A peace, based on the terms proposed at Leoben, was formally concluded

at Campo Formio, October 17, 1797. The triumph of the French republic

was confirmed, and ancient Europe received a new form. The object for

which the sovereigns of France had for centuries vainly striven was

won by the monarchless nation; France gained the preponderance in

Europe. Italy and the whole of the left bank of the Rhine were

abandoned to her arbitrary rule, and this fearful loss, far from

acting as a warning to Germany and promoting her unity, merely

increased her internal dissensions and offered to the French republic

an opportunity for intervention, of which it took advantage for

purposes of gain and pillage.

The principal object of the policy of Bonaparte and of the French

Directory, at that period, was, by rousing the ancient feelings of

enmity between Austria and Prussia, to eternalize the disunion between

those two monarchies. Bonaparte, after effectuating the peace by means

of terror, loaded Austria with flattery. He flattered her religious

feelings by the moderation of his conduct in Italy toward the pope,

notwithstanding the disapprobation manifested by the genuine French

republicans, and her interests by the offer of Venice in compensation

for the loss of the Netherlands, and, making a slight side-movement

against that once powerful and still wealthy republic, reduced it at

the first blow, nay, by mere threats, to submission; so deeply was the

ancient aristocracy here also fallen. The cession of Venice to the

emperor was displeasing to the French republicans. They were, however,

pacified by the delivery of Lafayette, who had been still detained a

prisoner in Austria after the treaty of Basel. Napoleon said in

vindication of his policy, "I have merely lent Venice to the emperor,

he will not keep her long." He, moreover, gratified Austria by the

extension of her western frontier, so long the object of her ambition,

by the possession of the archbishopric of Salzburg and of a part of

Bavaria with the town of Wasserburg.[5] The sole object of these

concessions was provisionally to dispose Austria in favor of

France,[6] and to render Prussia's ancient jealousy of Austria

implacable.[7] Hence the secret articles of peace by which France and

Austria bound themselves not to grant any compensation to Prussia.

Prussia was on her part, however, resolved not to be the loser, and,

in the summer of 1797, took forcible possession of the imperial free

town of Nuremberg, notwithstanding her declaration made just three

years previously through Count Soden to the Franconian circle, "that

the king had never harbored the design of seeking a compensation at

the expense of the empire, whose constitution had ever been sacred in

his eyes!" and to the empire, "He deemed it beneath his dignity to

refute the reports concerning Prussia's schemes of aggrandizement,

oppression, and secularization." Prussia also extended her possessions

in Franconia[8] and Westphalia, and Hesse-Cassel imitated her example

by the seizure of a part of Schaumburg-Lippe. The diet energetically

remonstrated, but in vain. Pamphlets spoke of the Prussian reunion-

chambers opened by Hardenberg in Franconia. An attempt was, however,

made to console the circle of Franconia by depicturing the far worse

sufferings of that of Swabia under the imperial contributions. The

petty Estates of the empire stumbled, under these circumstances, upon

the unfortunate idea "that the intercession of the Russian court

should be requested for the maintenance of the integrity of the German

empire and for that of her constitution"; the intercession of the

Russian court, which had so lately annihilated Poland!

Shortly after this, A.D. 1797, Frederick William II., who had, on his

accession to the throne, found seventy-two millions of dollars in the

treasury, expired, leaving twenty-eight millions of debts. His son,

Frederick William III., placed the Countess Lichtenau under arrest,

banished Wollner, and abolished the unpopular monopoly in tobacco, but

retained his father's ministers and continued the alliance, so

pregnant with mischief, with France.--This monarch, well-meaning and

destined to the severest trials, educated by a peevish valetudinarian

and ignorant of affairs, was first taught by bitter experience the

utter incapacity of the men at that time at the head of the

government, and after, as will be seen, completely reforming the

court, the government, and the army, surrounded himself with men, who

gloriously delivered Prussia and Germany from all the miseries and

avenged all the disgrace, which it is the historian's sad office to

record.

Austria, as Prussia had already done by the treaty of Basel, also

sacrificed, by the peace of Campo Formio, the whole of the left bank

of the Rhine and abandoned it to France, the loss thereby suffered by

the Estates of the empire being indemnified by the secularization of

the ecclesiastical property in the interior of Germany and by the

prospect of the seizure of the imperial free towns. Mayence was ceded

without a blow to France. Holland was forgotten. The English, under

pretext of opposing France, destroyed, A.D. 1797, the last Dutch

fleet, in the Texel, though not without a heroic and determined

resistance on the part of the admirals de Winter and Reintjes, both of

whom were severely wounded, and the latter died in captivity in

England. Holland was formed into a Batavian, Genoa into a Ligurian,

Milan with the Valtelline (from which the Grisons was severed) into a

Cisalpine, republic. Intrigues were, moreover, set on foot for the

formation of a Roman and Neapolitan republic in Italy and of a Rhenish

and Swabian one in Germany, all of which were to be subordinate to the

mother republic in France. The proclamation of a still-born Cisrhenish

republic (it not having as yet been constituted when it was swallowed

up in the great French republic), in the masterless Lower Rhenish

provinces in the territory of Treves, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Cologne,

under the influence of the French Jacobins and soldiery, was, however,

all that could at first be done openly.

The hauteur with which Bonaparte, backed by his devoted soldiery, had

treated the republicans, and the contempt manifested by him toward the

citizens, had not failed to rouse the jealous suspicions of the

Directory, the envy of the less successful generals, and the hatred of

the old friends of liberty, by whom he was already designated as a

tyrant. The republican party was still possessed of considerable

power, and the majority of the French troops under Moreau, Jourdan,

Bernadotte, etc., were still ready to shed their blood in the cause of

liberty. Bonaparte, compelled to veil his ambitious projects, judged

it more politic, after sowing the seed of discord at Campo Formio, to

withdraw a while, in order to await the ripening of the plot and to

return to reap the result. He, accordingly, went meantime, A.D. 1798,

with a small but well-picked army to Egypt, for the ostensible purpose

of opening a route overland to India, the sea-passage having been

closed against France by the British, but, in reality, for the purpose

of awaiting there a turn in continental affairs, and, moreover, by his

victories over the Turks in the ancient land of fable to add to the

wonder it was ever his object to inspire. On his way thither he seized

the island of Malta and compelled Baron Hompesch, the grand-master of

the order of the Knights of Malta, to resign his dignity, the fortress

being betrayed into his hands by the French knights.

At Rastadt, near Baden, where the compensation mentioned in the treaty

of Campo Formio was to be taken into consideration, the terrified

Estates of the empire assembled for the purpose of suing the French

ambassadors for the lenity they had not met with at the hands of

Austria and Prussia.--The events that took place at Rastadt are of a

description little calculated to flatter the patriotic feelings of the

German historian. The soul of the congress was Charles Maurice

Talleyrand-Perigord, at one time a bishop, at the present period

minister of the French republic. His colloquy with the German

ambassadors resembled that of the fox with the geese, and he attuned

their discords with truly diabolical art. While holding Austria and

Prussia apart, instigating them one against the other, flattering both

with the friendship of the republic and with the prospect of a rich

booty by the secularization of the ecclesiastical lands, he encouraged

some of the petty states with the hope of aggrandizement by an

alliance with France,[9] and, with cruel contempt, allowed others a

while to gasp for life before consigning them to destruction. The

petty princes, moreover, who had been deprived of their territory on

the other side of the Rhine, demanded lands on this side in

compensation; all the petty princes on this side consequently trembled

lest they should be called upon to make compensation, and each

endeavored, by bribing the members of the congress, Talleyrand in

particular, to render himself an exception. The French minister was

bribed not by gold alone; a considerable number of ladies gained great

notoriety by their liaison with the insolent republican, from whom

they received nothing, the object for which they sued being sold by

him sometimes even two or three times. Momus, a satirical production

of this period, relates numerous instances of crime and folly that are

perfectly incredible. The avarice manifested by the French throughout

the whole of the negotiations was only surpassed by the brutality of

their language and behavior. Roberjot, Bonnier, and Jean de Bry, the

dregs of the French nation, treated the whole of the German empire on

this occasion _en canaille_, and, while picking the pockets of the

Germans, were studiously coarse and brutal; still the trifling

opposition they encountered, and the total want of spirit in the

representatives of the great German empire, whom it must, in fact,

have struck them as ridiculous to see thus humbled at their feet,

forms an ample excuse for their demeanor.

Gustavus Adolphus IV., who mounted the throne of Sweden in 1796,

distinguished himself at that time among the Estates of the empire,

when Duke of Pomerania and Prince of Rugen, by his solemn protest

against the depredations committed by France, and by his summons to

every member of the German empire to take the field against their

common foe. Hesse-Cassel was also remarkable for the warlike demeanor

and decidedly anti-Gallic feeling of her population; and Wurtemberg,

for being the first of the German states that gave the example of

making concessions more in accordance with the spirit of the times. By

the abolition of ancient abuses alone could the princes meet the

threats used on every occasion by the French at Rastadt to

revolutionize the people unless their demands were fully complied

with. In Wurtemberg, the duke, Charles, had been succeeded, A.D. 1793,

by his brother, Louis Eugène, who banished license from his court,

but, a foe to enlightenment, closed the Charles college, placed monks

around his person, was extremely bigoted, and a zealous but impotent

friend to France. He expired, A.D. 1795, and was succeeded by the

third brother, Frederick Eugène, who had been during his youth a canon

at Salzburg, but afterward became a general in the Prussian service,

married a princess of Brandenburg, and educated his children in the

Protestant faith in order to assimilate the religion of the reigning

family with that of the people. His mild government terminated in

1797. Frederick, his talented son and successor, mainly frustrated the

projected establishment of a Swabian republic, which was strongly

supported by the French, by his treatment of the provincial Estates,

the modification of the rights of chase, etc., on which occasion he

took the following oath: "I repeat the solemn vow, ever to hold the

constitution of this country sacred and to make the weal of my

subjects the aim of my life." He nevertheless appears, by the

magnificent fetes, masquerades, and pastoral festivals given by him,

as if in a time of the deepest peace, at Hohenheim, to have trusted

more to his connection with England, by his marriage with the princess

royal, Matilda,[10] with Russia, and with Austria (the emperor Paul,

Catherine's successor, having married the princess Maria of

Wurtemberg, and the emperor Francis II., her sister Elisabeth), than

to the constitution, which he afterward annihilated.

The weakness displayed by the empire and the increasing disunion

between Austria and Prussia encouraged the French to further

insolence. Not satisfied with garrisoning every fortification on the

left bank of the Rhine, they boldly attacked, starved to submission,

and razed to the ground, during peace time, the once impregnable

fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, on the right bank of the Rhine, opposite

Coblentz.[11] Not content with laying the Netherlands and Holland

completely waste, they compelled the Hanse towns to grant them a loan

of eighteen million livres. Lubeck refused, but Hamburg and Bremen,

more nearly threatened and hopeless of aid from Prussia, were

constrained to satisfy the demands of the French brigands. In the

Netherlands, the German faction once more rose in open insurrection;

in 1798, the young men, infuriated by the conscription and by their

enrolment into French regiments, flew to arms, and torrents of blood

were shed in the struggle, in which they were unaided by their German

brethren, before they were again reduced to submission. The English

also landed at Ostend, but for the sole purpose of destroying the

sluices of the canal at Bruges.

