Beer, p. 441.

Vandal, vol. ii., p. 161; Metternich, vol. i., p. 114.

Letter of February 10th, 1810, quoted by Lanfrey. See, too, the "Mems." of Prince Eugène, vol. vi., p. 277.

"Memoirs," vol. ii., p. 365 (Eng. ed.).

Bausset, "Mems.," ch. xix.

Mme. de Rémusat, "Mems.," ch. xxvii.

Tatischeff, "Alexandre et Napoléon," p. 519. Welschinger, "Le Divorce de Napoléon," ch. ii.; he also examines the alleged irregularities of the religious marriage with Josephine; Fesch and most impartial authorities brushed them aside as a flimsy excuse.

Metternich's despatch of December 25th, 1809, in his "Mems.," vol. ii., § 150. The first hints were dropped by him to Laborde on November 29th (Vandal, vol. ii., pp. 204, 543): they reached Napoleon's ears about December 15th. For the influence of these marriage negotiations in preparing for Napoleon's rupture with the Czar, see chap, xxxii. of this work.

"Conversations with the Duke of Wellington," p. 9. The disobedience of Ney and Soult did much to ruin Masséna's campaign, and he lost the battle of Fuentès d'Onoro mainly through that of Bessières. Still, as he failed to satisfy Napoleon's maxim, "Succeed: I judge men only by results," he was disgraced.

Decree of February 5th, 1810. See Welschinger, "La Censure sous le premier Empire," p. 31. For the seizure of Madame de Staël's "Allemagne" and her exile, see her preface to "Dix Années d'Exil."

Mollien, "Mems.," vol. iii., p. 183.

Fouché retired to Italy, and finally settled at Aix. His place at the Ministry of Police was taken by Savary, Duc de Rovigo. See Madelin's "Fouché," chap. xx.

Porter, "Progress of the Nation," p. 388.

Letters of August 6th, 7th, 29th. The United States had just repealed their Non-Intercourse Act of 1807. For their relations with Napoleon and England, see Channing's "The United States of America," chs. vi. and vii.; also the Anglo-American correspondence in Cobbett's "Register for 1809 and 1810."

Mollien, "Mems." vol. i., p. 316.

Tooke, "Hist. of Prices," vol. i., p. 311; Mollien, vol. iii., pp. 135, 289; Pasquier, vol. i., p. 295; Chaptal, p. 275.

Letter of August 6th, 1810, to Eugène.

"Progress of the Nation," p. 148.

So Mollien, vol. iii., p. 135: "One knows that his powerful imagination was fertile in illusions: as soon as they had seduced him, he sought with a kind of good faith to enhance their prestige, and he succeeded easily in persuading many others of what he had convinced himself. He braved business difficulties as he braved dangers in war."

Miot de Melito, vol. ii., ch. xv. For some favourable symptoms in French industry, see Lumbroso, pp. 165-226, and Chaptal, p. 287. They have been credited to the Continental System; but surely they resulted from the internal free trade and intelligent administration which France had enjoyed since the Revolution.

"Nap. Corresp.," May 8th, 1811.

Goethe published the first part of "Faust," in full, early in 1808.

Baur, "Stein und Perthes," p. 85.

Lavalette, "Mems.," ch. xxv.

Letters of October 10th and 13th, 1810, and January 1st, 1811.

Letter of September 17th, 1810.

Letter of March 8th, 1811. For a fuller treatment of the commercial struggle between Great Britain and Napoleon see my articles, "Napoleon and British Commerce" and "Britain's Food Supply during the French War," in a volume entitled "Napoleonic Studies" (George Bell and Sons, 1904).

Czartoryski, "Mems.," vol. ii., ch. xvii. At this time he was taken back to the Czar's favour, and was bidden to hope for the re-establishment of Poland by the Czar as soon as Napoleon made a blunder.

Tatischeff, p. 526; Vandal, vol. ii., ch. vii.

"Corresp.," No. 16178; Vandal, vol. ii., ch. vii. The exposé of December 1st, 1809, had affirmed that Napoleon did not intend to re-establish Poland. But this did not satisfy Alexander.

Letters of October 23rd and December 2nd, 1810.

Vandal, vol. ii., p. 529.

Tatischeff, p. 555.

Vandal, vol. ii., p. 535, admits that we had no hand in it. But the Czar naturally became more favourable to us, and at the close of 1811 secretly gave entry to our goods.

Quoted by Garden, vol. xiii., p. 171.

Bernhardi's "Denkwürdigkeiten des Grafen von Toll," vol. i. p. 223.

