Liberty in the Nineteenth Century

by Frederic May Holland

Austria took advantage of the situation to try to reconquer the lost provinces. The Tyrolese had been made subjects of the King of Bavaria; but they rose at the call of Hofer, and gained glorious victories over French and Bavarian soldiers. Other defeats were suffered by Napoleon; but he soon succeeded in forcing Austria to grant him, not only much more of her territory, but the hand of a young princess, who had never thought of him but with abhorrence. This involved his divorce from the loving Josephine. He pleaded desire for a son who might succeed him; but he was not likely to live until any child who might be born after this would be old enough to keep together an empire whose basis was conquest.

The Austrian princess had been demanded before Napoleon's application for a Russian one had been answered decisively; his plans for restoring Poland had given additional offence to the Czar; and the welfare of Russia demanded freedom to use the products of her forests, fields, and mines in buying British goods. This right was insisted upon by the Czar; and Napoleon had only abuse for the friends who warned him that defeat in Russia would call all Germany to arms against him. He was already so unpopular at Paris, that he had to remove with his Court.

The enormous army with which he invaded Russia might easily have taken possession of her Polish provinces, where the people were friendly. He preferred to march a thousand miles, through a hostile and barren country, to Moscow. The city was set on fire at his arrival; but he wasted so much time there, that winter helped the Russians turn his retreat into a rout. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers perished miserably.

The Prussians flew to arms; and Austria demanded restoration of her provinces. He replied that he should not yield an inch, and cared nothing for the loss of a million lives. He was driven out of Germany by "the Battle of the Nations," which was won at Leipsic, in October, 1813, by zealous cooperation of the Russians with Prussians, Austrians, Bavarians, and other Germans.

One result was described by saying that "The Dutch have taken Holland." Need of a strong government in time of war had given a power almost monarchical to the successors of that Prince of Orange who had saved his republic from Philip II. One of these princes was driven out by a democratic rebellion in 1787, but restored by a Prussian army. The French Revolution enabled Holland to return to republicanism; but alliance with the Directory meant continual spoliation; and there were grievous conscriptions under Napoleon, whose rule was extremely unpopular in a nation which lived by commerce. When the Dutch heard of his defeat at Leipsic, they rose against him without waiting for auxiliaries; and the French garrisons were soon driven out by the help of soldiers from Russia, Prussia, and England. The rulers of these countries sanctioned the desire of the Orange faction to make the prince a king. The people were not consulted, but were reconciled by a constitution, under which there was a legislature with some power, local self-government, freedom of worship, political equality, and liberty in commerce.

Napoleon might have remained emperor; but he refused to make any concessions, and kept on fighting until his generals abandoned him, and his deposition was voted by the Senate. The people would not rise for him, as they had done for the Republic; and the Parisians refused to cry "Vive l'Empereur" as he returned from Elba, to be overthrown at Waterloo. Three million Frenchmen perished in his wars; and he left France smaller than he found her. His restrictions on commerce were removed so suddenly as to destroy the industries which he had tried to foster; and the proportion of paupers to the population was three times as great as in 1880.

France was still desirous that the press should be free, and that taxation should be controlled by representatives of the people. Louis XVIII. had to promise that he would respect these rights which his predecessors had violated. Toleration continued; and the peasants kept the property and equality which the Revolution had given them, and which no sovereign could take away.

Napoleon is the most famous of generals; but his greatness as a statesman would have been plainer if he had not undertaken so many showy enterprises which had little chance of success. He failed signally in founding a dynasty, in making France the greatest of manufacturers, and in giving her an invincible navy, though he might have gained the first of these objects by peace, and the last by free trade. He could not even leave to his successor the territory which had been conquered by the Revolution. Yet these were his dearest purposes, except the wild dream of humbling England. Was he the greatest of architects, every one of whose colossal structures fell under their own weight before they could be used? Greater is he who builds what lasts for ages.

Napoleon made the twenty years ending with 1815 more glorious than any later period, and much more wretched. Western Europe was afflicted by bloody wars, and impoverished by restrictions on commerce. If his reign had been peaceable, he might have deprived France much more completely of what liberty she had enjoyed under the Directory. Every despot, however enlightened and benevolent, must necessarily interfere so much with the liberty of his subjects as to hinder their making themselves happy. France and Germany lost nothing in freedom and gained much in prosperity by his defeat; for it gave the world many years of peace. What he brought of political and religious equality to Prussia, Western Germany, and Switzerland survived him; for it was part of his inheritance from the Revolution which he closed treacherously. France had received her legacy without his help; and she retained much of it in spite of his interference. His victories over hereditary monarchs were so suggestive that books about him are still prohibited in Russia; but no people lost much by his overthrow except the Italians.

IV. Waterloo might have been called a "of the Nations" as well as Leipsic; but the best fighting was under the British flag. The English had suffered much from Napoleon, in spite of his never succeeding in making an invasion. The worst injury he did was in forcing them to remain in that absorption in war which had checked the growth of toleration, democracy, and prosperity in 1793. George III. was personally popular; but his weak, unprincipled successor was merely a figurehead. Two-thirds of the members of the House of Commons in 1815 had been appointed by the Ministry, or by some nobleman, and most of the others owned or rented some pocket-borough almost destitute of inhabitants. The House of Lords was overwhelmingly opposed to government by the people; and no Tories were more consistent than those sons or protégés of noblemen, the bishops. The successors of the apostles had no sympathy with the struggle of the Cross against the Crescent in lands where Paul had preached. They helped to vote down propagation of the Gospel in India, as well as enfranchisement of Roman Catholics, and mitigation of laws which punished pilfering with death. They tried in vain to save the slave-trade from prohibition; and most of the clerical and lay members of both Houses were in league to keep the tax on importation of wheat heavy enough to give them large incomes from their real estate.