Napoleon had achieved the total humiliation of the Prussian monarchy in a campaign of a week's duration: yet severe as the exertions of his army had been, and splendid his success, and late as the season was now advanced, there ensued no pause of inaction: the Emperor himself remained but a few days in Berlin.
This brief residence, however, was distinguished by the issue of the famous decrees of Berlin; those extraordinary edicts by which Buonaparte hoped to sap the foundations of the power of England—the one power which he had no means of assailing by his apparently irresistible arms.
Napoleon declared the British Islands to be in a state of blockade: any intercourse with that country was henceforth to be a crime; all her citizens found in any country in alliance with France to be prisoners; every article of English produce or manufacture, wherever discovered, to be confiscated. In a word, wherever France had power, the slightest communication with England was henceforth to be treason against the majesty of Napoleon; and every coast of Europe was to be lined with new armies of douaniers and gens-d'armes, for the purpose of carrying into effect what he called "the continental system."
He had long meditated the organisation of this system, and embraced, as a favourable opportunity for its promulgation, the moment which saw him at length predominant in the North of Germany, and thus, in effect, master of the whole coasts of Europe from the mouth of the Oder round to the Adriatic Gulf. The system, however, could not be carried into effect, because from long habit the manufactured goods and colonial produce of Britain had come to be necessaries of life among every civilised people of the world; and consequently every private citizen found his own domestic comforts invaded by the decree, which avowedly aimed only at the revenues of the English crown. Every man, therefore, was under continual temptation, each in his own sphere and method, to violate the decrees of Berlin. The custom-house officers were exposed to bribes which their virtue could not resist. Even the most attached of Napoleon's own functionaries connived at the universal spirit of evasion—his brothers themselves, in their respective dominions, could not help sympathising with their subjects, and winking at the methods of relief to which they were led by necessity, the mother of invention. The severe police, however, which was formed everywhere as a necessary part of the machinery for carrying these edicts into execution—the insolence of the innumerable spies and informers whom they set in motion—and the actual deprivation of usual comforts, in so far as it existed—all these circumstances conspired to render the name of the Berlin decrees odious throughout Europe and in France itself. It may be added that the original conception of Napoleon was grounded on a mistaken opinion, to which, however, he always clung—namely, that England derives all her strength from her foreign commerce. Great as that commerce was, and great as, in spite of him, it continued to be, it never was anything but a trifle when compared with the internal traffic and resources of Great Britain—a country not less distinguished above other nations for its agricultural industry, than for its commercial.
Napoleon received at Berlin a deputation of his Senate, sent from Paris to congratulate him on the successes of his campaign. To them he announced these celebrated decrees: he made them the bearers of the trophies of his recent victories, and, moreover, of a demand for the immediate levying of 80,000 men, being the first conscription for the year 1808—that for the year 1807 having been already anticipated. The subservient Senate recorded and granted whatever their master pleased to dictate; but the cost of human life which Napoleon's ambition demanded had begun, ere this time, to be seriously thought of in France. He, meanwhile, prepared, without further delay, to extinguish the feeble spark of resistance which still lingered in a few garrisons of the Prussian Monarchy, beyond the Oder: and to meet, before they could reach the soil of Germany, those Russian legions which were now advancing, too late, to the assistance of Frederick William. That unfortunate Prince sent Lucchesini to Berlin, to open, if possible, a negotiation with the victorious occupant of his capital and palace; but Buonaparte demanded Dantzick, and two other fortified towns, as the price of even the briefest armistice; and the Italian envoy returned to inform the King, that no hope remained for him except in the arrival of the Russians.
Napoleon held in his hands the means of opening his campaign with those allies of Prussia, under circumstances involving his enemy in a new, and probably endless train of difficulties. The Partition of Poland—that great political crime, for which every power that had a part in it has since been severely, though none of them adequately punished—had left the population of what had once been a great and powerful kingdom, in a state of discontent and irritation, of which, had Napoleon been willing to make full use of it, the fruits might have been more dangerous for the Czar than any campaign against any foreign enemy. The French Emperor had but to announce distinctly that his purpose was the restoration of Poland as an independent state, and the whole mass, of an eminently gallant and warlike population would have risen instantly at his call. But Buonaparte was withheld from resorting to this effectual means of annoyance by various considerations; of which the chief were these: first, he could not emancipate Poland without depriving Austria of a rich and important province, and consequently provoking her once more into the field: and secondly, he foresaw that the Russian Emperor, if threatened with the destruction of his Polish territory and authority, would urge the war in a very different manner from that which he was likely to adopt while acting only as the ally of Prussia. In a word, Napoleon was well aware of the extent of the Czar's resources, and had no wish at this time to give a character of irremediable bitterness to their quarrel.
Though, however, he for these and other reasons refrained from openly appealing in his own person to the Poles as a nation, Buonaparte had no scruple about permitting others to tamper, in his behalf, with the justly indignant feelings of the people. Some of the heroic leaders of the Poles, in the struggles for their expiring independence, had long been exiles in France—not a few of them had taken service in her armies. These men were allowed, and encouraged, to address themselves to the body of their countrymen, in language which could hardly fail to draw eager and enthusiastic recruits to the French standard, and increase mightily the perplexities of the Russian counsels. Nor did Napoleon scruple to authorise the circulation of an appeal of like tendency, bearing falsely[56] the venerated signature of Kosciusko. "Dear countrymen and friends," said the forgery, "arise! the Great Nation is before you—Napoleon expects, and Kosciusko calls on you. We are under the Ægis of the Monarch who vanquishes difficulties as if by miracles, and the re-animation of Poland is too glorious an achievement not to have been reserved for him by the Eternal." Dombrowski and Wibichi, two Polish officers in Buonaparte's own army, sent forward from Berlin, on the 8th of the same month, a proclamation, which commenced in these words:—"Poles! Napoleon, the Great, the Invincible, enters Poland with an army of 300,000 men. Without wishing to fathom the mystery of his views, let us strive to merit his magnanimity. I will see (he has said to us) whether you deserve to be a nation. Poles! it depends then on yourselves to exert a national spirit, and possess a country. Your avenger, your restorer is here. Crowd from all quarters to his presence, as children in tears hasten to behold a succouring father. Present to him your hearts, your arms. Rise to a man, and prove that you do not grudge your blood to your country!" Lastly, in one of Napoleon's own bulletins, the following ominous sentences were permitted to appear:—"Shall the Polish throne be re-established, and shall the Great Nation secure for it respect and independence? Shall she recall it to life from the grave? God only, who directs all human affairs, can resolve this great mystery!" These appeals produced various eager addresses from Poland—and Buonaparte prepared to visit that country, though not as her liberator.
Before re-opening the great campaign, Buonaparte received the submission and explanation of the Elector of Saxony, who truly stated that Prussia had forced him to take part in the war. The apology was accepted, and from this time the Elector adhered to the League of the Rhine, and was a faithful ally of Napoleon. The Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel had worse fortune. The answer to all his applications was, that he had ceased to reign. What use the Conqueror designed to make of the territories thus confiscated, we shall presently see. The Saxon army, and that of Hesse-Cassel, were both, however, at his disposal, and they both accordingly were marched forwards, and blended with the forces occupying Prussia.
