The weakness displayed by the empire and the increasing disunion between Austria and Prussia encouraged the French to further insolence. Not satisfied with garrisoning every fortification on the left bank of the Rhine, they boldly attacked, starved to submission, and razed to the ground, during peace time, the once impregnable fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, on the right bank of the Rhine, opposite Coblentz.[11] Not content with laying the Netherlands and Holland completely waste, they compelled the Hanse towns to grant them a loan of eighteen million livres. Lubeck refused, but Hamburg and Bremen, more nearly threatened and hopeless of aid from Prussia, were constrained to satisfy the demands of the French brigands. In the Netherlands, the German faction once more rose in open insurrection; in 1798, the young men, infuriated by the conscription and by their enrolment into French regiments, flew to arms, and torrents of blood were shed in the struggle, in which they were unaided by their German brethren, before they were again reduced to submission. The English also landed at Ostend, but for the sole purpose of destroying the sluices of the canal at Bruges.
The French divided the beautiful Rhenish provinces, yielded to them almost without a blow by Germany, into four departments: First, Roer, capital Aix-la-Chapelle; besides Cologne and Cleves. Secondly, Donnersberg, capital Mayence; besides Spires and Zweibrucken. Thirdly, Saar, capital Treves. Fourthly, Rhine and Moselle, capital Coblentz; besides Bonn. Each department was subdivided into cantons, each canton into communes. The department was governed by a perfect, the canton by a sub-prefect, the commune by a mayor. All distinction of rank, nobility, and all feudal rights were abolished. Each individual was a citizen, free and equal. All ecclesiastical establishments were abandoned to plunder, the churches alone excepted, they being still granted as places of worship to believers, notwithstanding the contempt and ridicule into which the clergy had fallen. The monasteries were closed. The peasantry, more particularly in Treves, nevertheless, still manifested great attachment to Popery. Guilds and corporations were also abolished. The introduction of the ancient German oral law formerly in use throughout the empire, the institution of trial by jury, which, to the disgrace of Germany, the Rhenish princes, after the lapse of a thousand years, learned from their Gallic foe, was a great and signal benefit.
Liberty, equality, and justice were, at that period, in all other respects, mere fictions. The most arbitrary rule in reality existed, and the new provinces were systematically drained by taxes of every description, as, for instance, register, stamp, patent, window, door, and land taxes: there was also a tax upon furniture and upon luxuries of every sort; a poll-tax, a percentage on the whole assessment, etc.; besides extortion, confiscation, and forced sales. And woe to the new citizen of the great French republic if he failed in paying more servile homage to its officers, from the prefect down to the lowest underling, than had ever been exacted by the princes![12] Such was the liberty bestowed by republican France! Thus were her promises fulfilled! The German Illuminati were fearfully undeceived, particularly on perceiving how completely their hopes of universally revolutionizing Germany were frustrated by the treaty of Basel. The French, who had proclaimed liberty to all the nations of the earth, now offered it for sale. The French character was in every respect the same as during the reign of Louis XIV. The only principle to which they remained ever faithful was that of robbery.—Switzerland was now, in her turn, attacked, and vengeance thus overtook every province that had severed itself from the empire, and every part of the once magnificent empire of Germany was miserably punished for its want of unity.
[Footnote 1: Clausewitz demands, with great justice, why the Austrians so greatly divided their forces on this occasion for the sake of saving Italy, as they had only to follow up their successes vigorously on the Rhine in order to gain, in that quarter, far more than they could lose on the Po.]
[Footnote 2: At Absom, in the valley of the Inn, a peasant girl had, at that time, discovered a figure of the Virgin in one of the panes of glass in her chamber window. This appearance being deemed miraculous by the simple peasantry, the authorities of the place investigated the matter, had the glass cleaned and scraped, etc., and at length pronounced the indelible figure to be simply the outline of an old colored painting. The peasantry, however, excited by the appearance of the infidel French, persisted in giving credence to the miracle and set up the piece of glass in a church, which was afterward annually visited by thousands of pilgrims. In 1407, the celebrated pilgrimage to Waldrast, in the Tyrol, had been founded in a similar manner by the discovery of a portrait of the Virgin which had been grown up in a tree, by two shepherd lads.]
[Footnote 3: Cobenzl was a favorite of Kaunitz and a thorough courtier. At an earlier period, when ambassador at Petersburg, he wrote French comedies, which were performed at the Hermitage in the presence of the empress Catherine. The arrival of an unpleasant despatch being ever followed by the production of some amusing piece as an antidote to care, the empress jestingly observed, "that he was no doubt keeping his best piece until the news arrived of the French being in Vienna." He expired in the February of 1809, a year pregnant with fate for Austria.]
[Footnote 4: He indignantly refused the stipend offered to him on this occasion and protested against the injustice of his condemnation.]
[Footnote 5: Bavaria regarded these forced concessions as a bad reward for her fidelity to Austria. Napoleon appears to have calculated upon relighting by this means the flames of discord, whence he well knew how to draw an advantage, between Bavaria and Austria.]
[Footnote 6: "Thus the emperor also now abandoned the empire by merely bargaining with the enemy to quit his territories, and leaving the wretched provinces of the empire a prey to war and pillage. And if the assurances of friendship, of confidence, and of affection between Austria and Venice are but recalled to mind, the contrast was indeed laughable when the emperor was pleased to allow that loyal city to be ceded to him. The best friend was in this case the cloth from which the emperor cut himself an equivalent."—Huergelmer.]
[Footnote 7: A curious private memoir of Talleyrand says: "J'ai la certitude que Berlin est le lieu, où le traité du 26 Vendémiaire (the reconciliation of Austria with France at Campo Formio), aura jetté le plus d'etonnement, d'embarras et de orainte." He then explains that, now that the Netherlands no longer belong to Austria, and that Austria and France no longer come into collision, both powers would be transformed from natural foes into natural friends and would have an equal interest in weakening Prussia. Should Russia stir, the Poles could be roused to insurrection, etc.]
