The History of Napoleon Buonaparte

by J. G. Lockhart

Austria was bound by treaty to assist Napoleon with 30,000 men, whenever he chose to demand them; but this same treaty included Buonaparte's guarantee of Austria's Polish provinces. Could he have got rid of this pledge, he distinctly perceived the advantages which he might derive from the enthusiasm of the Poles; to proclaim their independence would have been, he well knew, to array a whole gallant nation under his banners; and of such objections to their independence as might be started by his own creature, the Grand Duke of Warsaw, he made little account. But Austria would not consent to give up his guarantee of Galicia, unless he consented to yield back the Illyrian territory which she had lost at Schoenbrunn; and this was a condition to which Napoleon would not for a moment listen. He would take whatever he could gain by force or by art; but he would sacrifice nothing. The evil consequences of this piece of obstinacy were twofold. Austria remained an ally indeed, but at best a cold one; and the opportunity of placing the whole of Poland in insurrection, between him and the Czar, was for ever lost.

But if Napoleon, in the fulness of his presumption, thus neglected or scorned the timely conciliation of foreign powers-some of whom he might have arrayed heartily on his side, and others at least retained neutral-he certainly omitted nothing as to the preparation of the military forces of his own empire. Before yet all hopes of an accommodation with St. Petersburg where at an end, he demanded and obtained two new conscriptions in France; and moreover established a law by which he was enabled to call out 100,000 men at a time, of those whom the conscriptions had spared, for service at home. This limitation of their service he soon disregarded; and in effect the new system-that of the Ban, as he affected to call it-became a mere extension of the old scheme. The amount of the French army at the period in question (exclusive of the Ban) is calculated at 850,000 men; the army of the kingdom of Italy mustered 50,000; that of Naples, 30,000; that of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, 60,000; the Bavarian, 40,000; the Westphalian, 30,000; the Saxon, 30,000; Wirtemberg, 15,000; Baden, 9,000; and the minor powers of the Rhenish League, 23,000. Of these armies Napoleon had the entire control. In addition, Austria was bound to furnish him with 30,000, and Prussia with 20,000 auxiliaries. The sum-total is 1,187,000. Deducting 387,000—a large allowance for hospitals, furloughs, and incomplete regiments-there remained 800,000 effective men at his immediate command. The Spanish peninsula might perhaps occupy, even now, 150,000; but still Napoleon could bring into the field against Russia, in case all negotiation failed, an army of 650,000 men; numbers such as Alexander could have no chance of equalling; numbers such as had never before followed an European banner.

Notwithstanding all this display of military strength, the French statesmen who had in former days possessed the highest place in the Emperor's confidence, and who had been shaken in his favour by their bold prophecies of the result of his attempts on Spain and Portugal, did not hesitate to come forward on this new occasion, and offer warnings, for which the course of events in the Peninsula might have been expected to procure a patient hearing. Talleyrand, still in office, exhausted all his efforts in vain. Fouché, who on pretence of ill health had thrown up his Roman government, and was now resident at his country seat near Paris, drew up a memorial, in which the probable consequences of a march into Russia were detailed with masterly skill and eloquence; and demanded an audience of the Emperor, that he might present it in person. Napoleon, whose police now watched no one so closely as their former chief, was prepared for this. He received Fouché with an air of cool indifference. "I am no stranger to your errand," said he. "The war with Russia pleases you as little as that of Spain." Fouché answered, that he hoped to be pardoned for having drawn up some reflections on so important a crisis. "It is no crisis at all," resumed Buonaparte, "but a mere war of politics. Spain falls whenever I have destroyed the English influence at St. Petersburg. I have 800,000 soldiers in readiness: with such an army I consider Europe as an old prostitute, who must obey my pleasure. Did not you yourself once tell me that the word impossible is not French? You grandees are now too rich, and though you pretend to be anxious about my interests, you are only thinking of what might happen to yourselves in case of my death, and the dismemberment of my empire. I regulate my conduct much more by the sentiments of my army than by yours. Is it my fault that the height of power which I have attained compels me to ascend to the dictatorship of the world? My destiny is not yet accomplished-the picture exists as yet only in outline. There must be one code, one court of appeal, and one coinage for all Europe. The states of Europe must be melted into one nation, and Paris be its capital." It deserves to be mentioned that neither the statesman thus contemptously dismissed, nor any of his brethren, ever even alluded to the injustice of making war on Russia for the mere gratification of ambition. Their arguments were all drawn from the extent of Alexander's resources-his 400,000 regulars, and 50,000 Cossacks, already known to be in arms-and the enormous population on which he had the means of drawing for recruits; the enthusiastic national feelings of the Muscovites; the distance of their country; the severity of their climate; the opportunity which such a war would afford to England of urging her successes in Spain; and the chance of Germany rising in insurrection in case of any reverses.

