The campaign of the Pyrenees bore ample testimony to the wisdom of the confidence the Emperor had placed in the power of his lieutenant. With marvellous sagacity Soult reorganised the scattered relics of the French armies, and within ten days of his arrival at headquarters he was ready to assume the offensive, and actually all but surprised the Duke of Wellington at Sorauren. But great as were his strategical powers and his methods of organisation, he was no match for Wellington on the field of battle, and step by step he was forced back into France. Round Bayonne he showed his complete mastery of the art of war by the admirable way he used his command of the inner lines always to oppose the enemy's attack by superior force. Then, when retreat was inevitable, instead of falling back towards Paris, he withdrew south, thus forcing his adversary to divide up his army; for the English had to detach a strong division to cover their communications at Bordeaux. During the retreat, again and again Soult turned at bay, at Orthez and many another good position; but Wellington ever outmanœuvred him on the field, and even turned him out of the seemingly impregnable position of Toulouse. Never was a retreat more admirably carried out. Every opportunity afforded by the ground, every advantage of position was seized on, to use to the full the French dash in the attack. No more admirable illustration can be found of the truth that the essence of defence lies in a vigorous local offence. Wellington himself bore testimony to Soult's virtues, maintaining that of the Marshals he was second only to Masséna.
With the Restoration the Marshal at once accepted the change of government and gave his adhesion to the Bourbons. His general reputation and the high place he held in the opinion of Wellington and others caused the King in the December of 1814 to appoint him Minister of War. Such was his position when news arrived of Napoleon's landing at Fréjus. The Duke of Dalmatia did all in his power to organise resistance to the Emperor's advance, but he had many enemies, and the King, listening to their advice, replaced him as minister by Clarke, Duke of Feltre. Soult then retired to his country estate at Villeneuve-l'Étang, near Saint Cloud. On his arrival at Paris, the Emperor at once sent for him, but at first he refused to go to court. Ultimately, finding the Emperor's cause in the ascendant, he cast aside hesitation and threw in his lot with him. It has been said that the Duke betrayed the Bourbons and was privy to the Emperor's return, but this is a calumny. Napoleon at St. Helena said, "Soult did not betray Louis, nor was he privy to my return. For some days he thought that I was mad, and that I must certainly be lost. Notwithstanding this, appearances were so against him, and without intending it, his acts turned out to be so favourable to my project, that, were I on his jury and deprived of what I know, I should have condemned him for having betrayed Louis. But he really was not privy to it." The Emperor joyfully accepted the Marshal's adherence and made him one of his new peers, and when war was imminent, on the advice of Davout, he created him major-general and chief of the staff. This selection was unfortunate; good strategist and organiser, he was not the man the Emperor required. Berthier, who had not half his military ability, had made an excellent chief of the staff, because he had the rare quality of effacing his own ideas and acting simply as the recorder and expander of those of Napoleon. But Soult was accustomed to think for himself, and his mind was unable to attune itself to the mind of the Emperor. Further, from long experience, Berthier was accustomed to fill up gaps in the Emperor's orders in the way he intended, but Soult had never so far worked in close co-operation with Napoleon, and after years of independent command was more accustomed to give orders to his own chief of the staff than to work out minutiæ for another. Consequently, all through the Waterloo campaign the staff work was badly done. Orders were faultily drafted, mistakes were made in their despatch, and the Emperor was constantly bewailing the loss of "that brute Berthier." A typical example of the friction which arose between the Emperor and his new major-general occurred when, at Waterloo, Napoleon asked Soult if he had sent to Grouchy intelligence of the approach of the Prussians; the Marshal replied, "Yes, I have sent an officer." "One officer!" cried Napoleon; "ah! if only my poor Berthier had been here, he would have sent six." To add to these troubles, Soult was unfortunately hated by the officers of the army, who regarded him with grave suspicion. But though the Marshal must bear his share in the disaster of Waterloo, it is only fair to add that the morning of the battle he, and he alone, warned the Emperor of the magnitude of the coming struggle, and entreated him to recall at least a portion of Grouchy's command. The Emperor roughly rejected his advice with the words, "You think that because Wellington defeated you he must be a great general. I tell you that he is a bad general, that the English are bad troops, and that this will be the affair of a déjeuner." The Marshal, with the memory of many a battle with these "poor troops" from Oporto to Toulouse, could only sorrowfully say, "I hope so."