The French, having invested Glogau, Breslau, and Graudentz, and left detachments to urge these sieges, moved towards the Polish frontier. General Bennigsen, with a considerable Russian army, had advanced to overawe the dissatisfied population, and was now at Warsaw. But the march of the French van, under Murat, soon alarmed him in these quarters. After some skirmishes of little moment the Russians retired behind the Vistula, and Murat took possession of the Polish metropolis on the 28th of November. On the 25th Napoleon himself had reached Posen, and found himself surrounded by a population in a high state of excitement and enthusiasm. The ancient national dress reappeared: hope and exultation beamed in every countenance; the old nobles, quitting the solitary castles in which they had been lamenting over the downfall of Poland, crowded the levees of the Victor, and addressed him in language which recalled the half-oriental character and manners of their nation. "We adore you," said the Palatine of Gnesna, "and with confidence repose in you all our hopes, as upon him who raises empires and destroys them, and humbles the proud—the regenerator of our country, the legislator of the universe." "Already," said the President of the Council of Justice, "already our country is saved, for we adore in your person the most just and the most profound Solon. We commit our fate into your hands, and implore the protection of the most august Cæsar."
Having largely recruited his armies with brave Poles, who fancied him both a Solon and Cæsar, Napoleon now moved forwards. General Bennigsen found himself under the necessity of abandoning first the line of the Vistula, and then that of the Bug, and, the French still advancing in numbers not to be resisted by his division, at length threw himself behind the river Wkra, where Kaminskoy, the Russian commander-in-chief, and three other divisions of the army, had by this time taken their ground. On the 23rd of December Napoleon reached and crossed the Wkra, and Kaminskoy ordered his whole army to fall back upon the line of the Niemen. Bennigsen accordingly retired towards Pultusk, Galitzin upon Golymin, both followed by great bodies of the French, and both sustaining with imperturbable patience and gallantry the severity of a march through probably the very worst roads in Europe, and of frequent skirmishes with their pursuers. But the minor divisions of D'Anrep and Bexhouden retreated without keeping up the requisite communications with either Bennigsen or Galitzin, and consequently suffered considerably, though the matter was grossly exaggerated in the French bulletins.
Bennigsen, in spite of Kaminskoy's orders to retreat at all hazards, made a stand, and a most gallant one at Pultusk. Having his left in that town, and his right on a wood, the general conceived his position to be too favourable for speedy abandonment, and on the 26th of December expected the onset of Lannes, Davoust, and the imperial guard of France. They charged with their usual impetuosity, and drove the Russian right wing, under General Barclay de Tolly, out of the wood; but Bennigsen skilfully availed himself of this occurrence; by his orders Barclay de Tolly retired much further than was necessary for his own safety, and the French, advancing unguardedly, found themselves confronted on very unfavourable ground with the Russian main body, which had now been arranged on a new line of battle, and of a battery of 120 guns, placed so as to command their march with terrible efficacy. The result was that the Russians lost 5000 in killed and wounded, the French 8000—one of their wounded being Marshal Lannes himself; and the French drew back from the hardly contested field with such haste, that all next day the advancing Cossacks sought in vain for their rear-guard. On the same day, and with nearly as much success, Prince Galitzin halted also, and awaited and repelled his pursuers at Golymin; and had either Bennigsen or Galitzin been supported by the other divisions which were doing nothing within a few miles of their respective marches, these events might have been improved so as to involve the French army in great and immediate perplexity. But in truth, the total want of plan and combination on the part of Kaminskoy was by this time apparent to the veriest tyro in his camp. Symptoms of actual insanity appeared shortly afterwards, and the chief command was transferred, with universal approbation, to Bennigsen.
The affairs of Pultusk and Golymin, however, were productive of excellent effects. They raised to a high pitch the spirits of the Russian soldiery; and they afforded Napoleon such a specimen of the character of his new enemy, that instead of pursuing the campaign, as he had announced in his bulletins, he thought fit to retire, and place his troops in winter quarters. He himself took up his residence at Warsaw, and the army occupied cantonments in various towns to the eastward.
But General Bennigsen, having proved at Pultusk what Russian troops could do when under a determined commander, no sooner found himself at the head of an army of nearly 100,000 men, than he resolved to disturb the French in their quarters, and at all events give them such occupation as might enable the King of Prussia to revictual Konigsberg, where the few troops, gathered round that unfortunate sovereign, were already beginning to suffer many privations. With this view Bennigsen advanced as far as Mohrungen, where the French sustained considerable damage in a skirmish, and from whence his Cossacks spread themselves abroad over the country—creating such confusion, that the leaguer of Konigsberg being for the moment relaxed, the Prussian garrison received welcome supplies of all kinds, and Napoleon himself perceived the necessity of breaking up his cantonments, and once more concentrating the army for active war.
His design was to occupy Willensberg, to the rear of the great Russian camp at Mohrungen; thus cutting off the new enemy's communications with his own means of resource, in the same manner which had proved so fatal to the Austrians at Ulm, and the Prussians at Jena. But Bennigsen, having learned the plan from an intercepted despatch, immediately countermarched his army with masterly skill, and thus involved Napoleon in a long series of manœuvres, not to be executed in such a country at that dismal season without the extremity of hardship. The Russians themselves, inured as they were to northern climates, and incapable of even dreaming that a soldier could seek safety in flight, were reduced to the border of frenzy by the privations of these long marches. Their commissariat was wretched: the soldiers had often no food, except such frozen roots as they could dig out of the ground; and, tortured with toil and famine, they at length demanded battle so vehemently, that, against his own judgment, General Bennigsen consented to grant the prayer. He selected the town of Preuss-Eylau, and a strong position behind it, as his field of battle; and—after two skirmishes, one at Landsberg, the other nearer the chosen ground, in the former of which the French, in the latter the Russians, had the advantage,—the whole army reached Preuss-Eylau on the 7th of February.
In the confusion of so great a movement, a division designed by Bennigsen to occupy the town itself, misunderstood the order, and evacuated it at the approach of the enemy's van. The French took possession of the place accordingly, and—General Bennigsen commanding it to be regained, as soon as he learned the mistake that had occurred—the whole day was spent in severe fighting within the town, which was taken and retaken several times, and at the fall of night remained in the hands of the French. On either side the loss had been very great, and Napoleon coming up in person, perceived that the contest must needs be renewed at daybreak. The night was clear, and he could trace the enemy's line darkening the whole of an admirably selected position, between which and the dearly contested town, a level space covered with snow, and two or three small frozen lakes, glittered in the mingled light of an unclouded moon and innumerable watch-fires.
