Since the treaty of Presburg, by which she lost such a proportion of her power, Austria had lain like a prostrated combatant, whom want, not of will, but of strength, prevents from resuming the contest. In 1806, her friendship became of consequence to Napoleon, then engaged in his contest with Prussia and Russia. The cession of Branau, and some territories about the mouth of the Cattaro, were granted to Austria by France, as in guerdon of her neutrality. But in 1807 and 1808, the government of that country, more vexed and humiliated by the territory and influence which she had lost, than thankful for the importance she had been permitted to retain, began to show the utmost activity in the war department. Abuses were reformed; more perfect discipline was introduced; old soldiers were called to muster; new levies were made on a large scale; armies of reserve were formed, through the Austrian dominions, of the landwehr and national guards, and they were subjected to service by conscription, like the militia of England. The Austrian armies of the line were increased to great magnitude. The Hungarian Diet had voted twelve thousand recruits for 1807, and eighty thousand for 1808; while eighty thousand organised soldiers, of whom thirty thousand were cavalry, constituted the formidable reserve of this warlike nation. Every thing seemed to announce war, although the answers of the Court to the remonstrances of France were of the most pacific tendency.
GERMANY.
Yet it was not alone the hostile preparations of Austria which seemed to trouble the aspect of Germany. Napoleon had defeated her efforts and defied her armies, when her force was still more imposing. But there was gradually awakening and extending through Germany, and especially its northern provinces, a strain of opinion incompatible with the domination of France, or of any other foreign power, within the ancient empire.
The disappearance of various petty states, which had been abolished in the convulsion of the French usurpation, together with the general system of oppression under which the whole country suffered, though in different degrees, had broken down the divisions which separated the nations of Germany from each other, and, like relations who renew an interrupted intimacy under the pressure of a common calamity, the mass of the people forgot that they were Hanoverians, Hessians, Saxons, or Prussians, to remember that they were all Germans, and had one common cause in which to struggle, one general injury to revenge. Less fiery than the Spaniards, but not less accessible to deep and impassioned feeling, the youth of Germany, especially such as were engaged in the liberal studies, cherished in secret, and with caution, a deep hatred to the French invaders, and a stern resolution to avail themselves of the first opportunity to achieve the national liberty.
The thousand presses of Germany could not be altogether silenced, though the police of Napoleon was unceasingly active in suppressing political publications, wherever they could exercise influence. But the kind of feeling which now prevailed among the German youth, did not require the support of exhortations or reasoning, directly and in express terms adapted to the subject. While a book existed, from the Holy Scriptures down to the most idle romance; while a line of poetry could be recited from the works of Schiller or Goëthe, down to the most ordinary stall ballad—inuendoes, at once secret and stimulating, might be drawn from them, to serve as watch-words, or as war-cries. The prevailing opinions, as they spread wider and wider, began to give rise to mysterious associations, the object of which was the liberation of Germany. That most generally known was called the Bund, or Alliance for Virtue and Justice. The young academicians entered with great zeal into these fraternities, the rather that they had been previously prepared for them by the Burschenschafts, or associations of students, and that the idea of secret councils, tribunals, or machinations, is familiar to the reader of German history, and deeply interesting to a people whose temper is easily impressed by the mysterious and the terrible. The professors of the Universities, in most cases, gave way to or guided these patriotic impressions, and in teaching their students the sciences or liberal arts, failed not to impress on them the duty of devoting themselves to the liberation of Germany, or, as it was now called, Teutonia.[444]
The French, whose genius is in direct opposition to that of the Germans, saw all this with contempt and ridicule. They laughed at the mummery of boys affecting a new sort of national freemasonry, and they gave the principle of patriotic devotion to the independence of Germany the name of Ideology; by which nickname the French ruler used to distinguish every species of theory, which, resting in no respect upon the practical basis of self-interest, could, he thought, prevail with none save hot-brained boys and crazed enthusiasts.
Napoleon, however, saw and estimated the increasing influence of these popular opinions, more justly than might have been inferred from his language. He knew that a government might be crushed, an army defeated, an inimical administration changed, by violence; but that the rooted principle of resistance to oppression diffuses itself the wider the more martyrs are made on its behalf. The Heir of the Revolution spoke on such subjects the language of the most legitimate of monarchs, and exclaimed against the system of the Tugendbund, as containing principles capable of disorganising the whole system of social society.
The menacing appearance of Austria, and the extension of anti-Gallican principles and feelings through Germany, made it more especially necessary for Buonaparte to secure his hold upon the Emperor of Russia. Trusting little in so important a case to his ministers, Napoleon desired personally to assure himself by a direct communication with the Emperor Alexander, which was willingly acceded to. We have elsewhere assigned some reasons, why such direct conference, or correspondence betwixt sovereigns, tends to degrade their character, without adding any additional security to the faith of their treaties. It is unbecoming their rank to take upon themselves the task of advancing, receding, renouncing, resuming, insisting, and evading, which must occur more or less in all political negotiations. At the same time, they are flattering to princes, as if inferring that they are able to act personally, and free of ministerial control; and in so far have their charms.
CONFERENCES AT ERFURT—SPAIN.
Buonaparte and Alexander met at Erfurt on 27th September, with the same appearance of cordiality with which they had parted—their friendship seemed uninjured by a shadow of suspicion. The most splendid festivities celebrated their meeting, and the theatres of Paris sent their choicest performers to enliven the evenings.[445]