_Ungenerous conduct of Buonaparte to the Duke of Brunswick--The
approach of the French troops to Brunswick compels the dying Prince
to cause himself to be carried to Altona, where he expires--Oath of
revenge taken by his Son--At Potsdam and Berlin, the proceedings of
Napoleon are equally cruel and vindictive--His clemency towards the
Prince of Hatzfeld--His Treatment of the Lesser Powers--Jerome
Buonaparte--Seizure of Hamburgh--Berlin Decrees against British
Commerce--Napoleon rejects all application from the continental
commercial towns to relax or repeal them--Commerce, nevertheless,
flourishes in spite of them--Second anticipation called for of the
Conscription for 1807--The King of Prussia applies for an
Armistice, which is clogged with such harsh terms, that he refuses
them._
The will of Napoleon seemed now the only law, from which the conquered
country, that so late stood forth as the rival of France, was to expect
her destiny; and circumstances indicated, that, with more than the
fortune of Cæsar or Alexander, the Conqueror would not emulate their
generosity or clemency.
[Sidenote: THE DUKE OF BRUNSWICK.]
The treatment of the ill-fated Duke of Brunswick did little honour to
the victor. After receiving a mortal wound on the field of battle, he
was transported from thence to Altona. Upon his way to his native
dominions, in the government of which his conduct had been always
patriotic and praiseworthy, he wrote to Napoleon, representing that,
although he had fought against him as a general in the Prussian service,
he nevertheless, as a Prince of the Empire, recommended his hereditary
principality to the moderation and clemency of the victor. This attempt
to separate his two characters, or to appeal to the immunities of a
league which Napoleon had dissolved, although natural in the duke's
forlorn situation, formed a plea not likely to be attended to by the
conqueror. But, on other and broader grounds, Buonaparte, if not
influenced by personal animosity against the duke, or desirous to
degrade, in his person, the father-in-law of the heir of the British
crown, might have found reasons for treating the defeated general with
the respect due to his rank and his misfortunes. The Duke of Brunswick
was one of the oldest soldiers in Europe, and his unquestioned bravery
ought to have recommended him to his junior in arms. He was a reigning
prince, and Buonaparte's own aspirations towards confirmation of
aristocratical rank should have led him to treat the vanquished with
decency. Above all, the duke was defenceless, wounded, dying; a
situation to command the sympathy of every military man, who knows on
what casual circumstances the fate of battle depends. The answer of
Napoleon was, nevertheless, harsh and insulting in the last degree. He
reproached the departing general with his celebrated proclamation
against France in 1792, with the result of his unhappy campaign in that
country, with the recent summons by which the French had been required
to retreat beyond the Rhine. He charged him as having been the
instigator of a war which his counsels ought to have prevented. He
announced the right which he had acquired, to leave not one stone
standing upon another in the town of Brunswick; and summed up his
ungenerous reply by intimating, that though he might treat the subjects
of the duke like a generous victor, it was his purpose to deprive the
dying prince and his family of their hereditary sovereignty.[245]
As if to fulfil these menaces, the French troops approached the city of
Brunswick; and the wounded veteran, dreading the further resentment of
his ungenerous victor, was compelled to cause himself to be removed to
the neutral town of Altona, where he expired.[246] An application from
his son, requesting permission to lay his father's body in the tomb of
his ancestors, was rejected with the same sternness which had
characterised Buonaparte's answer to the attempt of the duke, when
living, to soften his enmity. The successor of the duke vowed, it is
believed, to requite these insults with mortal hatred--did much to
express it during his life--and bequeathed to his followers the legacy
of revenge,[247] which the Black Brunswickers had the means of amply
discharging upon the 18th of June, 1815.
Some have imputed this illiberal conduct of Buonaparte to an ebullition
of spleen against the object of his personal dislike; others have
supposed that his resentment was, in whole or in part, affected in order
to ground upon it his resolution of confiscating the state of Brunswick,
and uniting it with the kingdom of Westphalia, which, as we shall
presently see, he proposed to erect as an appanage for his brother
Jerome. Whether arising from a burst of temperament, or a cold
calculation of interested selfishness, his conduct was equally unworthy
of a monarch and a soldier.