Czartoryski, vol. ii., ch. xvii. At Dresden, in May, 1812, Napoleon admitted to De Pradt, his envoy at Warsaw that Russia's lapse from the Continental System was the chief cause of war; "Without Russia, the Continental System is absurdity."

For the overtures of Russia and Sweden to us and their exorbitant requests for loans, see Mr. Hereford George's account in his careful and systematic study, "Napoleon's Invasion of Russia," ch. iv. It was not till July, 1812, that we formally made peace with Russia and Sweden, and sent them pecuniary aid. We may note here that Napoleon, in April, 1812, sent us overtures for peace, if we would acknowledge Joseph as King of Spain and Murat as King of Naples, and withdraw our troops from the Peninsula and Sicily: Napoleon would then evacuate Spain. Castlereagh at once refused an offer which would have left Napoleon free to throw his whole strength against Russia (Garden, vol. xiii., pp. 215, 254).

Garden, vol. xiii., p. 329.

Hereford George, op. cit., pp. 34-37. Metternich ("Memoirs," vol. ii., p. 517, Eng. ed.) shows that Napoleon had also been holding out to Austria the hope of gaining Servia, Wallachia and Moldavia (the latter of which were then overrun by Russian troops), if she would furnish 60,000 troops: but Metternich resisted successfully.

See his words to Metternich at Dresden, Metternich's "Mems.," vol. i., p. 152; as also that he would not advance beyond Smolensk in 1812.

Bernhardi's "Toll," vol. i., p. 226; Stern, "Abhandlungen," pp. 350-366; Müffling, "Aus meinem Leben"; L'Abbé de Pradt, "L'histoire de l'Ambassade de Varsovie."

"Erinnerungen des Gen. von Boyen," vol. ii., p. 254. This, and other facts that will later be set forth, explode the story foisted by the Prussian General von dem Knesebeck in his old age on Müffling. Knesebeck declared that his mission early in 1812 to the Czar, which was to persuade him to a peaceful compromise with Napoleon, was directly controverted by the secret instructions which he bore from Frederick William to Alexander. He described several midnight interviews with the Czar at the Winter Palace, in which he convinced him that by war with Napoleon, and by enticing him into the heart of Russia, Europe would be saved. Lehmann has shown ("Knesebeck und Schön") that this story is contradicted by all the documentary evidence. It may be dismissed as the offspring of senile vanity.

"Toll," vol. i., pp. 256 et seq. Müffling was assured by Phull in 1819 that the Drissa plan was only part of a grander design which had never had a fair chance!

Bernhardi's "Toll" (vol. i., p. 231) gives Barclay's chief "army of the west" as really mustering only 127,000 strong, along with 9,000 Cossacks; Bagration, with the second "army of the west," numbered at first only 35,000, with 4,000 Cossacks; while Tormasov's corps observing Galicia was about as strong. Clausewitz gives rather higher estimates.

Labaume, "Narrative of 1812," and Ségur.

See the long letter of May 28th, 1812, to De Pradt; also the Duc de Broglie's "Memoirs" (vol. i., ch. iv.) for the hollowness of Napoleon's Polish policy. Bignon, "Souvenirs d'un Diplomate" (ch. xx.), errs in saying that Napoleon charged De Pradt—"Tout agiter, tout enflammer." At St. Helena, Napoleon said to Montholon ("Captivity," vol. iii., ch. iii.): "Poland and its resources were but poetry in the first months of the year 1812."

"Toll," vol. i., p. 239; Wilson, "Invasion of Russia," p. 384.

We may here also clear aside the statements of some writers who aver that Napoleon intended to strike at St. Petersburg. Perhaps he did so for a time. On July 9th he wrote at Vilna that he proposed to march both on Moscow and St. Petersburg. But that was while he still hoped that Davoust would entrap Bagration, and while Barclay's retreat on Drissa seemed likely to carry the war into the north. Napoleon always aimed first at the enemy's army; and Barclay's retreat from Drissa to Vitepsk, and thence to Smolensk, finally decided Napoleon's move towards Moscow. If he had any preconceived scheme—and he always regulated his moves by events rather than by a cast-iron plan—it was to strike at Moscow. At Dresden he said to De Pradt: "I must finish the war by the end of September.... I am going to Moscow: one or two battles will settle the business. I will burn Tula, and Russia will be at my feet. Moscow is the heart of that Empire. I will wage war with Polish blood." De Pradt's evidence is not wholly to be trusted; but I am convinced that Napoleon never seriously thought of taking 200,000 men to the barren tracts of North Russia late in the summer, while the English, Swedish, and Russian fleets were ready to worry his flank and stop supplies.