[Footnote 8: "Exactly at this period, when the empire's common foe was plundering the Franconian circle, when deeds of blood and horror, when misery and want had reached a fearful height, the troops of the Elector of Brandenburg overran the cities and villages. The inhabitants were constrained to take the oath of fealty, the public officers, who refused, were dragged away captive, etc. Ellingen, Stopfenheim, Absperg, Eschenbach, Nüremberg, Postbaur, Virnsperg, Oettingen, Dinkelspühl, Ritzenhausen, Gelchsheim, were scenes of brutal outrage."—The History of the Usurpation of Brandenburg, A.D. 1797, with the original Documents, published by the Teutonic Order.]
[Footnote 9: His secret memoirs, even at that period, designate Baden,Würtemberg, and Darmstadt as states securely within the grasp ofFrance.]
[Footnote 10: He fled on Moreau's invasion to England, where he formed this alliance. There was at one time a project of creating him elector of Hanover and of partitioning Würtemberg between Bavaria and Baden.]
[Footnote 11: The commandant, Faber, defended the place for fourteen months with a garrison of 2,000 men. During the siege, the badly-disciplined French soldiery secretly sold provisions at an exorbitant price to the starving garrison.]
[Footnote 12: Klebe gave an extremely detailed account of the French government: "It is, for instance, well known that a pastry cook was nominated lord high warden of the forest! over a whole department, and a jeweller was raised to the same office in another.—The documents proving the cheating and underselling carried on by Pioc, the lord high warden of the forests, and by his assistant, Gauthier, in all the forests in the department of the Rhine and Moselle, are detailed at full length in 'Rübezahl,' a sort of monthly magazine. It is astonishing to see with what boundless impudence these people have robbed the country.—Still greater rascalities were carried on on the right bank of the Rhine. Gauthier robbed from Coblentz down to the Prussian frontiers." These allegations are confirmed by Görres in a pamphlet, "Results of my Mission to Paris," in which he says, "The Directory had treated the four departments like so many Paschalics, which it abandoned to its Janissaries and colonized with its favorites. Every petition sent by the inhabitants was thrown aside with revolting contempt; everything was done that could most deeply wound their feelings in regard to themselves or to their country." "The secret history of the government of the country between the Rhine and the Moselle," sums up as follows: "All cheated, all thieved, all robbed. The cheating, thieving, and robbing were perfectly terrible, and not one of the cheats, thieves, or robbers seemed to have an idea that this country formed, by the decree of union, a part of France." A naïve confession! The French, at all events, acted as if conscious that the land was not theirs. The Rhenish Jews, who, as early as the times of Louis XIV., had aided the French in plundering Germany, again acted as their bloodhounds, and, by accepting bills in exchange for their real or supposed loans, at double the amount, on wealthy proprietors, speedily placed themselves in possession of the finest estates. Vide Reichardt's Letters from Paris.]
CCLI. The Pillage of Switzerland
Peace had reigned throughout Switzerland since the battle of Villmergen, A.D. 1712, which had given to Zurich and Berne the ascendency in the confederation. The popular discontent caused by the increasing despotism of the aristocracy had merely displayed itself in petty conspiracies, as, for instance, that of Henzi, in 1749, and in partial insurrections. In all the cantons, even in those in which the democratic spirit was most prevalent, the chief authority had been seized by the wealthier and more ancient families. All the offices were in their hands, the higher posts in the Swiss regiments raised for the service of France were monopolized by the younger sons of the more powerful families, who introduced the social vices of France into their own country, where they formed a strange medley in conjunction with the pedantry of the ancient oligarchical form of government. In the great canton of Berne, the council of two hundred, which had unlimited sway, was solely composed of seventy-six reigning families. In Zurich, the one thousand nine hundred townsmen had unlimited power over the country. For one hundred and fifty years no citizen had been enrolled among them, and no son of a peasant had been allowed to study for, or been nominated to, any office, even to that of preacher. In Solothurn, but one-half of the eight hundred townsmen were able to carry on the government. Lucerne was governed by a council of one hundred, so completely monopolized by the more powerful families that boys of twenty succeeded their fathers as councillors. Basel was governed by a council of two hundred and eighty, which was entirely formed out of seventy wealthy mercantile families. Seventy-one families had usurped the authority at Freiburg: similar oligarchical government prevailed at St. Gall and Schaffhausen. TheJunker, in the latter place, rendered themselves especially ridiculous by the innumerable offices and chambers in which they transacted their useless and prolix affairs. In all these aristocratic cantons, the peasantry were cruelly harassed, oppressed, and, in some parts, kept in servitude, by the provincial governors. The wealthy provincial governments were monopolized by the great aristocratic families.[1] Even in the pure democracies, the provincial communes were governed by powerful peasant families, as, for instance, in Glarus, and the tyranny exercised by these peasants over the territory beneath their sway far exceeded that of the aristocratic burgesses in their provincial governments. The Italian valleys groaned beneath the yoke of the original cantons, particularly under that of Uri,[2] the seven provincial governments in Unterwallis under that of Oberwallis, the countship of Werdenberg under that of the Glarner, the Valtelline under that of the Grisons.[3] The princely abbot of St. Gall was unlimited sovereign over his territory. Separate monasteries, for instance, Engelberg, had feudal sway over their vassals.