At Potsdam and at Berlin, Napoleon showed himself equally as the sworn
and implacable enemy, rather than as the generous conqueror. At Potsdam
he seized on the sword, belt, and hat of the Great Frederick, and at
Berlin he appropriated and removed to Paris the monument of Victory,
erected by the same monarch, in consequence of the defeat of the French
at Rosbach.[248] The finest paintings and works of art in Prussia were
seized upon for the benefit of the French National Museum.
The language of the victor corresponded with his actions. His bulletins
and proclamations abounded with the same bitter sarcasms against the
King, the Queen, and those whom he called the war faction of Prussia.
Ascribing the war to the unrepressed audacity of the young nobility, he
said, in one of those proclamations, he would permit no more rioting in
Berlin, no more breaking of windows; and, in addressing the Count Neale,
he threatened, in plain terms, to reduce the nobles of Prussia to beg
their bread.[249] These, and similar expressions of irritated spleen,
used in the hour of conquest, level the character of the great victor
with that of the vulgar Englishman in the farce, who cannot be satisfied
with beating his enemy, but must scold him also. Napoleon's constant
study of the poetry ascribed to Ossian, might have taught him that wrath
should fly on eagles' wings from a conquered foe. The soldiers, and even
the officers, caught the example of their Emperor, and conceived they
met his wishes by behaving more imperiously in quarters, and producing
more distress to their hosts, than had been their custom in the Austrian
campaigns. Great aggressions, perhaps, were rarely perpetrated, and
would have been punished, as contrary to military discipline; but a
grinding, constant, and unremitting system of vexation and requisition,
was bitterly felt by the Prussians at the time, and afterwards sternly
revenged.
[Sidenote: THE PRINCE OF HATZFELD.]
It is but justice, however, to record an act of clemency of Napoleon
amid these severities. He had intercepted a letter containing some
private intelligence respecting the motions of the French, sent by
Prince Hatzfeld, late the Prussian governor of Berlin, to Prince
Hohenloe, then still at the head of an army. Napoleon appointed a
military commission for the trial of Hatzfeld; and his doom, for
continuing to serve his native prince after his capital had been
occupied by the enemy, would have been not less certain than severe. His
wife, however, threw herself at Napoleon's feet, who put into her hands
the fatal document which contained evidence of what was called her
husband's guilt, with permission to throw it into the fire.[250] The
French Emperor is entitled to credit for the degree of mercy he showed
on this occasion; but it must be granted at the same time, that to have
proceeded to sentence and execution upon such a charge, would have been
an act of great severity, if not of actual atrocity. If, as has been
alleged, the correspondence of Prince Hatzfeld was dated before, not
after the capitulation of Berlin, his death would have been an
unqualified murder.[251]
[Sidenote: HESSE-CASSEL.]
The victor, who had all at his disposal, was now to express his pleasure
concerning those satellites of Prussia, which, till her fall, had looked
up to her as their natural protector and ally. Of these, Saxony and
Hesse-Cassel were the principal; and, in his proceedings towards them,
Buonaparte regarded the train of his own policy much more than the
merits which the two electors might have respectively pleaded towards
France.
Saxony had joined her arms to those of Prussia--forced, as she said, by
the arguments which a powerful neighbour can always apply to a
weaker--still she _had_ joined her, and fought on her side at the battle
of Jena. The apology of compulsion was admitted by Buonaparte; the Saxon
troops were dismissed upon their parole, and their prince raised to the
rank of a King, shortly afterwards admitted as a member of the
Confederacy of the Rhine, and treated by Buonaparte with much personal
consideration. The Dukes of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Gotha also were
permitted to retain their dominions, on acknowledging a similar
vassalage to the French empire.