Letter of August 24th to Maret; so too Labaume's "Narrative," and Garden, vol. xiii., p. 418. Mr. George thinks that Napoleon decided on August 21st to strike at Moscow on grounds of general policy.

Labaume, "Narrative"; Lejeune's "Mems.," vol. ii., ch. vi.

Marbot's "Mems." Bausset, a devoted servant to Napoleon, refutes the oft-told story that he was ill at Borodino. He had nothing worse than a bad cold. It is curious that such stories are told about Napoleon after every battle when his genius did not shine. In this case, it rests on the frothy narrative of Ségur, and is out of harmony with those of Gourgaud and Pelet. Clausewitz justifies Napoleon's caution in withholding his Guard.

Bausset, "Cour de Napoléon." Tolstoi ("War and Liberty") asserts that the fires were the work of tipsy pillagers. So too Arndt, "Mems.," p. 204. Dr. Tzenoff, in a scholarly monograph (Berlin, 1900), comes to the same conclusion. Lejeune and Bourgogne admit both causes.

Garden, vol. xiii., p. 452; vol. xiv., pp. 17-19.

Cathcart, p. 41; see too the Czar's letters in Sir Byam Martin's "Despatches," vol. ii., p. 311. This fact shows the frothiness of the talk indulged in by Russians in 1807 as to "our rapacity and perfidy" in seizing the Danish fleet.

E.g., the migration of Rostopchin's serfs en masse from their village, near Moscow, rather than come under French dominion (Wilson, "French Invasion of Russia," p. 179).

Letter of October 16th; see too his undated notes ("Corresp.," No. 19237). Bausset and many others thought the best plan would be to winter at Moscow. He also says that the Emperor's favourite book while at Moscow was Voltaire's "History of Charles XII."

Lejeune, vol. ii., chap. vi. As it chanced, Kutusoff had resolved on retreat, if Napoleon attacked him. This is perhaps the only time when Napoleon erred through excess of prudence. Fezensac noted at Moscow that he would not see or hear the truth.

It has been constantly stated by Napoleon, and by most French historians of this campaign, that his losses were mainly due to an exceptionally severe and early winter. The statement will not bear examination. Sharp cold usually sets in before November 6th in Russia at latitude 55°; the severe weather which he then suffered was succeeded by alternate thaws and slighter frosts until the beginning of December, when intense cold is always expected. Moreover, the bulk of the losses occurred before the first snowstorm. The Grand Army which marched on Smolensk and Moscow may be estimated at 400,000 (including reinforcements). At Viasma, before severe cold set in, it had dwindled to 55,000. We may note here the curious fact, substantiated by Alison, that the French troops stood the cold better than the Poles and North Germans. See too N. Senior's "Conversations," vol. i., p. 239.

Bausset, "Cour de Napoléon"; Wilson, pp. 271-277.

Oudinot, "Mémoires."

Hereford George, pp. 349-350.

Bourgogne, ch. viii.

Pasquier, vol. ii., ad init.

Colonel Desprez, who accompanied the retreat, thus described to King Joseph its closing scenes: "The truth is best expressed by saying that the army is dead. The Young Guard was 8,000 strong when we left Moscow: at Vilna it scarcely numbered 400.... The corps of Victor and Oudinot numbered 30,000 men when they crossed the Beresina: two days afterwards they had melted away like the rest of the army. Sending reinforcements only increased the losses."

The following French official report, a copy of which I have found in our F.O. Records (Russia, No. 84), shows how frightful were the losses after Smolensk. But it should be noted that the rank and file in this case numbered only 300 at Smolensk, and had therefore lost more than half their numbers—and this in a regiment of the Guard.

GARDE IMPÉRIALE: 6^ME RÉGIMENT DE TIRAILLEURS.
l^ère Division. Situation à l'époque du 19 Décembre, 1812.

|——————-+——————+—————-+—————-+—————+—————+————|
| | Perte depuis le départ de Smolensk |
| +——————+—————-+—————-+—————+—————+————|
|Présents sous|Restés sur |Blessés qui|Morts de |Restés en |Total des|Reste |
|les armes au |le champ |n'ont pu |froid ou de|en arrière |Pertes |présents|
|départ de |de bataille |suivre, |misère |gelés, ou | |sous les|
|Smolensk | |restés au | |pour cause | |armes |
| | |pouvoir de | |de maladie | | |
| | |l'ennemi | |au pouvoir | | |
| | | | |de l'ennemi| | |
|——-+———-+———+——-+———+——+———+——+———+——+——-+—-+——+—-|
| Off.|Tr. | Off. |Tr. | Off. |Tr. | Off. |Tr. | Off. |Tr. | Off.|Tr.|Off.|Tr.|
| 31 |300 | — |13 | 4 |52 | — |24 | 13 |201 | 17|290| 14|10 |
|——-+———-+———+——-+———+——+———+——+———+——+——-+—-+——+—-|

Signé le Colonel Major Commandant
le dit Regiment.  CARRÉ.