The great battle of PREUSS-EYLAU was fought on the 8th of February. At dawn of day the French charged at two different points in strong columns, and were unable to shake the iron steadiness of the infantry, while the Russian horse, and especially the Cossacks under their gallant Hetman Platoff, made fearful execution on each division, as successively they drew back from their vain attempt. A fierce storm arose at mid-day: the snow drifted right in the eyes of the Russians; the village of Serpallen, on their left, caught fire, and the smoke also rolled dense upon them. Davoust skilfully availed himself of the opportunity, and turned their flank so rapidly, that Serpallen was lost, and the left wing compelled to wheel backwards so as to form almost at right angles with the rest of the line. The Prussian corps of L'Estocq, a small but determined fragment of the campaign of Jena, appeared at this critical moment in the rear of the Russian left; and, charging with such gallantry as had in former times been expected from the soldiery of the Great Frederick, drove back Davoust and restored the Russian line. The action continued for many hours along the whole line—the French attacked boldly, the Russians driving them back with unfailing resolution. Ney, and a fresh division, at length came up, and succeeded in occupying the village of Schloditten, on the road to Konigsberg. To regain this, and thereby recover the means of communicating with the King of Prussia, was deemed necessary; and it was carried accordingly at the point of the bayonet. This was at ten o'clock at night. So ended the longest and by far the severest battle in which Buonaparte had as yet been engaged. The French are supposed to have had 90,000 men under arms at its commencement; the Russians not more than 60,000. After fourteen hours of fighting, either army occupied the same position as in the morning. Twelve of Napoleon's eagles were in the hands of Bennigsen, and the field between was covered with 50,000 corpses, of whom at least half were French.
Either leader claimed the victory; Bennigsen exhibiting as proof of his success the twelve eagles which his army, admitted to be inferior in numbers, bore off the field: Buonaparte, that he kept possession of the field, while the enemy retired, the very night after the battle, from Eylau towards Konigsberg. It was, in truth, a drawn battle; and to have found an equal was sufficient bitterness to Napoleon. The Russian general-in-chief had retreated, in opposition to the opinion of most of his council, out of anxiety for the personal safety of the King of Prussia at Konigsberg, and desire to recruit his army ere another great action should be hazarded. The French, triumphant as was the language of their bulletins, made no effort to pursue. Bennigsen conducted his army in perfect order to Konigsberg, and the Cossacks issuing from that city continued for more than a week to waste the country according to their pleasure, without any show of opposition from the French. But the best proof how severely Napoleon had felt the struggle of Preuss-Eylau, is to be found in a communication which he made to Frederick William, on the 13th of February, five days after the battle, offering him, in effect, the complete, or nearly complete restoration of his dominions, provided he would accept of a separate peace: with the king's answer; namely, that it was impossible for him to enter on any treaty unless the Czar were a party in it. Finally, on the 19th of February, Napoleon left Eylau, and retreated with his whole army on the Vistula; satisfied that it would be fatal rashness to engage in another campaign in Poland, while several fortified towns, and, above all, Dantzick, held out in his rear; and determined to have possession of these places, and to summon new forces from France, ere he should again meet in the field such an enemy as the Russian had proved to be.
Dantzick was defended with the more desperate resolution, because it was expected that, as soon as the season permitted, an English fleet and army would certainly be sent to its relief. But the besiegers having a prodigious superiority of numbers, and conducting the siege with every advantage of skill, the place was at length compelled to surrender, on the 7th of May; after which event, Napoleon's extraordinary exertions in hurrying supplies from France, Switzerland and the Rhine country, and the addition of the division of 25,000, which had captured Dantzick, enabled him to take the field again at the head of not less than 280,000 men. The Russian general also had done what was in his power to recruit his army during this interval; but his utmost zeal could effect no more than bringing his muster up again to its original point—90,000; the chief blame lying, as it was alleged, with the coldness of the English cabinet, who, instead of lavishing gold on the Emperor of Russia, as had been done in other similar cases, were with difficulty persuaded to grant him at this critical time, so small a supply as £80,000. Russia has men to any amount at her command; but the poverty of the national purse renders it at all times very difficult for her to maintain a large army in a distant contest.
Bennigsen, nevertheless, was the first to reappear in the field. In the beginning of June he attacked Ney's division stationed at Gustadt, and pursued them to Deppen, where, on the 8th, a smart action took place, and Napoleon arrived in person to support his troops. The Russians were then forced to retire towards Heilsberg, where they halted, and maintained their position, during a whole day, in the face of an enemy prodigiously superior in numbers. The carnage on both sides was fearful; and Bennigsen, continuing his retreat, placed the river Aller between him and Napoleon.
The French Emperor now exerted all his art to draw the Russian into a general action: the resistance he had met with had surprised and enraged him, and he was eager to overpower and extinguish Bennigsen before further supplies of these hardy Muscovities should come up to swell his ranks. The Russian general was on the eastern bank of the Aller, opposite to the town of Friedland, when Buonaparte once more came up with him on the 13th of June. There was a long and narrow wooden bridge over the river, close by, which might have been destroyed if not defended; and Napoleon's object was to induce Bennigsen, instead of abiding by his position, to abandon its advantages, pass over to the western bank, and accept battle with the town and river in his rear. His crafty management outwitted the Russian, who, being persuaded that the troops which appeared in front of him were only a small division of the French army, was tempted to send some regiments over the river for the purpose of chastising them. The French, sometimes retreating, and then again returning to the combat, the Russians were by degrees induced to cross in greater numbers; until at length Bennigsen found himself and his whole army on the western bank, with the town and bridge in their rear—thus completely entrapped in the snare laid for him by his enemy.
On the 14th of June, under circumstances thus disadvantageous, the Russian general was compelled to accept battle. His army occupied open ground; the intricate and narrow streets of the town of Friedland, and the bridge behind it, appeared to be his only means of retreat in case of misadventure; and in front, and on either flank, extended those woods which had covered Buonaparte's stratagems of the preceding day, and which now afforded complete shelter to the Imperial army—the means of attacking from whatever point they might select—and of retiring with safety as often as it might be found advisable.
The battle commenced at ten in the morning, and the Russians stood their ground with unbroken resolution until between four and five in the evening; sustaining numberless charges of foot and horse, and exposed all the while to a murderous cannonade. At length Napoleon put himself at the head of the French line, and commanded a general assault of all arms, which was executed with overpowering effect. Having lost full 12,000 men, General Bennigsen was at last compelled to attempt a retreat; the French poured after him into the town: the first Russian division which forced the passage of the river destroyed the bridge behind them in their terror; and the rest of the army escaped by means of deep and dangerous fords, which, desperate as the resource they afforded was, had been discovered only in the moment of necessity. Nevertheless such were the coolness and determination of the Russians, that they saved all their baggage, and lost only seventeen cannon; and such was the impression which their obstinate valour left on the enemy, that their retreat towards the Niemen was performed without any show of molestation.
The results of the battle of Friedland were, however, as great as could have been expected from any victory. On the retreat of Bennigsen towards the Niemen, the unfortunate King of Prussia, evacuating Konigsberg, where he now perceived it must be impossible to maintain himself, sought a last and precarious shelter in the seaport of Memel; and the Emperor Alexander, overawed by the genius of Napoleon, which had triumphed over troops more resolute than had ever before opposed him, and alarmed for the consequence of some decisive measure towards the re-organisation of the Poles as a nation, began to think seriously of peace. Buonaparte, on his part also, had many reasons for being anxious to bring hostilities to a close. The Swedish king was in Pomerania, besieging Stralsund, and hourly expecting reinforcements from England, which might have ended in a formidable diversion in the rear of the French army. Schill, an able partizan, was in arms in Prussia, where the general discontent was such, that nothing by opportunity seemed wanting for a national insurrection against the conquerors. The further advance of the French towards the north could hardly have failed to afford such an opportunity. Neither could this be executed, to all appearance, without involving the necessity of proclaiming the independence of Poland; thereby giving a character of mortal rancour to the war with Russia, and, in all likelihood, calling Austria once more into the field. Under such circumstances the minds of Napoleon and Alexander were equally disposed towards negotiation: General Bennigsen sent, on the 21st of June, to demand an armistice; and to this proposal the victor of Friedland yielded immediate assent.