The Landgrave, or Elector, of Hesse-Cassel, might have expected a still
more favourable acceptance in the eyes of the victor; for he had refused
to join Prussia, and, in spite of threats and persuasions, had observed
neutrality during the brief contest. But Napoleon remembered, to the
prejudice of the landgrave, that he had resisted all previous
temptations to enter into the Confederation of the Rhine. He imputed
his neutrality to fear, not choice. He alleged, that it had not been
strictly observed; and, treating the inaction of Hesse, whose
inclinations were with Prussia, as a greater crime than the actual
hostilities of Saxony, whose will was with France, he declared,
according to his usual form of dethronement, that the House of
Hesse-Cassel had ceased to reign. The doom was executed even before it
was pronounced. Louis Buonaparte, with Marshal Mortier, had possessed
himself of Hesse-Cassel by the 1st of November.[252] The army of the
landgrave made no resistance--a part of them passed under the banners of
France, the rest were disbanded.
The real cause of seizing the territories of an unoffending prince, who
was totally helpless, unless in so far as right or justice could afford
him protection, was Buonaparte's previous resolution, already hinted at,
to incorporate Hesse-Cassel with the adjacent territories, for the
purpose of forming a kingdom to be conferred on his youngest brother
Jerome. This young person bore a gay and dissipated character; and,
though such men may at times make considerable sacrifices for the
indulgence of transient passion, they are seldom capable of retaining
for a length of time a steady affection for an object, however amiable.
Jerome Buonaparte, as before stated, had married an American young lady,
distinguished for her beauty and her talents, and had thus lost the
countenance of Napoleon, who maintained the principle, that segregated
as his kindred were from the nation at large, by their connexion with
him, his rank, and his fortunes, they were not entitled to enter into
alliances according to the dictates of their own feelings, but were
bound to form such as were most suitable to his policy. Jerome was
tempted by ambition finally to acquiesce in this reasoning, and
sacrificed the connexion which his heart had chosen, to become the tool
of his brother's ever-extending schemes of ambition. The reward was the
kingdom of Westphalia, to which was united Hesse-Cassel, with the
various provinces which Prussia had possessed in Franconia, Westphalia
Proper, and Lower Saxony; as also the territories of the unfortunate
Duke of Brunswick. Security could be scarcely supposed to attend upon a
sovereignty, where the materials were acquired by public rapine, and the
crown purchased by domestic infidelity.
About the middle of November, Mortier formally re-occupied Hanover in
the name of the Emperor, and, marching upon Hamburgh, took possession
of that ancient free town, so long the emporium of commerce for the
north of Europe. Here, as formerly at Leipsic, the strictest search was
made for British commodities and property, which were declared the
lawful subject of confiscation. The _Moniteur_ trumpeted forth, that
these rigorous measures were accompanied with losses to British commerce
which would shake the credit of the nation. This was not true. The
citizens of Hamburgh had long foreseen that their neutrality would be no
protection, and, in spite of the fraudful assurances of the French
envoy, designed to lull them into security, the merchants had availed
themselves of the last two years to dispose of their stock, call in
their capital, and wind up their trade; so that the rapacity of the
French was in a great measure disappointed. The strict search after
British property, and the confiscation which was denounced against it at
Hamburgh and elsewhere, were no isolated acts of plunder and spoliation,
but made parts of one great system for destroying the commerce of
England, which was shortly after laid before the world by the celebrated
decrees of Berlin.[253]
It was frequently remarked of Buonaparte, that he studied a sort of
theatrical effect in the mode of issuing his decrees and proclamations,
the subject matter of which formed often a strange contrast with the
date; the latter, perhaps, being at the capital of some subdued monarch,
while the matter promulgated respected some minute regulation affecting
the municipality of Paris. But there was no such discrepancy in the date
and substance of the Berlin decrees against British enterprise. It was
when Buonaparte had destroyed the natural bulwark which protected the
independence of the north of Germany, and had necessarily obtained a
corresponding power on the shores of the Baltic, that he seriously
undertook to promulgate his sweeping plan of destroying the commerce of
his Island foe.[254]
When slight inconveniences, according to Buonaparte's expression, put
an end to his hopes of invading Britain, or when, as at other times he
more candidly admitted, the defeat at Trafalgar induced him "to throw
helve after hatchet," and resign all hope of attaining any success by
means of his navy, he became desirous of sapping and undermining the
bulwark, which he found it impossible to storm; and, by directing his
efforts to the destruction of British commerce, he trusted gradually to
impair the foundations of her national wealth and prosperity. He erred,
perhaps, in thinking that, even if his object could have been fully
attained, the full consequences would have followed which his animosity
anticipated. Great Britain's prosperity mainly rests on her commerce,
but her existence as a nation is not absolutely dependent upon it; as
those foreigners are apt to imagine, who have only seen the numerous
vessels with which she covers the ocean and fills foreign ports, but
have never witnessed the extent of her agricultural and domestic
resources. But, entertaining the belief which Napoleon did, in regard to
the indispensable connexion betwixt British commerce and British power,
the policy of his war upon the former cannot be denied. It was that of
the Abyssynian hunter, who, dreading to front the elephant in his fury,
draws his sabre along the animal's heel-joint, and waits until the
exertions of the powerful brute burst the injured sinews, and he sinks
prostrate under his own weight.