Les autres régiments sont plus
ou moins dans le même état.

"Corresp.," December 20th, 1812. For the so-called Concordat of 1813, concluded with the captive Pius VII. at Fontainebleau, see "Corresp." of January 25th, 1813. The Pope repudiated it at the first opportunity. Napoleon wanted him to settle at Avignon as a docile subject of the Empire.

Mollien, vol. iii., ad fin. For his vague offers to mitigate the harsh terms of Tilsit for Prussia, and to grant her a political existence if she would fight for him, see Hardenberg, "Mems.," vol. iv., p. 350.

Walpole reports (December 19th and 22nd, 1812) Metternich's envy of the Russian successes and of their occupation of the left bank of the Danube. Walpole said he believed Alexander would grant Austria a set-off against this; but Metternich seemed entirely Bonapartist ("F.O.," Russia, No. 84). See too the full account, based on documentary evidence, in Luckwaldt's "Oesterreich und die Anfange des Befreiungskrieges" (Berlin, 1898).

Hardenberg, "Mems.," vol. iv., p. 366.

Oncken, "Oesterreich und Preussen," vol. ii.; Garden, vol. xiv., p. 167; Seeley's "Stein," vol. ii., ch. iii.

Arndt, "Wanderungen"; Steffens, "Was ich erlebte."

At this time she had only 61,500 men ready for the fighting line; but she had 28,000 in garrison and 32,000 in Pomerania and Prussia (Proper), according to Scharnhorst's report contained in "F.O.," Russia, No. 85.

Letters of March 2nd and 11th.

Metternich's "Memoirs," vol. i., p. 159; Luckwaldt, op. cit., ch. vi.

See the whole note in Luckwaldt, Append. No. 4.

Oncken, op. cit., vol. ii., p. 205. So too Metternich's letter to Nesselrode of April 21st ("Memoirs," vol. i., p. 405, Eng. ed.): "I beg of you to continue to confide in me. If Napoleon will be foolish enough to fight, let us endeavour not to meet with a reverse, which I feel to be only too possible. One battle lost for Napoleon, and all Germany will be under arms."

"F.O.," Austria, No. 105. Doubtless, as Oncken has pointed out with much acerbity, Castlereagh's knowledge that Austria would suggest the modification of our maritime claims contributed to his refusal to consider her proposal for a general peace: but I am convinced, from the tone of our records, that his chief motive was his experience of Napoleon's intractability and a sense of loyalty to our Spanish allies: we were also pledged to help Sweden and Russia.

Letters of April 24th.

Napoleon's troops in Thorn surrendered on April 17th; those in Spandau on April 24th (Fain, "Manuscrit de 1813," vol. ii., ch. i.).

Oncken, vol. ii., p. 272.

Cathcart's report in "F.O.," Russia, No. 85. Müffling ("Aus meinem Leben") regards the delay in the arrival of Miloradovitch, and the preparations for defence which the French had had time to make at Gross Görschen, as the causes of the allies' failure. The chief victim on the French side was Bessières, commander of the Guard.

"Corresp.," Nos. 20017-20031. For his interview with Bubna, see Luckwaldt, p. 257.

Bernhardi's "Toll," vol. iii., pp. 490-492. Marmont gives the French 150,000; Thiers says 160,000.

In his bulletin Napoleon admitted having lost 11,000 to 12,000 killed and wounded in the two days at Bautzen; his actual losses were probably over 20,000. He described the allies as having 150,000 to 160,000 men, nearly double their actual numbers.

Müffling, "Aus meinem Leben."

"Lettres inédites." So too his letters to Eugène of June 11th and July 1st; and of June 11th, 17th, July 6th and 29th, to Augereau, who was to threaten Austria from Bavaria.

See his conversation with our envoy, Thornton, reported by the latter in the "Castlereagh Letters," 2nd series, vol. iv., p. 314.

"Castlereagh Letters," 2nd series, vol. iv., p. 344.

Garden, vol. xiv., p. 356. We also stipulated that Sweden should not import slaves into Guadeloupe, and should repress the slave trade. When, at the Congress of Vienna, that island was given back to France, we paid Bernadotte a money indemnity.