The French divided the beautiful Rhenish provinces, yielded to them

almost without a blow by Germany, into four departments: First, Roer,

capital Aix-la-Chapelle; besides Cologne and Cleves. Secondly,

Donnersberg, capital Mayence; besides Spires and Zweibrucken. Thirdly,

Saar, capital Treves. Fourthly, Rhine and Moselle, capital Coblentz;

besides Bonn. Each department was subdivided into cantons, each canton

into communes. The department was governed by a perfect, the canton by

a sub-prefect, the commune by a mayor. All distinction of rank,

nobility, and all feudal rights were abolished. Each individual was a

citizen, free and equal. All ecclesiastical establishments were

abandoned to plunder, the churches alone excepted, they being still

granted as places of worship to believers, notwithstanding the

contempt and ridicule into which the clergy had fallen. The

monasteries were closed. The peasantry, more particularly in Treves,

nevertheless, still manifested great attachment to Popery. Guilds and

corporations were also abolished. The introduction of the ancient

German oral law formerly in use throughout the empire, the institution

of trial by jury, which, to the disgrace of Germany, the Rhenish

princes, after the lapse of a thousand years, learned from their

Gallic foe, was a great and signal benefit.

Liberty, equality, and justice were, at that period, in all other

respects, mere fictions. The most arbitrary rule in reality existed,

and the new provinces were systematically drained by taxes of every

description, as, for instance, register, stamp, patent, window, door,

and land taxes: there was also a tax upon furniture and upon luxuries

of every sort; a poll-tax, a percentage on the whole assessment, etc.;

besides extortion, confiscation, and forced sales. And woe to the new

citizen of the great French republic if he failed in paying more

servile homage to its officers, from the prefect down to the lowest

underling, than had ever been exacted by the princes![12] Such was the

liberty bestowed by republican France! Thus were her promises

fulfilled! The German Illuminati were fearfully undeceived,

particularly on perceiving how completely their hopes of universally

revolutionizing Germany were frustrated by the treaty of Basel. The

French, who had proclaimed liberty to all the nations of the earth,

now offered it for sale. The French character was in every respect the

same as during the reign of Louis XIV. The only principle to which

they remained ever faithful was that of robbery.--Switzerland was now,

in her turn, attacked, and vengeance thus overtook every province that

had severed itself from the empire, and every part of the once

magnificent empire of Germany was miserably punished for its want of

unity.

[Footnote 1: Clausewitz demands, with great justice, why the Austrians

so greatly divided their forces on this occasion for the sake of

saving Italy, as they had only to follow up their successes vigorously

on the Rhine in order to gain, in that quarter, far more than they

could lose on the Po.]

[Footnote 2: At Absom, in the valley of the Inn, a peasant girl had,

at that time, discovered a figure of the Virgin in one of the panes of

glass in her chamber window. This appearance being deemed miraculous

by the simple peasantry, the authorities of the place investigated the

matter, had the glass cleaned and scraped, etc., and at length

pronounced the indelible figure to be simply the outline of an old

colored painting. The peasantry, however, excited by the appearance of

the infidel French, persisted in giving credence to the miracle and

set up the piece of glass in a church, which was afterward annually

visited by thousands of pilgrims. In 1407, the celebrated pilgrimage

to Waldrast, in the Tyrol, had been founded in a similar manner by the

discovery of a portrait of the Virgin which had been grown up in a

tree, by two shepherd lads.]

[Footnote 3: Cobenzl was a favorite of Kaunitz and a thorough

courtier. At an earlier period, when ambassador at Petersburg, he

wrote French comedies, which were performed at the Hermitage in the

presence of the empress Catherine. The arrival of an unpleasant

despatch being ever followed by the production of some amusing piece

as an antidote to care, the empress jestingly observed, "that he was

no doubt keeping his best piece until the news arrived of the French

being in Vienna." He expired in the February of 1809, a year pregnant

with fate for Austria.]

[Footnote 4: He indignantly refused the stipend offered to him on this

occasion and protested against the injustice of his condemnation.]

[Footnote 5: Bavaria regarded these forced concessions as a bad reward

for her fidelity to Austria. Napoleon appears to have calculated upon

relighting by this means the flames of discord, whence he well knew

how to draw an advantage, between Bavaria and Austria.]

[Footnote 6: "Thus the emperor also now abandoned the empire by merely

bargaining with the enemy to quit his territories, and leaving the

wretched provinces of the empire a prey to war and pillage. And if the

assurances of friendship, of confidence, and of affection between

Austria and Venice are but recalled to mind, the contrast was indeed

laughable when the emperor was pleased to allow that loyal city to be

ceded to him. The best friend was in this case the cloth from which

the emperor cut himself an equivalent."--_Huergelmer_.]

[Footnote 7: A curious private memoir of Talleyrand says: "J'ai la

certitude que Berlin est le lieu, où le traité du 26 Vendémiaire (the

reconciliation of Austria with France at Campo Formio), aura jetté le

plus d'etonnement, d'embarras et de orainte." He then explains that,

now that the Netherlands no longer belong to Austria, and that Austria

and France no longer come into collision, both powers would be

transformed from natural foes into natural friends and would have an

equal interest in weakening Prussia. Should Russia stir, the Poles

could be roused to insurrection, etc.]

[Footnote 8: "Exactly at this period, when the empire's common foe was

plundering the Franconian circle, when deeds of blood and horror, when

misery and want had reached a fearful height, the troops of the

Elector of Brandenburg overran the cities and villages. The

inhabitants were constrained to take the oath of fealty, the public

officers, who refused, were dragged away captive, etc. Ellingen,

Stopfenheim, Absperg, Eschenbach, Nüremberg, Postbaur, Virnsperg,

Oettingen, Dinkelspühl, Ritzenhausen, Gelchsheim, were scenes of

brutal outrage."--_The History of the Usurpation of Brandenburg, A.D.

1797_, with the original Documents, published by the Teutonic Order.]

[Footnote 9: His secret memoirs, even at that period, designate Baden,

Würtemberg, and Darmstadt as states securely within the grasp of

France.]

[Footnote 10: He fled on Moreau's invasion to England, where he formed

this alliance. There was at one time a project of creating him elector

of Hanover and of partitioning Würtemberg between Bavaria and Baden.]

[Footnote 11: The commandant, Faber, defended the place for fourteen

months with a garrison of 2,000 men. During the siege, the

badly-disciplined French soldiery secretly sold provisions at an

exorbitant price to the starving garrison.]

[Footnote 12: Klebe gave an extremely detailed account of the French

government: "It is, for instance, well known that a pastry cook was

nominated lord high warden of the forest! over a whole department, and

a jeweller was raised to the same office in another.--The documents

proving the cheating and underselling carried on by Pioc, the lord

high warden of the forests, and by his assistant, Gauthier, in all the

forests in the department of the Rhine and Moselle, are detailed at

full length in 'Rübezahl,' a sort of monthly magazine. It is

astonishing to see with what boundless impudence these people have

robbed the country.--Still greater rascalities were carried on on the

right bank of the Rhine. Gauthier robbed from Coblentz down to the

Prussian frontiers." These allegations are confirmed by Görres in a

pamphlet, "Results of my Mission to Paris," in which he says, "The

Directory had treated the four departments like so many Paschalics,

which it abandoned to its Janissaries and colonized with its

favorites. Every petition sent by the inhabitants was thrown aside

with revolting contempt; everything was done that could most deeply

wound their feelings in regard to themselves or to their country."

"The secret history of the government of the country between the Rhine

and the Moselle," sums up as follows: "All cheated, all thieved, all

robbed. The cheating, thieving, and robbing were perfectly terrible,

and not one of the cheats, thieves, or robbers seemed to have an idea

that this country formed, by the decree of union, a part of France." A

naïve confession! The French, at all events, acted as if conscious

that the land was not theirs. The Rhenish Jews, who, as early as the

times of Louis XIV., had aided the French in plundering Germany, again

acted as their bloodhounds, and, by accepting bills in exchange for

their real or supposed loans, at double the amount, on wealthy

proprietors, speedily placed themselves in possession of the finest

estates. Vide Reichardt's Letters from Paris.]

CCLI. The Pillage of Switzerland

Peace had reigned throughout Switzerland since the battle of

Villmergen, A.D. 1712, which had given to Zurich and Berne the

ascendency in the confederation. The popular discontent caused by the

increasing despotism of the aristocracy had merely displayed itself in

petty conspiracies, as, for instance, that of Henzi, in 1749, and in

partial insurrections. In all the cantons, even in those in which the

democratic spirit was most prevalent, the chief authority had been

seized by the wealthier and more ancient families. All the offices

were in their hands, the higher posts in the Swiss regiments raised

for the service of France were monopolized by the younger sons of the

more powerful families, who introduced the social vices of France into

their own country, where they formed a strange medley in conjunction

with the pedantry of the ancient oligarchical form of government. In

the great canton of Berne, the council of two hundred, which had

unlimited sway, was solely composed of seventy-six reigning families.

In Zurich, the one thousand nine hundred townsmen had unlimited power

over the country. For one hundred and fifty years no citizen had been

enrolled among them, and no son of a peasant had been allowed to study

for, or been nominated to, any office, even to that of preacher. In

Solothurn, but one-half of the eight hundred townsmen were able to

carry on the government. Lucerne was governed by a council of one

hundred, so completely monopolized by the more powerful families that

boys of twenty succeeded their fathers as councillors. Basel was

governed by a council of two hundred and eighty, which was entirely

formed out of seventy wealthy mercantile families. Seventy-one

families had usurped the authority at Freiburg: similar oligarchical

government prevailed at St. Gall and Schaffhausen. The _Junker_, in

the latter place, rendered themselves especially ridiculous by the

innumerable offices and chambers in which they transacted their

useless and prolix affairs. In all these aristocratic cantons, the

peasantry were cruelly harassed, oppressed, and, in some parts, kept

in servitude, by the provincial governors. The wealthy provincial

governments were monopolized by the great aristocratic families.[1]

Even in the pure democracies, the provincial communes were governed by

powerful peasant families, as, for instance, in Glarus, and the

tyranny exercised by these peasants over the territory beneath their

sway far exceeded that of the aristocratic burgesses in their

provincial governments. The Italian valleys groaned beneath the yoke

of the original cantons, particularly under that of Uri,[2] the seven

provincial governments in Unterwallis under that of Oberwallis, the

countship of Werdenberg under that of the Glarner, the Valtelline

under that of the Grisons.[3] The princely abbot of St. Gall was

unlimited sovereign over his territory. Separate monasteries, for

instance, Engelberg, had feudal sway over their vassals.

Enlightenment and liberal opinions spread also gradually over

Switzerland, and twenty years after Henzi's melancholy death, a

disposition was again shown to oppose the tyranny of the oligarchies.

In 1792, Lavater and Fuszli were banished Zurich for venturing to

complain of the arbitrary conduct of one of the provincial

governors;[4] in 1779, a curate named Waser, a man of talent and a foe

to the aristocracy, was beheaded on a false charge of falsifying the

archives;[5] in 1794, the oppressed peasantry of Lucerne revolted

against the aristocracy; in the same year, the peasantry in Schwyz,

roused by the insolence of the French recruiting officers, revolted,

and, in the public provincial assembly, enforced the recall of all the

people of Schwyz in the French service, besides imposing a heavy fine

upon General Reding on his return. In 1781, a revolt of the Freiburg

peasantry, occasioned by the tyranny of the aristocracy, was quelled

with the aid of Berne; in 1784, Suter, the noble-spirited _Landammann_

of Appenzell, fell a sacrifice to envy. His mental and moral

superiority to the rest of his countrymen inspired his rival, Geiger,

with the most deadly hatred, and he persecuted him with the utmost

rancor. He was accused of being a freethinker; documents and protocols

were falsified; the stupid populace was excited against him, and,

after having been exposed on the pillory, publicly whipped, and

tortured on the rack, he was beheaded, and all intercession on his

behalf was prohibited under pain of death. Solothurn, on the other

hand, was freed from feudal servitude in 1785. The popular feeling at

that time prevalent throughout Switzerland was, however, of far

greater import than these petty events. The oligarchies had everywhere

suppressed public opinion; the long peace had slackened the martial

ardor of the people; the ridiculous affectation of ancient heroic

language brought into vogue by John Muller rendered the contrast yet

more striking, and, on the outburst of the French Revolution, the

tyrannized Swiss peasantry naturally threw themselves into the arms of

the French, the aristocracy into those of the Austrians.

