World's Best Histories — Volume 7: France

by François Guizot; Madame de Witt

Napoleon had delayed too long to express his mind. A messenger arrived at Stockholm bearing despatches which emphatically disavowed the declarations of the partisans of Bernadotte. "I cannot think," said Napoleon, "that these individuals could have had the impudence to assert themselves to be charged with any mission whatever." The official announcement of the elevation of the Prince of Pontecorvo was already on its way to Paris. "I was little prepared for this news," replied Napoleon to the letter of King Charles XIII. He wished to wrest from Bernadotte a pledge never to bear arms against France. The marshal formally refused. For a long time in secret hostility to the emperor, he severely judged the errors of his ambition, and the consequences that would result for the peace of Europe. "Go then," said Napoleon, "and let destiny be accomplished!" On the evening of the 18th Brumaire, Bernadotte wrote to General Bonaparte: "My idea of liberty differs from yours, and your plan kills it. Three weeks ago I retired; but if I receive orders from those who have still the right to give me them, I shall resist all illegal attempts against the established powers."

The struggle was not to be long in breaking forth between the new heir to the throne of Sweden and the exacting master who claimed to subject all European powers to his laws. Everywhere the questions that grew out of the continental blockade in right as well as in practice, brought about difficulties, and gave rise to sufferings by which all the governments were injured. In annexing Holland to France, Napoleon had authorized, under a duty of 50 per cent., the sale of goods of English production which the contraband had kept stored up in their warehouses. He conceived the idea of applying the same duty to all sales of colonial products which until then had only been able to enter France by virtue of a special license. All the merchandise of this kind found in store, either in the countries dependent on the French Empire, or in foreign territories within four hours' journey of the frontier, were suddenly affected by this tax, and placed under the obligation of a certificate of origin (5th August, 1810). In default of this justification, the goods were seized as of English production, and in consequence contraband. The colonial produce was to be sold; the manufactured articles were to be everywhere burnt. In Spain, in the Canton of Tessin, at Frankfort, in the Hanseatic towns, at Stettin, at Custrin, at Dantzig, the troops were ordered to carry out the searches and seizures. A few dependent or vanquished sovereigns—Saxony or Prussia, for example—themselves consented to make the required requisitions. The sums produced by sales made in Prussia were generously credited by the Emperor Napoleon as deductions from the Prussian debt to France. A director of the French Customs superintended the Swiss troops in their inquisitions. At all points of the immense territory subjugated by Napoleon, the merchants crowded to the markets opened for confiscated goods, whilst every article proved to be of English manufacture was delivered to the flames in public. "For confiscation, for expulsion from the country, they came to substitute the punishment of burning," writes Mollien in his Memoirs; "and the reading of the correspondence of commerce might have convinced Napoleon what complaint the bankers and maritime speculators were making against a policy which, in the most industrious century, was destroying by fire the creations of industry. Until then, however, French manufacturers had flattered themselves with being able to supply the consumers whom English commerce was to lose by so severe a system of prohibition; but this illusion vanished when Napoleon, seduced by the hope of assuring to France a part in the enterprises of the commercial monopoly of England, was seen to be putting in some sort up to auction the right of introducing into Europe the productions of America and India, loading several raw materials—such as cotton and wool—with enormous duties, and, by an inexplicable contradiction, rendering to the productions of English industry, by these very taxes, more advantages than prohibition caused them to lose. Then this fictitious system, which was to free the continent from the domination of English commerce, became patent to all eyes as nothing else but the most disastrous and false of fiscal inventions; for it was creating two monopolies in place of one— aggravating at once the condition of the French manufacturers and that of the speculators of all countries, and giving up the privilege of commercial speculation to a few interested adventurers."

