when we remember the
French army was composed of conscripts, marines, deficient in cavalry;
and when we call to mind the valour Napoleon displayed there. He
supplied every thing by the force of his genius and enthusiasm."--LOUIS
BUONAPARTE, p. 89.
[264] Fouché, tom. ii., p. 147.
[265] "I hate the hawk who always lives in war."
[266] "Sir Walter Scott must allow that the end has too clearly shown
how well this opinion of Napoleon was founded. I confess having, at this
period, urged a peace at whatever price it might be obtained, and having
used every effort, however feeble, to influence my brother; but I also
confess, I then believed peace really was desired; whereas subsequent
events have proved, that the destruction of Napoleon and the abasement
of France, were the object in view."--LOUIS BUONAPARTE.
[267] Journal, &c. par le Comte de Las Cases, tom. iv., partie 7tième,
p. 26.--S.
[268] The following is a ludicrous instance. When the explosion of the
infernal machine took place, a bystander rushed into a company, and
exclaimed, "The First Consul is blown up." An Austrian veteran chancing
to be of the party, who had witnessed Napoleon's wonderful escapes
during the Italian campaigns, exclaimed, in ridicule of the facile
credulity of the newsmonger, "_He_ blown up!--Ah, you little know your
man--I will wager at this moment he is as well as any of us. I know all
his tricks many a day since."--S.
[269] Fouché, tom. ii., p. 152.
[270] Fouché, tom. ii., p. 148. See also Savary, tom. iii., p. 78.
[271] Fouché, tom. ii., p. 150.
[272] The court of Napoleon were amused at this time by an incident
connected with Soult's departure. As he had been designed to command in
the German campaign, this new destination compelled him to sell his
horses, and make various other inconvenient sacrifices to the hurry of
the moment. His wife, the Duchess of Dalmatia, a lady of a spirit equal
to that of the great soldier to whom she was wedded, went boldly into
the Emperor's presence to state her grievances; to insist that her
husband had been subjected to too much fatiguing service, and to
remonstrate against his being employed in the Pyrenees. "Go, madam,"
said Napoleon sternly; "remember that I am not your husband, and if I
were, you dared not use me thus. Go, and remember it is a wife's duty to
assist her husband, not to tease him." Such was (with every respect to
the lady, who might, notwithstanding, do well to be angry,) the Imperial
"Taming of a Shrew."--S.--See _Mémoires de FOUCHÉ_, tom. ii., p. 144.