There was, however, one person who appealed to the Emperor on other grounds. His uncle, the Cardinal Fesch, had been greatly afflicted by the treatment of the Pope, and he contemplated this new war with dread, as likely to bring down the vengeance of Heaven on the head of one who had dared to trample on its vicegerent. He besought Napoleon not to provoke at once the wrath of man and the fury of the elements; and expressed his belief that he must one day sink under the weight of that universal hatred with which his actions were surrounding his throne. Buonaparte led the churchman to the window, opened it, and pointing upwards, said, "Do you see yonder star?" "No, sire," replied the Cardinal. "But I see it," answered Napoleon; and abruptly dismissed him.

Trusting to this star, on which one spot of fatal dimness had already gathered, Napoleon, without waiting for any formal rupture with the Russian diplomatists at Paris, now directed the march of very great bodies of troops into Prussia and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Alexander's minister was ordered, in the beginning of April, to demand the withdrawal of these troops, together with the evacuation of the fortresses in Pomerania, in case the French government still entertained a wish to negotiate. Buonaparte instantly replied that he was not accustomed to regulate the distribution of his forces by the suggestions of a foreign power. The ambassador demanded his passports, and quitted Paris.

On the 9th of May, Napoleon left Paris with his Empress, and arrived on the 16th at Dresden, where the Emperor of Austria, the Kings of Prussia, Naples, Wirtemberg, and Westphalia, and almost every German sovereign of inferior rank, had been invited, or commanded, to met him. He had sent to request the Czar also to appear in this brilliant assemblage, as affording a last chance of an amicable arrangement; but the messenger could not obtain admission to Alexander's presence.

Buonaparte continued for some days to play the part of undisputed master amidst this congregation of royalties. He at once assumed for himself and his wife precedence over the Emperor and Empress of Austria; and, in the blaze of successive festivals, the King of Saxony appeared but as some chamberlain, or master of the ceremonies, to his imperious guest.

Having sufficiently indicated to his allies and vassals the conduct which they were respectively to adopt, in case the war should break out, Napoleon, already weary of his splendid idleness, sent on the Abbé de Pradt to Warsaw, to prepare for his reception among the Poles, dismissed Maria Louisa on her return to Paris, and broke up the Court in which he had, for the last time, figured as "the King of Kings." Marshal Ney, with one great division of the army, had already passed the Vistula; Junot, with another, occupied both sides of the Oder. The Czar was known to be at Wilna, his Lithuanian capital, there collecting the forces of his immense empire, and entrusting the general arrangements of the approaching campaign to Marshal Barclay de Tolly.[61] The season was advancing; and it was time that the question of peace or war should be forced to a decision.

Napoleon arrived at Dantzick on the 7th of June; and during the fortnight which ensued, it was known that the final communications between him and Alexander were taking place. The attention of mankind was never more entirely fixed on one spot than it was, during these fourteen days, upon Dantzick. On the 22nd, Buonaparte broke silence in a bulletin. "Soldiers," said he, "Russia is dragged on by her fate: her destiny must be accomplished. Let us march! let us cross the Niemen: let us carry war into her territories. Our second campaign of Poland will be as glorious as our first: but our second peace shall carry with it its own guarantee: it shall put an end for ever to that haughty influence which Russia has exercised for fifty years on the affairs of Europe." The address, in which the Czar announced the termination of his negotiations, was in a far different tone. After stating the innumerable efforts he had made to preserve peace, without losing for Russia the character of an independent state, he invoked the aid of Almighty Providence as "the witness and the defender of the true cause;" and concluded in these words—"Soldiers, you fight for your religion, your liberty, and your native land. Your Emperor is amongst you; and God is the enemy of the aggressor."

Buonaparte reviewed the greater part of his troops on the field of Friedland; and having assured them of still more splendid victories over the same enemy, issued his final orders to the chief officers of his vast army. Hitherto the Poles had had no certain intelligence of the object which Napoleon proposed to himself. As soon as no doubt remained on that score, the Diet at Warsaw sent both to him and to the King of Saxony, to announce their resolution to seize this opportunity of re-establishing the ancient national independence of their dismembered country. We have already mentioned the circumstance which compelled the Emperor to receive this message with coldness. He was forced to acknowledge that he had guaranteed to Austria the whole of her Polish provinces. It was therefore impossible for him to take part in the re-establishment of Old Poland:—"Nevertheless," added he, with audacious craft, "I admire your efforts; I even authorise them. Persist; and it is to be hoped your wishes will be crowned with success."