The oppressed peasantry revolted as early as 1790 against the ruling

cities, the vassal against the aristocrat, in Schaffhausen, on account

of the tithes; in Lower Valais, on account of the tyranny of one of

the provincial governors. These petty outbreaks and an attempt made by

Laharpe to render the Vaud independent of Berne[6] were suppressed,

A.D. 1791. The people remained, nevertheless, in a high state of

fermentation. The new French republic at first quarrelled with the

ancient confederation for having, unmindful of their origin, descended

to servility. The Swiss guard had, on the 16th of August, 1792,

courageously defended the palace of the unfortunate French king and

been cut to pieces by the Parisian mob. At a later period, the

Austrians had seized the ambassadors of the French republic,

Semonville and Maret, in the Valtelline, in the territory of the

Grisons. The Swiss patriots, as they were called, however, gradually

fomented an insurrection against the aristocrats and called the French

to their aid. In 1793, the vassals of the bishop of Basel at Pruntrut

had already planted trees of liberty and placed the bishopric, under

the name of a Rauracian republic, under the protection of France,

chiefly at the instigation of Gobel, who was, in reward, appointed

bishop of Paris, and whose nephew, Rengger, shortly afterward became a

member of the revolutionary government in Berne. In Geneva, during the

preceding year, the French faction had gained the upper hand. The

fickleness of the war kept the rest of the patriots in a state of

suspense, but, on the seizure of the left bank of the Rhine by the

French, the movements in Switzerland assumed a more serious character.

The abbot, Beda, of St. Gall, 1795, pacified his subjects by

concessions, which his successor, Pancras, refusing to recognize, he

was, in consequence, expelled. The unrelenting aristocracy of Zurich,

upon this, took the field against the restless peasantry, surrounded

the patriots in Stäfa, threw the venerable Bodmer and a number of his

adherents into prison, and inflicted upon them heavy fines or severe

corporeal chastisement.

The campaign of 1796 had fully disclosed to Bonaparte the advantage of

occupying Switzerland with his troops, whose passage to Italy or

Germany would be thereby facilitated, while the line of communication

would be secured, and the danger to which he and Moreau had been

exposed through want of co-operation would at once be remedied. He

first of all took advantage of the dissensions in the Grisons to

deprive that republic of the beautiful Valtelline,[7] and, even at

that time, demanded permission from the people of Valais to build the

road across the Simplon, which he was, however, only able to execute

at a later period. On his return to Paris from the Italian expedition,

he passed through Basel,[8] where he was met by Talleyrand. Peter

Ochs, the chief master of the corporation, was, on this occasion, as

he himself relates in his History of Basel, won over, as the

acknowledged chief of the patriots, to revolutionize Switzerland and

to enter into a close alliance with France. The base characters, at

that time the tools of the French Directory, merely acceded to the

political plans of Bonaparte and Talleyrand in the hope of reaping a

rich harvest by the plunder of the federal cantons, and the Swiss

expedition was, consequently, determined upon. The people of Valais,

whose state of oppression served as a pretext for interference,

revolted, under Laharpe, against Berne, 1798, and demanded the

intervention of the French republic, as heir to the dukes of Savoy, on

the strength of an ancient treaty, which had, for that purpose, been

raked up from the ashes of the past. Nothing could exceed the

miserable conduct of the diet at that conjuncture. After having

already conceded to France her demand for the expulsion of the

emigrants and having exposed its weakness by this open violation of

the rights of hospitality, it discussed the number of troops to be

furnished by each of the cantons, when the enemy was already in this

country. Even the once haughty Bernese, who had set an army, thirty

thousand strong, on foot, withdrew, under General Wysz, from Valais to

their metropolis, where they awaited the attack of the enemy. There

was neither plan[9] nor order; the patriots rose in every quarter and

struck terror into the aristocrats, most of whom were now rather

inclined to yield and impeded by their indecision the measures of the

more spirited party. In Basel, Ochs deposed the oligarchy; in Zurich,

the government was induced, by intimidation, to restore Bodmer and his

fellow-prisoners to liberty. In Freiburg, Lucerne, Schaffhausen, and

St. Gall the oligarchies resigned their authority; Constance asserted

its independence.

Within Berne itself, tranquillity was with difficulty preserved by

Steiger, the venerable mayor, a man of extreme firmness of character.

A French force under Brune had already overrun Vaud, which, under

pretext of being delivered from oppression, was laid under a heavy

contribution; the ancient charnel-house at Murten was also destroyed,

because the French had formerly been beaten on this spot by the

Germans. But few of the Swiss marched to the aid of Berne; two hundred

of the people of Uri, arrayed in the armor of their ancestors, some of

the peasantry of Glarus, St. Gall, and Freiburg.[10] A second French

force under Schauenburg entered Switzerland by Basel, defeated the

small troops of Bernese sent to oppose it at Dornach and Langnau, and

took Solothurn, where it liberated one hundred and eighty self-styled

patriots imprisoned in that place. The patriots, at this conjuncture,

also rose in open insurrection in Berne, threw everything into

confusion, deposed the old council, formed a provisional government,

and checked all the preparations for defence. The brave peasantry,

basely betrayed by the cities, were roused to fury. Colonels Ryhiner,

Stettler, Crusy, and Goumores were murdered by them upon mere

suspicion (their innocence was afterward proved), and boldly following

their leader, Grafenried, against the French, they defeated and

repulsed the whole of Brune's army and captured eighteen guns at the

bridge of Neuenegg. But a smaller Bernese corps, which, under Steiger,

the mayor, opposed the army of Schauenburg in the _Grauen Holz_, was

routed after a bloody struggle, and, before Erlach, the newly-

nominated generalissimo, could hurry back to Berne with the victors of

Neuenegg, the patriots, who had long been in the pay of France, threw

wide the gates to Schauenburg. All was now lost. Erlach fled to Thun,

in order to place himself at the head of the people of the Oberland,

who descended in thick masses from the mountains; but, on his

addressing the brave Senn peasantry in French, according to the

malpractice of the Bernese, they mistook him for a French spy and

struck him dead in his carriage. The loss of Berne greatly dispirited

them and they desisted from further and futile opposition. Steiger

escaped. Hotze, a gallant Austrian general, who, mindful of his Swiss

origin, had attempted to place himself at the head of his countrymen,

was compelled to retrace his steps. In Berne, the French meanwhile

pillaged the treasures of the republic.[11] Besides the treasury and

the arsenal, estimated at twenty-nine million livres, they levied a

contribution of sixteen million. Bruno planted a tree of liberty, and

Frisching, the president of the provisional government, had the folly

to say, "Here it stands! may it bear good fruit! Amen!"

Further bloodshed was prevented by the intervention of the patriots.

The whole of Switzerland, Schwyz, Upper Valais, and Unterwalden alone

excepted, submitted, and, on the 12th of April, the federal diet at

Aarau established, in the stead of the ancient federative and

oligarchical government, a single and indivisible Helvetian republic,

in a strictly democratic form, with five directors, on the French

model. Four new cantons, Aargau, Leman (Vaud), the Bernese Oberland,

and Constance, were annexed to the ancient ones. Schwyz, Uri,

Unterwalden, and Zug were, on the other hand, to form but one canton.

Rapinat, a bold bad man, Rewbel's brother-in-law, who was at that time

absolute in Switzerland, seized everything that had escaped the

pillage of the soldiery in Berne and Zurich, sacked Solothurn,

Lucerne, Freiburg, etc., and hunted out the hidden treasures of the

confederation, which he sent to France. The protestations of the

directors, Bay and Pfyffer, were unheeded; Rapinat deposed them by

virtue of a French warrant and nominated Ochs and Dolder in their

stead. The patriotic feelings of the Swiss revolted at this tyranny;

Schwyz rose in open insurrection; the peasantry, headed by Aloys

Reding, seized and garrisoned Lucerne and called the whole country to

arms against the French invader. The peasantry of the free cantons

also marched against Aarau, but were defeated by Schauenburg at

Häcklingen; two hundred of their number fell, among others a priest

bearing the colors. Schauenburg then attacked the people of Schwyz at

Richtenschwyl, where, after a desperate combat that lasted a whole

day, he at length compelled them to give way. They, nevertheless,

speedily rallied, and two engagements of equal obstinacy took place on

the Schindeleggy and on the mountain of Etzel. The flight of Herzog,

the pastor of Einsiedeln, was the sole cause of the discomfiture of

the Swiss. Reding, however, reassembling his forces at the Red Tower,

in the vicinity of the old battlefield of Morgarten, the French,

unable to withstand their fury, were repulsed with immense loss. They

also suffered a second defeat at Arth, at the foot of the Rigi. The

Swiss, on their part, on numbering their forces after the battle,

found their strength so terribly reduced that, although victors, they

were unable to continue the contest, and voluntarily recognized the

Helvetian republic. The rich monastery of Einsiedeln was plundered and

burned; the miraculous picture of the Virgin was, however, preserved.

Upper Valais also submitted, after Sion and the whole of the valley

had been plundered and laid waste. The peasantry defended themselves

here for several weeks at the precipice of the Dala. Unterwalden

offered the most obstinate resistance. The peasantry of this canton

were headed by Lüssi. The French invaded the country simultaneously on

different sides, by water, across the lake of the four cantons, and

across the Brünig from the Haslithal; in the Kernwald they were

victorious over the masses of peasantry, but a body of three or four

thousand French, which had penetrated further down the vale, was

picked off by the peasantry concealed in the woods and behind the

rocks. A rifleman, stationed upon a projecting rock, shot more than a

hundred of the enemy one after another, his wife and children,

meanwhile, loading his guns. Both of the French corps coalesced at

Stanz, but met with such obstinate resistance from the old men, women

and girls left there, that, after butchering four hundred of them,

they set the place in flames.[12] The sturdy mountaineers, although

numerically weak, proved themselves worthy of their ancient fame.--The

four _Waldstätte_ were thrown into one canton, Waldstätten; Glarus and

Toggenburg into another, Linth; Appenzell and St. Gall into that of

Säntis. The old Italian prefectures, with the exception of the

Valtelline, were formed into two cantons, Lugano and Bellinzona

(afterward the canton of Tessin). The canton of Vaud also finally

acceded to this arrangement, but was shortly afterward, as well as the

former bishopric of Basel, Pruntrut,[13] and the city and republic of

Genoa, incorporated with France.

The levy of eighteen thousand men (the Helvetlers, Galloschwyzers or

eighteen batzmen) for the service of the Helvetian republic occasioned

fresh disturbances in the beginning of 1799. The opposition was so

great that the recruits were carried in chains to Berne. The Bernese

Oberland, the peasantry of Basel, Solothurn, Toggenburg, Appenzell,

and Glarus rose in open insurrection, but were again reduced to

submission by the military. The spirit of the mountaineers was,

however, less easily tamed. In April, 1799, the people of Schwyz took

four hundred French prisoners; those of Uri, under their leader,

Vincenz Schmid, stormed and burned Altorf, the seat of the French and

their adherents; those of Valais, under the youthful Count Courten,

drove the French from their valleys, and those of the Grisons

surprised and cut to pieces a French squadron at Dissentis. General

Soult took the field with a strong force against them in May and

reduced them one after the other, but with great loss on his side, to

submission. Twelve hundred French fell in Valais, which was completely

laid waste by fire and sword; in Uri, stones and rocks were hurled

upon them by the infuriated peasantry as they defiled through the

narrow gorges; Schmid was, however, taken and shot; Schwyz was also

reduced to obedience; in the Grisons, upward of a thousand French fell

in a bloody engagement at Coire, and the magnificent monastery of

Dissentis was, in revenge, burned to the ground. The beautiful

Bergland was reduced to an indescribable state of misery. The villages

lay in ashes; the people, who had escaped the general massacre, fell

victims to famine. In this extremity, Zschokke, at that time Helvetic

governor of the Waldstatte, proposed the complete expulsion of the

ancient inhabitants and the settlement of French colonists in the

fatherland of William Tell.[14]

The imperial free town of Muhlhausen in the Suntgau, the ancient ally

of Switzerland, fell, like her, into the hands of the French. Unable

to preserve her independence, she committed a singular political

suicide. The whole of the town property was divided among the

citizens. A girl, attired in the ancient Swiss costume, delivered the

town keys to the French commissioner; the city banner and arms were

buried with great solemnity.[15]

The French had also shown as little lenity in their treatment of

Italy. Rome was entered and garrisoned with French troops; the

handsome and now venerable puppet, Pope Pius VI., was seized, robbed,

and personally maltreated (his ring was even torn from his hand), and

dragged a prisoner to France, where he expired in the August of 1799.

