TROUBLE WITH THE POPE—THE CONSCRIPTION—EVASIONS OF THE BLOCKADE—THE
TILSIT AGREEMENT BROKEN
“This child in concert with our Eugène will constitute our happiness and
that of France,” so Napoleon had written Josephine after the birth of
the King of Rome, but it soon became evident that he was wrong. There
were causes of uneasiness and discontent in France which had been
operating for a long time, and which were only aggravated by the
apparent solidity that an heir gave to the Napoleonic dynasty.
First among these was religious disaffection. Towards the end of 1808,
being doubtful of the Pope’s loyalty, Napoleon had sent French troops to
Rome; the spring following, without any plausible excuse, he had annexed
four Papal States to the kingdom of Italy; and in 1809 the Pope had been
made a prisoner at Savona. When the divorce was asked, it was not the
Pope, but the clergy, of Paris, who had granted it. When the religious
marriage of Marie Louise and Napoleon came to be celebrated, thirteen
cardinals refused to appear; the “black cardinals” they were thereafter
called, one of their punishments for non-appearance at the wedding being
that they could no longer wear their red gowns. To the pious all this
friction with the fathers of the Church was a deplorable irritation. It
was impossible to show contempt for the authority of Pope and cardinals
and not wound one of the deepest sentiments of France, and one which ten
years before Napoleon had braved most to satisfy.
[Illustration:
NAPOLEON AND POPE PIUS VII. IN CONFERENCE AT FONTAINEBLEAU.
Engraved by Robinson, after a painting made in 1836 by Wilkie.]
To the irritation against the emperor’s church policy was added bitter
resentment against the conscription, that tax of blood and muscle
demanded of the country. Napoleon had formulated and attempted to make
tolerable the principle born of the Revolution, which declared that
every male citizen of age owed the state a service of blood in case it
needed him. The wisdom of his management of the conscription had
prevented discontent until 1807; then the draft on life had begun to be
arbitrary and grievous. The laws of exemptions were disregarded. The
“only son of his mother” no longer remained at her side. The father
whose little children were motherless must leave them; aged and helpless
parents no longer gave immunity. Those who had bought their exemption by
heavy sacrifices were obliged to go. Persons whom the law made subject
to conscription in 1807, were called out in 1806; those of 1808, in
1807. So far was this premature drafting pushed, that the armies were
said to be made up of “boy soldiers,” weak, unformed youths, fresh from
school, who wilted in a sun like that of Spain, and dropped out in the
march.
At the rate at which men had been killed, however, there was no other
way of keeping up the army. Between 1804 and 1811 one million seven
hundred thousand men had perished in battle. What wonder that now the
boys of France were pressed into service! At the same time the country
was overrun with the lame, the blind, the broken-down, who had come back
from war to live on their friends or on charity. It was not only the
funeral crape on almost every door which made Frenchmen hate the
conscription, it was the crippled men whom they met at every corner.
[Illustration:
THE KING OF ROME. 1811.
Engraved by Desnoyers, after Gérard. “His Majesty the King of Rome.
Dedicated to her Majesty Imperial and Royal, Marie Louise.”]
While within, the people fretted over the religious disturbances and the
abuses of the conscription, without, the continental blockade was
causing serious trouble between Napoleon and the kings he ruled. In
spite of all his efforts English merchandise penetrated everywhere. The
fair at Rotterdam in 1807 was filled with English goods. They passed
into Italy under false seals. They came into France on pretence that
they were for the empress. Napoleon remonstrated and threatened, but he
could not check the traffic. The most serious trouble caused by this
violation of the Berlin Decree was with Louis, King of Holland. In 1808
Napoleon complained to his brother that more than one hundred ships
passed between his kingdom and England every month, and a year later he
wrote in desperation, “Holland is an English province.”
The relations of the brothers grew more and more bitter. Napoleon
resented the half support Louis gave him, and as a punishment he took
away his provinces, filled his forts with French troops, threatened him
with war if he did not break up the trade. So far did these hostilities
go, that in the summer of 1810 King Louis abdicated in favor of his son
and retired to Austria. Napoleon tried his best to persuade him at least
to return into French territory, but he refused. This break was the
sadder because Louis was the brother for whom Napoleon had really done
most.
Joseph was not happier than Louis. The Spanish war still went on, and no
better than in 1808. Joseph, humbled and unhappy, had even prayed to be
freed of the throne.
