Napoleon had, during the great war in Austria, during the intermediate time between the battles of Aspern and Wagram, caused the person of the pope, Pius VII., to be seized, and had incorporated the state of the church with his Italian kingdom. The venerable pope, whose energies were called forth by misfortune, astonished Christendom by his bold opposition to the ruler over the destinies of Europe, before whom he had formerly bent in humble submission, and for whose coronation he had condescended to visit Paris in person. The reestablishment of Catholicism in France by Napoleon had rendered the pope deeply his debtor, but Napoleon's attempt to deprive him of all temporal power, and to render him, as the first bishop of his realm, subordinate to himself, called forth a sturdy opposition. Napoleon no sooner spoke the language of Charlemagne than the pope responded in the words of Gregory VII. and of Innocent IV.: "Time has produced no change in the authority of the pope; now as ever does the pope reign supreme over the emperors and kings of the earth." The diplomatic dispute was carried on for some time, owing to Napoleon's expectation of the final compliance of the pope.[1] But on his continued refusal to submit, the peril with which Napoleon's Italian possessions were threatened by the landing of a British force in Italy and by the war with Austria, induced him, first of all, to throw a garrison into Ancona, and afterward to take possession of Rome, and, as the pope still continued obstinate, finally to seize his person, to carry him off to France, and to annex the Roman territory to his great empire. The anathema hurled by the pope upon Napoleon's head had at least the effect of creating a warmer interest in behalf of the pontiff in the hearts of the Catholic population and of increasing their secret antipathy toward his antagonist.
In 1810, Napoleon annexed Holland and East Friesland "as alluvial lands" to France. His brother Louis, who had vainly labored for the welfare of Holland, selected a foreign residence and scornfully refused to accept the pension settled upon him by Napoleon. The first act of the new sovereign of Holland was the imposition of an income tax of fifty per cent. Instruction in the French language was enforced in all the schools, and all public proclamations and documents were drawn up in both Dutch and French.[2] Holland was formed into two departments, which were vexed by two prefects, the Conte de Celles and Baron Staffart, Belgian renegades and blind tools of the French despot, and was, moreover, harassed by the tyrannical and cruel espionage, under Duvillieres, Duterrage, and Marivaux, which, in 1812, occasioned several ineffectual attempts to throw off the yoke.[3] In 1811, Holland was also deprived of Batavia, her sole remaining colony, by the British.
Lower Saxony, as far as the Baltic, the principalities of Oldenburg, Salm, and Aremberg, the Hanse towns, Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck, were, together with a portion of the kingdom of Westphalia, at the same time also incorporated by Napoleon with France, under pretext of putting a stop to the contraband trade carried on on those coasts, more particularly from the island of Heligoland. He openly aimed at converting the Germans, and they certainly discovered little disinclination to the metamorphosis, into French. He pursued the same policy toward the Italians, and, had he continued to reign, would have followed a similar system toward the Poles. The subjection of the whole of Italy, Germany, and Poland lay within his power, but, to the nations inhabiting those countries he must, notwithstanding their incorporation with his universal empire, have guaranteed the maintenance of their integrity, a point he had resolved at all hazards not to concede. He, consequently, preferred dividing these nations and allowing one-half to be governed by princes inimical to him, but whose power he despised. His sole dread was patriotism, the popular love of liberty. Had he placed himself, as was possible in 1809, on the imperial throne of Germany, the consequent unity of that empire must, even under foreign sway, have endangered the ruler: he preferred gradually to gallicize Germany as she had been formerly romanized by her ancient conquerors. His intention to sever the Rhenish provinces and Lower Saxony entirely from Germany was clear as day. They received French laws, French governors, no German book was allowed to cross their frontiers without previous permission from the police, and in each department but one newspaper, and that subject to the revision of the prefect, was allowed to be published.—In Hamburg, one Baumhauer was arrested for an anti-gallic expression and thrown into the subterranean dungeons of Magdeburg, where he pined to death. The same tyranny was exercised even on the German territory belonging to the Rhenish confederation. Becker, privy-councillor of the duke of Gotha, was transported beyond the seas for having published a pamphlet against France. Several authors were compelled to retire into Sweden and Russia; several booksellers were arrested, numerous books were confiscated. Not the most trifling publication was permitted within the Rhenish confederated states that even remotely opposed the interests of France. The whole of the princes of the Rhenish confederation were, consequently, under the surveillance of French censors and of the literary spies of Germany in the pay of France. Hormayr's Archives contain a pamphlet well worthy of perusal, in which an account is given of all the arrests and persecutions that took place on account of matters connected with the press.—Madame de Staël was exiled for having spoken favorably of the German character in her work "de l'Allemagne," and the work itself was suppressed; Napoleon, on giving these orders, merely said, "Ce livre n'est pas Français,"