[Footnote 1: "The peasant, when summoned into the presence of a

governor, lord of the council, head of a guild, or preacher, stood

there, not as a free Swiss, but as a criminal trembling before his

judge."--_Lehmann on the imaginary Freedom of the Swiss. 1799._]

[Footnote 2: "The important office of provincial secretary was, in

this manner, hereditary in the family of the Beroldingen of

Uri."--_Lehmann_.]

[Footnote 3: "In the Grisons, the constitution was extremely

complicated. The lordships of Meyenfeld and Aspermont were, for

instance, subject to the three confederated cantons and under the

control of the provincial governors nominated by them; they were at

the same time members of the whole free state, and, as such, had a

right of lordship over the subject provinces, over which, they, in

their turn, appointed a governor."--_Meyer von Knonau's Geography._]

[Footnote 4: The best information concerning the authority held by the

provincial governors, who enjoyed almost unlimited sway over their

districts, is to be met with in the excellent biography of Solomon

Landolt, the provincial governor of Zurich, by David Hesz. Landolt was

the model of an able but extremely tyrannical governor (he ruled over

Greisensee and Eglisau) and gained great note by his salomonic

judgments and by his quaint humor. He founded the Swiss rifle clubs

and introduced that national weapon into modern warfare. He was also a

painter and had the whim, notwithstanding the constant triumph of the

French, ever to represent them in his pictures as the vanquished

party.]

[Footnote 5: Hirzel wrote at that time, in his "Glimpses into the

History of the Confederation," that Captain Henzl had been deprived of

his head because he was the only man in the country who had one.

Zimmerman says in his "National Pride," "A foreign philosopher visited

Switzerland for the purpose of settling in a country where thought was

free; he remained ten days at Zurich and then went to--Portugal." In

1774, the clocks at Basel, which, since the siege of Rudolph of

Habsburg, had remained one hour behindhand, were, after immense

opposition, regulated like those in the rest of the world. Two

factions sprang up on this occasion, that of the Spieszburghers or

Lalleburghers (the ancient one), and that of the Francemen or

new-modellers (the modern one).]

[Footnote 6: Laharpe was at the same time a demagogue in the Vaud and

tutor to the emperor Alexander at Petersburg.]

[Footnote 7: Valtelline with Chiavenna and Bormio (Cleves and Worms)

were ill-treated by the people of the Grisons. Offices and justice

were regularly jobbed and sold to the highest bidder. The people of

Valtelline hastily entered into alliance with France, while the

oppressed peasantry in the Grisons rebelled against the ruling family

of Salis, which had long been in the pay of the French kings, and had,

since the revolution, sided with Austria. John Müller appeared at

Basel as Thugut's agent for the purpose of inciting the confederation

against France.--_Ochs's History of Basel._]

[Footnote 8: While here, he gave Fesch, the pastry-cook, whose

brother, a Swiss lieutenant, was the second husband of Bonaparte's

maternal grandmother, a very friendly reception. The offspring of this

second marriage was the future Cardinal Fesch, Letitia's half-brother

and Napoleon's uncle, whom Napoleon attempted to create primate of

Germany and to raise to the pontifical throne.]

[Footnote 9: Some of the cantons imagined that France merely aspired

to the possession of Valais, and, jealous of the prosperity and power

of Berne, willingly permitted her to suffer this humiliation.-_Meyer

von Knonau_].

[Footnote 10: Two Bernese, condemned to work in the trenches at

Yferten, on being liberated by the French, returned voluntarily to

Berne, in order to aid in the defense of the city. A rare trait, in

those times, of ancient Swiss fidelity.]

[Footnote 11: A good deal of it was spent by Bonaparte during his

expedition into Egypt, and, even at the present day, the Bernese bear

is to be seen on coins still in circulation on the banks of the

Nile.--_Meyer von Knonau._]

[Footnote 12: The venerable Pestalozzi assembled the orphans and

founded his celebrated model academy at Stanz. Seventy-nine women and

girls were found among the slain. A story is told of a girl who, being

attacked, in a lonely house, by two Frenchmen, knocked their heads

together with such force that they dropped down dead.]

[Footnote 13: Not far from Pruntrut is the hill of Terri, said to have

been formerly occupied by one of Cæsar's camps. The French named it

_Mont Terrible_ and created a _department du Mont Terrible_. Vide

Meyer von Knonau's Geography.]

[Footnote 14: In his "Political Remarks touching the Canton of

Waldstatten," dated the 23d of June, 1799, he says: "Let us imitate

the political maxims of the conquerors of old, who drove the

inhabitants most inimical to them into foreign countries and

established colonies, composed of families of their own kin, in the

heart of the conquered provinces." His proposal remaining unseconded,

he sought to obliterate the bad impression it had made, by publishing

a proclamation, calling upon the charitably inclined to raise a

subscription for the unfortunate inhabitants of the Waldstatte.]

[Footnote 15: Vide Graf's History of Muhlhausen.]

CCLII. The Second Coalition

Prussia looked calmly on, with a view of increasing her power by peace

while other states ruined themselves by war, and of offering her

arbitration at a moment when she could turn their mutual losses to

advantage. Austria, exposed to immediate danger by the occupation of

Switzerland by the French, remained less tranquil and hastily formed a

fresh coalition with England and Russia. Catherine II. had expired,

1796. Her son, Paul I., cherished the most ambitious views. His

election as grand-master of the Maltese order dispersed by Napoleon

had furnished him with a sort of right of interference in the affairs

of the Levant and of Italy. On the 1st of March, 1799, the Ionian

Islands, Corfu, etc., were occupied by Russian troops, and a Russian

army, under the terrible Suwarow, moved, in conjunction with the

troops of Austria, upon Italy. The project of the Russian czar was, by

securing his footing on the Mediterranean and at the same time

encircling Turkey, to attack Constantinople on both sides, on the

earliest opportunity. Austria was merely to serve as a blind tool for

the attainment of his schemes. Mack was despatched to Naples for the

purpose of bringing about a general rising in Southern Italy against

the French, and England lavished gold. The absence of Bonaparte

probably inspired several of the allied generals with greater courage,

not the French, but he, being the object of their dread. The conduct

of the French at Rastadt had revolted every German and had justly

raised their most implacable hatred, which burst forth during a

popular tumult at Vienna, when the tricolor, floating from the palace

of General Bernadotte, the French ambassador, was torn down and

burned. The infamous assassination of the French ambassadors at

Rastadt also took place during this agitated period. Bonnier,

Roberjot, and Jean de Bry quitted Rastadt on the breaking out of war,

and were attacked and cut to pieces by some Austrian hussars in a wood

close to the city gate. Jean de Bry alone escaped, although

dangerously wounded, with his life. This atrocious act was generally

believed to have been committed through private revenge, or, what is

far more probable, for the purpose of discovering by the papers of the

ambassadors the truth of the reports at that time in circulation

concerning the existence of a conspiracy and projects for the

establishment of republics throughout Germany. The real motive was,

however, not long ago,[1] unveiled. Austria had revived her ancient

projects against Bavaria, and, as early as 1798, had treated with the

French Directory for the possession of that electorate in return for

her toleration of the occupatign of Switzerland by the troops of the

republic. The venerable elector, Charles Theodore, who had been

already persuaded to cede Bavaria and to content himself with

Franconia, dying suddenly of apoplexy while at the card-table, was

succeeded by his cousin, Maximilian Joseph of Pfalz-Zweibrucken, from

whom, on account of his numerous family, no voluntary cession was to

be expected either for the present or future. Thugut and Lehr-bach,

the rulers of the Viennese cabinet, in the hope of compromising and

excluding him, as a traitor to the empire, from the Bavarian

succession, by the production of proofs of his being the secret ally

of France, hastily resolved upon the assassination of the French

ambassadors at Rastadt, on the bare supposition of their having in

their possession documents in the handwriting of the elector. None

were, however, discovered, the French envoys having either taken the

precaution of destroying them or of committing them to the

safe-keeping of the Prussian ambassador. This crime was, as Hormayr

observes, at the same time, a political blunder. This horrible act was

perpetrated on the 28th of April, 1799.

The campaign had, a month anterior to this event, been opened by the

French, who had attacked the Austrians in their still scattered

positions. Disunion prevailed as usual in the Austrian military

council. The Archduke Charles proposed the invasion of France from the

side of Swabia. The occupation of Switzerland by the troops of Austria

was, nevertheless, resolved upon, and General Auffenberg, accordingly,

entered the Grisons. The French instantly perceived and hastened to

anticipate the designs of the Austrian cabinet. Auffenberg was

defeated by Massena on the St. Luciensteig and expelled the Grisons,

while Hotze on the Vorarlberg and Bellegarde in the Tyrol looked

calmly on at the head of fifteen thousand men. The simultaneous

invasion of Swabia by Jourdan now induced the military council at

Vienna to accede to the proposal formerly made by the Archduke

Charles, who was despatched with the main body of the army to Swabia,

where, on the 25th of March, 1799, he gained a complete victory over

Jourdan at Ostrach and Stockach.[2] The Grisons were retaken in May by

Hotze, and, in June, the archduke joining him, Massena was defeated at

Zurich, and the steep passes of Mont St. Gothard were occupied by

Haddik. Massena was, however, notwithstanding the immense numerical

superiority of the archduke's forces, which could easily have driven

him far into France, allowed to remain undisturbed at Bremgarten. The

French, under Scherer, in Italy, had, meanwhile, been defeated, in

April, by Kray, at Magnano. This success was followed by the arrival

of Melas from Vienna, of Bellegarde from the Tyrol, and lastly, by

that of the Russian vanguard under Suwarow, who took the chief command

and beat the whole of the French forces in Italy; Moreau, at Cassano

and Marengo, in May; Macdonald, on his advance from Lower Italy, on

the Trebbia, in June; and finally, Joubert, in the great battle of

Novi, in which Joubert was killed, August the 15th, 1799. Dissensions

now broke out among the victors. A fourth of the forces in Italy

belonged to Austria, merely one-fifth to Russia; the Austrians,

consequently, imagined that the war was merely carried on on their

account. The Austrian forces were, against Suwarow's advice, divided,

for the purpose of reducing Mantua and Alessandria and of occupying

Tuscany. The king of Sardinia, whom Suwarow desired to restore to his

throne, was forbidden to enter his states by the Austrians, who

intended to retain possession of them for some time longer. The whole

of Italy, as far as Ancona and Genoa, was now freed from the French,

whom the Italians, embittered by their predatory habits, had aided to

expel, and Suwarow received orders to join his forces with those under

Korsakow, who was then on the Upper Rhine with thirty thousand men.

