There might have been difficulties on the subject of Italy; but the near connexion betwixt the Emperors of Austria and France offered various means of accommodating these. Italy might, for example, have made an appanage for Eugene, or, in the case of such existing, for Buonaparte's second son, so as to insure the kingdoms of France and Italy passing into distinct and independent sovereignties in the next reign; or, it is believed, that if Austria had been absolutely determined to break off the treaty for this sole object, she would have found the belligerent powers inclined in their turn to act as mediators, and been herself compelled to listen to moderate terms.
From what has been said, it would appear that such cessions as have been hinted at, would at once have put an end to the war, leaving Napoleon still in possession of the fairest kingdom of Europe, augmented to an extent of territory greatly beyond what her most powerful monarchs before him had ever possessed; while, on the other hand, the countries and claims which, in the case supposed, he was called upon to resign, resembled the wounded mast in the tempest, which the seaman cuts away purposely, as endangering the vessel which it has ceased to assist. But it unfortunately happened, that Buonaparte, generally tenacious of his own opinion, and particularly when his reputation was concerned, imagined to himself that he could not cut away the mast without striking the colours which were nailed to it; that he could not resign his high pretensions, however unreasonable, without dimming his personal glory, in the lustre of which he placed his happiness.[266]
He would not, therefore, listen to those, who, with such arguments as we have above stated, pressed him to make a virtue of necessity, and assume a merit from giving up what he could not attempt to hold, without its being in all probability wrested from him. He persisted in maintaining the contrary, referred back to the various instances in which he had come off in triumph, when every other person had despaired of his safety, and had previously protested against the hazardous means which he used to ascertain it. This pertinacity did not arise solely out of the natural confidence in his own superiority, which always attends minds so powerful and so determined; it was fostered by the whole course of his life. "At the age of thirty," he said of himself, "I had gained victories—I had influenced the world—I had appeased a national tempest—had melted parties into one—had rallied a nation. I have, it must be allowed, been spoiled by success—I have always been in supreme command. From my first entrance into life I have enjoyed high power, and circumstances and my own force of character have been such, that from the instant I gained a superiority, I have recognised neither masters nor laws."[267]
To a confession so ingenuous, the historian can add nothing. It is no wonder, that one to whom luck had been uniformly favourable, should love the excitation of the play, and, making cast after cast in confidence of his own fortune, press the winning game until it became a losing one, instead of withdrawing from the table, as prudence would have dictated, when the stakes deepened, and the luck began to change. Napoleon had established in his own mind, as well as that of others, an opinion, that he, in his proper person, enjoyed an amnesty from the ordinary chances of fortune.[268] This was a belief most useful to him, as it was received by others, but dangerous in his own adoption of it, since it hindered him from listening in his own case to calculations, which in that of others he would have allowed to be well founded.
TALLEYRAND AND FOUCHÉ.
Both Talleyrand and Fouché gave their master the advantage of their experience on this occasion, and touched with less or more reserve upon the terror which his ambition had spread, and the determination of the allies, as well as Austria, not to make peace without such a guarantee as should protect them against future encroachments. Napoleon rejected their opinion and advice with disdain, imputing it to their doubts in the persevering exertions of his genius, or to an anxiety for their own private fortunes, which induced them to desire at all risks the end of the war.
His military counsellors endeavoured to enforce similar advice, with the same want of success. Berthier, with the assistance of the celebrated engineer, Rogniat, had drawn up a plan for removing the French army, reinforced with all the garrisons which they had in Germany, from the line of the Elbe to that of the Rhine.
"Good God!" exclaimed Buonaparte, as he glanced at the labours of his adjutant-general, "ten lost battles could not bring me so low as you would have me stoop, and that, too, when I command so many strong places on the Elbe and Oder. Dresden is the point on which I will manœuvre to receive all attacks, while my enemies develope themselves like a line of circumference round a centre. Do you suppose it possible for troops of various nations, and variously commanded, to act with regularity upon such an extensive line of operations? The enemy cannot force me back on the Rhine, till they have gained ten battles; but allow me only one victory, and I will march on their capitals of Berlin and Breslau, relieve my garrisons on the Vistula and Oder, and force the allies to such a peace as shall leave my glory untarnished. Your defensive retreat does not suit me; besides, I do not ask you for plans, but for assistance to carry into execution my own projects."[269]
Thus Napoleon silenced his military as well as his civil counsellors. But there was one adviser whose mouth he had stopt, whose advice, if it could have reached him, would probably have altered his fatal resolution. One of Buonaparte's most impolitic as well as unjustifiable measures had been, his total destruction of every mode by which the public opinion of the people of France could be manifested. His system of despotism, which had left no manner of expression whatever, either by public meetings, by means of the press, or through the representative bodies, by which the national sentiments on public affairs could be made known, became now a serious evil. The manifestation of public opinion was miserably supplied by the voices of hired functionaries, who, like artificial fountains, merely returned back with various flourishes the sentiments with which they had been supplied from the common reservoir at Paris. Had free agents of any kind been permitted to report upon the state of the public mind, Napoleon would have had before him a picture which would have quickly summoned him back to France. He would have heard that the nation, blind to the evils of war, while dazzled with victory and military glory, had become acutely sensible of them so soon as these evils became associated with defeats, and the occasion of new draughts on the population of France. He would have learned that the fatal retreat of Moscow, and this precarious campaign of Saxony, had awakened parties and interests which had long been dormant—that the name of the Bourbons was again mentioned in the west—that 50,000 recusant conscripts were wandering through France, forming themselves into bands, and ready to join any standard which was raised against the imperial authority; and that, in the Legislative Body, as well as the Senate, there was already organised a tacit opposition to his government, that wanted but a moment of weakness to show itself.
All this, and more, he would have learned; and must have been taught the necessity of concentrating his forces, returning to the frontiers of France, recovering the allegiance of those who hesitated, by accepting the best terms of peace which he could extort from the allies, and assuming on the Rhine such a firm attitude of defence as should at once overawe domestic dissatisfaction, and repel foreign invasion. But the least spiracle, by which the voice of France could find its way to the ears of her sovereign, was effectually closed. The fate of Napoleon turned on this circumstance; for the sovereign who deprives himself of the means of collecting the general sense of the nation over which he rules, is like the householder who destroys his faithful mastiff. Both may, perhaps, alarm their master by baying without just cause, or at an inconvenient time; but when the hour of action comes, no other sentinel can supply the want of their vigilance.