His treatment of Switzerland was equally unindulgent. The Valais, which, although not forming part of Switzerland, still retained a sort of nominal independence, was formally incorporated with France; the canton of Tessin was, as arbitrarily, occupied by French troops, an immense quantity of British goods was confiscated, the press was placed under the strictest censorship, the Erzähler of Muller- Friedeberg, the only remaining Swiss newspaper of liberal tendency, was suppressed, while Zschokke unweariedly lauded Napoleon to the skies as the regenerator of the liberties of Switzerland and as the savior of the world. A humble entreaty of the Swiss for mercy was scornfully refused by Napoleon. Instead of listening to their complaints, he reproached their envoys, who were headed by Reinhard of Zurich, in the most violent terms, charged the Swiss with conspiracy, and said that a certain Sydler had ventured to speak against him in the federal diet, etc.; nor could his assumed anger be pacified save by the instant dissolution of the federal diet, by the extension of the levy of Swiss recruits for the service of France, and by the threat of a terrible punishment to all Swiss who ventured to enter the service of England and Spain. The Swiss merely bound their chains still closer without receiving the slightest alleviation to their sufferings. Reinhard wrote in 1811, the time of this ill-successful attempt on the part of the Swiss, "a petty nation possesses no means of procuring justice." Why then did the great German nation sever itself into so many petty tribes?
The marriage of Napoleon on the 2d of April, 1810, with Maria Louisa, the daughter of the emperor of Austria, surrounded his throne with additional splendor. This marriage had a double object; that of raising an heir to his broad empire, his first wife, Josephine Beauharnais, whom he divorced, having brought him no children, and that of legitimating his authority and of obliterating the stain of low birth by intermingling his blood with that of the ancient race of Habsburg. Strange as it must appear for the child of revolution to deny the very principles to which he owed his being and to embrace the aristocratic ideas of a bygone age, for the proud conqueror of all the sovereigns of Europe anxiously to solicit their recognition of him as their equal in birth, these apparent contradictions are easily explained by the fact that men of liberal ideas were the objects of Napoleon's greatest dread and hatred, and that he was consequently driven to favor the ancient aristocracy, as he had formerly favored the ancient church, and to use them as his tools. Young and rising nations, not the ancient families of Europe, threatened his power, and he therefore sought to confirm it by an alliance against the former with the ancient dynasties.[4] The nuptials were solemnized with extraordinary pomp at Paris. The conflagration of the Austrian ambassador's, Prince von Schwarzenberg's, house during a splendid fete given by him to the newly-wedded pair, and which caused the death of several persons, among others, of the Princess Pauline Schwarzenberg, the ambassador's sister-in-law, who rushed into the flaming building to her daughter's rescue, clouded the festivities with ominous gloom. In the ensuing year, 1811, the youthful empress gave birth to a prince, Napoleon Francis, who was laid in a silver cradle, and provisionally entitled "King of Rome," in notification of his future destiny to succeed his father on the throne of the Roman empire.[5]
Austria offered a melancholy contrast to the magnificence of France. Exhausted by her continual exertions for the maintenance of the war, the state could no longer meet its obligations, and, on the 15th of March, 1811, Count Wallis, the minister of finance, lowered the value of one thousand and sixty millions of bank paper to two hundred and twelve millions, and the interest upon the whole of the state debts to half the new paper issue. This fearful state bankruptcy was accompanied by the fall of innumerable private firms; trade was completely at a standstill, and the contributions demanded by Napoleon amounted to a sum almost impossible to realize. Prussia, especially, suffered from the drain upon her resources. The beautiful and high-souled queen, Louisa, destined not to see the day of vengeance and of victory, died, in 1810, of a broken heart.[6]
While Germany lay thus exhausted and bleeding in her chains, Napoleon and Alexander put the plans, agreed to between them at Erfurt, into execution. Napoleon threw himself with redoubled violence on luckless Spain, and the Russians invaded Sweden.