[Sidenote: BERLIN DECREES.]
The celebrated Decrees of Berlin appeared on the 21st November, 1806,
interdicting all commerce betwixt Great Britain and the continent; which
interdiction was declared a fundamental law of the French empire, until
the English should consent to certain alterations in the mode of
conducting hostilities by sea, which should render her naval superiority
less useful to herself, and less detrimental to the enemy. This measure
was justified upon the following grounds:--That England had either
introduced new customs into her maritime code, or revived those of a
barbarous age--that she seized on merchant vessels, and made their crews
prisoners, just as if they had been found on board ships of
war--declared harbours blockaded which were not so in reality--and
extended the evils of war to the peaceful and unarmed citizen.
This induction to the celebrated project, afterwards called the
Continental System of the Emperor, was false in the original
proposition, and sophistical in those by which it was supported. It was
positively false that Great Britain had introduced into her maritime
law, either by new enactment, or by the revival of obsolete and
barbarous customs, any alteration by which the rights of neutrals were
infringed, or the unarmed citizen prejudiced, more than necessarily
arose out of the usual customs of war. The law respecting the blockade
of ports, and the capture of vessels at sea, was the same on which every
nation had acted for three centuries past, France herself not excepted.
It is true, that the maritime code seemed at this period to be
peculiarly that of England, because no nation save herself had the
means of enforcing them; but she did not in this respect possess any
greater advantage by sea than Napoleon enjoyed by land.
The reasoning of the Emperor Napoleon upon the inequality and injustice
of the maritime mode of exercising war, compared with the law of
hostilities by land, was not more accurate than his allegation that
Britain had innovated upon the former for the purpose of introducing
new, or reviving old severities. This will appear plain from the
following considerations:--
At an early period of society, the practice of war was doubtless the
same by land or sea; and the savage slaughtered or enslaved his enemy
whether he found him in his hut or in his canoe. But when centuries of
civilisation began to mitigate the horrors of barbarous warfare, the
restrictive rules introduced into naval hostilities were different from
those adopted in the case of wars by land, as the difference of the
services obviously dictated. A land army has a precise object, which it
can always attain if victorious. If a general conquer a town, he can
garrison it; he can levy contributions; nay, he may declare that he will
appropriate it to himself in right of sovereignty. He can afford to
spare the property of private individuals, when he is at liberty to
seize, if he is so minded, upon all their public rights, and new-mould
them at his pleasure. The seaman, on the other hand, seizes on the
merchant vessel and its cargo, by the same right of superior force, in
virtue of which the victor by land has seized upon castles, provinces,
and on the very haven, it may be, which the vessel belongs to. If the
maritime conqueror had no right to do this, he would gain nothing by his
superiority except blows, when he met with vessels of force, and would
be cut off from any share of the spoils of war, which form the reward of
victory. The innocent and unarmed citizen, perhaps the neutral stranger,
suffers in both cases; but a state of war is of course a state of
violence, and its evils, unhappily, cannot be limited to those who are
actually engaged in hostilities. If the spirit of philanthropy affected
in the peroration to Buonaparte's decrees had been real, he might have
attained his pretended purpose of softening the woes of war, by
proposing some relaxation of the rights of a conqueror by land, in
exchange for restrictions to be introduced into the practice of
hostilities by sea. Instead of doing so, he, under the pretext of
exercising the right of reprisals, introduced the following Decrees,
unheard of hitherto among belligerent powers, and tending greatly to
augment the general distress, which must, under all circumstances,
attend a state of war.
