CHAPTER XXVII.
PROCEEDINGS IN FRANCE AND IN THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT.
♦1809.♦
♦Buonaparte divorces the Empress Josephine.♦
The year had thus closed in Spain as triumphantly for the invaders as it began; and yet the French felt, and could not but feel, that the subjugation of that kingdom was more distant at this time than they had supposed it to be when they entered upon the invasion, in the wantonness of insolent power. Buonaparte, when he recapitulated the exploits of the year to his senate, intimated an intention of returning thither to complete the conquest. “When I shall show myself beyond the Pyrenees,” said he, “the frightened leopard will fly to the ocean to avoid shame, defeat, and death. The triumph of my arms will be the triumph of the genius of good over that of evil; of moderation, order, and morality, over civil war, anarchy, and the evil passions.” He neither mentioned nor alluded to the battle of Talavera; the circumstances of that well-fought field had been so completely concealed from the French nation, that they were fully persuaded the English had suffered a great defeat; but the lesson had not been lost upon Buonaparte. That battle, and the repulse at Esling, made him for the first time feel the insecure foundation of his power; it taught him that his armies were not invincible. His hatred for England, implacable as it was, had not prevented him from regarding with admiration the military genius of Marlborough, though he was incapable of appreciating the principles and feelings which induced that excellent commander on every occasion to mitigate by every means in his power the miseries of war. He despised the counsels, and egregiously miscalculated the resources of Great Britain; but he was compelled in his heart to render reluctant justice to the national spirit, which Vimeiro and Coruña, and the Douro and Talavera, had shewn him could be displayed by her armies no less than by her fleets; and he could not but secretly and ominously apprehend, that such victories as those of Blenheim and Ramillies might be achieved by such soldiers. It is believed that this feeling determined him to connect himself by marriage with one of the great continental powers. Secret arrangements for this having been made with the house of Austria, he divorced the Empress Josephine at the close of the year by an act of his own government, and with her full acquiescence, reasons of state being made the plea, as they were the motives, for this measure. In the manner of the separation, in the provision which was made, and in the honours which were reserved for Josephine, due regard was shown her: she was a gentle and benevolent woman; and had Buonaparte in his moral nature been half as worthy of the throne, the world might have loved and revered the memory of both.
♦Farther requisition for the armies in Spain.♦
But triumphantly as the war with Austria had been concluded, the prospect of peace was yet far distant. The war-minister reported, that the French armies in Spain consisted of 300 battalions and 150 squadrons, and it would be sufficient, without sending any additional corps, to keep them at their full establishment: 30,000 men collected at Bayonne afforded means for accomplishing this, and for repulsing any force which the English might send to that country. In this state of things, no other levy was necessary than such as would supply the contingent indispensably requisite for replacing in the battalions of the interior the drafts which were daily made from them. There remained from the conscription of the years 1806, 7, 8, 9, 10, more than 80,000 men, who, though ballotted, had not been called into actual service; it was proposed to call out 36,000, and then to declare those classes free from any future call. “By these means, sire,” said the minister, “your armies will be maintained at their present strength, and a considerable number of your subjects will be definitively released from the conscription.” There were also at the Emperor’s disposal 25,000 men, afforded by the conscription for 1811; but upon these it was not proposed to call, unless events should disappoint his pacific intentions.
Thirty thousand men stationed at Bayonne to supply the constant consumption of his army in Spain, 36,000 to be raised for replacing the drafts from the interior, and 25,000 to be taken by anticipation, before the conscription in its regular course ought to have reached them, and to be held in readiness for farther demands of blood; this was the prospect held out at the conclusion of the Austrian war; these were the sacrifices which the French were called upon to make, not for defence, not for the interests, not for the honour of France, but to support a wanton and execrable usurpation, which had no other cause than the individual ambition of Buonaparte.... ♦Display of Spanish flags.♦ He felt how needful it was to persuade the French that a war which they knew to be so destructive was not as inglorious as it was unjust, and for this purpose a parade was made of the victories which had been obtained in Spain. The flags taken at Espinosa, Burgos, Tudela, Somosierra, and Madrid, were presented to the legislative body; a detachment of the grenadiers of the imperial guard was introduced, and seated on the right and left of Buonaparte’s statue, that the stage might be full. Rhetorical speeches were delivered, and the session concluded like a stage spectacle, with a flourish of trumpets, and cries of Long live the Emperor! In this exhibition, Buonaparte addressed himself to the ruling passion of the people over whom he reigned. “Without glory,” he said, “there could be no happiness for a Frenchman;” and the moral feeling of the nation had been so debased that they believed glory might be attained in a war thus flagrantly and infamously unjust. ♦1810.
January.♦ The prevailing weakness of his own character also was betrayed in this display; no other successes were brought forward than those which had been won while he was in Spain; for though he liberally rewarded his generals in all ways, and left them also at full liberty to enrich themselves by exaction and plunder, he was jealous of any celebrity that they might attain, and desired, more from personal vanity than from political considerations, that in every success the French should look to him, and to him alone, as the author of their victories.
While France was thus rejoicing in the triumphs of its armies, the Central Junta saw the whole extent of their danger, and rested their hopes upon the goodness of their cause and the character of the Spanish nation, with a composure which nothing could shake. Never was a nation more truly represented in its defects and in its virtues, in its strength and in its weakness. While in their administration they committed the same errors, deceiving themselves and others, which in former wars had rendered the Spaniards[7] the most inefficient and impracticable of all allies; their language was that of the loftiest fortitude, and their public papers breathed a spirit worthy of their station. One of the most splendid of these orations was issued during the fearful pause after the defeat of their armies at Ocaña and at Alba de Tormes, when the peace with Austria left Buonaparte at leisure to ♦Address of the Central Junta to the nation.♦ direct his whole force against Spain. “Our enemies,” said they, “exhort us to submit to the clemency of the conqueror. Because in their own degraded hearts they find nothing but baseness when they are weak, and atrocity when they are strong, they imagine that the Spaniards must abandon all their lofty hopes. Who has told them that our virtue is of so low a standard? Does fortune oppose to us greater obstacles? we will redouble our exertions! Are our dangers augmented? we shall acquire the greater glory! Slaves of Buonaparte, waste not time in sophistries which can deceive no one; speak frankly and say, we will be the most wicked of men, because we believe ourselves the most powerful: ... this language is consistent and intelligible; but do not attempt to persuade us that the abandonment of our rights is wisdom, and that cowardice is prudence! Submit?... Do these sophists know to what they advise the most high-minded nation upon earth? It would be a stain without example in our annals, if after such efforts, such incredible events, we were to fall at the feet of the crowned slave who has been sent to us as king. And for what? That from the midst of his banquets, his ruffian parasites, and his prostitutes, he may point out the churches which are to be burnt; the estates which are to be divided among his satellites; the virgins and matrons who are to be taken to his seraglio; the youths who are to be sent as the tribute to the Minotaur of France!
“Spaniards, think not that the Junta speak thus to excite you by the arts of language; what need of words, when things speak for themselves? Your houses are destroyed; your churches demolished; your fields laid waste; your families dispersed and wandering through the country, or hurried into the grave. Have we made so many sacrifices, have the flames of war consumed half Spain, that we should abandon the other half to the far more deadly peace which the enemy prepares for it? For no one will beguile himself with the insidious parade of the improvements which the French hold out. The Tartar who commands them has decreed, that Spain shall have neither industry, nor commerce, nor population, nor political representation whatever: ... to be made a waste and solitary sheep-walk for supplying French manufactures with our wools; to become a nursery of men who may be hurried away to slaughter; such is the destiny which he would impose upon the most highly favoured of all countries! Shall we then, submitting to this, submit also to the destruction of our religion; abandon the interests of heaven and the faith of our fathers to the sacrilegious mockery of these banditti; and forsake the sanctuary which, during seven centuries, and in a thousand and a thousand battles, our forefathers maintained against the Saracens? If we should do this, the victims who perished in that contest would cry to us from their graves, Ungrateful and perfidious race, shall our sacrifices be in vain, and is our blood of no estimation in your eyes? No, patriots! rest in peace, ... and let not that bitter thought disturb the quiet of your sepulchres!
“There is no peace, there can be none in this state of things! That Spain may be free, is the universal wish of the nation; and if that cannot be obtained, at least it may become one immense desert, one wide grave, where the accumulated remains of French and Spaniards may exhibit to future ages our glory and their shame. But fortune is not so inimical to virtue as to leave to its defenders only this melancholy termination. It is written in heaven, and the history of all ages attests the truth, that a people who decidedly love their liberty and independence must ultimately establish them, in despite of all the artifice and all the violence of tyranny. Victory, which is so often a gift of fortune, is sooner or later the reward of constancy. What defended the little republics of Greece from the barbarous invasion of Xerxes? What reconstructed the Capitol when it was almost destroyed by the Gauls? What preserved it from the mighty arms of Hannibal? What, in times nearer our own, protected the Swiss from German tyranny, and gave independence to Holland in spite of the power of our ancestors?