The archduke might, even without this fresh reinforcement, have

already annihilated Massena had he not remained during three months,

from June to August, in a state of complete inactivity; at the very

moment of Suwarow's expected arrival he allowed the important passes

of the St. Gothard to be again carried by a coup de main by the French

under General Lecourbe, who drove the Austrians from the Simplon, the

Furca, the Grimsel, and the Devil's bridge. The archduke, after an

unsuccessful attempt to push across the Aar at Dettingen, suddenly

quitted the scene of war and advanced down the Rhine for the purpose

of supporting the English expedition under the Duke of York against

Holland. This unexpected turn in affairs proceeded from Vienna. The

Viennese cabinet was jealous of Russia. Suwarow played the master in

Italy, favored Sardinia at the expense of the house of Habsburg, and

deprived the Austrians of the laurels and of the advantages they had

won. The archduke, accordingly, received orders to remain inactive, to

abandon the Russians, and finally to withdraw to the north; by this

movement Suwarow's triumphant progress was checked, he was compelled

to cross the Alps to the aid of Korsakow, and to involve himself in a

mountain warfare ill-suited to the habits of his soldiery.[3]

Korsakow, whom Bavaria had been bribed with Russian gold to furnish

with a corps one thousand strong, was solely supported by Kray and

Hotze with twenty thousand men. Massena, taking advantage of the

departure of the archduke and the non-arrival of Suwarow, crossed the

Limmat at Dietikon and shut Korsakow, who had imprudently stationed

himself with his whole army in Zurich, so closely in, that, after an

engagement that lasted two days, from the 15th to the 17th of

September, the Russian general was compelled to abandon his artillery

and to force his way through the enemy. Ten thousand men were all that

escaped.[4] Hotze, who had advanced from the Grisons to Schwyz to

Suwarow's rencounter, was, at the same time, defeated and killed at

Schannis. Suwarow, although aware that the road across the St. Gothard

was blocked by the lake of the four cantons, on which there were no

boats, had the folly to attempt the passage. In Airolo, he was

obstinately opposed by the French under Lecourbe, and, although

Schweikowski contrived to turn this strong position by scaling the

pathless rocks, numbers of the men were, owing to Suwarow's

impatience, sacrificed before it. On the 24th of September, 1799, he

at length climbed the St. Gothard, and a bloody engagement, in which

the French were worsted, took place on the Oberalpsee. Lecourbe blew

up the Devil's bridge, but, leaving the Urnerloch open, the Russians

pushed through that rocky gorge, and, dashing through the foaming

Reuss, scaled the opposite rocks and drove the French from their

position behind the Devil's bridge. Altorf on the lake was reached in

safety by the Russian general, who was compelled, owing to the want of

boats, to seek his way through the valleys of Shachen and Muotta,

across the almost impassable rocks, to Schwyz. The heavy rains

rendered the undertaking still more arduous; the Russians, owing to

the badness of the road, speedily became barefoot; the provisions were

also exhausted. In this wretched state they reached Muotta on the 29th

of September and learned the discouraging news of Korsakow's defeat.

Massena had already set off in the hope of cutting off Suwarow, but

had missed his way. He reached Altorf, where he joined Lecourbe on the

29th, when Suwarow was already at Muotta, whence Massena found on his

arrival he had again retired across the Bragelberg, through the

Klonthal. He was opposed on the lake of Klonthal by Molitor, who was,

however, forced to retire by Auffenberg, who had joined Suwarow at

Altorf and formed his advanced guard, Rosen, at the same time, beating

off Massena with the rear-guard, taking five cannons and one thousand

of his men prisoners. On the 1st of October, Suwarow entered Glarus,

where he rested until the 4th, when he crossed the Panixer mountains

through snow two feet deep to the valley of the Rhine, which he

reached on the 10th, after losing the whole of his beasts of burden

and two hundred of his men down the precipices; and here ended his

extraordinary march, which had cost him the whole of his artillery,

almost all his horses, and a third of his men.

The archduke had, meanwhile, tarried on the Rhine, where he had taken

Philippsburg and Mannheim, but had been unable to prevent the defeat

of the English expedition under the Duke of York by General Brune at

Bergen, on the 19th of September. The archduke now, for the first

time, made a retrograde movement, and approached Korsakow and Suwarow.

The different leaders, however, merely reproached each other, and the

czar, perceiving his project frustrated, suddenly recalled his troops

and the campaign came to a close. The archduke's rearguard was

defeated in a succession of petty skirmishes at Heidelberg and on the

Neckar by the French, who again pressed forward.[5] These disasters

were counterbalanced by the splendid victory gained by Melas in Italy,

at Savigliano, over Championnet, who attempted to save Genoa.

Austria was no sooner deprived in Suwarow of the most efficient of her

allies than she was attacked by her most dangerous foe. Bonaparte

returned from Egypt. The news of the great disasters of the French in

Italy no sooner arrived, than he abandoned his army and hastened,

completely unattended, to France, through the midst of the English

fleet, then stationed in the Mediterranean. His arrival in Paris was

instantly followed by his public nomination as generalissimo. He alone

had the power of restoring victory to the standard of the republic.

The ill success of his rivals had greatly increased his popularity; he

had become indispensable to his countrymen. His power was alone

obnoxious to the weak government, which, aided by the soldiery, he

dissolved on the 9th of November (the 18th Brumaire, by the modern

French calendar); he then bestowed a new constitution upon France and

placed himself, under the title of First Consul, at the head of the

republic.

In the following year, 1800, Bonaparte made preparations for a fresh

campaign against Austria, under circumstances similar to those of the

first. But this time he was more rapid in his movements and performed

more astonishing feats. Suddenly crossing the St. Bernard, he fell

upon the Austrian flank. Genoa, garrisoned by Massena, had just been

forced by famine to capitulate. Ten days afterward, on the 14th of

June, Bonaparte gained such a decisive victory over Melas, the

Austrian general, at Marengo,[6] that he and the remainder of his army

capitulated on the ensuing day. The whole of Italy fell once more into

the hands of the French. Moreau had, at the same time, invaded Germany

and defeated the Austrians under Kray in several engagements,

principally at Stockach and Moskirch,[7] and again at Biberach and

Hochstadt, laid Swabia and Bavaria under contribution, and taken

Ratisbon, the seat of the diet. An armistice, negotiated by Kray, was

not recognized by the emperor, and he was replaced in his command by

the Archduke John (not Charles), who was, on the 3d of December,

totally routed by Moreau's manoeuvres during a violent snowstorm, at

Hohenlinden. A second Austrian army, despatched into Italy, was also

defeated by Brune on the Mincio. These disasters once more inclined

Austria to peace, which was concluded at Luneville, on the 9th of

February, 1801. The Archduke Charles seized this opportunity to

propose the most beneficial reforms in the war administration, but was

again treated with contempt. In the ensuing year, 1802, England also

concluded peace at Amiens.

The whole of the left bank of the Rhine was, on this occasion, ceded

to the French republic. The petty republics, formerly established by

France in Italy, Switzerland, and Holland, were also renewed and were

recognized by the allied powers. The Cisalpine republic was enlarged

by the possessions of the grandduke of Tuscany and of the duke of

Modena, to whom compensation in Germany was guaranteed. Suwarow's

victories had, in the autumn of 1799, rendered a conclave, on the

death of the captive pope, Pius VI., in France, possible, for the

purpose of electing his successor, Pius VII., who was acknowledged as

such by Bonaparte, whose favor he purchased by expressing his

approbation of the seizure of the property of the church during the

French Revolution, and by declaring his readiness to agree to the

secularization of church property, already determined upon, in

Germany.

The Helvetian Directory fell, like that of France, and was replaced by

an administrative council, composed of seven members, in 1800. The

upholders of ancient cantonal liberty, now known under the

denomination of Federalists, gained the upper hand, and Aloys Reding,

who had, shortly before, been denounced as a rebel, became Landammann

of Switzerland. Bonaparte even invited him to Paris in order to settle

with him the future fate of Switzerland. Reding, however, showing an

unexpected degree of firmness, and, unmoved by either promises or

threats, obstinately refusing to permit the annexation of Valais to

France, Bonaparte withdrew his support and again favored the

Helvetlers. Dolder and Savari, who had long been the creatures of

France, failing in their election, were seated by Verninac, the French

ambassador, in the senate of the Helvetian republic, and Reding, who

was at that moment absent, was divested of his office as Landammann.

Reding protested against this arbitrary conduct and convoked a federal

diet to Schwyz.

Andermatt, general of the Helvetian republic, attempted to seize

Zurich, which had joined the federalists, but was compelled to

withdraw, covered with disgrace. An army of federalists under General

Bachmann repulsed the Helvetlers in every direction and drove them,

together with the French envoys, across the frontier. Bonaparte, upon

this, sent a body of thirty to forty thousand men, under Ney, into

Switzerland, which met with no opposition, the federalists being

desirous of avoiding useless bloodshed and being already acquainted

with Bonaparte's secret projects. He would not tolerate opposition on

their part, like that of Reding: he had resolved upon getting

possession of Valais at any price, on account of the road across the

Simplon, so important to him as affording the nearest communication

between Paris and Milan: in all other points, he perfectly coincided

with the federalists and was willing to grant its ancient independence

to every canton in Switzerland, where disunion and petty feuds placed

the country the more securely in his hands. With feigned commiseration

for the ineptitude of the Swiss to settle their own disputes, he

invited deputies belonging to the various factions and cantons to

Paris, lectured them like schoolboys, and compelled them by the Act of

Mediation, under his intervention, to give a new constitution to

Switzerland. Valais was annexed to France in exchange for the Austrian

Frickthal. Nineteen cantons were created.[8] Each canton again

administered its internal affairs. Bonaparte was never weary of

painting the happy lot of petty states and the delights of petty

citizenship. "But ye are too weak, too helpless, to defend yourselves;

cast yourselves therefore into the arms of France, ready to protect

you while, free from taxation, and from the burdensome maintenance of

an army, ye dwell free and independent in your native vales." The

Swiss, although no longer to have a national army, were, nevertheless,

compelled to furnish a contingent of eighteen thousand men to that of

France, and, while deluded by the idea of their freedom from taxation,

the fifteen millions of French _bons_ given in exchange for the

numerous Swiss loans were cashiered by Bonaparte, under pretext of the

Swiss having been already sufficiently paid by their deliverance from

their enemies by the French.[9] The real Swiss patriots implored the

German powers to protect their country, the bulwark of Germany against

France; but Austria was too much weakened by her own losses, and

Prussia handed the letters addressed to her from Switzerland over to

the First Consul.

The melancholy business, commenced by the empire at the congress of

Rastadt, and which had been broken off by the outbreak of war, had now

to be recommenced. Fresh compensations had been rendered necessary by

the robberies committed upon the Italian princes. The church property

no longer sufficed to satisfy all demands, and fresh seizures had

become requisite. A committee of the diet was intrusted with the

settlement of the question of compensation, which was decided on the

25th of February, 1803, by a decree of the imperial diet. All the

great powers of Germany had not suffered; all had not, consequently, a

right to demand compensation, but, in order to appease their jealousy,

all were to receive a portion of the booty. The three spiritual

electorates, Mayence, Treves, and Cologne, were abolished, their

position on the other side of the Rhine including them within the

French territory. The archbishop of Mayence alone retained his

dignity, and was transferred to Ratisbon. The whole of the imperial

free cities were moreover deprived of their privileges, six alone

excepted, Lubeck, Hamburg,[10] Bremen, Frankfort, Augsburg, and

Nuremberg. The unsecularized bishoprics and abbeys were abolished. The

petty princes, counts and barons, and the Teutonic order, were still

allowed to exist, in order ere long to be included in the general

ruin.