Hitherto the United States of America alone had protested equally against the Emperor Napoleon's system of continental blockade and the English ordinances. Already, for several months past, an embargo had been placed in their ports on French and English vessels, unless driven to take refuge in consequence of a tempest. Mistress, the one of the seas, the other of the land, it was on the United States that both England and France lavished their caresses, eager to enrol them in the service of their hostile passions. For a long time the Emperor Napoleon had required the seizure of American vessels sailing under a neutral flag, in spite of the interdiction of their government, and this rigor had been one of the causes of the dissensions between him and the King of Holland. In the month of July, 1810, he made known to Congress, that on and after the 1st of November the Americans should not be subject to the decrees of Berlin and Milan, and that they might enter into the ports of France, provided that they could obtain from England a revocation of the ordinances of the Council. "In continuing to submit to them," Napoleon had formerly said, "the peoples who are menaced by the pretensions of England would do better to recognize her sovereignty, and America ought to press forward to return under the yoke from which she has so gloriously delivered herself."

On its part, the English cabinet revoked the ordinances of the Council with regard to the Americans, and relieved them of the toll by way of harbor dues imposed on all other vessels; but it persisted in forbidding to neutral vessels the entry into French ports, thus confirming its system of a paper blockade. The measure was insufficient for the satisfaction of the United States; it did little harm to that commerce and industry of Great Britain which Napoleon strove so madly to injure by land as well as by sea.

A sign of the discontent of the Emperor Alexander was his clearly manifested resolution not to impose upon his subjects new and exorbitant pecuniary sacrifices. Nearly all the European powers had accepted or submitted to the decree of the 1st of August. "There are no true neutrals," maintained Napoleon; "they are all English, masked under divers flags, and bearers of false papers. They must be confiscated, and England is lost." Russia constantly refused to yield to these entreaties. Faithful to the law of the blockade as regards the capture of English vessels, the Emperor Alexander authorized navigation under a neutral flag. No seizure was effected in his States.

Sweden protested in vain. Denmark had been authorized to effect the sale of prohibited merchandise by means of the fifty per cent. tariff; the new Prince of Sweden begged a similar indulgence in favor of his adopted country. The emperor, dissatisfied, was angered. "Choose," said he, "between the cannon-balls for the English or war with France." Bernadotte consented to commence hostilities against the English; he was without resources, and without defences. "We offer you our arms and our iron," wrote he to the emperor; "give us in return the means that nature has refused to us." Other allies were soon to accept the offers of the illustrious marshal of the empire.

Meanwhile the months rolled past, and Napoleon did not quit Paris. He had just contracted new ties; he was occupied with the cares necessitated by the internal administration of the empire—with the legal creation of the extraordinary Domain, the fruit of conquests and confiscations, and which had already served to supply without control the divers needs of the emperor. The very appearance of authority was thus little by little escaping from the Corps Législatif, the retiring deputies of which had their commissions arbitrarily prolonged. The representatives of the new departments had been directly chosen by the Senate. The censorship had been re-established, and its favorable decrees did not always suffice to save works and their authors. The "Germany" of Madame de Staël had received the authorization of the censors, when the edition was seized and placed in the pillory. Madame de Staël was compelled to quit France in twenty-four hours. The rigors of Savary with regard to the press surpassed the traditions left by Fouché; the greater number of the journals were subjected to permanent fines, under the form of pensions to literary men. The erection of eight state prisons seemed to presage times still more harsh; however, the emperor demanded from the Council of State, in order to explain the motive for these erections, a couple of pages of clauses "containing liberal ideas." He had for a long time exercised towards France the power of words; he knew their influence and weight. More than once, in deeds of warfare his acts had gone beyond his promises; the day had come when he was about to promise more than he could perform. Liberal phrases no longer concealed from the nation the yoke which crushed it. The pompous declarations against the English leopard, hurled forth at the opening of the session of the Corps Législatif, in December, 1809, did not hasten the end of the war in Spain. The emperor did not set out as he had solemnly announced. He called Marshal Masséna, scarcely recovered from his fatigue and his wounds during the war in Germany, and confided to him the task of vanquishing the English in Portugal. Sir Arthur Wellesley continued to occupy his positions between Badajoz and Alcantara. Since the battle of Talavera and the combats which then accompanied his last movements of troops, the English general had not actively taken part in hostilities.

