Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume IV.

by Walter Scott

BLUCHER.

A leader was selected, admirably formed by nature to command a national army at such a crisis. This was the celebrated Blucher, one of the few Prussian generals, who, even after the battle of Jena, continued to maintain the fame of the Great Frederick, under whom he had been trained, and to fight until every ray of hope had been entirely destroyed. This high-spirited and patriotic officer had remained in obscurity during the long period of the French domination. He was one of those ardent and inflexible characters that were dreaded by Napoleon, whose generosity, however it might display itself otherwise, was seldom observed to forgive those who had shown a steady and conscientious opposition to his power. Such men he held his enemies in every sense, personal as well as political; and, watched closely by the police, their safety could only be ensured by living strictly retired. But now the old warrior sprang eagerly from his obscure retreat, as in the ancient Roman shows a lion might have leaped from his dark den into the arena of the crowded amphitheatre, on which he was soon to act his terrible part. Blucher, was, indeed, by character and disposition, the very man whom the exigence and the Prussian nation required to support a national war. He was not possessed of war as a science, nor skilled in planning out the objects of a campaign. Scharnhorst, and after him Gneisnau, were intrusted with that part of the general's duty, as being completely acquainted with strategie; but in the field of battle no man possessed the confidence of his soldiers so completely as General Blucher. The first to advance, the last to retreat, he was seldom too much elated by victory, and never depressed by bad success. Defeated to-day, he was as ready to renew the battle to-morrow. In his army was no instance of whole divisions throwing down their arms, because they conceived their line broken or their flank turned. It was his system, that the greater part of fighting consists in taking and giving hard blows, and on all occasions he presented himself with a good grace to the bloody exercise. He was vigilant, too, as taught by the exercise of his youth in the light cavalry; and so enterprising and active, that Napoleon was heard to complain, with his accustomed sneer, that "he had more trouble from that old dissipated hussar, than from all the generals of the allies beside." Deeply resenting the injuries of his country, and his own exile, Blucher's whole soul was in the war against France and her Ruler; and utterly devoid of the milder feelings of modern military leaders, he entered into hostilities with the embittered and personal animosity which Hannibal entertained of old against the Roman name and nation.[251]

Such were the character and energies of the veteran to whom Prussia now confided the defence of her dearest rights, the leading of her youth, and the care of her freedom.[252]

Sweden, or, we ought rather to say, the Crown Prince, had joined the confederacy, as already mentioned, and the spleen of Buonaparte, personal as well as public, had been directed even more against him than against the King of Prussia. The latter was represented as a rebellious and ungrateful vassal, the first as a refugee Frenchman who had renounced his country.

The last accusation, so grossly urged, was, if possible, more unreasonably unjust than the first. The ties of our native country, strict and intimate as they are, may be dissolved in more ways than one. Its lawful government may be overthrown, and the faithful subjects of that government, exiled to foreign countries for their adherence to it, may lawfully bear arms, which, in that case, are not directed against the home of their fathers, but against the band of thieves and robbers by which it is temporarily occupied. If this is not the case, what are we to think of the Revolution of 1688, and the invasion of King William? In like manner, it is possible for a native of France or Britain so to link himself with another country, as to transfer to it the devotion which, in the general case, is only due to the land of his birth. In becoming the heir of the crown of Sweden, Bernadotte had become in fact a Swede; for no one, circumstanced as he was, is entitled, in interweaving his personal fortunes with the fate of the nation which adopts him, to make a reserve of any case in which he can be called to desert their interest for that of another country, though originally his own.

In assuming a French general for their Crown Prince, Sweden no doubt intended to give a pledge that she meant to remain on terms of amity with France; but it would be a wide step to argue from thence that it was her purpose to subject herself as a conquered province to that empire, and to hold the prince whom she had chosen to be no better than the lieutenant of Napoleon. This was indeed the construction which the French Emperor put upon the kingdoms of his own creation—Holland, Westphalia, Spain, and so forth. But in these countries the crowns were at least of his conferring. That of Sweden, on the other hand, was given by the Diet at Orebro, representing the Swedish people, to a person of their own election; nor had Buonaparte any thing to do in it farther, than by consenting that a French subject should become King of Sweden; which consent, if available for any thing, must be certainly held as releasing Bernadotte from every engagement to France, inconsistent with the duties of a sovereign to an independent kingdom.

When, therefore, at a period only a few months afterwards, Napoleon authorised piracies upon the Swedish commerce, and seized, with armed hand, upon the only portion of the Swedish territories which lay within his grasp, nothing could be more unreasonable than to require, that because the Crown Prince was born in Bearn, he should therefore submit to have war made upon him in his capacity of King of Sweden, without making all the resistance in his power. Supposing, what might easily have chanced, that Corsica had remained a constituent part of the British dominions, it would have been ridiculous to have considered Napoleon, when at the head of the French government, as bound by the duties of a liege subject of George III., simply because he was born at Ajaccio. Yet there is no difference betwixt the cases, excepting in the relative size and importance of France and Corsica; a circumstance which can have no influence upon the nature of the obligations incurred by those who are born in the two countries.

It may be readily granted, that a person in the situation of the Crown Prince must suffer as a man of feeling, when opposed to the ranks of his own countrymen. So must a judge, if unhappily called upon to sit in judgment and pronounce sentence upon a brother, or other near relation. In both cases, public duty must take place of private or personal sentiment.

PROCEEDINGS OF AUSTRIA.

While the powers of the North formed this coalition, upon terms better concerted, and with forces of a different character from those which had existed upon former less fortunate occasions, Austria looked upon the approaching strife with a hesitating and doubtful eye. Her regard for a sovereign allied to her royal family by so close a tie as Napoleon, had not prevented her cabinet from feeling alarm at the overgrown power of France, and the ambition of her ruler. She had reluctantly contributed an auxiliary force to the assistance of France in the last campaign, and had taken the posture of a neutral so soon as circumstances permitted. The restoration of independence to the world must restore to Austria the provinces which she had lost, especially Illyria and the Tyrol, and at the same time her influence both in Italy and Germany. But this might be obtained from Napoleon disabled, and willing to purchase his ransom from the reprisals of allied Europe, by surrender of his pretensions to universal monarchy; and Austria therefore concluded it best to assume the office of mediator betwixt France and the allies, reserving to herself to throw her sword into the scales, in case the forces and ambition of Napoleon should again predominate; while, on the other hand, should peace be restored by a treaty formed under her auspices, she would at once protect the son-in-law of her Emperor, regain her lost provinces and decayed influence, and contribute, by destroying the arrogant pretensions of France, to the return of tranquillity to Europe.