Enlightenment and liberal opinions spread also gradually over Switzerland, and twenty years after Henzi's melancholy death, a disposition was again shown to oppose the tyranny of the oligarchies. In 1792, Lavater and Fuszli were banished Zurich for venturing to complain of the arbitrary conduct of one of the provincial governors;[4] in 1779, a curate named Waser, a man of talent and a foe to the aristocracy, was beheaded on a false charge of falsifying the archives;[5] in 1794, the oppressed peasantry of Lucerne revolted against the aristocracy; in the same year, the peasantry in Schwyz, roused by the insolence of the French recruiting officers, revolted, and, in the public provincial assembly, enforced the recall of all the people of Schwyz in the French service, besides imposing a heavy fine upon General Reding on his return. In 1781, a revolt of the Freiburg peasantry, occasioned by the tyranny of the aristocracy, was quelled with the aid of Berne; in 1784, Suter, the noble-spiritedLandammannof Appenzell, fell a sacrifice to envy. His mental and moral superiority to the rest of his countrymen inspired his rival, Geiger, with the most deadly hatred, and he persecuted him with the utmost rancor. He was accused of being a freethinker; documents and protocols were falsified; the stupid populace was excited against him, and, after having been exposed on the pillory, publicly whipped, and tortured on the rack, he was beheaded, and all intercession on his behalf was prohibited under pain of death. Solothurn, on the other hand, was freed from feudal servitude in 1785. The popular feeling at that time prevalent throughout Switzerland was, however, of far greater import than these petty events. The oligarchies had everywhere suppressed public opinion; the long peace had slackened the martial ardor of the people; the ridiculous affectation of ancient heroic language brought into vogue by John Muller rendered the contrast yet more striking, and, on the outburst of the French Revolution, the tyrannized Swiss peasantry naturally threw themselves into the arms of the French, the aristocracy into those of the Austrians.
The oppressed peasantry revolted as early as 1790 against the ruling cities, the vassal against the aristocrat, in Schaffhausen, on account of the tithes; in Lower Valais, on account of the tyranny of one of the provincial governors. These petty outbreaks and an attempt made by Laharpe to render the Vaud independent of Berne[6] were suppressed, A.D. 1791. The people remained, nevertheless, in a high state of fermentation. The new French republic at first quarrelled with the ancient confederation for having, unmindful of their origin, descended to servility. The Swiss guard had, on the 16th of August, 1792, courageously defended the palace of the unfortunate French king and been cut to pieces by the Parisian mob. At a later period, the Austrians had seized the ambassadors of the French republic, Semonville and Maret, in the Valtelline, in the territory of the Grisons. The Swiss patriots, as they were called, however, gradually fomented an insurrection against the aristocrats and called the French to their aid. In 1793, the vassals of the bishop of Basel at Pruntrut had already planted trees of liberty and placed the bishopric, under the name of a Rauracian republic, under the protection of France, chiefly at the instigation of Gobel, who was, in reward, appointed bishop of Paris, and whose nephew, Rengger, shortly afterward became a member of the revolutionary government in Berne. In Geneva, during the preceding year, the French faction had gained the upper hand. The fickleness of the war kept the rest of the patriots in a state of suspense, but, on the seizure of the left bank of the Rhine by the French, the movements in Switzerland assumed a more serious character. The abbot, Beda, of St. Gall, 1795, pacified his subjects by concessions, which his successor, Pancras, refusing to recognize, he was, in consequence, expelled. The unrelenting aristocracy of Zurich, upon this, took the field against the restless peasantry, surrounded the patriots in Stäfa, threw the venerable Bodmer and a number of his adherents into prison, and inflicted upon them heavy fines or severe corporeal chastisement.
The campaign of 1796 had fully disclosed to Bonaparte the advantage of occupying Switzerland with his troops, whose passage to Italy or Germany would be thereby facilitated, while the line of communication would be secured, and the danger to which he and Moreau had been exposed through want of co-operation would at once be remedied. He first of all took advantage of the dissensions in the Grisons to deprive that republic of the beautiful Valtelline,[7] and, even at that time, demanded permission from the people of Valais to build the road across the Simplon, which he was, however, only able to execute at a later period. On his return to Paris from the Italian expedition, he passed through Basel,[8] where he was met by Talleyrand. Peter Ochs, the chief master of the corporation, was, on this occasion, as he himself relates in his History of Basel, won over, as the acknowledged chief of the patriots, to revolutionize Switzerland and to enter into a close alliance with France. The base characters, at that time the tools of the French Directory, merely acceded to the political plans of Bonaparte and Talleyrand in the hope of reaping a rich harvest by the plunder of the federal cantons, and the Swiss expedition was, consequently, determined upon. The people of Valais, whose state of oppression served as a pretext for interference, revolted, under Laharpe, against Berne, 1798, and demanded the intervention of the French republic, as heir to the dukes of Savoy, on the strength of an ancient treaty, which had, for that purpose, been raked up from the ashes of the past. Nothing could exceed the miserable conduct of the diet at that conjuncture. After having already conceded to France her demand for the expulsion of the emigrants and having exposed its weakness by this open violation of the rights of hospitality, it discussed the number of troops to be furnished by each of the cantons, when the enemy was already in this country. Even the once haughty Bernese, who had set an army, thirty thousand strong, on foot, withdrew, under General Wysz, from Valais to their metropolis, where they awaited the attack of the enemy. There was neither plan[9] nor order; the patriots rose in every quarter and struck terror into the aristocrats, most of whom were now rather inclined to yield and impeded by their indecision the measures of the more spirited party. In Basel, Ochs deposed the oligarchy; in Zurich, the government was induced, by intimidation, to restore Bodmer and his fellow-prisoners to liberty. In Freiburg, Lucerne, Schaffhausen, and St. Gall the oligarchies resigned their authority; Constance asserted its independence.