In truth over and above the parsimony of the court of St. James in regard to subsidies, the recent conduct of the war on the part of England had been so ill-judged, and on the whole so unfortunate, that the Czar might be excused for desiring to escape from that alliance. Almost the only occasion on which the character of the British arms had been gloriously maintained, was the battle of Maida, in Calabria, fought July the 4th, 1806—when Sir John Stuart and 7000 English soldiers encountered a superior French force under General Regnier, and drove them from the field with great loss. This was one of those rare occasions on which French and English troops have actually crossed bayonets—the steadiness of the latter inspired the former with panic, and they fled in confusion. But this occurrence, except for its moral influence on the English soldiery, was of small importance. General Stuart had been sent to support the Calabrian peasantry in an insurrection against Joseph Buonaparte; the insurgents were on the whole unable to stand their ground against the regular army of the intrusive king; and the English, soon after their fruitless victory, altogether withdrew. The British had, indeed, taken possession of Curaçao, and of the Cape of Good Hope (this last an acquisition of the highest moment to the Indian empire); but on the whole the ill success of our measures had been answerable to the narrow and shallow system of policy in which they originated—the system of frittering away blood and gold upon detached objects, instead of rallying the whole resources of the empire around some one great leader for some one great purpose. The British expeditions of this period to the Turkish dominions and to Spanish America were especially distinguished for narrowness of design, imbecility of execution, and consequent misadventure.
On the assumption of the Imperial dignity by Napoleon, the Ottoman Porte, dazzled by the apparently irresistible splendour of his fate, sent an embassy to congratulate him; and in effect the ancient alliance between France and Turkey was re-established. Napoleon consequently had little difficulty in procuring from Constantinople a declaration of war against Russia, the great hereditary enemy of the Turk, at the time when he was about to encounter the armies of the Czar in Poland. The Dardanelles were shut against Russian vessels; and the English government, considering this as sufficient evidence that the Grand Seignior was attaching himself to the Antibritannic Confederacy, despatched a squadron of ships under Admiral Duckworth, in February, 1807, with orders to force the passage of the Dardanelles, present themselves before Constantinople, and demand from the Porte the custody pro tempore of all her ships of war. The Turks negotiated for a week upon this proposal, but in the meantime increased and manned their fortifications, under the direction of French engineers, with such skill, that the English admiral began to be seriously alarmed for his own safety; and at length, on the 1st of March, effected his retreat through the Straits with considerable loss—this disgrace being the only result of his expedition. On the 20th of the same month (of March, 1807) another English expedition under General Fraser, having sailed from Sicily to Egypt, took possession of Alexandria. But every subsequent step they took proved unfortunate: after severe loss the English were compelled to enter into a convention with the Turks, and wholly evacuate Egypt on the 20th of September.
In January, 1807, an English expedition landed near Montevideo, and carried that city by assault. Sir Home Popham, the admiral, was recalled, and tried by a court-martial, on the ground that he had undertaken this warfare without due authority; but he escaped with a reprimand, and new reinforcements were sent out, first under General Crawford, and secondly under General Whitelocke. The last-named officer invested Buenos Ayres, and commanded a general assault of that town on the 5th of July; on which occasion, notwithstanding the excellent behaviour of the soldiery, he was repulsed with a loss of 2000 killed, wounded, and prisoners; and reduced to such extremity, that he was soon afterwards glad to enter into a convention, and wholly withdraw the armament. The timid and incompetent Whitelocke was tried and cashiered. Some of these disasters were unknown at the time when Bennigsen demanded an armistice; but the general ill success of the British expeditions was notorious, and produced without doubt a very serious impression on the mind of Alexander.
The armistice was ratified on the 23rd of June, and on the 25th the Emperors of France and Russia met personally, each accompanied by a few attendants, on a raft moored on the river Niemen, near the town of Tilsit. The sovereigns embraced each other, and retiring under a canopy had a long conversation, to which no one was a witness. At its termination the appearances of mutual goodwill and confidence were marked: immediately afterwards the town of Tilsit was neutralised, and the two Emperors established their courts there, and lived together, in the midst of the lately hostile armies, more like old friends who had met on a party of pleasure, than enemies and rivals attempting by diplomatic means the arrangement of differences which had for years been deluging Europe with blood. Whatever flatteries could be suggested by the consummate genius and mature experience of Napoleon, were lavished, and produced their natural effects, on the mind of a young autocrat, of great ambition, and as great vanity. The intercourse of the Emperors assumed by degrees the appearance of a brotherlike intimacy. They spent their mornings in reviewing each other's troops, or in unattended rides; their evenings seemed to be devoted to the pleasures of the table, the spectacle, music, dancing and gallantry. Meanwhile the terms of a future alliance were in effect discussed, and settled much more rapidly than could have been expected from any of the usual apparatus of diplomatic negotiation.
The unfortunate King of Prussia was invited to appear at Tilsit; but, complying with this invitation, was admitted to no share of the intimacy of Napoleon. The conqueror studiously, and on every occasion, marked the difference between his sentiments respecting this prince and the young and powerful sovereign, for whose sake alone any shadow of royalty was to be conceded to the fallen house of Brandenburg. The beautiful and fascinating queen also arrived at Tilsit; but she was treated even more coldly and harshly than her husband. Involuntary tears rushed from her eyes as she submitted to the contemptuous civilities of Napoleon. His behaviour to this admirable person rekindled with new fervour the wrath and hatred of every Prussian bosom; and her death, following soon afterwards, and universally attributed to the cruel laceration which all her feelings as a woman and a queen had undergone, was treasured as a last injury, demanding, at whatever hazard, a terrible expiation.
The Treaty of Tilsit, to which, as the document itself bore testimony, the King of Prussia was admitted as a party solely by reason of Napoleon's "esteem for the Emperor of Russia," was ratified on the 7th July. Napoleon restored, by this act, to Frederick William, Ancient Prussia, and the French conquests in Upper Saxony—the King agreeing to adopt "the continental system," in other words, to be henceforth the vassal of the conqueror. The Polish provinces of Prussia were erected into a separate principality, styled "the Grand Duchy of Warsaw," and bestowed on the Elector of Saxony; with the exception, however, of some territories assigned to Russia, and of Dantzick, which was declared a free city, to be garrisoned by French troops until the ratification of a maritime peace. The Prussian dominions in Lower Saxony and on the Rhine, with Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and various other small states, formed a new kingdom of Westphalia, of which Jerome Buonaparte, Napoleon's youngest brother, was recognised as King; Jerome having at length made his peace with his brother by repudiating his wife, an American lady of the name of Patterson, and consenting to a new alliance, more consonant with the views of the Emperor, with a daughter of the King of Wirtemberg. The Elector of Saxony was recognised as another King of Napoleon's creation; Joseph Buonaparte as King of Naples; and Louis, of Holland. Finally, Russia accepted the mediation of France for a peace with Turkey, and France that of Russia for a peace with England.
