CHAPTER LXXIV.
Retrospect of Events on the Frontiers—Defection of Murat—Its consequences—Augereau abandons Franche Comté—Carnot intrusted with the command of Antwerp—Attack on Bergen-op-Zoom, by Sir Thomas Graham—The Allies take, and evacuate Soissons—Bulow and Winzengerode unite with Blucher—Wellington forces his way through the Pays des Gaves—Royalists in the West—Discontent of the old Republicans—Views of the different Members of the Alliance as to the Dynasties of Bourbon, and Napoleon—Proceedings of the Dukes of Berri and Angoulême, and Monsieur—Battle of Orthez—Bourdeaux surrendered to Marshal Beresford—Negotiations of Chatillon—Treaty of Chaumont—Napoleon's contre-projet—Congress at Chatillon broken up.
While Napoleon was struggling in the campaign of Paris, for his very existence as a monarch, events were taking place on the frontiers, by all of which his fate was more or less influenced, and in almost all of them unfavourably. Of these events we must give a brief detail, mentioning at the same time, the influence which they individually produced upon the results of the war.
DEFECTION OF MURAT.
The defence of Italy had been committed to Prince Eugene Beauharnois, the viceroy of that kingdom. He was entirely worthy of the trust, but was deprived of any means that remained to him of accomplishing his task, by the defection of Murat. We have often had occasion to describe Murat as distinguished on the field of battle—rather an undaunted and high-mettled soldier, than a wise commander. As a sovereign he had little claim to distinction. He was good tempered, but vain, limited in capacity, and totally uninformed. Napoleon had not concealed his contempt of his understanding, and, after the retreat from Russia, had passed an oblique, but most intelligible censure on him, in a public bulletin.[344] In writing to the wife of Murat, and his own sister, Napoleon had mentioned her husband disparagingly, as one who was brave only on the field of battle, but elsewhere, as weak as a monk or a woman.[345] Caroline, in answer, cautioned her brother to treat her husband with more respect. Napoleon, unaccustomed to suppress his sentiments, continued the same line of language and conduct.[346]
Meanwhile, Murat, in his resentment, listened to terms from Austria, in which, by the mediation of that state, which was interested in the recovery of her Italian provinces, England was with difficulty induced to acquiesce. In consequence of a treaty formed with Austria, Murat declared himself in favour of the allies, and marched an army of 30,000 Neapolitans to Rome, for the purpose of assisting in the expulsion of the French from Italy. He speedily occupied Ancona and Florence.[347] There was already in Italy an army of 30,000 Austrians, with whom the viceroy had fought the indecisive battle of Roverbello, after which he retreated to the line of the Adige, on which he made a precarious stand, until the war was concluded. The appearance of Murat's army on the side of Austria, though he confined himself to a war of proclamations, was calculated to end all French influence in Italy. Counter revolutionary movements, in some of the cantons of Switzerland, and in the mountains of Savoy, tended also to close the door through which Buonaparte had so often transferred the war into the Italian peninsula, and from its northern provinces, into the heart of Austria herself.
AUGEREAU.
The defection of Murat had the further effect of disconcerting the measures which Napoleon had meditated, for recovery of the south-eastern frontier of France. Augereau had received orders to advance from Lyons, and receive the reinforcements which Eugene was to have despatched from Italy across the Alps. These, it was calculated, would have given the French maréchal a decisive superiority, which might have enabled him to ascend towards the sources of the Saonne, call to arms the hardy peasantry of the Vosgesian mountains, interrupt the communications of the Austrian army, and excite a national and guerilla warfare in the rear of the allies.
To stimulate more highly the energies of his early comrade in arms, Napoleon caused the Empress, Maria Louisa, to wait upon the young Duchess of Castiglione (the maréchal's wife,) to prevail on her to use her influence with her husband, to exert all his talents and audacity in the present crisis.[348] It was a singular feature of the declension of power, when it was thought that the command of the Emperor, imposed upon one of his maréchals, might require being enforced by the interposition of a lady; or rather, it implied that Napoleon was sensible that he was requiring of his officer something which no ordinary exertions could enable him to perform. He wrote, however, to Augereau himself, conjuring him to remember his early victories, and to forget that he was upwards of fifty years old. But exhortations, whether by a sovereign or lady, cannot supply the want of physical force.
Augereau was unable to execute the task imposed upon him, from not receiving the Italian reinforcements, which, as matters stood in Italy, Eugene could not possibly spare. Detachments from Suchet's Spanish veterans did indeed join the maréchal at Lyons, and enabled him to advance on General Bubna, whom he compelled to retreat to Geneva. But the arrival of General Bianchi, with a strong reinforcement, which Schwartzenberg had despatched for that purpose, restored the ascendency of the allied armies on that frontier, especially as the Prince of Hesse-Homberg also approached from Switzerland at the head of the Austrian reserves. The last general had no difficulty in securing the passes of Saonne. Augereau in consequence was compelled to abandon the country of Gex and Franche Comté, and again to return under the walls of Lyons. Napoleon was not more complaisant to his old comrade and tutor,[349] than he had been to the other maréchals in this campaign, who had not accomplished tasks which they had not the means to achieve. Augereau was publicly censured as being inactive and unenterprising.