History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 6

by William Francis Patrick Napier

Captain Wells, who had been wounded at the Puntal escalade, now strenuously urged the Spaniards to crown the counter-scarp of the fort at Laredo and attack vigorously, but they preferred establishing four field-pieces to batter it in form at the distance of six hundred yards. These guns as might be expected were dismounted the moment they began to fire, and thus corrected, the Spanish generals committed the direction of the attack to Wells. He immediately opened a heavy musquetryProfessional papers by the royal engineers. fire on the fort to stifle the noise of his workmen, then pushing trenches up the hill close to the counterscarp in the night, he was proceeding to burst open the gate with a few field-pieces and to cut down the pallisades, when the Italian garrison, whose musquets from constant use had become so foul that few would go off, mutinied against their commander and making him a prisoner surrendered the place. This event gave the allies the command of the entranceApril. to the harbour, and Lameth offered to capitulate in April upon condition of returning to France with his garrison. Lord Wellington refused the condition, Santona therefore remained a few days longer in possession of the enemy, and was finally evacuated at the general cessation of hostilities.

Having now terminated the narrative of all military and political events which happened in the Peninsula, the reader will henceforth be enabled to follow without interruption the events of the war in the south of France which shall be continued in the next book.

BOOK XXIV.

CHAPTER I.

Lord Wellington’s difficulties have been described.1814. January. Those of his adversary were even more embarrassing because the evil was at the root; it was not misapplication of power but the want of power itself which paralyzed Soult’s operations. Napoleon trusted much to the effect of his treaty with Ferdinand who, following his intentions, should have entered Spain in November, but the intrigues to retard his journey continued, and though Napoleon, when the refusal of the treaty by the Spanish government became known, permitted him to return without any conditions, as thinking his presence would alone embarrass and perhaps break the English alliance with Spain, he did not as we have seen arrive until March. How the emperor’s views were frustrated by his secret enemies is one of the obscure parts of French history, at this period, which time may possibly clear but probably only with a feeble and uncertain light. For truth can never be expected in the memoirs, if any should appear, of such men as Talleyrand, Fouché, and other politicians of their stamp, whose plots rendered his supernatural efforts to rescue France from her invaders abortive. Meanwhile there is nothing to check and expose the political and literary empirics who never fail on such occasions to poison the sources of history.

Relying upon the effect which the expected journey of Ferdinand would produce, and pressed by the necessity of augmenting his own weak army, Napoleon gave notice to Soult that he must ultimately take from him, two divisions of infantry and one of cavalry. The undecided nature of his first battle at Brienne caused him to enforce this notice in the beginning of February, but he had previously sent imperial commissaries to the different departments of France, with instructions to hasten the new conscription, to form national and urban guards, to draw forth all the resources of the country, and to aid the operations of the armies by the action of the people. These measures however failed generally in the south. The urban cohorts were indeed readily formed as a means of police, and the conscription was successful, but the people remained sullen and apathetic; and the civil commissaries are said toSoult’s Despatches, MSS. have been, with some exceptions, pompous, declamatory, and affecting great state and dignity without energy and activity. Ill-will was also produced by the vexatious and corrupt conduct of the subordinate government agents, who seeing in the general distress and confusion a good opportunity to forward their personal interests, oppressed the people for their own profit. This it was easy to do, because the extreme want of money rendered requisitions unavoidable, and under the confused direction of civilians, partly ignorant and unused to difficult times, partly corrupt, and partly disaffected to the emperor, the abuses inevitably attendant upon such a system were numerous; and to the people so offensive, that numbers to avoid them passed with their carts and utensils into the lines of the allies. An official letter written from Bayonne at this period run thus: “The English general’s policy and the good discipline he maintains does us more harm than ten battles. Every peasant wishes to be under his protection.”

Another source of anger was Soult’s works near Bayonne, where the richer inhabitants could not bear to have their country villas and gardens destroyed by the engineer, he who spares not for beauty or for pleasure where his military traces are crossed. The merchants, a class nearly alike in all nations, with whom profit stands for country, had been with a few exceptions long averse to Napoleon’s policy which from necessity interfered with their commerce. And this feeling must have been very strong in Bayonne and Bordeaux, for one Batbedat, a banker of the former place, having obtained leave to go to St. Jean de Luz under pretence of settling the accounts of English officers, prisoners of war, to whom he had advanced money, offered lord Wellington to supply his army with various commodities and even provide money for bills on the English treasury. In return he demanded licenses for twenty vessels to go from Bordeaux, Rochelle and Mants, to St. Jean de Luz, and they were given on condition that he should not carry back colonial produce. The English navy however shewed so little inclination to respect them that the banker and his coadjutors hesitated to risk their vessels, and thus saved them, for the English ministers refused to sanction the licenses and rebuked their general.

During these events the partizans of the Bourbons,February. coming from Brittany and La Vendée, spread themselves all over the south of France and entered into direct communication with lord Wellington. One of the celebrated family of La Roche Jacquelin arrived at his head-quarters, Bernadotte sent an agent to those parts, and the count of Grammont, then serving as a captain in the British cavalry, was at the desire of the marquis de Mailhos, another of the malcontents, sent to England to call the princes of the house of Bourbon forward. Finally the duke of Angoulême arrived suddenly at the head-quarters, and he was received with respect in private though not suffered to attend the movements of the army. The English general indeed, being persuaded that the great body of the French people especially in the south, were inimical to Napoleon’s government, was sanguine as to the utility of encouraging a Bourbon party. Yet he held his judgment in abeyance, sagaciously observing that he could not come to a safe conclusion merely from the feelings of some people in one corner of France; and as the allied sovereigns seemed backward to take the matter in hand unless some positive general movement in favour of the Bourbons was made, and there were negociations for peace actually going on, it would be, he observed, unwise and ungenerous to precipitate the partizans of the fallen house into a premature outbreak and then leave them to the vengeance of the enemy.