The Germans acted a prominent part in the bloody wars in the Peninsula. Four Swiss regiments, that had at an earlier period been in the Spanish service, and the German Legion, composed of Hanoverian refugees to England, upheld the Spanish cause, while all sorts of troops of the Rhenish confederation, those of Bavaria and Wurtemberg excepted, several Dutch and four Swiss regiments, fought for Napoleon.
The troops of the Rhenish confederation formed two corps. The fate of one of them has been described by Captain Rigel of Baden. The Baden regiment was, in 1808, sent to Biscay and united under Lefebvre with other contingents of the Rhenish confederation, for instance, with the Nassauers under the gallant Von Schäfer, the Dutch under General Chasse, the Hessians, the Primates (Frankforters), and Poles. As early as October, they fought against the Spaniards at Zornoza, and at the pillage of Portugalete first became acquainted with the barbarous customs of this terrible civil war. The most implacable hatred, merciless rage, the assassination of prisoners, plunder, destruction, and incendiarism, equally distinguished both sides. The Germans garrisoned Bilboa, gained some successes at Molinar and Valmaseda, were afterward placed under the command of General Victor, who arrived with a fresh army, were again victorious at Espinosa and Burgos, formed a junction with Soult and finally with Napoleon, and, in December, 1808, entered Madrid in triumph.—In January, 1809, the German troops under Victor again advanced upon the Tagus, and, after a desperate conflict, took the celebrated bridge of Almaraz by storm. This was followed by the horrid sacking of the little town of Arenas, during which a Nassauer named Hornung, not only, like a second Scipio, generously released a beautiful girl who had fallen into his hands, but sword in hand defended her from his fellow-soldiers. In the following March, the Germans were again brought into action, at Mesa de Ibor, where Schäfer's Nassauers drove the enemy from their position, under a fearful fire, which cut down three hundred of their number; and at Medelin, where they were again victorious and massacred numbers of the armed Spanish peasantry. Four hundred prisoners were, after the battle, shot by order of Marshal Victor. Among the wounded on the field of battle there lay, side by side, Preusser, the Nassauer, and a Spanish corporal, both of whom had severely suffered. A dispute arose between them, in the midst of which they discovered that they were brothers. One had entered the French, the other the Spanish service.—A Dutch battalion under Storm de Grave, abandoned at Merida to the vengeance of the enraged people, was furiously assailed, but made a gallant defence and fought its way through the enemy.
In the commencement of 1809, Napoleon had again quitted Spain in order to conduct the war on the Danube in person. His marshals, left by him in different parts of the Peninsula, took Saragossa, drove the British under Sir John Moore out of the country, and penetrated into Portugal, but were ere long again attacked by a fresh English army under the Duke of Wellington. This rendered the junction of the German troops with the main body of the French army necessary, and they consequently shared in the defeats of Talavera and Almoncid. Their losses, more particularly in the latter engagement, were very considerable, amounting in all to two thousand six hundred men; among others, General Porbeck of Baden, an officer of noted talent, fell: five hundred of their wounded were butchered after the battle by the infuriated Spaniards. But Wellington suddenly stopped short in his victorious career. It was in December, 1809, when the news of the fresh peace concluded by Napoleon with Austria arrived. On the Spaniards hazarding a fresh engagement, Wellington left them totally unassisted, and, on the 19th of November, they suffered a dreadful defeat at Ocasia, where they lost twenty-five thousand men. The Rhenish confederated troops were, in reward for the gallantry displayed by them on this occasion, charged with the transport of the prisoners into France, and were exposed to the whole rigor of the climate and to every sort of deprivation while the French withdrew into winter quarters. The fatigues of this service greatly thinned their ranks. The other German regiments were sent into the Sierra Morena, where they were kept ever on the alert guarding that key to Spain, while the French under Soult advanced as far as Cadiz, those under Massena into Portugal; but Soult being unable to take Cadiz, and Massena being forced by the Duke of Wellington to retire, the German troops were also driven from their position, and, in 1812, withdrew to Valencia, but, in the October of the same year, again advanced with Soult upon Madrid.