The relations with Sweden were seriously strained. Since 1810 Bernadotte
had been by adoption the crown prince of that country. Although he had
emphatically refused, in accepting the position, to agree never to take
up arms against France, as Napoleon wished him to do, he had later
consented to the continental blockade, and had declared war against
England; but this declaration both England and Sweden considered simply
as a _façon de parler_. Napoleon, conscious that Bernadotte was not
carrying out the blockade, and irritated by his persistent refusal to
enter into French combinations, and pay tribute to carry on French wars,
had suppressed his revenues as a French prince—Bernadotte had been
created Prince of Ponte-Corvo in 1806—had refused to communicate with
him, and when the King of Rome was born had sent back the Swedish
decoration offered. Finally, in January, 1812, French troops invaded
certain Swedish possessions, and the country concluded an alliance with
England and Russia.
[Illustration:
“NAPOLEON IN HIS CABINET.” THE CHILD AT HIS SIDE IS HIS SON, THE KING
OF ROME.
The manuscript on the floor of the cabinet bears the date “1811.”
Engraved by Weber, after Steuben.]
With Russia, the “other half” of the machine, the ally upon whom the
great plan of Tilsit and Erfurt depended, there was such a bad state of
feeling that, in 1811, it became certain that war would result. Causes
had been accumulating upon each side since the Erfurt meeting.
The continental system weighed heavily on the interests of Russia. The
people constantly rebelled against it and evaded it in every way. The
business depressions from which they suffered they charged to Napoleon,
and a strong party arose in the empire which used every method of
showing the czar that the “unnatural alliance,” as they called the
agreement between Alexander and Napoleon, was unpopular. The czar could
not refuse to listen to this party. More, he feared that Napoleon was
getting ready to restore Poland. He was offended by the haste with which
his ally had dismissed the idea of marriage with his sister and had
taken up Marie Louise. He complained of the changes of boundaries in
Germany. Napoleon, on his part, saw with irritation that English goods
were admitted into Russia. He resented the failure of Alexander to join
heartily in the wide-sweeping application he had made of the Berlin and
Milan Decrees, and to persecute neutral flags of all nations, even of
those so far away from the Continent as the United States. He remembered
that Russia had not supported him loyally in 1809. He was suspicious,
too, of the good understanding which seemed to be growing between
Sweden, Russia, and England.
[Illustration:
THE DUKE OF REICHSTADT.
Engraved by W. Bromley, after Sir Thomas Lawrence.]
During many months the two emperors remained in a half-hostile
condition, but the strain finally became too great. War was inevitable,
and Napoleon set about preparing for the struggle. During the latter
months of 1811 and the first of 1812 his attention was given almost
entirely to the military and diplomatic preparations necessary before
beginning the Russian campaign. By the 1st of May, 1812, he was ready to
join his army, which he had centred at Dresden. Accompanied by Marie
Louise he arrived at Dresden on the 16th of May, 1812, where he was
greeted by the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, and other
sovereigns with whom he had formed alliances.
The force Napoleon had brought to the field showed graphically the
extension and the character of the France of 1812. The “army of twenty
nations,” the Russians called the host which was preparing to meet them,
and the expression was just, for in the ranks there were Spaniards,
Neapolitans, Piedmontese, Slavs, Kroats, Bavarians, Dutchmen, Poles,
Romans, and a dozen other nationalities, side by side with Frenchmen.
Indeed, nearly one-half the force was said to be foreign. The Grand
Army, as the active body was called, numbered, to quote the popular
figures, six hundred and seventy-eight thousand men. It is sure that
this is an exaggerated number, though certainly over half a million men
entered Russia. With reserves, the whole force numbered one million one
hundred thousand. The necessity for so large a body of reserves is
explained by the length of the line of communication Napoleon had to
keep. From the Nieman to Paris the way must be open, supply stations
guarded, fortified towns equipped. It took nearly as many men to insure
the rear of the Grand Army as it did to make up the army itself.
[Illustration:
PORTRAIT OF THE KING OF ROME.
Painting by Lawrence. Collection of the Duc de Bassano. This portrait
of Napoleon II. is an exquisite work of art, a bright and fresh
color-harmony. Lawrence must have executed this portrait while
travelling in Europe, whither he was sent by his sovereign George
IV., and paid twenty-five thousand francs a year, to paint for the
great Windsor gallery the portraits of all the heroes “_du grand
hasard de Waterloo_.”—A. D.]
With this imposing force at his command, Napoleon believed that he could
compel Alexander to support the continental blockade, for come what
might that system must succeed. For it the reigning house had been
driven from Portugal, the Pope despoiled and imprisoned, Louis gone into
exile, Bernadotte driven into a new alliance. For it the Grand Army was
led into Russia. It had become, as its inventor proclaimed, _the
fundamental law of the empire_.
Until he crossed the Nieman, Napoleon preserved the hope of being able
to avoid war. Numerous letters to the Russian emperor, almost pathetic
in their overtures, exist. But Alexander never replied. He simply
allowed his enemy to advance. The Grand Army was doomed to make the
Russian campaign.
[Illustration:
NAPOLEON READING.
By Girodet. From the collection of Monsieur Cheramy of Paris.]