After the victory of Talavera, Sir Arthur was raised to the peerage, under the title of Baron Duro of Wellesley, and Viscount Wellington of Talavera. "We have at this time the entire cohort of French marshals in Estramadura," wrote Wellington: "Soult, Ney, Mortier, Kellerman, Victor and Sebastiani, without counting King Joseph and the five thousand men of Suchet." Wellington fixed his headquarters at Badajoz. Everywhere the Spanish generals were defeated by the French. "It is deplorable," said Wellington, "that affairs which were in such good condition a few weeks ago, have been ruined by the ignorance and presumption of those who have the charge of directing them. I declare that if they had preserved their two armies, or even one of them, the cause was safe. The French could have no reinforcements which could have been of any use; time would have been gained; the state of affairs would have improved daily: all the chances were in our favor. The French armies must have been driven out of Spain. But no, they must fight great battles on the plains, where the defeat of the Spanish troops was assured from the first. They have never been willing to believe what I have told them regarding the French forces. Up to the present time, when upon the field of battle, they have found them superior to themselves under all circumstances."
Austria re-opened hostilities. A great English expedition was directed, against the naval preparations of Napoleon in the Scheldt. The fleet invested and took Flushing. The troops occupied the Isle of Walcheren, the possession of which, however, was of no practical utility, and led to no important results, but was attended with great suffering and frightful mortality. Another English expedition, directed against the south of Italy, was equally unsuccessful, although Sir John Stuart took possession of the Ionian Islands.
Napoleon pursued his triumphant way in Germany, but his victories were more severely contested and more dearly bought. At Paris Prince Talleyrand had been disgraced, and the most violent councils prevailed. "It appears," said Napoleon to Prince Metternich, the Austrian ambassador, "that the waters of Lethe, and not those of the Danube flow by Vienna. New lessons are necessary, and they will be terrible, I promise you. Austria saved the English in 1805, when I was about to cross the Straits of Calais, and has just saved them once more, by hindering me from pursuing them at Corunna: she will pay dear for this new diversion. I have no desire to draw the sword except against Spain and England, but if Austria persists, the struggle will be immediate and decisive, and will be such, that in the future, England will find no allies upon the continent."
In this great struggle for the independence of European nations, against an insatiable conqueror, and a heroic people which he had intoxicated by his glory, the successive reverses of the Austrians finally delivered Vienna to the Emperor Napoleon. The battle of Essling lasted two days, and was more desperate and more bloody than all the battles which had preceded it. Fortified on the Island of Loban, in the middle of the Danube, General Mouton, with an army of forty thousand men, firmly withstood for six hours, the fire of the batteries of the Archduke Charles; always on horseback among the guns and the troops, with no other word of command as the files of soldiers fell under the fire, than these sinister words: "Close the ranks."
When Napoleon demanded of Massena if he was able to defend the heights of Aspern: "Say to the Emperor," replied he, "that I will hold it two—six—twenty-four hours, if he wishes; as many as may be necessary for the safety of the army." In the council of war held on the evening of the first day at Loban, when Napoleon, now upon the borders of an abyss, developed the plan which was to lead to the victory of Wagram, the same Massena, often jealous, and always morose, exclaimed, with a passionate admiration for that superior genius that he recognized in spite of his envy: "Sire, you are a great man, and worthy to command such as me." The battle of Wagram led to the peace of Vienna, signed on the 14th of October, 1809.
When Pope Pius VII. protested against the occupation of his states by French troops, he was shut up in the Quirinal. The Emperor decided the question, in his usual manner, by uniting the Roman States to the Empire. The successor of Charlemagne withdrew the gift which that great conqueror had bestowed upon the Holy See. This violence was followed by the papal excommunication. The Pope was rudely taken from Rome and transported to Savona. The superior judgment of Napoleon was not long deceived regarding the fatal effects of this insult to the religious sentiments of Catholic Europe. He wrote from Schonbrunn on July 18th, 1809, that he regretted that the Pope had been arrested; that the arrest was a great piece of folly; that although it was necessary to arrest Cardinal Pacca, the Pope should have been left in peace at Rome; but nevertheless there was now no remedy for what was done. He did not, however, want the Pope in France, and if he would cease his mad opposition, his return to Rome would not be opposed.
Some days later new projects developed themselves in that brain constantly excited by the intoxication of absolute power. The Pope, who had been taken to Grenoble, was carried back to Savona by orders from the Emperor himself. Indomitable and patient, he was detained there for three years. "You have not grasped my intentions," wrote Napoleon, on the 15th of September, to the Minister of Police; "the movement from Grenoble to Savona, like all retrograde steps, has been fatal; it is that which has given hopes to this fanatic. You see that he wishes to make us reform the Napoleonic Code; to deprive us of our liberties, etc. Could anything be more insane? I have already given orders that all the Generals of the Order, and the Cardinals who have no Episcopal see, or do not reside at one, whether Italians, Tuscans, or Piedmontese, should report at Paris; and probably I will end by summoning the Pope himself, whom I will place in the suburbs. It is just that he should be at the head of Christianity. This of course will create a sensation the first months, but will soon subside."