On the second Restoration the Duke of Dalmatia found himself included among the proscribed, and for three years he retired to the Duchy of Berg, the home of his wife, during which time he occupied himself in the composition of his Memoirs. But in May, 1819, he was recalled to France, and soon found means of ingratiating himself with the Bourbons. In January, 1820, his Marshal's bâton and his other honours were restored to him, and he entered the field of politics. With his vast income, acquired from the spoils of nearly every country in Europe, he maintained his high rank in lordly fashion. A visitor who in 1822 went to see his famous collection of pictures thus describes him: "We were received by the Marshal, a middle-sized though somewhat corpulent personage of from fifty to sixty years of age, whose dark curling hair rendered somewhat conspicuous the bald patch in the middle of his head, while his sunburnt complexion accorded well with his dark intelligent eye. His plain stock, plain dark coat and loose blue trousers, which, capacious as they were, could not hide his bow-legged form, obviously suggested the soldier rather than the courtier, the Marshal rather than the Duke; though if I had encountered such a figure in London I should rather have guessed him an honest East or West Indian captain." The Marshal knew well how to win favour with the new Government, and when the reactionaries attempted to restore the ancient position of the Church, no one was more regular in his attendance at Church festivals and processions than the Duke of Dalmatia, who always appeared with an enormous breviary carried before him, though people were unkind enough to say that it would be more to the purpose if he restored some of the vast plunder of the churches and monasteries of Spain.
With the fall of the Bourbon dynasty in 1830 the subtle old soldier at once gave his adherence to the Orleanists, and was appointed Minister of War; and it was thanks to his energy and wisdom that the numerous revolts which threatened the early days of the new régime were stamped out. Soult, like Wellington, hated the idea of civil war, but knew that strong measures were the best means to prevent bloodshed, so when, as at Lyons, it was essential to strike, he took good care to have the necessary force at hand. A year later, when the Commune threatened to raise its head in Paris, he overawed the mob by the sudden mobilisation of eighty thousand troops. The weakness of the Government and the courage and decision the Marshal showed during the émeute caused Louis Philippe on October 18, 1832, to entrust him with the headship of the administration. The Marshal proved how often a strong soldier may be a weak politician, and in 1834 he resigned office. But during his term of office he did not forget the needs of the army, as his measures for recruiting, military pensions, and the training of officers prove. When, again, in 1839 Paris was seething with discontent, the King sent for the Marshal, and under his iron hand order was easily re-established. But the old soldier was no orator, and was listened to more from respect for his character than the cogency of his arguments, and when the crisis was passed he was soon glad to resign his appointment; and though always taking an active part, and ever ready to give his advice to his sovereign, he never again held office. In 1838 the Duke of Dalmatia visited London as representative of France at the Coronation of Queen Victoria, and once again met his old opponent, the Duke of Wellington. Lady Salisbury thus describes their meeting: "The Duke and Soult met in the music-room at the Queen's concert for the first time for many years, and shook hands. Soult's appearance is different from what I expected: he is a gentlemanlike old man with rather a benevolent cast of countenance, such as I should have expected in William Penn or Washington: tall and rather stooping, the top of the head bald.... The Duke, though the lines on his face are deeper, has a fresher colour and a brighter eye."
The Duke of Dalmatia clung to the Orleanist dynasty till the end, and attended the last council held by Louis Philippe. He had a special liking for the Citizen Monarch, who reciprocated this affection, and had in 1847 re-established for the veteran the title of Marshal General of France, a designation held previously only by Turenne, Villars, and Saxe. With the fall of the dynasty he appeared no more in public, and at last, on November 26, 1857, he died at his château at St. Amand in his eighty-second year.