Such were the public articles of the peace of Tilsit; but it contained secret articles besides; and of these the English government were, ere long, fortunate enough to ascertain the import.
The British cabinet had undergone a complete change in March, 1807—the management of affairs passing from the friends and heirs of Mr. Fox into the hands of Mr. Perceval and other statesmen of the school of Pitt. The unhappy conduct of the war had rendered the preceding government eminently unpopular; and the measures of the new one assumed from the beginning a character of greater energy. But the orders which had been given must be fulfilled; and the councils of 1806 bequeathed a fatal legacy in the disastrous expeditions of 1807. Lord Granville Leveson Gower[57] (the minister at St. Petersburg) was ere this time prepared to offer to the Czar such subsidies as he had in vain expected when preparing for the campaign of Poland; but it was too late to retrieve the error of the preceding cabinet; and the English ambassador, being unable to break off the negotiations at Tilsit, was compelled to bestow all his efforts on penetrating the secrets of the compact wherein they ended.
The result of his exertions was the complete assurance of the government of St. James's, that the Emperor of Russia had adopted the alliance of Napoleon to an extent far beyond what appeared on the face of the treaty of the 7th July; that he had agreed not only to lay English commerce, in case his mediation for a peace should fail, under the same ban with that of the decrees of Berlin, but to place himself at the head of a general confederation of the Northern Maritime Powers against the naval supremacy of England—in other words, resign his own fleets, with those of Denmark, to the service of Napoleon. In requital of this obligation the French Emperor unquestionably agreed to permit the Czar to conquer Finland from Sweden—thereby adding immeasurably to the security of St. Petersburg. On the other hand it is almost as impossible to doubt that Alexander pledged himself not to interfere with those ambitious designs as to the Spanish Peninsula, which Napoleon was ere long to develop, and which were destined ultimately to work his ruin.
In a word, there seems to be little doubt that Napoleon broached at Tilsit the dazzling scheme of dividing the European world virtually between the two great monarchs of France and Russia: and that the Czar, provided he were willing to look on, while his Imperial brother of the West subjected Spain, Portugal and England to his yoke, was induced to count on equal forbearance, whatever schemes he might venture on for his own aggrandisement, at the expense of the smaller states of the North of Europe, and, above all, of the Ottoman Porte.
Napoleon, having left strong garrisons in the maritime cities of Poland and Northern Germany, returned to Paris in August, and was received by the Senate and other public bodies with all the triumph and excess of adulation. The Swedish King abandoned Pomerania immediately on hearing of the treaty of Tilsit. In effect the authority of the Emperor appeared now to be consolidated over the whole continent of Europe. He had reached indeed the pinnacle of his power and pride;—henceforth he was to descend; urged downwards, step by step, by the reckless audacity of ambition and the gathering weight of guilt.
The English government, being satisfied that the naval force of Denmark was about to be employed for the purposes of Napoleon, determined to anticipate him, while it was yet time, and to send into the Baltic such a fleet as should at once convince the court of Copenhagen that resistance must be vain, and so bring about the surrender of the vessels of war (to be retained by England, not in property, but in pledge until the conclusion of a general peace), without any loss of life or compromise of honour. Twenty-seven sail of the line, carrying a considerable body of troops under the orders of Earl Cathcart, appeared before the capital of Denmark in the middle of August, and found the government wholly unprepared for defence. The high spirit of the Crown Prince, however, revolted against yielding to a demand which imperious necessity alone could have rendered justifiable on the part of England: nor, unfortunately, were these scruples overcome until the Danish troops had suffered severely in an action against the British, and the capital itself had been bombarded during three days, in which many public buildings, churches and libraries perished, and the private population sustained heavy loss both of life and property. The fleet being at length surrendered, the English withdrew with it in safety; and the rage of Napoleon—ill disguised in lofty philippics about the violations of the rights and privileges of independent nations—betrayed how completely he had calculated on the use of this marine, and how little he had anticipated a movement of such vigour from the cabinet of St. James's.
The Emperor of Russia is said to have signified, through a confidential channel, that, though for the present he found himself compelled to temporise, he approved and admired the procedure of the English government. If this be true, however, his public and open conduct bore a very different appearance. The British ambassador was dismissed from St. Petersburg, and a general coalition of Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Denmark, against the commerce of England being speedily afterwards formed, the decrees of Berlin—still further strengthened by other decrees, issued by Napoleon on the 7th December, 1806, at Milan—were in fact announced as part and parcel of the universal law of the continent. Alexander of Russia marched a large army into Finland, and took possession of that great Swedish province—the promised booty of Tilsit. His fleet in the Mediterranean gained a signal victory over the Turks, and terms of amity between the courts of St. Petersburg and Constantinople were at length arranged under the mediation or dictation of Napoleon. Everything seemed to point to a state of universal tranquillity or submission throughout the continent, and to a steady devotion of all the resources of the European monarchies to the service of the French Emperor and the destruction of his last and greatest enemy.
That enemy was ere long, in consequence of a new and unforeseen explosion of guilty ambition, to possess the means of rekindling the continental war, of distracting the alliances of Napoleon, and ultimately of ruining the power which, for the present, appeared irresistible. But a short interval of tranquillity ensued: and we may avail ourselves of the opportunity to recur for a moment to the internal administration of French affairs under the Imperial Government, as now finally organised.
Buonaparte, shortly after the peace of Tilsit, abolished the Tribunate; and there remained, as the last shadows of assemblies having any political influence, the Legislative Senate and the Council of State. The former of these bodies was early reduced to a mere instrument for recording the imperial decrees; the latter consisted of such persons as Napoleon chose to invest for the time with the privilege of being summoned to the palace, when it pleased him to hear the opinions of others as to measures originating in his own mind, or suggested to him by his ministers. He appears to have, on many occasions, permitted these counsellors to speak their sentiments frankly and fully, although differing from himself; but there were looks and gestures which sufficiently indicated the limits of this toleration, and which persons, owing their lucrative appointment to his mere pleasure, and liable to lose it at his nod, were not likely to transgress. They spoke openly and honestly only on topics in which their master's feelings were not much concerned.