Prussia retained the bishoprics of Hildesheim and Paderborn, a part of

Munster, numerous abbeys and imperial free towns in Westphalia and

Thuringia, more particularly Erfurt. Bavaria had ever suffered on the

conclusion of peace between France and Austria; in 1797, she had ceded

the Rhenish Pfalz to France and a province on the Inn to Austria; by

the treaty of Luneville she had been, moreover, compelled to raze the

fortress of Ingolstadt.[11] The inclination for French innovations

displayed by the reigning duke, Maximilian Joseph, who surrounded

himself with the old Illuminati, caused her, on this occasion, by

Bonaparte's aid, to be richly compensated by the annexation of the

bishoprics of Bamberg, Wurzburg, Augsburg, and Freisingen, with

several small towns, etc.; all the monasteries were abolished. Bavaria

had formerly supported the institutions of the ancient church of Rome

more firmly than Austria, where reforms had already been begun in the

church by Joseph II. Hanover received Osnabruck; Baden, the portion of

the Pfalz on this side the Rhine, the greatest part of the bishoprics

of Constance, Basel, Strasburg, and Spires, also on this side the

Rhine; Wurtemberg, both Hesses (Cassel and Darmstadt); and Nassau, all

the lands in the vicinity formerly belonging to the bishopric of

Mayence, to imperial free towns and petty lordships. Ferdinand,

grandduke of Tuscany, younger brother to the emperor Francis II., was

compelled to relinquish his hereditary possessions in Italy,[12] and

received in exchange Salzburg, Eichstädt, and Passau. Ferdinand, duke

of Modena, uncle to the emperor Francis II. and younger brother to the

emperors Leopold II. and Joseph II., also resigned his duchy,[13] for

which he received the Breisgau in exchange. William V., hereditary

stadtholder of Holland, who had been expelled his states, also

received, on this occasion, in compensation for his son of like name

(he was himself already far advanced in years), the rich abbey of

Fulda, which was created the principality of Orange-Fulda.[14] The

electoral dignity was at the same time bestowed upon the Archduke

Ferdinand, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, the duke of Wurtemberg, and

the Margrave of Baden.

Submission, although painful, produced no opposition. The power of the

imperial free cities had long passed away,[15] and the spiritual

princes no longer wielded the sword. The manner in which the officers

of the princes took possession, the insolence with which they treated

the subject people, the fraud and embezzlement that were openly

practiced, are merely excusable on account of the fact that Germany

was, notwithstanding the peace, still in a state of war. The decree of

the imperial diet can scarcely be regarded as the ignominious close of

a good old time, but rather as a violent but beneficial incisure in an

old and rankling sore. With the petty states, a mass of vanity and

pedantry disappeared on the one side, pusillanimity and servility on

the other; the ideas of the subjects of a large state have naturally a

wider range; the monasteries, those dens of superstition, the petty

princely residences, those hotbeds of French vice and degeneracy, the

imperial free towns, those abodes of petty burgher prejudice, no

longer existed. The extension of the limits of the states rendered the

gradual introduction of a better administration, the laying of roads,

the foundation of public institutions of every description, and social

improvement, possible. The example of France, the ever-renewed

warfare, and the conscriptions, created, moreover, a martial spirit

among the people, which, although far removed from patriotism, might

still, when compared with the spirit formerly pervading the imperial

army, be regarded as a first step from effeminacy, cowardice, and

sloth, toward true, unflinching, manly courage.

[Footnote 1: Scenes during the War of Liberation.]

[Footnote 2: Jourdan might easily have been annihilated during his

retreat by the imperial cavalry, twenty-seven thousand strong, had his

strength and position been better known to his pursuers.]

[Footnote 3: Scenes during the War of Liberation.]

[Footnote 4: The celebrated Lavater was, on this occasion, mortally

wounded by a French soldier. The people of Zurich were heavily mulcted

by Massena for having aided the Austrians to the utmost in their

power. Zschokke, who was at that time in the pay of France, wrote

against the "Imperialism" of the Swiss. Vide Haller and Landolt's Life

by Hess.]

[Footnote 5: Concerning the wretched provision for the Austrian army,

the embezzlement of the supplies, the bad management of the magazines

and hospitals, see "Representation of the Causes of the Disasters

suffered by the Austrians," etc. 1802.]

[Footnote 6: The contest lasted the whole day: the French already gave

way on every side, when Desaix led the French centre with such fury to

the charge that the Austrians, surprised by the suddenness of the

movement, were driven back and thrown into confusion, and the French,

rallying at that moment, made another furious onset and tore the

victory from their grasp.]

[Footnote 7: The impregnable fortress of Hohentwiel, formerly so

gallantly defended by Widerhold, was surrendered without a blow by the

cowardly commandant, Bilfinger. Rotenburg on the Tauber, on the

contrary, wiped off the disgrace with which she had covered herself

during the thirty years' war. A small French skirmishing party

demanded a contribution from this city; the council yielded, but the

citizens drove off the enemy with pitchforks.]

[Footnote 8: The ancient ones, Berne, Zurich, Basel, Solothurn,

Freiburg, Lucerne, Schaffhausen; the re-established ones, Uri, Schwyz,

Unterwalden, Zug, Glarus, Appenzell, St. Gall (instead of Waldstätten,

Linth, and Säntis), Valais (instead of Leman), Aargau, Constance,

Grisons, Tessin (instead of Lugano and Bellinzona). The Bernese

Oberland again fell to Berne. The ambassador, attempting to preserve

its independence, was asked by Napoleon: "Where do you take your

cattle, your cheese, etc.?" "À Berne," was the reply. "Whence do you

get your grain, cloth, iron, etc.?" "De Berne." "Well," continued

Napoleon, "de Berne, à Berne, you consequently belong to Berne."--The

Bernese were highly delighted at the restoration of their

independence, and the re-erection of the ancient arms of Berne became

a joyous fête. A gigantic black bear that was painted on the broad

walls of the castle of Trachselwald was visible far down the valley.]

[Footnote 9: Murald, in his life of Reinhard, records an instance of

shameless fraud, the attempt made during a farewell banquet at Paris

to cozen the Swiss deputies out of a million. After plying them well

with wine, an altered document was offered them for signature;

Reinhard, the only one who perceived the fraud, frustrated the

scheme.]

[Footnote 10: Hamburg was, however, compelled to pay to the French

1,700,000 marcs banco, and to allow Rumbold, the English agent, to be

arrested by them within the city walls.]

[Footnote 11: The university had been removed, in 1800, to Landshut.]

[Footnote 12: Bonaparte transformed them into a kingdom of Etruria,

which he bestowed upon a Spanish prince, Louis of Parma, who shortly

afterward died and his kingdom was annexed to France.]

[Footnote 13: He was son-in-law to Hercules, the last duke of Modena,

who still lived, but had resigned his claims in his favor. This duke

expired in 1805.]

[Footnote 14: Which he speedily lost by rejoining Napoleon's

adversaries. Adalbert von Harstall, the last princely abbot of Fulda,

was an extremely noble character; he is almost the only one among the

princes who remained firmly by his subjects when all the rest fled and

abandoned theirs to the French. After the edict of secularization he

remained firmly at his post until compelled to resign it by the

Prussian soldiery.]

[Footnote 15: The citizens of Esalingen were shortly before at law

with their magistrate on account of his nepotism and tyranny without

being able to get a decision from the supreme court of judicature.--

Quedlinburg had also not long before sent envoys to Vienna with heavy

complaints of the insolence of the magistrate, and the envoys had been

sent home without a reply being vouchsafed and were threatened with

the house of correction in case they ventured to return. Vide Hess's

Flight through Germany, 1793.--Wimpfen also carried on a suit against

its magistrate. In 1784, imperial decrees were issued against the

aristocracy of Ulm. In 1786, the people of Aix-la-Chapelle rose

against their magistrate. Nuremberg repeatedly demanded the production

of the public accounts from the aristocratic town-council. The people

of Hildesheim also revolted against their council. Vide Schlözer,

State Archives.]

CCLIII. Fall of the Holy Roman-Germanic Empire

A great change had, meanwhile, taken place in France. The republic

existed merely in name. The first consul, Bonaparte, already possessed

regal power. The world beheld with astonishment a nation that had so

lately and so virulently persecuted royalty, so dearly bought and so

strictly enforced its boasted liberty, suddenly forget its triumph and

restore monarchy. Liberty had ceased to be in vogue, and had yielded

to a general desire for the acquisition of fame. The equality enforced

by liberty was offensive to individual vanity, and the love of gain

and luxury opposed republican poverty. Fame and wealth were alone to

be procured by war and conquest. France was to be enriched by the

plunder of her neighbors. Bonaparte, moreover, promoted the prosperity

and dignity of the country by the establishment of manufactures,

public institutions, and excellent laws. The awe with which he

inspired his subjects insured their obedience; he was universally

feared and reverenced. In whatever age this extraordinary man had

lived, he must have taken the lead and have reduced nations to

submission. Even his adversaries, even those he most deeply injured,

owned his influence. His presence converted the wisdom of the

statesman, the knowledge of the most experienced general, into folly

and ignorance; the bravest armies fled panic-struck before his eagles;

the proudest sovereigns of Europe bowed their crowned heads before the

little hat of the Corsican. He was long regarded as a new savior, sent

to impart happiness to his people, and, as though by magic, bent the

blind and pliant mass to his will. But philanthropy, Christian wisdom,

the virtues of the Prince of peace, were not his. If he bestowed

excellent laws upon his people, it was merely with the view of

increasing the power of the state for military purposes. He was ever

possessed and tormented by the demon of war.

On the 18th of May, 1804, Bonaparte abolished the French republic and

was elected hereditary emperor of France. On the 2d of December, he

was solemnly anointed and crowned by the pope, Pius VII., who visited

Paris for that purpose. The ceremonies used at the coronation of

Charlemagne were revived on this occasion. On the 15th of March, 1805,

he abolished the Ligurian and Cisalpine republics, and set the ancient

iron crown of Lombardy on his head, with his own hand, as king of

Italy. He made a distinction between _la France_ and _l'empire_, the

latter of which was, by conquest, to be gradually extended over the

whole of Europe, and to be raised by him above that of Germany, in the

same manner that the western Roman-Germanic empire had formerly been

raised by Charlemagne above the eastern Byzantine one.

The erection of France into an empire was viewed with distrust by

Austria, whose displeasure had been, moreover, roused by the arbitrary

conduct of Napoleon in Italy. Fresh disputes had also arisen between

him and England; he had occupied the whole of Hanover, which

Wallmoden's[1] army had been powerless to defend, with his troops, and

violated the Baden territory by the seizure of the unfortunate Duc

d'Enghien, a prince of the house of Bourbon, who was carried into

France and there shot. Prussia offered no interference, in the hope of

receiving Hanover in reward for her neutrality.[2] Austria, on her

part, formed a third coalition with England, Russia, and Sweden.[3]

Austria acted, undeniably, on this occasion, with impolitic haste; she

ought rather to have waited until Prussia and public opinion

throughout Germany had been ranged on her side, as sooner or later

must have been the case, by the brutal encroachments of Napoleon.

Austria, unaided by Prussia, could scarcely dream of success.[4] But

England, at that time fearful of Napoleon's landing on her coast,

lavished her all-persuasive gold.

The Archduke Ferdinand was placed at the head of the Austrian troops

in Germany; the Archduke Charles, of those in Italy. Ferdinand

commanded the main body and was guided by Mack, who, without awaiting

the arrival of the Russians, advanced as far as Ulm, pushed a corps,

under Jellachich, forward to Lindau, and left the whole of his right

flank exposed. He, nevertheless, looked upon Napoleon's defeat and the

invasion of France by his troops as close at hand. He was in

ill-health and highly irritable. Napoleon, in order to move with

greater celerity, sent a part of his troops by carriage through

Strasburg, declared to the Margrave of Baden, the duke of Wurtemberg,

and the elector of Bavaria, his intention not to recognize them as

neutral powers, that they must be either against him or with him, and

made them such brilliant promises (they were, moreover, actuated by

distrust of Austria), that they ranged themselves on his side.