"Soult is able but too ambitious." Thus Napoleon appreciated the Duke of Dalmatia when discussing the characters of his Marshals. But Soult was possessed of a crafty caution which seldom if ever allowed his ambition to hinder the success his ability deserved. Cold and calculating by nature, he knew exactly where to draw the line. The attempt to seize the throne of Portugal was the only occasion on which he seemed to throw caution to the winds, and those who knew him best were so astounded at his lack of circumspection that they could scarcely believe that he himself approved of the proclamations which appeared in Oporto. The hard, crafty nature of the Marshal was responsible for his many enemies among the officers of the army. His own staff never loved him, much as they marvelled at his indefatigable industry and his suppleness of mind, which permitted him to turn with ease from the highest political and strategic problems to the drudgery of administrative details, and bring to bear on all questions the cold, hard light of lucid reasoning. He could attract men to him by sheer admiration of his ability, but he could make no real friends, for those who came in contact with him soon discovered that he only thought of what he could make out of them, and then that he would drop them without the slightest regret. Sprung from the lower ranks of society, the Marshal had all the cunning and avarice of the typical bourgeois, and though he had the capacity to overcome his want of education, he had not the power to eradicate these inherent strains of character. Though not so rapacious as Masséna, the Duke of Dalmatia never withheld his hand when plunder offered itself and his home in Paris was decorated with magnificent objects of art filched from nearly every country in Europe. But though he allowed himself the luxury of taking what seized his fancy, he sternly repressed marauding on the part of his officers and men. Hence it was that, like Suchet, he was able to subdue the provinces committed to his charge and win the respect and obedience of the Spaniards. His methodical mind hated the idea of disorder; administration came to him as Nature's gift. Under his rule Andalusia gained a prosperity she had never before known. But we must remember that his success in this province was due not only to his great gift of administration, but also to his ambition, for it was the driving power of self-interest which supplied the energy which oiled the wheels of his system; for the Marshal hoped with the resources of Andalusia to supply the material and means to drive the English from Lisbon without the co-operation of King Joseph or the other French commanders. In striking contrast to the aversion with which he was regarded by his own fellow-countrymen was the feeling of admiration with which he was viewed by his foes, and notably by his English adversaries in the Peninsula. They only saw the results of his great versatility and resource, and his acts of courtesy to those who fell into his power; while the discipline he maintained among his troops stood in striking contrast to the conduct of many of the other French commanders. Moreover, the Marshal was too politic to be cruel, and it was easy to guess that his proclamation against the Spaniards was really the work of the Emperor. That this was the case was borne out by the following letter written by Berthier at Napoleon's dictation: "Let the Duke of Dalmatia know that I learn with indignation that some of the prisoners taken at Ocaña have been released and their arms restored to them. When I witness such behaviour I ask, 'Is this treason or imbecility?' Is it then only French blood that is to flow in Spain without regret and without vengeance?" As a soldier the Marshal stands high among his compeers. In spite of his defeats at Oporto, Albuera, and Toulouse, throughout his career he clearly showed that he had the essential quality of a great commander, the ability to see and the capacity to perform what was possible with the material at hand. His strategic insight was great, he had a magnificent eye for country and the power of calmly surveying a field of battle, but, as Wellington pointed out, he had one great fault, for though "he knew how to bring his troops to the field, he did not know so well how to use them when he had brought them up." Thus it was that at Sorauren, after he had surprised Wellington and upset the whole of the English strategic plans, he was unable to win the battle which was necessary to reap the harvest of his labours. But the passage of the Pyrenees, the operations round Bayonne, and the retreat on Toulouse, will always be studied as examples of the most perfect military operations of their type. They show to the full the secret of the Marshal's success as a soldier, the blending of ardour with method and dash with caution. As a politician the Duke of Dalmatia met with little success; his methods were those of a dictator rather than those of a statesman. When the hour of action was passed he invariably showed weakness. But whatever were his faults, it must be laid to his credit that throughout the reign of Louis Philippe he lent all the weight of his great name and reputation to the maintenance of order at home and peace abroad.
VI
JEAN LANNES, MARSHAL, DUKE OF MONTEBELLO
Jean Lannes, the future Duke of Montebello, was born on April 10, 1769, the year which saw the birth of many famous soldiers, Napoleon, Wellington, Ney, and Soult. He was the fourth son of a peasant proprietor of Lectourne, a little town on the slopes of the Pyrenees. His family had long been settled in the commune of Omet, in the department of the Gironde. The first to rise to any sort of distinction was Jean's eldest brother, who showed at an early age such ability that the episcopal authorities of Lectourne educated him, and in due time he became a priest. It was to his brother, the abbé, that the young Jean owed such elements of learning as he possessed. But the pressure of need compelled his father to indenture him at an early age to a dyer in Lectourne. The young apprentice was of middle height, very well built, amazingly active, and able to bear the utmost fatigue. His face was pleasant and expressive, his eyes small and keen. Behind those eyes lay a brain of extraordinary activity, which was controlled by a boundless ambition. Enthusiastic and passionate, Lannes' spirit could brook but little control. Action was the zest of his life. Administration and control came to him not as Nature's gifts, but as the result of his great common sense, which guided his ambition along the paths which led to success. A nature which could not endure the dullness of the dyer's trade in Lectourne could, however, compel the young soldier during the severest campaigns to give up part of his night's rest to study and to the expansion of his knowledge beyond the elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic, all the learning his brother, the abbé, had had time to impart to him. Even in the later years of his life the successful Marshal strove by midnight toil to educate himself up to the position his military talents had won for him.