His favourite saying during the continuance of his power was, "I am the State;" and in the exile of St. Helena he constantly talked of himself as having been, from necessity, the Dictator of France. In effect no despotism within many degrees so complete and rigid was every before established in a civilised and Christian country. The whole territory was divided into prefectures—each prefect being appointed by Napoleon—carefully selected for a province with which he had no domestic relations—largely paid—and entrusted with such a complete delegation of power that, in Napoleon's own language, each was in his department an Empereur à petit pied. Each of these officers had under his entire control inferior local magistrates, holding power from him as he did from the Emperor: each had his instructions direct from Paris; each was bound by every motive of interest to serve, to the utmost of his ability, the government from which all things were derived, to be hoped for, and to be dreaded. Wherever the Emperor was, in the midst of his hottest campaigns, he examined the details of administration at home more closely than, perhaps, any other sovereign of half so great an empire did during the profoundest peace. It was said of him that his dearest amusement, when he had nothing else to do, was to solve problems in algebra or geometry. He carried this passion into every department of affairs; and having, with his own eye, detected some errors of importance in the public accounts, shortly after his administration began, there prevailed thenceforth in all the financial records of the state such clearness and accuracy as are not often exemplified in those of a large private fortune. Nothing was below his attention, and he found time for everything. The humblest functionary discharged his duty under a lively sense of the Emperor's personal superintendence; and the omnipresence of his police came in lieu, wherever politics were not touched upon, of the guarding powers of a free press, a free senate, and public opinion. Except in political cases the trial by jury was the right of every citizen. The Code Napoleon, that elaborate system of jurisprudence, in the formation of which the Emperor laboured personally along with the most eminent lawyers and enlightened men of the time, was a boon of inestimable value to France. "I shall go down to posterity" (said he, with just pride) "with the Code in my hand." It was the first uniform system of laws which the French Monarchy had ever possessed: and being drawn up with consummate skill and wisdom, it at this day forms the code not only of France, but of a great portion of Europe besides. Justice, as between man and man, was administered on sound and fixed principles, and by unimpeached tribunals. The arbitrary Commission Courts of Napoleon interfered with nothing but offences, real or alleged, against his authority.
The Clergy were, as we have seen, appointed universally under the direction of Government: they were also its direct stipendiaries; hence nothing could be more complete than their subjection to its pleasure. Education became a part of the regular business of the state; all the schools and colleges being placed under the immediate care of one of Napoleon's ministers—all prizes and bursaries bestowed by the government—and the whole system so arranged, that it was hardly possible for any youth who exhibited remarkable talents to avoid the temptations to a military career, which on every side surrounded him. The chief distinctions and emoluments were everywhere reserved for those who excelled in accomplishments likely to be serviceable in war: and the Lyceums, or schools set expressly apart for military students, were invested with numberless attractions, scarcely to be resisted by a young imagination. The army, as it was the sole basis of Napoleon's power, was also at all times the primary object of his thoughts. Every institution of the state was subservient and administered to it, and none more efficaciously than the imperial system of education.
The ranks of the army, however, were filled during the whole reign of Napoleon by compulsion. The conscription law of 1798 acquired under him the character of a settled and regular part of the national system; and its oppressive influence was such as never before exhausted, through a long term of years, the best energies of a great and civilised people. Every male in France, under the age of twenty-five, was liable to be called on to serve in the ranks; and the regulations as to the procuring of substitutes were so narrow, that young men of the best families were continually forced to comply, in their own persons, with the stern requisition. The first conscription list for the year included all under the age of twenty-one; and the result of the ballot within this class amounted to nearly 80,000 names. These were first called on: but if the service of the Emperor demanded further supply, the lists of those aged twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, and twenty-five, were successively resorted to. There was no exemption for any one who seemed able to bear arms. The only child of his parents, the young husband and father, were forced, like any others, to abandon fireside, profession, all the ties and all the hopes of life, on a moment's notice: and there is nothing in the history of modern Europe so remarkable, as that the French people should have submitted, during sixteen years, to the constant operation of a despotic law, which thus sapped all the foundations of social happiness, and condemned the rising hopes of the nation to bleed and die by millions in distant wars, undertaken solely for the gratification of one man's insatiable ambition. On the other hand, it is not to be denied that the great majority of the conscripts, with whatever reluctance they might enter the ranks, were soon reconciled to their fate. The avenues to promotion, distinction, wealth, honour, nobility, even royal dignity, were all open before the devoted and successful soldiers of Napoleon; and the presence of so many youths of good condition and education, among the ranks of the private soldiery, could not fail, first, to render the situation immeasurably less irksome than it otherwise could have been to each individual of the class, and secondly, to elevate the standard of manners and acquirements among the soldiery generally. There never was an army in whose ranks intelligence so largely abounded, nor in which so many officers of the highest rank had originally carried a musket.
The taxation rendered necessary by the constant wars of Napoleon was great; and the utter destruction of the foreign commerce and marine of France, which the naval supremacy of England effected, made the burden the more intolerable for various important classes of the community. On the other hand the taxes were levied fairly on the whole population, which presented a blessed contrast to the system of the old régime; and the vast extension and improvement of agriculture consequent on the division of the great estates at the Revolution, enabled the nation, at large to meet the calls of the government with much less difficulty than could have been anticipated at any former period of French history. Napoleon's great public works, too, though undertaken chiefly for the purpose of gratifying his own vanity and that of the nation, could not be executed without furnishing subsistence to vast bodies of the labouring poor, and were thus serviceable to more important ends. From his vain attempts to supply the want of English manufactured goods and colonial produce, by new establishments and inventions (such especially as that of manufacturing a substitute for sugar out of beetroot), partial good, in like manner, resulted.
The evils of the conscription, of a heavy taxation, of an inquisitorial police, and of a totally enslaved press—these, and all other evils attendant on this elaborate system of military despotism, were endured for so many years chiefly in consequence of the skill with which Napoleon, according to his own favourite language, knew "to play on the imagination," and gratify the vanity of the French people. In the splendour of his victories, in the magnificence of his roads, bridges, aqueducts, and other monuments, in the general pre-eminence to which the nation seemed to be raised through the genius of its chief, compensation was found for all financial burdens, consolations for domestic calamities, and an equivalent for that liberty in whose name the Tyrant had achieved his first glories. But it must not be omitted that Napoleon, in every department of his government, made it his first rule to employ the men best fitted, in his mind, to do honour to his service by their talents and diligence; and that he thus attached to himself, throughout the whole of his empire as well as in his army, the hopes and the influence of those whose personal voices were most likely to control the opinions of society.
He gratified the French nation by adorning the capital, and by displaying in the Tuileries a court as elaborately magnificent as that of Louis XIV. himself. The old nobility, returning from their exile, mingled in those proud halls with the heroes of the revolutionary campaigns; and over all the ceremonial of these stately festivities Josephine presided with the grace and elegance of one born to be a queen. In the midst of the pomp and splendour of a court, in whose antechambers kings jostled each other, Napoleon himself preserved the soldier-like simplicity of his original dress and manners. The great Emperor continued throughout to labour more diligently than any subaltern in office. He devoted himself wholly to the ambition to which he compelled all others to contribute.
Napoleon, as Emperor, had little time for social pleasures. His personal friends were few; his days were given to labour, and his nights to study. If he was not with his army in the field, he traversed the provinces, examining with his own eyes into the minutest details of local arrangement; and even from the centre of his camp he was continually issuing edicts which showed the accuracy of his observation during these journeys, and his anxiety to promote by any means, consistent with his great purpose, the welfare of some French district, town, or even village.
The manners of the Court were at least decent. Napoleon occasionally indulged himself in amours unworthy of his character and tormenting to his wife; but he never suffered any other female to possess influence over his mind, nor insulted public opinion by any approach to that system of unveiled debauchery which had, during whole ages, disgraced the Bourbon Court, and undermined their throne.