Napoleon instantly sent orders to General Bernadotte, who was at that

time stationed in Hanover, to cross the neutral Prussian territory of

Anspach,[5] without demanding the permission of Prussia, to Mack's

rear, in order to form a junction with the Bavarian troops. Other

corps were at the same time directed by circuitous routes upon the

flanks of the Austrian army, which was attacked at Memmingen by Soult,

and was cut off to the north by Ney, who carried the bridge of

Elchingen[6] by storm. Mack had drawn his troops together, but had,

notwithstanding the entreaties of his generals, refused to attack the

separate French corps before they could unite and surround him. The

Archduke Ferdinand alone succeeded in fighting his way with a part of

the cavalry through the enemy.[7] Mack lost his senses and capitulated

on the 17th of October, 1805. With him fell sixty thousand Austrians,

the elite of the army, into the hands of the enemy. Napoleon could

scarcely spare a sufficient number of men to escort this enormous

crowd of prisoners to France. Wernek's corps, which had already been

cut off, was also compelled to yield itself prisoner at

Trochtelfingen, not far from Heidenheim.

Napoleon, while following up his success with his customary rapidity

and advancing with his main body straight upon Vienna, despatched Ney

into the Tyrol, where the peasantry, headed by the Archduke John, made

a heroic defence. The advanced guard of the French, composed of the

Bavarians under Deroy, were defeated at the Strub pass, but,

notwithstanding this disaster, Ney carried the Schaarnitz by storm and

reached Innsbruck. The Archduke John was compelled to retire into

Carinthia in order to form a junction with his brother Charles, who,

after beating Massena at Caldiero, had been necessitated by Mack's

defeat to hasten from Italy for the purpose of covering Austria. Two

corps, left in the hurry of retreat too far westward, were cut off and

taken prisoner, that under Prince Rohan at Castellfranco, after having

found its way from Meran into the Venetian territory, and that under

Jellachich on the Lake of Constance; Kinsky's and Wartenleben's

cavalry threw themselves boldly into Swabia and Franconia, seized the

couriers and convoys to the French rear, and escaped unhurt to

Bohemia.

Davoust had, in the meanwhile, invaded Styria and defeated a corps

under Meerveldt at Mariazell. In November, Napoleon had reached

Vienna, neither Linz nor any other point having been fortified by the

Austrians. The great Russian army under Kutusow appeared at this

conjuncture in Moravia. The czar, Alexander I., accompanied it in

person, and the emperor, Francis II., joined him with his remaining

forces. A bloody engagement took place between Kutusow and the French

at Durrenstein on the Danube, but, on the loss of Vienna, the Russians

retired to Moravia. The sovereigns of Austria and Russia loudly called

upon Prussia to renounce her alliance with France, and, in this

decisive moment, to aid in the annihilation of a foe, for whose false

friendship she would one day dearly pay. The violation of the Prussian

territory by Bernadotte had furnished the Prussian king with a pretext

for suddenly declaring against Napoleon. The Prussian army was also in

full force. The British and the Hanoverian legion had landed at Bremen

and twenty thousand Russians on Rugen; ten thousand Swedes entered

Hanover; electoral Hesse was also ready for action. The king of

Prussia, nevertheless, merely confined himself to threats, in the hope

of selling his neutrality to Napoleon for Hanover, and deceived the

coalition.[8] The emperor Alexander visited Berlin in person for the

purpose of rousing Prussia to war, but had no sooner returned to

Austria in order to rejoin his army than Count Haugwitz, the Prussian

minister, was despatched to Napoleon's camp with express instructions

not to declare war. The famous battle, in which the three emperors of

Christendom were present, took place, meanwhile, at Austerlitz, not

far from Brunn, on the 2d of December, 1805, and terminated in one of

Napoleon's most glorious victories.[9] This battle decided the policy

of Prussia, and Haugwitz confirmed her alliance with France by a

treaty, by which Prussia ceded Cleves, Anspach, and Neufchâtel to

France in exchange for Hanover.[10] This treaty was published with a

precipitation equalling that with which it had been concluded, and

seven hundred Prussian vessels, whose captains were ignorant of the

event, were seized by the enraged English either in British harbors or

on the sea. The peace concluded by Austria, on the 26th of December,

at Presburg, was purchased by her at an enormous sacrifice. Napoleon

had, in the opening of the campaign, when pressing onward toward

Austria, compelled Charles Frederick, elector of Baden,[11] Frederick,

elector of Wurtemberg, and Maximilian Joseph, elector of Bavaria (in

whose mind the memory of the assassination of the ambassadors at

Rastadt, the loss of Wasserburg, the demolition of Ingolstadt, etc.,

still rankled), to enter into his alliance; to which they remained

zealously true on account of the immense private advantages thereby

gained by them, and of the dread of being deprived by the haughty

victor of the whole of their possessions on the first symptom of

opposition on their part. Napoleon, with a view of binding them still

more closely to his interests by motives of gratitude, gave them on

the present occasion an ample share in the booty. Bavaria was erected

into a kingdom,[12] and received, from Prussia, Anspach and Baireuth;

from Austria, the whole of the Tyrol, Vorarlberg and Lindau, the

Margraviate of Burgau, the dioceses of Passau, Eichstädt, Trent, and

Brixen, besides several petty lordships. Wurtemberg was raised to a

monarchy and enriched with the bordering Austrian lordships in Swabia.

Baden was rewarded with the Breisgau, the Ortenau, Constance, and the

title of grandduke. Venice was included by Napoleon in his kingdom of

Italy, and, for all these losses, Austria was merely indemnified by

the possession of Salzburg. Ferdinand, elector of Salzburg, the former

grandduke of Tuscany, was transferred to Wurzburg. Ferdinand of Modena

lost the whole of his possessions.

The imperial crown, so well maintained by Napoleon, now shone with

redoubled lustre. The petty republics and the provinces dependent upon

the French empire were erected into kingdoms and principalities and

bestowed upon his relatives and favorites. His brother Joseph was

created king of Naples; his brother Louis, king of Holland; his

stepson Eugene Beauharnais, viceroy of Italy; his brother-in-law

Murat, formerly a common horse-soldier, now his best general of

cavalry, grandduke of Berg; his first adjutant, Berthier, prince of

Neufchâtel; his uncle, Cardinal Fesch, was nominated successor to the

elector of Mayence, then resident at Ratisbon. In order to remove the

stigma attached to him as a parvenu, Napoleon also began to form

matrimonial alliances between his family and the most ancient houses

of Europe. His handsome stepson, Eugene, married the Princess Augusta,

daughter to the king of Bavaria; his brother Jerome, Catherine,

daughter to the king of Wurtemberg; and his niece, Stephanie, Charles,

hereditary prince of Baden. All the new princes were vassals of the

emperor Napoleon, and, by a family decree, subject to his supremacy.

All belonged to the great empire. Switzerland was also included, and

but one step more was wanting to complete the incorporation of half

the German empire with that of France.

On the 12th of July, 1806, sixteen princes of Western Germany

concluded, under Napoleon's direction, a treaty, according to which

they separated themselves from the German empire and founded the

so-called Rhenish Alliance, which it was their intention to render

subject to the supremacy of the emperor of the French.[13] On the 1st

of August, Napoleon declared that he no longer recognized the empire

of Germany! No one ventured to oppose his omnipotent voice. On the 6th

of August, 1806, the emperor, Francis II., abdicated the imperial

crown of Germany and announced the dissolution of the empire in a

touching address, full of calm dignity and sorrow. The last of the

German emperors had shown himself, throughout the contest, worthy of

his great ancestors, and had, almost alone, sacrificed all in order to

preserve the honor of Germany, until, abandoned by the greater part of

the German princes, he was compelled to yield to a power superior to

his. The fall of the empire that had stood the storms of a thousand

years, was, however, not without dignity. A meaner hand might have

levelled the decayed fabric with the dust, but fate, that seemed to

honor even the faded majesty of the ancient Caesars, selected Napoleon

as the executioner of her decrees. The standard of Charlemagne, the

greatest hero of the first Christian age, was to be profaned by no

hand save that of the greatest hero of modern times.

Ancient names, long venerated, now disappeared. The holy Roman-German

emperor was converted into an emperor of Austria, the electors into

kings or granddukes, all of whom enjoyed unlimited sovereign power and

were free from subjection to the supremacy of the emperor. Every bond

of union was dissolved with the diet of the empire and with the

imperial chamber. The barons and counts of the empire and the petty

princes were mediatized; the princes of Hohenlohe, Oettingen,

Schwarzenberg, Thurn and Taxis, the Truchsess von Waldburg,

Furstenberg, Fugger, Leiningen, Lowenstein, Solms, Hesse-Homburg,

Wied-Runkel, and Orange-Fulda became subject to the neighboring

Rhenish confederated princes. Of the remaining six imperial free

cities, Augsburg and Nuremberg fell to Bavaria; Frankfort, under the

title of grandduchy, to the ancient elector of Mayence, who was again

transferred thither from Ratisbon. The ancient Hanse towns, Hamburg,

Lubeck and Bremen, alone retained their freedom.

The Rhenish confederation now began its wretched existence. It was

established on the basis of the Helvetian republic. The sixteen

confederated princes were to be completely independent and to exercise

sovereign power over the internal affairs of their states, like the

Swiss cantons, but were, in all foreign affairs, dependent upon

Napoleon as their protector.[14] The whole Rhenish confederation

became a part of the French empire. The federal assembly was to sit at

Frankfort, and Dalberg, the former elector of Mayence, now grandduke

of Frankfort, was nominated by Napoleon, under the title of Prince

Primate, president. Napoleon's uncle, and afterward his stepson,

Eugene Beauharnais, were his destined successors, by which means the

control was placed entirely in the hands of France. To this

confederation there belonged two kings, those of Bavaria and

Wurtemberg, five granddukes, those of Frankfort, Wurzburg, Baden,

Darmstadt, and Berg, and ten princes, two of Nassau, two of

Hohenzollern, two of Salm, besides those of Aremberg, Isenburg,

Lichtenstein and Leyen. Every trace of the ancient free constitution

of Germany, her provincial Estates, was studiously annihilated. The

Wurtemberg Estates, with a spirit worthy of their ancient fame, alone

made an energetic protest, by which they merely succeeded in saving

their honor, the king, Frederick, dissolving them by force and closing

their chamber.[15] An absolute, despotic form of government, similar

to that existing in France under Napoleon, was established in all the

confederated states. The murder of the unfortunate bookseller, Palm of

Nuremberg, who was, on the 25th of August, 1806, shot by Napoleon's

order, at Braunau, for nobly refusing to give up the author of a

patriotic work published by him, directed against the rule of France,

and entitled, "Germany in her deepest Degradation," furnished

convincing proof, were any wanting, of Napoleon's supremacy.

[Footnote 1: He capitulated at Suhlingen on honorable terms, but was

deceived by Mortier, the French general, and Napoleon took advantage

of a clause not to recognize all the terms of capitulation. The

Hanoverian troops, whom it was intended to force to an unconditional

surrender to the French, sailed secretly and in separate divisions to

England, where they were formed into the German Legion.]

[Footnote 2: England offered the Netherlands instead of Hanover to

Prussia; to this Russia, however, refused to accede. Prussia listened

to both sides, and acted with such duplicity that Austria was led, by

the false hope of being seconded by her, to a too early declaration of

war.--_Scenes during the War of liberation._]

[Footnote 3: Gustavus Adolphus IV. of Sweden, who had wedded a

princess of Baden, was at Carlsruhe at the very moment that the Duc

d'Enghien was seized as it were before his eyes. This circumstance and

the ridicule heaped upon him by Napoleon, who mockingly termed him the

Quixote of the North, roused his bitter hatred.]

[Footnote 4: Bulow wrote in his remarkable criticism upon this war:

"The hot coalition party--that of the ladies--of the empress and the

queen of Naples--removed Prince Charles from the army and called Mack

from oblivion to daylight; Mack, whose name in the books of the

prophets in the Hebrew tongue signifies defeat."]

[Footnote 5: Napoleon gained almost all his victories either by

skilfully separating his opponents and defeating them singly with

forces vastly superior in number, or by creeping round the

concentrated forces of the enemy and placing them between two fires.]