Within Berne itself, tranquillity was with difficulty preserved by Steiger, the venerable mayor, a man of extreme firmness of character. A French force under Brune had already overrun Vaud, which, under pretext of being delivered from oppression, was laid under a heavy contribution; the ancient charnel-house at Murten was also destroyed, because the French had formerly been beaten on this spot by the Germans. But few of the Swiss marched to the aid of Berne; two hundred of the people of Uri, arrayed in the armor of their ancestors, some of the peasantry of Glarus, St. Gall, and Freiburg.[10] A second French force under Schauenburg entered Switzerland by Basel, defeated the small troops of Bernese sent to oppose it at Dornach and Langnau, and took Solothurn, where it liberated one hundred and eighty self-styled patriots imprisoned in that place. The patriots, at this conjuncture, also rose in open insurrection in Berne, threw everything into confusion, deposed the old council, formed a provisional government, and checked all the preparations for defence. The brave peasantry, basely betrayed by the cities, were roused to fury. Colonels Ryhiner, Stettler, Crusy, and Goumores were murdered by them upon mere suspicion (their innocence was afterward proved), and boldly following their leader, Grafenried, against the French, they defeated and repulsed the whole of Brune's army and captured eighteen guns at the bridge of Neuenegg. But a smaller Bernese corps, which, under Steiger, the mayor, opposed the army of Schauenburg in theGrauen Holz, was routed after a bloody struggle, and, before Erlach, the newly- nominated generalissimo, could hurry back to Berne with the victors of Neuenegg, the patriots, who had long been in the pay of France, threw wide the gates to Schauenburg. All was now lost. Erlach fled to Thun, in order to place himself at the head of the people of the Oberland, who descended in thick masses from the mountains; but, on his addressing the brave Senn peasantry in French, according to the malpractice of the Bernese, they mistook him for a French spy and struck him dead in his carriage. The loss of Berne greatly dispirited them and they desisted from further and futile opposition. Steiger escaped. Hotze, a gallant Austrian general, who, mindful of his Swiss origin, had attempted to place himself at the head of his countrymen, was compelled to retrace his steps. In Berne, the French meanwhile pillaged the treasures of the republic.[11] Besides the treasury and the arsenal, estimated at twenty-nine million livres, they levied a contribution of sixteen million. Bruno planted a tree of liberty, and Frisching, the president of the provisional government, had the folly to say, "Here it stands! may it bear good fruit! Amen!"
Further bloodshed was prevented by the intervention of the patriots. The whole of Switzerland, Schwyz, Upper Valais, and Unterwalden alone excepted, submitted, and, on the 12th of April, the federal diet at Aarau established, in the stead of the ancient federative and oligarchical government, a single and indivisible Helvetian republic, in a strictly democratic form, with five directors, on the French model. Four new cantons, Aargau, Leman (Vaud), the Bernese Oberland, and Constance, were annexed to the ancient ones. Schwyz, Uri, Unterwalden, and Zug were, on the other hand, to form but one canton. Rapinat, a bold bad man, Rewbel's brother-in-law, who was at that time absolute in Switzerland, seized everything that had escaped the pillage of the soldiery in Berne and Zurich, sacked Solothurn, Lucerne, Freiburg, etc., and hunted out the hidden treasures of the confederation, which he sent to France. The protestations of the directors, Bay and Pfyffer, were unheeded; Rapinat deposed them by virtue of a French warrant and nominated Ochs and Dolder in their stead. The patriotic feelings of the Swiss revolted at this tyranny; Schwyz rose in open insurrection; the peasantry, headed by Aloys Reding, seized and garrisoned Lucerne and called the whole country to arms against the French invader. The peasantry of the free cantons also marched against Aarau, but were defeated by Schauenburg at Häcklingen; two hundred of their number fell, among others a priest bearing the colors. Schauenburg then attacked the people of Schwyz at Richtenschwyl, where, after a desperate combat that lasted a whole day, he at length compelled them to give way. They, nevertheless, speedily rallied, and two engagements of equal obstinacy took place on the Schindeleggy and on the mountain of Etzel. The flight of Herzog, the pastor of Einsiedeln, was the sole cause of the discomfiture of the Swiss. Reding, however, reassembling his forces at the Red Tower, in the vicinity of the old battlefield of Morgarten, the French, unable to withstand their fury, were repulsed with immense loss. They also suffered a second defeat at Arth, at the foot of the Rigi. The Swiss, on their part, on numbering their forces after the battle, found their strength so terribly reduced that, although victors, they were unable to continue the contest, and voluntarily recognized the Helvetian republic. The rich monastery of Einsiedeln was plundered and burned; the miraculous picture of the Virgin was, however, preserved. Upper Valais also submitted, after Sion and the whole of the valley had been plundered and laid waste. The peasantry defended themselves here for several weeks at the precipice of the Dala. Unterwalden offered the most obstinate resistance. The peasantry of this canton were headed by Lüssi. The French invaded the country simultaneously on different sides, by water, across the lake of the four cantons, and across the Brünig from the Haslithal; in the Kernwald they were victorious over the masses of peasantry, but a body of three or four thousand French, which had penetrated further down the vale, was picked off by the peasantry concealed in the woods and behind the rocks. A rifleman, stationed upon a projecting rock, shot more than a hundred of the enemy one after another, his wife and children, meanwhile, loading his guns. Both of the French corps coalesced at Stanz, but met with such obstinate resistance from the old men, women and girls left there, that, after butchering four hundred of them, they set the place in flames.[12] The sturdy mountaineers, although numerically weak, proved themselves worthy of their ancient fame.—The fourWaldstättewere thrown into one canton, Waldstätten; Glarus and Toggenburg into another, Linth; Appenzell and St. Gall into that of Säntis. The old Italian prefectures, with the exception of the Valtelline, were formed into two cantons, Lugano and Bellinzona (afterward the canton of Tessin). The canton of Vaud also finally acceded to this arrangement, but was shortly afterward, as well as the former bishopric of Basel, Pruntrut,[13] and the city and republic of Genoa, incorporated with France.