I. The British isles were declared in a state of blockade. II. All
commerce and correspondence with England was forbidden. All English
letters were to be seized in the post-houses. III. Every Englishman, of
whatever rank or quality, found in France, or the countries allied with
her, was declared a prisoner of war. IV. All merchandise, or property of
any kind, belonging to English subjects, was declared lawful prize. V.
All articles of English manufacture, and articles produced in her
colonies, were in like manner declared contraband and lawful prize. VI.
Half of the produce of the above confiscations was to be employed in the
relief of those merchants whose vessels had been captured by the English
cruizers. VII. All vessels coming from England, or the English colonies,
were to be refused admission into any harbour. Four additional articles
provided the mode of promulgating and enforcing the decree, and directed
that it should be communicated to the allies of France.
This was the first link of a long chain of arbitrary decrees and
ordinances, by which Napoleon, aiming at the destruction of British
finance, interrupted the whole commerce of Europe, and destroyed for a
season, and as far as lay in his power, that connexion between distant
nations which unites them to each other by the most natural and
advantageous means, the supply of the wants of the one country by the
superfluous produce of the other. The extent of public inconvenience and
distress, which was occasioned by the sudden suppression of commercial
communication with England, may be judged of by reflecting, how many of
the most ordinary articles of consumption are brought from foreign
countries--in how many instances the use of these articles have brought
them into the list of necessaries--and how, before an ordinary mechanic
or peasant sits down to breakfast, distant climes must be taxed to raise
the coffee and sugar which he consumes.[255]
The painful embarrassment of those deprived of their habitual comforts,
was yet exceeded by the clamour and despair of the whole commercial
world on the continent, who were thus, under pretext of relieving them
from the vexation of the English cruizers, threatened with a total
abrogation of their profession. Hamburgh, Bourdeaux, Nantes, and other
continental towns, solicited, by petitions and deputations, some
relaxation of decrees which inferred their general ruin. They pleaded
the prospect of universal bankruptcy, which this prohibitory system must
occasion. "Let it be so," answered the Emperor; "the more insolvency on
the continent, the greater will be the distress of the merchants in
London. The fewer traders in Hamburgh, the less will be the temptation
to carry on commerce with England. Britain must be humbled, were it at
the expense of throwing civilisation back for centuries, and returning
to the original mode of trading by barter."
But, great as was Buonaparte's power, he had overrated it in supposing,
that, by a mere expression of his will, he could put an end to an
intercourse, in the existence of which the whole world possessed an
interest. The attempt to annihilate commerce, resembled that of a child
who tries to stop with his hand the stream of an artificial fountain,
which escapes in a hundred partial jets from under his palm and between
his fingers. The Genius of Commerce, like a second Proteus, assumed
every variety of shape, in order to elude the imperial interdiction, and
all manner of evasions was practised for that purpose. False papers,
false certificates, false bills of lading, were devised, and these
frauds were overlooked in the seaports, by the very agents of the
police, and customhouse officers, to whom the execution of the decrees
was committed. Douaniers, magistrates, generals, and prefects, nay, some
of the kindred princes of the House of Napoleon, were well pleased to
listen to the small still voice of their interest, rather than to his
authoritative commands; and the British commerce, though charged with
heavy expenses, continued to flourish in spite of the Continental
System.[256] The new, and still more violent measures, which Napoleon
had recourse to for enforcing his prohibitions, will require our notice
hereafter. Meantime, it is enough to say, that such acts of increasing
severity had the natural consequence of rendering his person and power
more and more unpopular; so that, while he was sacrificing the interests
and the comforts of the nations under his authority to his hope of
destroying England, he was, in fact, digging a mine under his own feet,
which exploded to his destruction long before the security of England
was materially affected.
