The surrender of Pamplona set the allied forces at liberty, and Lord Wellington immediately determined to advance into France, leaving Suchet and his corps to the care of the Catalans, assisted by the Anglo-Sicilian army. In beginning his operations upon the enemy’s territory, one of the first cares of the British commander was to repress the ferociously vindictive temper of his Spanish and Portuguese troops, who longed to retaliate upon the French nation the injuries and outrages they had suffered from the French soldiery. At first it was found impossible altogether to control this disposition, in which the native officers but too much sympathised with their men. But the firmness and severity with which such offences were punished soon introduced a better temper.
On the 10th of November, 1813, Soult’s line of defence was attacked, and notwithstanding the great pains bestowed upon strengthening it, was forced; fifteen hundred prisoners and fifty guns fell into the victor’s hands, besides quantities of stores. On the 9th of December hostilities were renewed. The allied armies drove the French back into the intrenched camp they had prepared close to Bayonne, and Soult, by attacking, after five days of almost incessant fighting, in which the loss was necessarily great (five thousand of the allies, and far more of the French were killed or wounded), retreated into his intrenched camp. The weather was still very severe, and Lord Wellington therefore again cantoned his troops, but upon a more advanced line, and both armies passed the remainder of the month in repose.
Whilst Lord Wellington, with those forces, for whom, as for their leader, Napoleon had professed such superlative disdain, was thus penetrating into France, the situation of the French emperor had undergone many changes. It was at Leipsic, October 16th, 1813, that the battle, fatal to his hopes of maintaining his sovereignty over Germany, was fought. Every German state, including the whole Confederation of the Rhine, had now thrown off allegiance to Napoleon. The allied sovereigns advanced to the banks of the Rhine. There they halted for the remainder of the year, satisfied with their achievements, and willing to give Napoleon, whom they still feared, an opportunity for negotiation. Wellington and his army alone, of the hostile forces, wintered in France.
RETURN OF THE BOURBONS
Napoleon saw that to recover all he had lost, or even to keep all he yet retained, was, for the moment at least, impossible; and he resolved to relax his grasp in that quarter, where renunciation of his now vain pretensions need not induce the abandonment of real power. He opened a negotiation with the prince to whom, as he believed, he could still dictate the terms of the treaty to be concluded—namely, the captive of Valençay, Ferdinand VII.
Since the seizure of the Spanish royal family at Bayonne, they had pretty much vanished from public view. The old king and queen, with their favourite, Godoy, had been transferred to Rome, where they vegetated contentedly upon the ample pension assigned them. The queen of Etruria, whose feelings appear to have been somewhat livelier than those of her kindred, had incurred Napoleon’s anger by an abortive attempt at escaping to England, and was strictly immured in a convent at Rome, with her daughter; her son, the dethroned king, being taken from her, and committed to the care of her parents. Ferdinand remained at Valençay. He had written a letter of congratulation to Joseph Bonaparte upon his accession to the Spanish throne. He repeatedly addressed to Napoleon congratulations on his victories. When a scheme for his liberation was devised by the British cabinet—partly through compassion but chiefly under an idea that the presence of an acknowledged king would put an end to the factions and jealousies that distracted the Spanish councils, thwarted Lord Wellington’s designs, and impeded his progress—Ferdinand not only refused to escape, but denounced the attempt to Napoleon, and took the opportunity to renew his often rejected request that he might be adopted into the imperial family, by receiving the hand of a Bonaparte princess. He was further said to employ his time in embroidering a robe for some image of the Virgin. But the stories were regarded as calumnious inventions, propagated for the purpose of lowering Ferdinand’s character in general estimation; and the imprisoned king remained as before an object of loyal veneration, of esteem, and pity.
[1813-1814 A.D.]
Immediately on reaching Paris, after his calamitous retreat from Leipsic, Napoleon addressed a letter to Ferdinand, telling him that England was endeavouring to overthrow the monarchy and nobility of Spain, in order to establish a republic in that country, and offering him his liberty, together with the alliance of France, that he might return to Spain, and put an end to the disorders now convulsing the kingdom and further menacing it. After a little delay and negotiation Ferdinand yielded. On the 11th of December, 1813, a treaty was signed at Valençay, by which he was recognised as king of Spain and the Indies, all old treaties and alliances between France and Spain were revived and confirmed, and Ferdinand undertook for the immediate evacuation of Spain and her dependencies by the English. Even this treaty, however, Ferdinand referred to the approbation and sanction of the regency and the cortes; and San Carlos was despatched with a copy of it to Madrid, whither the seat of government was now transferred from Cadiz.
On the 8th of January, 1814, the regency through its president, the cardinal de Bourbon, addressed a respectful answer to the king, in which they assured him of their joy at the prospect of his majesty’s approaching liberation, but returned the treaty unratified, and transmitted copies of the law, and of the treaty with England, which prevented its ratification.
Towards the middle of February, 1814, the weather improved, and Lord Wellington drew his troops from their cantonments. By a series of able manœuvres, and of engagements ending with the well-contested and brilliant victory of Orthez, gained on the 27th of February, he drove Soult successively from post to post, through a country of peculiar difficulty, and abounding in strong defensive positions, of which the French marshal skilfully endeavoured to avail himself, but was uniformly foiled by the superior skill of his British competitor. Sir John Hope lay before Bayonne with the left wing. By the help of an English squadron, under Admiral Penrose, the close investment of Bayonne laid open the direct road to Bordeaux, and on the 8th of March Wellington sent Beresford with fifteen thousand men to make himself master of that town. Beresford was accompanied by the duke of Angoulême, as a royalist party with the mayor at their head were well known to be anxiously expecting the prince. The French garrison evacuated the town as the allied troops approached, and the inhabitants, assuming the white cockade, and receiving the prince with enthusiastic loyalty, proclaimed Louis XVIII. Lord Wellington, recalling Beresford, recommenced his operations against Soult. On the 18th they began their movement up the Adour, the French retiring before them. On the 19th, Soult was driven from Vic-en-Bigorre, and on the 20th from Tarbes, when he retreated upon Toulouse.