Kindness of Napoleon.
Their route.
The emperor was in glowing spirits. He had no doubt that he should be entirely victorious, and Josephine was made truly happy by that suavity and those kind attentions which he in this journey so signally displayed. Their route conducted them through some of the most beautiful and fertile valleys of France. Every where around them they saw the indications of prosperity and happiness. Napoleon was in the height of glory. The most enthusiastic acclamations of love and homage greeted the emperor and empress wherever the panting steeds which drew them rested for a moment. As they stopped for a new relay of horses in one of the little villages of Lorraine, Josephine beheld a peasant woman kneeling upon the steps of the village church, with her countenance bathed in tears. The aspect of grief ever touched the kind heart of the empress. She sent for the poor woman, and inquired into the cause of her grief.
Effects of the conscription.
"My poor grandson, Joseph," said she, "is included in the conscription, and, notwithstanding all my prayers, he must become a soldier. And more than this, his sister Julie was to have been married to Michael, a neighbor's son, and now he refuses to marry her because Joseph is in the conscription. And should my son purchase a substitute for poor Joseph, it would take all his money, and he would have no dowry to give Julie. And her dowry was to have been a hundred and twenty dollars."
Napoleon encourages marriages.
"Take that," said the emperor, presenting the woman with a purse. "You will find enough who will be ready to supply Joseph's place for that amount. I want soldiers, and, for that purpose, must encourage marriages." Josephine was so much interested in the adventure, that, as soon as she arrived at Strasburg, she sent a valuable bridal present to Julie. The good woman's prayers were answered. From Strasburg Josephine returned to Paris, while Napoleon pressed on to encounter the combined armies of Austria and Russia in the renowned campaign of Wagram.
The battle at Ulm.
Napoleon's advice to the Emperor of Austria.
It was in 1805, some years before the events we have just described, that Napoleon, with his enthusiastic troops, embarked in the celebrated campaign of Ulm and Austerlitz. At Ulm he surrounded thirty thousand of his foes, and almost without a skirmish compelled them to lay down their arms. "Your master," said he to the Austrian generals, as, almost dying with mortification, they surrendered their swords, "your master wages against me an unjust war. I say it candidly, I know not for what I am fighting. I know not what he desires of me. He has wished to remind me that I was once a soldier. I trust he will find that I have not forgotten my original avocation. I will, however, give one piece of advice to my brother, the Emperor of Austria. Let him hasten to make peace. This is the moment to remember that there are limits to all empires, however powerful. The idea that the house of Lorraine may come to an end should inspire him with distrust of fortune. I want nothing on the Continent. I desire ships, colonies, and commerce. Their acquisition would be as advantageous to you as to me."
His march down the Danube.
From Ulm, Napoleon, with two hundred thousand men, flushed with victory, rushed like a tempest down the valley of the Danube, driving the terrified Austrians before him like chaff swept by the whirlwind. Ten thousand bomb-shells were rained down upon the roofs of Vienna, till the dwellings and the streets were deluged with the blood of innocence, and then the gates were thrown open for the entrance of the conqueror. Alexander, the Emperor of all the Russias, was hastening down from the North, with his barbarian hordes, to aid the beleaguered city. Napoleon tarried not at Vienna. Fearlessly pushing on through the sleet and the hail of a Northern winter, he disappeared in the distance from the eyes of France. Austria, Sweden, Russia, were assembling their innumerable legions to crush him. He was far from home, in a hostile country. Rumors that his rashness had led to his ruin began to circulate throughout Europe.