Napoleon had foreseen, that, in order to enforce the decrees by which,
without possession of any naval power, he proposed to annihilate the
naval supremacy of England, it would be necessary to augment to a great
extent the immense superiority of land forces which France already
possessed. It was necessary, he was aware, that to enable him to
maintain the prohibitions which he had imposed upon general commerce, as
well as to prosecute the struggle in which he was about to be engaged
with Russia, a large draught should be made on the population of France.
He had, accordingly, by a requisition addressed to the Senate, dated
from Bamberg, 7th of October, required a second anticipation of the
conscription of 1807, amounting to a levy of eighty thousand men.
The measure was supported in the Senate by the oratory of Regnault de
St. Jean d'Angely, an ancient Republican. This friend of freedom saw
nothing inconsistent in advocating a measure, which the absolute monarch
recommended as the necessary step to a general peace. The conscripts who
had first marched had secured victory; those who were now to be put in
motion were to realize the prospect of peace, the principal object of
their brethren's success. The obsequious Senate readily admitted these
arguments, as they would have done any which had been urged in support
of a request which they dared not deny. The sole purpose of Regnault's
eloquence, was to express in decent amplification the simple phrase,
"Napoleon so wills it."
A deputation of the Senate,[257] carrying to Napoleon in person their
warm acquiescence in the proposed measure, received in guerdon the
honourable task of conveying to Paris the spoils of Potsdam and Berlin,
with three hundred and forty-six stand of colours, the trophies of the
war against Prussia--with the task of announcing the celebrated Decrees,
by which the general commerce of Europe and of France itself was
annihilated, to secure it from the aggressions of the British naval
force. The military trophies were received--the Decrees were recorded;
and no one dared undertake the delicate task of balancing the victories
of the Emperor against the advantage which his dominions were likely to
derive from them.
[Sidenote: PRUSSIA.]
In the meanwhile, the unfortunate Frederick William, whose possession of
his late flourishing kingdom was reduced to such territories as Prussia
held beyond the Vistula, and a few fortresses on the Oder, which still
held out, sent an embassy to Berlin, for the purpose of learning upon
what terms he might be yet admitted to treat for peace with the victor,
who had hold of his capital and the greater part of his dominions. The
Marquis Lucchesini was employed on this mission, a subtle Italian, who,
being employed in negotiations at Paris, had been accustomed to treat
with France on a footing of equality. But these times were passed since
the battle of Jena; and the only terms to which Prussia could be now
admitted, were to be so dearly purchased, that even a mere temporary
armistice was to cost the surrender of Graudentz, Dantzick, Colberg,--in
short, all the fortresses yet remaining to Prussia, and still in a state
of defence. As this would have been placing himself entirely at the
mercy of Buonaparte, and in as bad circumstances as he could be reduced
to even by the most unsuccessful military operations, the King refused
to acquiesce in such severe terms, and determined to repose his fate in
the chance of war, and in the support of the auxiliary army of Russia,
which was now hastily advancing to his assistance.
FOOTNOTES:
[245] Sixteenth Bulletin of the Grand Army, dated 12th Oct.
[246] "The Duke of Brunswick's entry into Altona presented a new and
striking proof of the instability of fortune. A sovereign prince was
beheld, enjoying, right or wrong, a great military reputation, but very
lately powerful and tranquil in his own capital, now beaten and mortally
wounded, borne into Altona on a miserable litter, carried by ten men,
without officers, without domestics, escorted by a crowd of boys and
ragamuffins, who pressed about him from curiosity, deposited in a bad
inn, and so worn out with fatigue, that the morrow after his arrival,
the report of his death was generally credited. His wife joined him on
the 1st November; he refused all visits, and died on the
10th."--BOURRIENNE, tom. vii., p. 159.