The levy of eighteen thousand men (the Helvetlers, Galloschwyzers or eighteen batzmen) for the service of the Helvetian republic occasioned fresh disturbances in the beginning of 1799. The opposition was so great that the recruits were carried in chains to Berne. The Bernese Oberland, the peasantry of Basel, Solothurn, Toggenburg, Appenzell, and Glarus rose in open insurrection, but were again reduced to submission by the military. The spirit of the mountaineers was, however, less easily tamed. In April, 1799, the people of Schwyz took four hundred French prisoners; those of Uri, under their leader, Vincenz Schmid, stormed and burned Altorf, the seat of the French and their adherents; those of Valais, under the youthful Count Courten, drove the French from their valleys, and those of the Grisons surprised and cut to pieces a French squadron at Dissentis. General Soult took the field with a strong force against them in May and reduced them one after the other, but with great loss on his side, to submission. Twelve hundred French fell in Valais, which was completely laid waste by fire and sword; in Uri, stones and rocks were hurled upon them by the infuriated peasantry as they defiled through the narrow gorges; Schmid was, however, taken and shot; Schwyz was also reduced to obedience; in the Grisons, upward of a thousand French fell in a bloody engagement at Coire, and the magnificent monastery of Dissentis was, in revenge, burned to the ground. The beautiful Bergland was reduced to an indescribable state of misery. The villages lay in ashes; the people, who had escaped the general massacre, fell victims to famine. In this extremity, Zschokke, at that time Helvetic governor of the Waldstatte, proposed the complete expulsion of the ancient inhabitants and the settlement of French colonists in the fatherland of William Tell.[14]
The imperial free town of Muhlhausen in the Suntgau, the ancient ally of Switzerland, fell, like her, into the hands of the French. Unable to preserve her independence, she committed a singular political suicide. The whole of the town property was divided among the citizens. A girl, attired in the ancient Swiss costume, delivered the town keys to the French commissioner; the city banner and arms were buried with great solemnity.[15]
The French had also shown as little lenity in their treatment of Italy. Rome was entered and garrisoned with French troops; the handsome and now venerable puppet, Pope Pius VI., was seized, robbed, and personally maltreated (his ring was even torn from his hand), and dragged a prisoner to France, where he expired in the August of 1799.
[Footnote 1: "The peasant, when summoned into the presence of a governor, lord of the council, head of a guild, or preacher, stood there, not as a free Swiss, but as a criminal trembling before his judge."—Lehmann on the imaginary Freedom of the Swiss. 1799.]
[Footnote 2: "The important office of provincial secretary was, in this manner, hereditary in the family of the Beroldingen of Uri."—Lehmann.]
[Footnote 3: "In the Grisons, the constitution was extremely complicated. The lordships of Meyenfeld and Aspermont were, for instance, subject to the three confederated cantons and under the control of the provincial governors nominated by them; they were at the same time members of the whole free state, and, as such, had a right of lordship over the subject provinces, over which, they, in their turn, appointed a governor."—Meyer von Knonau's Geography.]
[Footnote 4: The best information concerning the authority held by the provincial governors, who enjoyed almost unlimited sway over their districts, is to be met with in the excellent biography of Solomon Landolt, the provincial governor of Zurich, by David Hesz. Landolt was the model of an able but extremely tyrannical governor (he ruled over Greisensee and Eglisau) and gained great note by his salomonic judgments and by his quaint humor. He founded the Swiss rifle clubs and introduced that national weapon into modern warfare. He was also a painter and had the whim, notwithstanding the constant triumph of the French, ever to represent them in his pictures as the vanquished party.]
[Footnote 5: Hirzel wrote at that time, in his "Glimpses into the History of the Confederation," that Captain Henzl had been deprived of his head because he was the only man in the country who had one. Zimmerman says in his "National Pride," "A foreign philosopher visited Switzerland for the purpose of settling in a country where thought was free; he remained ten days at Zurich and then went to—Portugal." In 1774, the clocks at Basel, which, since the siege of Rudolph of Habsburg, had remained one hour behindhand, were, after immense opposition, regulated like those in the rest of the world. Two factions sprang up on this occasion, that of the Spieszburghers or Lalleburghers (the ancient one), and that of the Francemen or new-modellers (the modern one).]
[Footnote 6: Laharpe was at the same time a demagogue in the Vaud and tutor to the emperor Alexander at Petersburg.]
[Footnote 7: Valtelline with Chiavenna and Bormio (Cleves and Worms) were ill-treated by the people of the Grisons. Offices and justice were regularly jobbed and sold to the highest bidder. The people of Valtelline hastily entered into alliance with France, while the oppressed peasantry in the Grisons rebelled against the ruling family of Salis, which had long been in the pay of the French kings, and had, since the revolution, sided with Austria. John Müller appeared at Basel as Thugut's agent for the purpose of inciting the confederation against France.—Ochs's History of Basel.]
[Footnote 8: While here, he gave Fesch, the pastry-cook, whose brother, a Swiss lieutenant, was the second husband of Bonaparte's maternal grandmother, a very friendly reception. The offspring of this second marriage was the future Cardinal Fesch, Letitia's half-brother and Napoleon's uncle, whom Napoleon attempted to create primate of Germany and to raise to the pontifical throne.]
[Footnote 9: Some of the cantons imagined that France merely aspired to the possession of Valais, and, jealous of the prosperity and power of Berne, willingly permitted her to suffer this humiliation.-Meyer von Knonau].
[Footnote 10: Two Bernese, condemned to work in the trenches atYferten, on being liberated by the French, returned voluntarily toBerne, in order to aid in the defense of the city. A rare trait, inthose times, of ancient Swiss fidelity.]
[Footnote 11: A good deal of it was spent by Bonaparte during his expedition into Egypt, and, even at the present day, the Bernese bear is to be seen on coins still in circulation on the banks of the Nile.—Meyer von Knonau.]
