But the high-spirited Spaniards were not the people to submit tamely to such an indignity. The entire nation, from the Pyrenees to the Straits of Gibraltar, flew to arms. Portugal also arose, and England sent to her aid a force under Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington, and the hero of Waterloo. The French were soon driven out of Portugal, and pushed beyond the Ebro in Spain. Joseph fled in dismay from his throne, and Napoleon found it necessary to take the field himself, in order to restore the prestige of the French arms. He entered the Peninsula at the head of an army of 80,000 men, and scattering the Spaniards wherever he met them, entered Madrid in triumph, and reseated his brother upon the Spanish throne.
Threatening tidings from another quarter of Europe now caused Napoleon to hasten back to Paris.
SECOND CAMPAIGN AGAINST AUSTRIA (1809).—Taking advantage of Napoleon's troubles in the Peninsula, Francis I. of Austria, who had been watching for an opportunity to retrieve the disaster of Austerlitz, gathered an army of half a million of men, and declared war against the French emperor. But Austria was fated to suffer even a deeper humiliation than she had already endured. Napoleon swept across the Danube, and at the end of a short campaign, the most noted battles of which were those of Eckmuhl and Wagram, Austria was again at his feet, and a second time he entered Vienna in triumph. Austria was now still farther dismembered, large tracts of her possessions being ceded directly to Napoleon or given to the various neighboring states (1809).
[Illustration: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1810]
THE PAPAL STATES AND HOLLAND JOINED TO THE FRENCH EMPIRE.—That Napoleon cared but little for the thunders of the Church is shown by his treatment of the Pope. Pius VII. opposing his continental system, the emperor incorporated the Papal States with the French empire (1809). The Pope thereupon excommunicated Napoleon, who straightway arrested the Pontiff, dragged him over the Alps into France, and held him in captivity for four years.
The year following the annexation of the Papal States to the French empire, Louis Bonaparte, king of Holland, who disapproved of his brother's continental system, which was ruining the trade of the Dutch, abdicated the crown. Thereupon Napoleon incorporated Holland with France, on the ground that it was simply "the sediment of the French rivers."
NAPOLEON'S SECOND MARRIAGE (1810).—The year following his triumph over Francis I. of Austria, Napoleon divorced his wife Josephine, in order to form a new alliance, with Maria Louisa, Archduchess of Austria. The fond and faithful Josephine bowed meekly to the will of her lord, and went into sorrowful exile from his palace. Napoleon's object in this matter was to cover the reproach of his own plebeian birth, by an alliance with one of the ancient royal families of Europe, and to secure the perpetuity of his government by leaving an heir who might be the inheritor of his throne and fortunes. His hope seemed realized when, the year following his marriage with the Archduchess, a son was born to them, who was given the title of "King of Rome."
NAPOLEON AT THE SUMMIT OF HIS POWER (1811).—Napoleon was now at the height of his marvellous fortunes. Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, and Wagram were the successive steps by which he had mounted to the most dizzy heights of military power and glory. The empire which he had built up stretched from the Baltic to Southern Italy, embracing France proper, Belgium, Holland, Northwestern Germany, Italy west of the Apennines as far south as Naples, besides large possessions about the head of the Adriatic. On all sides were allied, vassal, or dependent states. Several of the ancient thrones of Europe were occupied by Napoleon's relatives or favorite marshals. He himself was head of the kingdom of Italy, and Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine. Austria and Prussia were completely subject to his will. Russia and Denmark were his allies.
[Illustration: NAPOLEON BONAPARTE]
ELEMENTS OF WEAKNESS IN THE EMPIRE.—But splendid and imposing as at this moment appeared the external affairs of Napoleon, the sun of his fortunes, which had risen so brightly at Austerlitz, had already passed its meridian. There were many things just now contributing to the weakness of the French empire and foreboding its speedy dissolution. Founded and upheld by the genius of Napoleon, it depended solely upon the life and fortunes of this single man. The diverse elements it embraced were as yet so loosely joined that there could be no hope or possibility of its surviving either the misfortune or the death of its founder.