No. 7.
I have ordered the two princes to re-enter France.—After so critical a battle as the battle of Essling the Emperor's first thoughts were concerning his succession—had he been killed or captured. He was therefore seriously annoyed that the heir-apparent and his younger brother had both been taken out of the country without his permission. He therefore writes the Queen of Holland on May 28th from Ebersdorf: "My daughter, I am seriously annoyed that you have left France without my permission, and especially that you have taken my nephews out of it. Since you are at Baden stay there, but an hour after receiving the present letter send my two nephews back to Strasburg to be near the Empress—they ought never to go out of France. It is the first time I have had reason to be annoyed with you, but you should not dispose of my nephews without my permission, you should realise what a bad effect it will have. Since the waters at Baden are doing you good you can stay there a few days, but, I repeat, lose not a moment in sending my nephews back to Strasburg. If the Empress is going to the waters at Plombières they may accompany her there, but they must never pass the bridge of Strasburg.—Your affectionate father, Napoleon." This letter passed through the hands of Josephine at Strasburg, who was so unhappy at not having heard from her husband that she opened it, and writes to Hortense on June 1st when forwarding the letter: "I advise you to write to him immediately that you have anticipated his intentions, and that your children are with me: that you have only had them a few days in order to see them, and to give them a change of air. The page who is announced in Méneval's letter has not yet arrived. I hope he will bring me a letter from the Emperor, and that at least he will not be as vexed with me for your being at Baden. Your children have arrived in excellent health."
The Duke of Montebello, who died this morning.—The same day he writes to La Maréchale as follows:—
"Ma Cousine,—The Marshal died this morning of the wounds that he received on the field of honour. My sorrow equals yours. I lose the most distinguished general in my whole army, my comrade-in-arms for sixteen years, he whom I looked upon as my best friend. His family and children will always have a special claim on my protection. It is to give you this assurance that I wished to write you this letter, for I feel that nothing can alleviate the righteous sorrow that you will experience." The following year he bestowed the highest honour on the Maréchale that she could receive.
Thus everything ends.—The fourteenth bulletin says that the end was caused by a pernicious fever, and in spite of Dr. Franck, one of the best physicians in Europe. "Thus ends one of the most distinguished soldiers France ever possessed."[77] He had received thirteen wounds. The death of Lannes, and the whole of the Essling period, is best told by Marbot. The loss of Lannes was a more serious one to Napoleon than the whole 20,000 men lost in this battle. The master himself has told us that "in war men are nothing, a man is everything." They could be replaced: Lannes never. Like Kléber and Desaix, he stood on a higher platform than the older Marshals—except Massena, who had serious drawbacks, and who was the only one of Napoleon's best generals that Wellington met in the Peninsula. Lannes had always the ear of the Emperor, and always told him facts, not flattery. His life had been specially crowded the last few weeks. Rebuked by Napoleon for tardiness in supporting Massena at Ebersberg, his life was saved by Napoleon himself when he was thrown from his horse into the flooded Danube; and finally, on the field of Essling, he had under his orders Bessières, the man who had a dozen years before prevented his engagement to Caroline Bonaparte by tittle-tattling to Napoleon.
No. 9.
Eugène won a battle.—The remnant of the Archduke John's army, together with Hungarian levies, in all 31,000 men, hold the entrenched camp and banks of the Raab. Eugène defeats it, with a loss of 6000 men, of whom 3700 were prisoners. Napoleon, in commemoration of the anniversary of Marengo (and Friedland) calls it the little granddaughter of Marengo.
No. 11.
The curtain of the war's final act was rung up in the twenty-fourth bulletin. "At length there exists no longer the Danube for the French army; General Count Bertrand has completed works which excite astonishment and inspire admiration. For 800 yards over the most rapid river in the world he has, in a fortnight, constructed a bridge of sixteen arches where three carriages can pass abreast."
Wagram is, according to Pelet, the masterpiece of tactical battles, while the five days' campaign (Thann to Ratisbon) was one long strategic battle. Nevertheless, respecting Wagram, had the Archduke John, with his 40,000 men, turned up, as the Archduke had more right to expect than Wellington had to expect Blucher, Waterloo might have been antedated six years.