[247]
"Within a window'd niche of that high hall,
Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain: he did hear
That sound the first amidst the festival,
And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear;
And when they smiled because he deem'd it near,
His heart more truly knew that peal too well,
Which stretch'd his Father on a bloody bier,
And roused the Vengeance blood alone could quell.
He rush'd into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell."
_Childe Harold._
[248] "The sword of the Great Frederick was easily found at Potsdam,
together with the scarf which he wore during the Seven Years' War; also
the insignia of the Black Eagle. The Emperor took these trophies with
transport, saying, 'I would rather have these than twenty millions: I
shall send them to my old soldiers--I shall present them to the governor
of the Invalids: in that hotel they shall remain.'"--_Nineteenth
Bulletin._
[249] "The good people of Berlin have been the sacrifice of the war;
while those who excited it have left them and are become fugitives; I
shall reduce those noble courtiers to such extremities that they shall
be compelled to beg their bread." To Prince Hatzfeld, the Emperor said,
"Do not appear in my presence; I have no need of your services; retire
to your estates."--_Twenty-first Bulletin._
[250] "I remained at the door of the Emperor's cabinet to prevent any
person from being announced before the princess. Duroc soon came out and
immediately introduced her. She knew not why her husband had been
arrested; and, in the simplicity of her nature, demanded justice for the
wrong which she supposed was done to him. When she had finished, the
Emperor handed to her the letter written by her husband; when she had
run it over, she seemed motionless, and looked as if she had lost
sensation. She stared with haggard eyes at the Emperor; but articulated
not a word. He said to her, 'Well, madam, is this a calumny--an unjust
charge?' The princess, more dead than alive, was going to answer only
with her tears, when the Emperor took the letter from her, and said,
'Madam, were it not for this letter there would be no proof against your
husband.'--'That is very true,' she replied, 'but I cannot deny that it
is his writing.'--'Well,' said the Emperor, 'there is nothing to be done
but to burn it;' and he threw the letter into the fire."--SAVARY, tom.
ii., p. 206.
The following is Napoleon's own account of what passed, in a letter to
Josephine, dated 6th November, nine o'clock evening:--"I received thy
letter; in which thou seemest angry with me for speaking ill of women."
In the letter here referred to, Josephine had expressed her regret at
the disrespectful terms in which the Queen of Prussia was spoken of in
the Bulletins of the Grand Army. "It is true I utterly abominate
intriguing females. I am accustomed to those who are amiable, gentle,
and conciliating; and such I love. If they have spoiled me it is not my
fault, but thine. But at least thou wilt see I have been very good to
one, who showed herself a feeling, amiable woman--Madame Hatzfeld. When
I showed her her husband's letter, she replied to me, weeping bitterly,
with heartfelt sensibility and _naïveté_: _Alas! it is but too surely
his writing_. When she read it, her accent went to my soul--her
situation distressed me. I said, _Well, then, madame, throw that letter
into the fire; I shall then no longer possess the means of punishing
your husband_. She burnt the letter, and was happy. Her husband is
restored to tranquillity: Two hours later, and he would have been a lost
man. Thus thou seest, that I esteem women that are good, and ingenuous,
and amiable: but this is because such alone resemble thee."--_Lettres de
Napoleon à Josephine_, tom. i., p. 195.
[251] "The letter was forwarded from the post-office a few days _after_
our arrival at Berlin."--SAVARY, tom. ii., p. 205.
[252] "This is not correct. I had put myself at this period at the head
of my own troops and some French regiments then in Holland, because the
Emperor required the King of Holland to form a combined army at Wesel,
under the title of the Army of the North. Endeavouring as much as
possible to reconcile my very different duties, I marched towards
Cassel, at the orders of Marshal Mortier, who was advancing upon Mayence
with a small number of troops. When I approached Cassel, Marshal Mortier
had entered the evening before. I immediately halted the body of the
army before I entered the town, and leaving the French troops under the
command of Marshal Mortier, I took the route to Holland with the
Dutch."--LOUIS BUONAPARTE, p. 50.