The war had not, however, ceased in Spain, and the insurgents had not diminished their efforts. General Kellermann had depicted in its true light the particular character of the struggle, when he wrote to Marshal Berthier: "The war in Spain is not at all an ordinary affair. Doubtless one has not to fear reverses and disastrous checks; but this stubborn nation wears away the army with its detailed resistance. Independently of the regular corps, which must be faced, it is also necessary to guard against the numerous swarms of brigands and strong organized bands, which infest the country, and which by their mobility, and above all by the favor of the inhabitants, escape from all pursuit, and come up behind you a quarter of an hour after your return. It is in vain that we beat down on one side the heads of the hydra; they reappear on the other, and without a revolution in the minds of men you will not succeed for a long time in subduing this vast peninsula. It will absorb the population and the treasures of France. They wish to gain time, and to weary us by persistency. We shall only obtain their submission by their exhaustion, and the annihilation of half the population. Such is the spirit which animates this nation, that one cannot even create in it a few partisans. It is in vain to treat it with mode ration and justice; in a difficult moment, no governor or leader whatever would find ten men who would dare to arm for his defence. We must, then, have more men. The emperor perhaps grows weary of sending them, but it is necessary to make an end of the business, or to be contented with establishing ourselves in one half of Spain in order afterwards to conquer the other. Meanwhile, resources diminish, the means perish, money is exhausted or disappears; one knows not where to direct one's energies to provide for the pay, for the maintenance of the troops, for the needs of the hospitals, for the infinite details necessary for an army in need of everything. Misery and privations increase sickness, and enfeeble the army continually; whilst, on the other side, the bands that swarm on all sides seize every day upon small parties or isolated men, who venture into the open country with extreme imprudence, notwithstanding the most positive, reiterated prohibitions."

It was the effort of all the generals commanding in Spain to destroy the bands of guerillas, who harassed their soldiers and slowly decimated their armies. General Suchet had, more than any other, succeeded in Aragon; General Gouvion St. Cyr had been absorbed by the siege of Girone, which had at length just submitted to him when Marshal Augereau was sent into Catalonia, in order to take from him at once his command and the glory of his conquest. The end of the campaign of 1809 had been signalized by a victory, gained on the 19th of November, at Ocaña, by Marshal Mortier and General Sebastiani over the insurgent army of the centre. The central Junta had confided its powers to a commission, at the head of which was the Marquis de la Romana, always more active than effective. The insurrectional government retired into the Ile de Leon, boldly convoking the Cortes at Madrid for the 1st of March, 1810.

Marshal Soult had become major-general of the army of Spain, since Marshal Jourdan had been recalled after the battle of Talavera; he was meditating a great campaign against Andalusia. Napoleon hesitated to consent to it; the English alone appeared to him to be formidable, and he had been wishing to concentrate all his forces against them: Marshal Massena was not, however, ready to enter on the campaign. King Joseph received the authorization to advance upon Andalusia; he ordered, at the same time, Marshals Ney and Suchet to lay siege to Ciudad Rodrigo and Valencia. Both attempted operations with insufficient forces, and were to fail in an enterprise which drew upon them the bitter reproaches of the emperor. The army of the King of Spain advanced towards Seville; the defiles of the Sierra Morena had been occupied without resistance by Marshal Victor. The intestine dissensions which divided the capital of Andalusia had deprived it of its means of defence; a great part of the population took to flight. A few cannon, pointed from the ramparts, did not arrest for a moment the march of the French. Marshal Soult summoned the place to surrender, and the Junta of the province consented to capitulate. All the military chiefs recently assembled in Seville had succeeded in escaping. King Joseph made his entry on the 1st of February, 1810. Malaga and Granada were not long in surrendering.