[Footnote 6: Ney was, for this action, created Duke of Elchingen.]

[Footnote 7: Klein, the French general, also a German, allowed himself

to be kept in conversation by Prince, afterward field-marshal

Schwarzenberg, who had been sent to negotiate terms with him, until

the Austrians had reached a place of safety.--_Prokesch.

Schwarzeriberg's Memorabilia._]

[Footnote 8: "Prussia made use of the offers made by England (and

Russia) to stipulate terms with France exactly subversive of the

object of the negotiations of England (and Russia)."--_The Manifest of

England against Prussia. Attgemeine Zeitung, No. 132._]

[Footnote 9: On the 4th of December, Napoleon met the emperor Francis

in the open street in the village of Nahedlowitz. That the impression

made by the former upon the latter was far from favorable is proved by

the emperor's observation, "Now that I have seen him, I shall never be

able to endure him!" On the 5th of December, the Bavarians under Wrede

were signally defeated at Iglau by the Archduke Ferdinand.]

[Footnote 10: "After the commission of such numerous mistakes, I must

nevertheless praise the minister, Von Haugwitz, for having, in the

first place, evaded a war unskilfully managed, and, in the second, for

having annexed Hanover to Prussia, although its possession, it must be

confessed, is somewhat precarious. Here, however, I hear it said that

the commission of a robbery at another's suggestion is, in the first

place, the deepest of degradations, and, in the second place,

unparalleled in history."--_Von Bulow, The Campaign of 1805._ It has

been asserted that Haugwitz had, prior to the battle of Austerlitz,

been instructed to declare war against Napoleon in case the

intervention of Prussia should be rejected by him. Still, had Haugwitz

overstepped instructions of such immense importance, he would not

immediately afterward, on the 12th of January, 1806, have received, as

was actually the case, fresh instructions, in proof that he had in no

degree abused the confidence of his sovereign. Haugwitz, by not

declaring war, husbanded the strength of Prussia and gained Hanover;

and, by so doing, he fulfilled his instructions, which were to gain

Hanover without making any sacrifice. His success gained for him the

applause of his sovereign, who intrusted him, on account of his skill

as a diplomatist, with the management of other negotiations. Prussia

at that time still pursued the system of the treaty of Basel, was

unwilling to break with France, and was simply bent upon selling her

neutrality to the best advantage. Instead, however, of being able to

prescribe terms to Napoleon, she was compelled to accede to his.

Napoleon said to Haugwitz, "Jamais on n'obtiendra de moi ce qui

pourrait blesser ma gloire." Haugwitz had been instructed through the

duke of Brunswick: "Pour le cas que vos soins pour rétablir la paix

échouent, pour le cas où l'apparition de la Prusse sur le théâtre de

la guerre soit jugée inévitable, mettez tous vos soins pour conserver

à la Prusse l'épée dans le fourreau jusqu'au 22 Décembre, et s'il se

peut jusqu'à un terme plus reculé encore."--_Extract from the Memoirs

of the Count von Haugwitz._]

[Footnote 11: He married a Mademoiselle von Geyer. His children had

merely the title of Counts von Hochberg, but came, in 1830, on the

extinction of the Agnati, to the government.]

[Footnote 12: On the 1st of January, 1806; the Bavarian state

newspaper announced it at New Year with the words, "Long live

Napoleon, the restorer of the kingdom of Bavaria!" Bavarian authors,

more particularly Pallhausen, attempted to prove that the Bavarians

had originally been a Gallic tribe under the Gallic kings. It was

considered a dishonor to belong to Germany.]

[Footnote 13: In 1797, the anonymous statesman, in the dedication "to

the congress of Rastadt," foretold the formation of the Rhenish

alliance as a necessary result of the treaty of Basel. "The electors

of Brandenburg, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and all the princes, who

defended themselves behind the line of demarcation against their

obligations to the empire, and tranquilly awaited the issue of the

contest between France and that part of the empire that had taken up

arms; all those princes to whom their private interests were dearer

than those of the empire, who, devoid of patriotism, formed a separate

party against Austria and Southern Germany, from which they severed

and isolated themselves, could, none of them, arrogate to themselves a

voice in the matter, if Southern Germany, abandoned by them, concluded

treaties for herself as her present and future interests demanded."]

[Footnote 14: "Oldenburg affords a glaring proof of the insecurity and

meanness characteristic of the Rhenish alliance. The relation even

with Bavaria was not always the purest, and I have sometimes caught a

near glimpse of the claws."--_Gagern's Share in Politics._]

[Footnote 15: No diet had, since 1770, been held in Wurtemberg, only

the committee had continued to treat secretly with the duke. In 1797,

Frederick convoked a fresh diet and swore to hold the constitution

sacred. Some modern elements appeared in this diet; the old opposition

was strengthened by men of the French school. Disputes, consequently,

ere long arose between it and the duke, a man of an extremely

arbitrary disposition. The Estates discovered little zeal for the war

with France, attempted to economize in the preparations, etc., while

the duke made great show of patriotism as a prince of the German

empire, nor gave the slightest symptom of his one day becoming an

enemy to his country, a member of the Rhenish alliance, and the most

zealous partisan of France. Moreau, however, no sooner crossed the

Rhine than the duke fled, abandoned his states, and afterward not only

refused to bear the smallest share of the contributions levied upon

the country by the French, but also seized the subsidies furnished by

England. The duke, shortly after this, quarrelling with his eldest

son, William, the Estates sided with the latter and supplied him with

funds, at the same time refusing to grant any of the sums demanded by

the duke, who, on his part, omitted the confirmation of the new

committee and ordered Grosz, the councillor, Stockmaier, the secretary

of the diet, and several others, besides Batz, the agent of the diet

at Vienna, to be placed under arrest, their papers to be seized, and a

sum of money to be raised from the church property, 1805. Not long

after this, rendered insolent by the protection of the great despot of

France, he utterly annihilated the ancient constitution of

Wurtemberg.]

CCLIV. Prussia's Declaration of War and Defeat

Prussia, by a timely declaration of war against France before the

battle of Austerlitz, might have turned the tide against Napoleon, and

earned for herself the glory and the gain, instead of being, by a

false policy, compelled, at a later period, to make that declaration

under circumstances of extreme disadvantage. Her maritime commerce

suffered extreme injury from the attacks of the English and Swedes.

War was unavoidable, either for or against France. The decision was

replete with difficulty. Prussia, by continuing to side with France,

was exposed to the attacks of England, Sweden, and probably Russia; it

was, moreover, to be feared that Napoleon, who had more in view the

diminution of the power of Prussia than that of Austria, might delay

his aid. During the late campaign, the Prussian territory had been

violated and the fortress of Wesel seized by Napoleon, who had also

promised the restoration of Hanover to England as a condition of

peace. He had invited Prussia to found, besides the Rhenish, a

northern confederation, and had, at the same time, bribed Saxony with

a promise of the royal dignity, and Hesse with that of the annexation

of Fulda, not to enter into alliance with Prussia. Prussia saw herself

scorned and betrayed by France. A declaration of war with France was,

however, surrounded with tenfold danger. The power of France,

unweakened by opposition, had reached an almost irresistible height.

Austria, abandoned in every former campaign and hurried to ruin by

Prussia, could no longer be reckoned on for aid. The whole of Germany,

once in favor of Prussia, now sided with the foe. Honor at length

decided. Prussia could no longer endure the scorn of the insolent

Frenchman, his desecration of the memory of the great Frederick, or,

with an army impatient for action, tamely submit to the insults of

both friend and foe. The presence of the Russian czar, Alexander, at

Berlin, his visit to the tomb of Frederick the Great, rendered still

more popular by an engraving, had a powerful effect upon public

opinion. Louisa, the beautiful queen of Prussia and princess of

Mecklenburg, animated the people with her words and roused a spirit of

chivalry in the army, which still deemed itself invincible. The

younger officers were not sparing of their vaunts, and Prince Louis

vented his passion by breaking the windows of the minister Haugwitz.

John Muller, who, on the overthrow of Austria, had quitted Vienna and

had been appointed Prussian historiographer at Berlin, called upon the

people, in the preface to the "Trumpet of the Holy War," to take up

arms against France.

War was indeed declared, but with too great precipitation. Instead of

awaiting the arrival of the troops promised by Russia or until Austria

had been gained, instead of manning the fortresses and taking

precautionary measures, the Prussian army, in conjunction with that of

Saxony, which lent but compulsory aid, and with those of Mecklenburg

and Brunswick, its voluntary allies, took the field without any

settled plan, and suddenly remained stationary in the Thuringian

forest, like Mack two years earlier at Ulm, waiting for the appearance

of Napoleon, 1806. The king and the queen accompanied the army, which

was commanded by Ferdinand, duke of Brunswick, a veteran of seventy-

two, and by his subordinate in command, Frederick Louis, prince of

Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, who constantly opposed his measures. In the

general staff the chief part was enacted by Colonel Massenbach, a

second Mack, whose counsels were rarely followed. All the higher

officers in the army were old men, promotion depending not upon merit

but upon length of service. The younger officers were radically bad,

owing to their airs of nobility and licentious garrison life; their

manners and principles were equally vulgar. Women, horses, dogs, and

gambling formed the staple of their conversation; they despised all

solid learning, and, when decorated on parade, in their enormous

cocked hats and plumes, powdered wigs and queues, tight leather

breeches and great boots, they swore at and cudgelled the men, and

strutted about with conscious heroism. The arms used by the soldiery

were heavy and apt to hang fire, their tight uniform was inconvenient

for action and useless as a protection against the weather, and their

food, bad of its kind, was stinted by the avarice of the colonels,

which was carried to such an extent that soldiers were to be seen,

who, instead of a waistcoat, had a small bit of cloth sewn on to the

lower part of the uniform where the waistcoat was usually visible.

Worst of all, however, was the bad spirit that pervaded the army, the

enervation consequent upon immorality. Even before the opening of the

war, Lieutenant Henry von Bulow, a retired officer, the greatest

military genius at that period in Germany, and, on that account,

misunderstood, foretold the inevitable defeat of Prussia, and,

although far from being a devotee, declared, "The cause of the

national ignorance lies chiefly in the atheism and demoralization

produced by the government of Frederick II. The enlightenment, so

highly praised in the Prussian states, simply consists in a loss of

energy and power."

The main body of the Prussian army was stationed around Weimar and

Jena, a small corps under General Tauenzien was pushed forward to

cover the rich magazines at Hof, and a reserve of seventeen thousand

men under Eugene, duke of Wurtemberg, lay to the rear at Halle. It was

remarked that this position, in case of an attack being made by

Napoleon, was extremely dangerous, the only alternatives left for the

Prussian army being either to advance, form a junction with the

gallant Hessians and render the Rhine the seat of war, or to fall back

upon the reserve and hazard a decisive battle on the plains of

Leipzig. That intriguing impostor, Lucchesini, the oracle of the camp,

however, purposely declared that _he_ knew Napoleon, that Napoleon

would most certainly not attempt to make an attack. A few days

afterward Napoleon, nevertheless, appeared, found the pass at Kosen

open, cut off the Prussian army from the right bank of the Saal, from

its magazines at Hof and Naumburg, which he also seized, from the

reserve corps stationed at Halle, and from Prussia. Utterly astounded

at the negligence of the duke of Brunswick, he exclaimed, while

comparing him with Mack, "Les Prussiens sont encore plus stupides que

les Autrichiens!" On being informed by some prisoners that the

Prussians expected him from Erfurt when he was already at Naumburg, he

said, "Ils se tromperont furieusement, ces perruques." He would,

nevertheless, have been on his part exposed to great peril had the

Prussians suddenly attacked him with their whole force from Weimar,

Jena, and Halle, or had they instantly retired into Franconia and

fallen upon his rear; but the idea never entered the heads of the

Prussian generals, who tranquilly waited to be beaten by him one after

the other.