After the ratification of the treaty of Tilsit, Napoleon, returning as we have seen to Paris, devoted all his energies to the perfect establishment of "the continental system." Something has already been said as to the difficulties which this attempt involved: in truth it was a contest between the despotic will of Buonaparte, and the interests and habits, not only of every sovereign in his alliance, but of every private individual on the continent; and it was therefore actually impossible that the imperial policy should not be baffled. The Russian government was never, probably, friendly to a system which, from the nature of the national produce and resources, must, if persisted in for any considerable time, have inflicted irreparable injury on the finances of the landholders, reduced the public establishments, and sunk the effective power of the state. In that quarter, therefore, Napoleon soon found that, notwithstanding all the professions of personal devotion which the young Czar continued, perhaps sincerely, to make, his favourite scheme was systematically violated: but the distance and strength of Russia prevented him from, for the present, pushing his complaints to extremity. The Spanish peninsula lay nearer him, and the vast extent to which the prohibited manufactures and colonial produce of England found their way into every district of that country, and especially of Portugal, and thence through the hands of whole legions of audacious smugglers, into France itself, ere long fixed his attention and resentment. In truth, a proclamation, issued at Madrid shortly before the battle of Jena, and suddenly recalled on the intelligence of that great victory, had prepared the Emperor to regard with keen suspicion the conduct of the Spanish Court, and to trace every violation of his system to its deliberate and hostile connivance.
The court presented in itself the lively image of a divided and degraded nation. The King, old and almost incredibly imbecile, was ruled absolutely by his Queen, a woman audaciously unprincipled, whose strong and wicked passions again were entirely under the influence of Manuel Godoy, "Prince of the Peace," raised, by her guilty love, from the station of a private guardsman, to precedence above all the grandees of Spain, a matrimonial connection with the royal house, and the supreme conduct of affairs. She, her paramour, and the degraded King, were held in contempt and hatred by a powerful party, at the head of whom were the Canon Escoiquiz, the Duke del Infantado, and Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias, heir of the throne. The scenes of dissension which filled the palace and court were scandalous beyond all contemporary example: and, the strength of the two parties vibrating in the scale, according as corrupt calculators looked to the extent of Godoy's present power, or to the probability of Ferdinand's accession, the eyes of both were turned to the hazardous facility of striking a balance by calling in support from the Tuileries. Napoleon, on his part, regarding the rival factions with equal scorn, flattered himself that, in their common fears and baseness, he should find the means of ultimately reducing the whole Peninsula to complete submission under his own yoke.
The secret history of the intrigues of 1807, between the French Court and the rival parties in Spain, has not yet been clearly exposed; nor is it likely to be so while most of the chief agents survive. According to Napoleon the first proposal for conquering Portugal by the united arms of France and Spain, and dividing that monarchy into three separate prizes, of which one should fall to the disposition of France, a second to the Spanish King, and a third reward the personal exertions of Godoy, came not from him, but from the Spanish minister. It was unlikely that Napoleon should have given any other account of the matter. The suggestion has been attributed, by every Spanish authority, to the Emperor; and it is difficult to doubt that such was the fact. The treaty, in which the unprincipled design took complete form, was ratified at Fontainebleau on the 29th October, 1807, and accompanied by a convention, which provided for the immediate invasion of Portugal by a force of 28,000 French soldiers, under the orders of Junot, and of 27,000 Spaniards; while a reserve of 40,000 French troops were to be assembled at Bayonne, ready to take the field by the end of November, in case England should land an army for the defence of Portugal, or the people of that devoted country presume to meet Junot by a national insurrection.
Junot forthwith commenced his march through Spain, where the French soldiery were received everywhere with coldness and suspicion, but nowhere by any hostile movement of the people. He would have halted at Salamanca to organise his army, which consisted mostly of young conscripts, but Napoleon's policy outmarched his General's schemes, and the troops were, in consequence of a peremptory order from Paris, poured into Portugal in the latter part of November. Godoy's contingent of Spaniards appeared there also, and placed themselves under Junot's command. Their numbers overawed the population, and they advanced, unopposed, towards the capital—Junot's most eager desire being to secure the persons of the Prince Regent and the royal family. The feeble government, meantime, having made, one by one, every degrading submission which France dictated, having expelled the British factory and the British minister, confiscated all English property, and shut the ports against all English vessels, became convinced at length that no measures of subserviency could avert the doom which Napoleon had fulminated. A Moniteur, proclaiming that "the House of Braganza had ceased to reign," reached Lisbon. The Prince Regent re-opened his communication with the English admiral off the Tagus (Sir Sydney Smith) and the lately expelled ambassador (Lord Strangford), and being assured of their protection, embarked on the 27th of November, and sailed for the Brazils on the 29th, only a few hours before Junot made his appearance at the gates of Lisbon. The disgust with which the Portuguese people regarded his flight, the cowardly termination, as they might not unnaturally regard it, of a long course of meanness, was eminently useful to the invader. With the exception of one trivial insurrection, when the insolent conqueror took down the Portuguese arms and set up those of Napoleon in their place, several months passed in apparent tranquillity; and these were skilfully employed by the General in perfecting the discipline of his conscripts, improving the fortifications of the coast, and making such a disposal of his force as might best guard the country from any military demonstration on the part of England.
Napoleon thus saw Portugal in his grasp: but that he had all along considered as a point of minor importance, and he had accordingly availed himself of the utmost concessions of the treaty of Fontainebleau, without waiting for any insurrection of the Portuguese, or English debarkation on their territory. His army of reserve, in number far exceeding the 40,000 men named in the treaty, had already passed the Pyrenees, in two bodies, under Dupont and Moncey, and were advancing slowly, but steadily, into the heart of Spain. Nay, without even the pretext of being mentioned in the treaty, another French army of 12,000, under Duhesme, had penetrated through the eastern Pyrenees, and being received as friends among the unsuspecting garrisons, obtained possession of Barcelona, Pampeluna, and St. Sebastian, and the other fortified places in the north of Spain, by a succession of treacherous artifices, to which the history of civilised nations presents no parallel. The armies then pushed forwards, and the chief roads leading from the French frontiers to Madrid were entirely in their possession.
It seems impossible that such daring movements should not have awakened the darkest suspicions at Madrid; yet the royal family, overlooking the common danger about to overwhelm them and their country, continued, during three eventful months, to waste what energies they possessed in petty conspiracies, domestic broils, and, incredible as the tale will hereafter appear, in the meanest diplomatic intrigues with the court of France. The Prince of Asturias solicited the honour of a wife from the House of Napoleon. The old King, or rather Godoy, invoked anew the assistance of the Emperor against the treasonable, nay (for to such extremities went their mutual accusations), the parricidal plots of the heir-apparent. Buonaparte listened to both parties, vouchsafed no direct answer to either, and continued to direct the onward movement of those stern arbiters, who were ere long to decide the question. A sudden panic at length seized the King or his minister, and the court, then at Aranjuez, prepared to retire to Seville, and, sailing from thence to America, seek safety, after the example of the House of Braganza, in the work of whose European ruin they had so lately been accomplices. The servants of the Prince of Asturias, on perceiving the preparations for this flight, commenced a tumult, in which the populace of Aranjuez readily joined, and which was only pacified (for the moment) by a royal declaration that no flight was contemplated. On the 18th of March, 1808, the day following, a scene of like violence took place in the capital itself. The house of Godoy in Madrid was sacked. The favourite himself was assaulted at Aranjuez, on the 19th; with great difficulty saved his life by the intervention of the royal guards; and was placed under arrest. Terrified by what he saw at Aranjuez, and heard from Madrid, Charles IV. abdicated the throne; and on the 20th, Ferdinand, his son, was proclaimed King of Madrid, amidst a tumult of popular applause. Murat, Grand Duke of Berg, had before this assumed the chief command of all the French troops in Spain; and hearing of the extremities to which the court factions had gone, he now moved rapidly on Madrid, surrounded that capital with 30,000 men, and took possession of it in person, at the head of 10,000 more, on the 23rd of March. Charles IV. meantime despatched messengers both to Napoleon and Murat, asserting that his abdication had been involuntary, and invoking their assistance against his son. Ferdinand, entering Madrid on the 24th, found the French general in possession of the capital, and in vain claimed his recognition as king. Murat accepted the sword of Francis I., which, amidst other adulations, Ferdinand offered to him; but pertinaciously declined taking any part in the decision of the great question, which demanded, as he said, the fiat of Napoleon.