[Footnote 12: The venerable Pestalozzi assembled the orphans and founded his celebrated model academy at Stanz. Seventy-nine women and girls were found among the slain. A story is told of a girl who, being attacked, in a lonely house, by two Frenchmen, knocked their heads together with such force that they dropped down dead.]
[Footnote 13: Not far from Pruntrut is the hill of Terri, said to have been formerly occupied by one of Cæsar's camps. The French named itMont Terribleand created adepartment du Mont Terrible. Vide Meyer von Knonau's Geography.]
[Footnote 14: In his "Political Remarks touching the Canton of Waldstatten," dated the 23d of June, 1799, he says: "Let us imitate the political maxims of the conquerors of old, who drove the inhabitants most inimical to them into foreign countries and established colonies, composed of families of their own kin, in the heart of the conquered provinces." His proposal remaining unseconded, he sought to obliterate the bad impression it had made, by publishing a proclamation, calling upon the charitably inclined to raise a subscription for the unfortunate inhabitants of the Waldstatte.]
[Footnote 15: Vide Graf's History of Muhlhausen.]
CCLII. The Second Coalition
Prussia looked calmly on, with a view of increasing her power by peace while other states ruined themselves by war, and of offering her arbitration at a moment when she could turn their mutual losses to advantage. Austria, exposed to immediate danger by the occupation of Switzerland by the French, remained less tranquil and hastily formed a fresh coalition with England and Russia. Catherine II. had expired, 1796. Her son, Paul I., cherished the most ambitious views. His election as grand-master of the Maltese order dispersed by Napoleon had furnished him with a sort of right of interference in the affairs of the Levant and of Italy. On the 1st of March, 1799, the Ionian Islands, Corfu, etc., were occupied by Russian troops, and a Russian army, under the terrible Suwarow, moved, in conjunction with the troops of Austria, upon Italy. The project of the Russian czar was, by securing his footing on the Mediterranean and at the same time encircling Turkey, to attack Constantinople on both sides, on the earliest opportunity. Austria was merely to serve as a blind tool for the attainment of his schemes. Mack was despatched to Naples for the purpose of bringing about a general rising in Southern Italy against the French, and England lavished gold. The absence of Bonaparte probably inspired several of the allied generals with greater courage, not the French, but he, being the object of their dread. The conduct of the French at Rastadt had revolted every German and had justly raised their most implacable hatred, which burst forth during a popular tumult at Vienna, when the tricolor, floating from the palace of General Bernadotte, the French ambassador, was torn down and burned. The infamous assassination of the French ambassadors at Rastadt also took place during this agitated period. Bonnier, Roberjot, and Jean de Bry quitted Rastadt on the breaking out of war, and were attacked and cut to pieces by some Austrian hussars in a wood close to the city gate. Jean de Bry alone escaped, although dangerously wounded, with his life. This atrocious act was generally believed to have been committed through private revenge, or, what is far more probable, for the purpose of discovering by the papers of the ambassadors the truth of the reports at that time in circulation concerning the existence of a conspiracy and projects for the establishment of republics throughout Germany. The real motive was, however, not long ago,[1] unveiled. Austria had revived her ancient projects against Bavaria, and, as early as 1798, had treated with the French Directory for the possession of that electorate in return for her toleration of the occupatign of Switzerland by the troops of the republic. The venerable elector, Charles Theodore, who had been already persuaded to cede Bavaria and to content himself with Franconia, dying suddenly of apoplexy while at the card-table, was succeeded by his cousin, Maximilian Joseph of Pfalz-Zweibrucken, from whom, on account of his numerous family, no voluntary cession was to be expected either for the present or future. Thugut and Lehr-bach, the rulers of the Viennese cabinet, in the hope of compromising and excluding him, as a traitor to the empire, from the Bavarian succession, by the production of proofs of his being the secret ally of France, hastily resolved upon the assassination of the French ambassadors at Rastadt, on the bare supposition of their having in their possession documents in the handwriting of the elector. None were, however, discovered, the French envoys having either taken the precaution of destroying them or of committing them to the safe-keeping of the Prussian ambassador. This crime was, as Hormayr observes, at the same time, a political blunder. This horrible act was perpetrated on the 28th of April, 1799.