[253] "On the 19th November, Hamburgh was taken possession of in the
Emperor's name. The demands which Marshal Mortier was necessitated to
make were hard. But my representations suspended for a time the order
given by Napoleon to seize the Bank. I cannot do otherwise than render a
tribute to the uprightness of the marshal's conduct, who forwarded my
representations to the Emperor at Berlin, announcing that he has delayed
acting till the arrival of fresh orders. The Emperor read and approved
my views."--BOURRIENNE, tom. vii., p. 179.
[254] "The delirium caused by the wonderful results of the Prussian
campaign completed the intoxication of France. She prided herself upon
having been saluted with the name of the Great Nation by her Emperor,
who had triumphed over the genius and the work of Frederick. Napoleon
believed himself the Son of Destiny, called to break every sceptre.
Peace, and even a truce with England, was no longer thought of. The idea
of destroying the power of England, the sole obstacle to universal
monarchy, now became his fixed resolve. It was with this view he
established the continental system, the first decree concerning which
was dated from Berlin. Napoleon persuaded himself, that by depriving
England of all the outlets for its manufactures, he should reduce it to
poverty, and that it must then submit to its fate. He not only thought
of subjecting it, but also of effecting its destruction."--FOUCHÉ, tom.
i., p. 305.
[255] "It is difficult, at this day, to conceive how Europe could, for a
single hour, endure that fiscal tyranny which exacted the most
exorbitant prices for articles, become indispensable necessaries of
life, both to rich and poor, through habits of three centuries. It is so
far from being the truth that such system had for its only and exclusive
aim to prevent England from disposing of her merchandise, that licenses
were sold at a high rate to those who had influence sufficient to
procure them; and gold alone gave that influence. The quantity and the
quality of articles exported from France were exaggerated with
incredible impudence. It became necessary, indeed, to purchase such
articles, in submission to the will of the Emperor; but they were bought
only to be thrown into the sea. And yet none was found who had the
conscience to tell the Emperor that England sold to the continent, but
that she bought almost nothing from thence."--BOURRIENNE, tom. vii., p.
231.
[256] "The accusation thus brought might also fall upon me; and although
I consider myself beyond the reach of such calumnies, I must declare, in
answer to the frequent insinuations made during and even since the reign
of my brother, that such an accusation is as untrue as it is
inconceivable. I declare I was in no manner a partisan of the
Continental System; first, because it injured Holland more than it did
England, and it was the interest of Holland which concerned me most
deeply; and, in the second place, because this system, though true in
theory, was false in its application. I compare it to a sieve; a single
hole is sufficient to render it incapable of containing any thing. The
Continental System being acted upon in most countries, must have
produced more beneficial results in those points where it was not
maintained; and thus it was with respect to the advantages it conferred
upon English commerce, mentioned by Sir Walter Scott. It was this which
gave France the means of benefiting her merchants, to the injury of
those of other countries, who had not the power to open and shut their
ports at will. It will consequently be supposed that I could only lend
myself partially, without zeal or pleasure, to the Continental System,
since it was both against my own opinion and against the interest of the
country, and I was convinced of its inefficacy against England; but at
the same time I may declare, since all this is now a mere matter of
history, that I did not hesitate to obey all that was required, with
respect to the pretended blockade of England; but I repeat, that it was
against my own opinion, and consequently without zeal and without
pleasure."--LOUIS BUONAPARTE, p. 53.
[257] "This deputation thought fit to make representations to the
Emperor, on the danger which he might incur by advancing beyond the
Oder, and to express to him a wish to see his conquests brought to a
termination. This observation offended the Emperor, and he replied to
the deputation, that he would make peace as soon as he could, but in
such a way as to make it once for all; and that he could not refrain
from showing his dissatisfaction at their want of consideration, in
exhibiting the shameful spectacle of disunion between the chief of the
state and the first constituted body of the nation, at the very time
when they knew that the Russians were advancing to join the
Prussians."--SAVARY, tom. ii., p. 210.