The Emperor heard with much regret of the precipitancy with which his lieutenant had occupied Madrid—for his clear mind had foreseen ere now the imminent hazard of trampling too rudely on the jealous pride of the Spaniards; and the events of the 17th, 18th, and 19th March were well qualified to confirm his impression, that although all sense of dignity and decorum might be extinguished in the court, the ancient elements of national honour still remained, ready to be called into action, among the body of the people. He, therefore, sent Savary, in whose practised cunning and duplicity he hoped to find a remedy for the military rashness of Murat, to assume the chief direction of affairs at Madrid; and the rumour was actively spread, that the Emperor was about to appear there in person without delay.
Madrid occupied and begirt by forty thousand armed strangers, his title unrecognised by Murat, his weak understanding and tumultuous passions worked upon incessantly by the malicious craft of Savary, Ferdinand was at length persuaded, that his best chance of securing the aid and protection of Napoleon lay in advancing to meet him on his way to the capital, and striving to gain his ear before the emissaries of Godoy should be able to fill it with their reclamations. Savary eagerly offered to accompany him on this fatal journey, which began on the 10th of April. The infatuated Ferdinand had been taught to believe that he should find Buonaparte at Burgos; not meeting him there, he was tempted to pursue his journey as far as Vittoria: and from thence, in spite of the populace, who, more sagacious than their prince, cut the traces of his carriage, he was, by a repetition of the same treacherous arguments, induced to proceed stage by stage, and at length to pass the frontier and present himself at Bayonne, where the arbiter of his fate lay anxiously expecting this consummation of his almost incredible folly. He arrived there on the 20th of April—was received by Napoleon with courtesy, entertained at dinner at the imperial table, and the same evening informed by Savary that his doom was sealed—that the Bourbon dynasty had ceased to reign in Spain, and that his personal safety must depend on the readiness with which he should resign all his pretensions into the hands of Buonaparte.
He, meanwhile, as soon as he was aware that Ferdinand had actually set out from Madrid, had ordered Murat to find the means of causing the old King, the Queen, and Godoy to repair also to Bayonne; nor does it appear that his lieutenant had any difficulty in persuading these personages that such was the course of conduct most in accordance with their interests. They reached Bayonne on the 4th of May, and Napoleon, confronting the parents and the son on the 5th, witnessed a scene in which the profligate rancour of their domestic feuds reached extremities hardly to have been contemplated by the wildest imagination. The flagitious Queen did not, it is said and believed, hesitate to signify to her son that the King was not his father—and this in the presence of that King and of Napoleon. Could crime justify crime—could the fiendish lusts and hatreds of a degenerate race offer any excuse for the deliberate guilt of a masculine genius, the conduct of this abject court might have apologised for the policy which it perhaps tempted the pampered ambition of Napoleon to commence, and which it now encouraged him to consummate by an act of suicidal violence.
Charles IV. resigned the Crown of Spain for himself and his heirs, accepting in return from the hands of Napoleon a safe retreat in Italy and a large pension. Godoy, who had entered into the fatal negotiation of Fontainebleau, with the hope and the promise of an independent sovereignty carved out of the Portuguese dominions, was pensioned off in like manner, and ordered to partake the Italian exile of his patrons. A few days afterwards, Ferdinand VII., being desired to choose at length between compliance and death, followed the example of his father, and executed a similar act of resignation. Napoleon congratulated himself on having added Spain and the Indies to his empire, without any cost either of blood or of treasure; and the French people, dazzled by the apparent splendour of the acquisition, overlooked, if there be any faith in public addresses and festivals, the enormous guilt by which it had been achieved. But ere the ink with which the Spanish Bourbons signed away their birthright was dry, there came tidings to Bayonne which might well disturb the proud day-dreams of the spoliator, and the confidence of his worshippers.
Not that Napoleon had failed to measure from the beginning the mighty dangers which surrounded his audacious design. He had been warned of them in the strongest manner by Talleyrand, and even by Fouché; nay, he had himself written to rebuke the headlong haste of Murat in occupying the Spanish capital—to urge on him the necessity of conciliating the people, by preserving the show of respect for their national authorities and institutions—to represent the imminent hazard of permitting the Duke del Infantado to strengthen and extend his party in Madrid—and concluding with those ominous words: Remember, if war breaks out, all is lost.
Ferdinand, before he left Madrid, invested a council of regency with the sovereign power, his uncle, Don Antonio, being president, and Murat one of the members. Murat's assumption of the authority thus conferred, the departure of Ferdinand, the liberation and departure of the detested Godoy, the flight of the old King—these occurrences produced their natural effects on the popular mind. A dark suspicion that France meditated the destruction of the national independence, began to spread; and, on the 2nd of May, when it transpired that preparations were making for the journey of Don Antonio also, the general rage at last burst out. A crowd collected round the carriage meant, as they concluded, to convey the last of the royal family out of Spain; the traces were cut; the imprecations against the French were furious. Colonel La Grange, Murat's aide-de-camp, happening to appear on the spot, was cruelly maltreated. In a moment the whole capital was in an uproar: the French soldiery were assaulted everywhere—about 700 were slain. The mob attacked the hospital—the sick and their attendants rushed out and defended it. The French cavalry, hearing the tumult, entered the city by the gate of Alcala—a column of 3000 infantry from the other side by the street Ancha de Bernardo. Some Spanish officers headed the mob, and fired on the soldiery in the streets of Maravelles: a bloody massacre ensued: many hundreds were made prisoners: the troops, sweeping the streets from end to end, released their comrades; and, to all appearance, tranquillity was restored ere nightfall. During the darkness, however, the peasantry flocked in armed from the neighbouring country: and, being met at the gates by the irritated soldiery, not a few more were killed, wounded, and made prisoners. Murat ordered all the prisoners to be tried by a military commission, which doomed them to instant death. It is disputed whether the more deliberate guilt of carrying the sentence into execution lies with the commander-in-chief himself, or with Grouchy; it is certain that a considerable number of Spaniards—the English authority most friendly to the French cause admits ninety-five[58]—were butchered in cold blood on the 3rd of May.