The campaign had, a month anterior to this event, been opened by the French, who had attacked the Austrians in their still scattered positions. Disunion prevailed as usual in the Austrian military council. The Archduke Charles proposed the invasion of France from the side of Swabia. The occupation of Switzerland by the troops of Austria was, nevertheless, resolved upon, and General Auffenberg, accordingly, entered the Grisons. The French instantly perceived and hastened to anticipate the designs of the Austrian cabinet. Auffenberg was defeated by Massena on the St. Luciensteig and expelled the Grisons, while Hotze on the Vorarlberg and Bellegarde in the Tyrol looked calmly on at the head of fifteen thousand men. The simultaneous invasion of Swabia by Jourdan now induced the military council at Vienna to accede to the proposal formerly made by the Archduke Charles, who was despatched with the main body of the army to Swabia, where, on the 25th of March, 1799, he gained a complete victory over Jourdan at Ostrach and Stockach.[2] The Grisons were retaken in May by Hotze, and, in June, the archduke joining him, Massena was defeated at Zurich, and the steep passes of Mont St. Gothard were occupied by Haddik. Massena was, however, notwithstanding the immense numerical superiority of the archduke's forces, which could easily have driven him far into France, allowed to remain undisturbed at Bremgarten. The French, under Scherer, in Italy, had, meanwhile, been defeated, in April, by Kray, at Magnano. This success was followed by the arrival of Melas from Vienna, of Bellegarde from the Tyrol, and lastly, by that of the Russian vanguard under Suwarow, who took the chief command and beat the whole of the French forces in Italy; Moreau, at Cassano and Marengo, in May; Macdonald, on his advance from Lower Italy, on the Trebbia, in June; and finally, Joubert, in the great battle of Novi, in which Joubert was killed, August the 15th, 1799. Dissensions now broke out among the victors. A fourth of the forces in Italy belonged to Austria, merely one-fifth to Russia; the Austrians, consequently, imagined that the war was merely carried on on their account. The Austrian forces were, against Suwarow's advice, divided, for the purpose of reducing Mantua and Alessandria and of occupying Tuscany. The king of Sardinia, whom Suwarow desired to restore to his throne, was forbidden to enter his states by the Austrians, who intended to retain possession of them for some time longer. The whole of Italy, as far as Ancona and Genoa, was now freed from the French, whom the Italians, embittered by their predatory habits, had aided to expel, and Suwarow received orders to join his forces with those under Korsakow, who was then on the Upper Rhine with thirty thousand men. The archduke might, even without this fresh reinforcement, have already annihilated Massena had he not remained during three months, from June to August, in a state of complete inactivity; at the very moment of Suwarow's expected arrival he allowed the important passes of the St. Gothard to be again carried by a coup de main by the French under General Lecourbe, who drove the Austrians from the Simplon, the Furca, the Grimsel, and the Devil's bridge. The archduke, after an unsuccessful attempt to push across the Aar at Dettingen, suddenly quitted the scene of war and advanced down the Rhine for the purpose of supporting the English expedition under the Duke of York against Holland. This unexpected turn in affairs proceeded from Vienna. The Viennese cabinet was jealous of Russia. Suwarow played the master in Italy, favored Sardinia at the expense of the house of Habsburg, and deprived the Austrians of the laurels and of the advantages they had won. The archduke, accordingly, received orders to remain inactive, to abandon the Russians, and finally to withdraw to the north; by this movement Suwarow's triumphant progress was checked, he was compelled to cross the Alps to the aid of Korsakow, and to involve himself in a mountain warfare ill-suited to the habits of his soldiery.[3] Korsakow, whom Bavaria had been bribed with Russian gold to furnish with a corps one thousand strong, was solely supported by Kray and Hotze with twenty thousand men. Massena, taking advantage of the departure of the archduke and the non-arrival of Suwarow, crossed the Limmat at Dietikon and shut Korsakow, who had imprudently stationed himself with his whole army in Zurich, so closely in, that, after an engagement that lasted two days, from the 15th to the 17th of September, the Russian general was compelled to abandon his artillery and to force his way through the enemy. Ten thousand men were all that escaped.[4] Hotze, who had advanced from the Grisons to Schwyz to Suwarow's rencounter, was, at the same time, defeated and killed at Schannis. Suwarow, although aware that the road across the St. Gothard was blocked by the lake of the four cantons, on which there were no boats, had the folly to attempt the passage. In Airolo, he was obstinately opposed by the French under Lecourbe, and, although Schweikowski contrived to turn this strong position by scaling the pathless rocks, numbers of the men were, owing to Suwarow's impatience, sacrificed before it. On the 24th of September, 1799, he at length climbed the St. Gothard, and a bloody engagement, in which the French were worsted, took place on the Oberalpsee. Lecourbe blew up the Devil's bridge, but, leaving the Urnerloch open, the Russians pushed through that rocky gorge, and, dashing through the foaming Reuss, scaled the opposite rocks and drove the French from their position behind the Devil's bridge. Altorf on the lake was reached in safety by the Russian general, who was compelled, owing to the want of boats, to seek his way through the valleys of Shachen and Muotta, across the almost impassable rocks, to Schwyz. The heavy rains rendered the undertaking still more arduous; the Russians, owing to the badness of the road, speedily became barefoot; the provisions were also exhausted. In this wretched state they reached Muotta on the 29th of September and learned the discouraging news of Korsakow's defeat. Massena had already set off in the hope of cutting off Suwarow, but had missed his way. He reached Altorf, where he joined Lecourbe on the 29th, when Suwarow was already at Muotta, whence Massena found on his arrival he had again retired across the Bragelberg, through the Klonthal. He was opposed on the lake of Klonthal by Molitor, who was, however, forced to retire by Auffenberg, who had joined Suwarow at Altorf and formed his advanced guard, Rosen, at the same time, beating off Massena with the rear-guard, taking five cannons and one thousand of his men prisoners. On the 1st of October, Suwarow entered Glarus, where he rested until the 4th, when he crossed the Panixer mountains through snow two feet deep to the valley of the Rhine, which he reached on the 10th, after losing the whole of his beasts of burden and two hundred of his men down the precipices; and here ended his extraordinary march, which had cost him the whole of his artillery, almost all his horses, and a third of his men.
The archduke had, meanwhile, tarried on the Rhine, where he had taken Philippsburg and Mannheim, but had been unable to prevent the defeat of the English expedition under the Duke of York by General Brune at Bergen, on the 19th of September. The archduke now, for the first time, made a retrograde movement, and approached Korsakow and Suwarow. The different leaders, however, merely reproached each other, and the czar, perceiving his project frustrated, suddenly recalled his troops and the campaign came to a close. The archduke's rearguard was defeated in a succession of petty skirmishes at Heidelberg and on the Neckar by the French, who again pressed forward.[5] These disasters were counterbalanced by the splendid victory gained by Melas in Italy, at Savigliano, over Championnet, who attempted to save Genoa.
Austria was no sooner deprived in Suwarow of the most efficient of her allies than she was attacked by her most dangerous foe. Bonaparte returned from Egypt. The news of the great disasters of the French in Italy no sooner arrived, than he abandoned his army and hastened, completely unattended, to France, through the midst of the English fleet, then stationed in the Mediterranean. His arrival in Paris was instantly followed by his public nomination as generalissimo. He alone had the power of restoring victory to the standard of the republic. The ill success of his rivals had greatly increased his popularity; he had become indispensable to his countrymen. His power was alone obnoxious to the weak government, which, aided by the soldiery, he dissolved on the 9th of November (the 18th Brumaire, by the modern French calendar); he then bestowed a new constitution upon France and placed himself, under the title of First Consul, at the head of the republic.
In the following year, 1800, Bonaparte made preparations for a fresh campaign against Austria, under circumstances similar to those of the first. But this time he was more rapid in his movements and performed more astonishing feats. Suddenly crossing the St. Bernard, he fell upon the Austrian flank. Genoa, garrisoned by Massena, had just been forced by famine to capitulate. Ten days afterward, on the 14th of June, Bonaparte gained such a decisive victory over Melas, the Austrian general, at Marengo,[6] that he and the remainder of his army capitulated on the ensuing day. The whole of Italy fell once more into the hands of the French. Moreau had, at the same time, invaded Germany and defeated the Austrians under Kray in several engagements, principally at Stockach and Moskirch,[7] and again at Biberach and Hochstadt, laid Swabia and Bavaria under contribution, and taken Ratisbon, the seat of the diet. An armistice, negotiated by Kray, was not recognized by the emperor, and he was replaced in his command by the Archduke John (not Charles), who was, on the 3d of December, totally routed by Moreau's manoeuvres during a violent snowstorm, at Hohenlinden. A second Austrian army, despatched into Italy, was also defeated by Brune on the Mincio. These disasters once more inclined Austria to peace, which was concluded at Luneville, on the 9th of February, 1801. The Archduke Charles seized this opportunity to propose the most beneficial reforms in the war administration, but was again treated with contempt. In the ensuing year, 1802, England also concluded peace at Amiens.
The whole of the left bank of the Rhine was, on this occasion, ceded to the French republic. The petty republics, formerly established by France in Italy, Switzerland, and Holland, were also renewed and were recognized by the allied powers. The Cisalpine republic was enlarged by the possessions of the grandduke of Tuscany and of the duke of Modena, to whom compensation in Germany was guaranteed. Suwarow's victories had, in the autumn of 1799, rendered a conclave, on the death of the captive pope, Pius VI., in France, possible, for the purpose of electing his successor, Pius VII., who was acknowledged as such by Bonaparte, whose favor he purchased by expressing his approbation of the seizure of the property of the church during the French Revolution, and by declaring his readiness to agree to the secularization of church property, already determined upon, in Germany.
The Helvetian Directory fell, like that of France, and was replaced by an administrative council, composed of seven members, in 1800. The upholders of ancient cantonal liberty, now known under the denomination of Federalists, gained the upper hand, and Aloys Reding, who had, shortly before, been denounced as a rebel, became Landammann of Switzerland. Bonaparte even invited him to Paris in order to settle with him the future fate of Switzerland. Reding, however, showing an unexpected degree of firmness, and, unmoved by either promises or threats, obstinately refusing to permit the annexation of Valais to France, Bonaparte withdrew his support and again favored the Helvetlers. Dolder and Savari, who had long been the creatures of France, failing in their election, were seated by Verninac, the French ambassador, in the senate of the Helvetian republic, and Reding, who was at that moment absent, was divested of his office as Landammann. Reding protested against this arbitrary conduct and convoked a federal diet to Schwyz.
Andermatt, general of the Helvetian republic, attempted to seize Zurich, which had joined the federalists, but was compelled to withdraw, covered with disgrace. An army of federalists under General Bachmann repulsed the Helvetlers in every direction and drove them, together with the French envoys, across the frontier. Bonaparte, upon this, sent a body of thirty to forty thousand men, under Ney, into Switzerland, which met with no opposition, the federalists being desirous of avoiding useless bloodshed and being already acquainted with Bonaparte's secret projects. He would not tolerate opposition on their part, like that of Reding: he had resolved upon getting possession of Valais at any price, on account of the road across the Simplon, so important to him as affording the nearest communication between Paris and Milan: in all other points, he perfectly coincided with the federalists and was willing to grant its ancient independence to every canton in Switzerland, where disunion and petty feuds placed the country the more securely in his hands. With feigned commiseration for the ineptitude of the Swiss to settle their own disputes, he invited deputies belonging to the various factions and cantons to Paris, lectured them like schoolboys, and compelled them by the Act of Mediation, under his intervention, to give a new constitution to Switzerland. Valais was annexed to France in exchange for the Austrian Frickthal. Nineteen cantons were created.[8] Each canton again administered its internal affairs. Bonaparte was never weary of painting the happy lot of petty states and the delights of petty citizenship. "But ye are too weak, too helpless, to defend yourselves; cast yourselves therefore into the arms of France, ready to protect you while, free from taxation, and from the burdensome maintenance of an army, ye dwell free and independent in your native vales." The Swiss, although no longer to have a national army, were, nevertheless, compelled to furnish a contingent of eighteen thousand men to that of France, and, while deluded by the idea of their freedom from taxation, the fifteen millions of Frenchbonsgiven in exchange for the numerous Swiss loans were cashiered by Bonaparte, under pretext of the Swiss having been already sufficiently paid by their deliverance from their enemies by the French.[9] The real Swiss patriots implored the German powers to protect their country, the bulwark of Germany against France; but Austria was too much weakened by her own losses, and Prussia handed the letters addressed to her from Switzerland over to the First Consul.
The melancholy business, commenced by the empire at the congress of Rastadt, and which had been broken off by the outbreak of war, had now to be recommenced. Fresh compensations had been rendered necessary by the robberies committed upon the Italian princes. The church property no longer sufficed to satisfy all demands, and fresh seizures had become requisite. A committee of the diet was intrusted with the settlement of the question of compensation, which was decided on the 25th of February, 1803, by a decree of the imperial diet. All the great powers of Germany had not suffered; all had not, consequently, a right to demand compensation, but, in order to appease their jealousy, all were to receive a portion of the booty. The three spiritual electorates, