It is a remark in frequent use, that the efficiency of an army may be measured by the skill of the general; but the French soldiers have expanded the observation, and have exhibited the wonderful spectacle of skilful soldiers fighting under, and frequently enlarging the views and combinations of able generals. The animal organization of Frenchmen befits them for soldiers; their supple muscular form and height seldom exceeding five feet five or six inches, admit of great activity of movement, and the support of great fatigue: their minds quick, volatile, inquisitive, and fertile in expedients, enable them to see the intentions of their commanding officers in a movement, which, to the soldiers of many other countries would only be known by results. The French commanders knew how to gratify that national cast of intellect so useful to their operations, by frequently imparting to a soldier of a company, for the purpose of wider communication, the principal movements in contemplation previous to their engaging. The vanity of a French soldier is also another most valuable quality in his composition: he takes the deepest interest in the execution of every order, because he thoroughly believes that he is acquainted with all its objects; and upon the achievement of a victory, there is scarcely a French drummer who would hesitate endeavouring to make his hearer believe, that the fortune of the day was owing to some judicious idea of his own: to this vanity the military bulletins which announce successes in all the pomp of language, or convert a disaster into a retrograde victory, are addressed; for a Frenchman, even more than an Englishman, almost always believes what he is told, and is ever the last to confess a defeat. It is a rule with the French officers to give their troops as little trouble as possible when not actually in service, and to keep them perpetually upon the alert when the campaign has commenced; by this measure their troops, contrary to a received opposite notion, are generally fresher than other troops; and as they are mostly composed of young men, are capable of marching more rapidly and longer than soldiers of mixed seasons of life. The French have another great advantage in their plan of combat, which resembles the mode of engaging at sea, practised so gloriously by the late immortal Nelson, that of beating against the centre of an enemy’s line until they penetrate it; this they have several times successfully effected, by that almost endless reinforcement which the arbitrary levies furnish, and which in a moment supply the vacancy made by the bullet and the bayonet. To prevent any ill consequences from the impetuous temerity which might attend the first attack, a considerable corps of reserve is always formed of the more experienced troops, who are able to support their comrades in the front, when too severely pressed, or of forcing them to rally, should they discover any disposition to fly. To their flying artillery, which are served by their best soldiers, wherever the ground will best admit, they are also eminently indebted for their success: yet, with all those advantages, striking and eminent as they are, and the negative assistance which she derived from the frequently imbecile conduct of the enemy, France would perhaps never have been crowned with the success which has marked her march, had not her population been enormous, and had not the stupendous idea of placing a great portion of that population, by the novelty of a conscription, at the disposal of her ruler, been developed by the mighty monster[[4]] whose name I have before mentioned. If she had had twenty thousand men on the plains of Maida, she would have been spared the disgrace of seeing 7,000 of her chosen soldiers fly before 4,795 of the British arms under the gallant Stuart.
[4]. For this sanguinary tyrant the following epitaph was well penned.
Passant, ne pleure point son sort;
Car, s’il vivait, tu serais mort.
Ye who pass by his grave, need not weep that he’s gone,
Had he liv’d, ye would now be as cold as this stone.
To comprehend the present political state of those cities on the right and left banks of the Rhine, which I visited in my way to the south of Germany, it is necessary to lay before the reader the following memorable document, and letter of abdication, by which the Germanic empire is annihilated, and Bonaparte is raised to be imperial chief of a mighty feudatory confederation, in the organization of which new sovereign dignities have been conferred, and new dominions allotted, for securing his conquests in Germany.
Ratisbon, August 2.
Whereas, his Majesty the Emperor of the French, and their Majesties the Kings of Bavaria and Wirtemberg, their Electoral Highnesses the Arch-chancellor and the Elector of Baden, his Imperial Highness the Duke of Berg, and their Highnesses the Landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt, the Princes of Nassau Weilburg and Nassau Usingen, of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Siegmaringen, Salm-Salm, and Salm-Kyrburg, Isenburg, Birstein, and Lichtenstein; the Duke of Ahremberg, and the Count of Leyen; being desirous to secure, through proper stipulations, the internal and external peace of southern Germany, which, as experience for a long period and recently has shown, can derive no kind of guarantee from the existing German constitution, have appointed to be their plenipotentiaries to this effect; namely, his Majesty the Emperor of the French, Charles Maurice Talleyrand, Prince of Benevento, minister of his foreign affairs; his Majesty, the King of Bavaria, his minister plenipotentiary, A. Von Cetto; his Majesty, the King of Wirtemberg, his state-minister the Count of Wintzingerode; the Elector Arch-chancellor, his ambassador extraordinary the count of Beust; the Elector of Baden, his cabinet minister the Baron of Reitzenstein; his Imperial Highness the Duke of Berg, Baron Von Schele; the Landgrave of Hesse Darmstadt, his ambassador extraordinary Baron Von Pappenheim; the Princes of Nassau, Weilburg, and Usingen, Baron Von Gagern; the Princes of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Siegmaringen, Major Von Fischer; the Prince of Isenburg-Birtsein, his privy-counsellor M. Von Gretzen; the Duke of Ahremberg, and the Count of Leyen, Mr. Durand St. André, who have agreed upon the following articles:
Art. 1. The states of the contracting princes (enumerated as in the preamble) shall be for ever separated from the Germanic body, and united by a particular confederation, under the designation of “The confederated States of the Empire.”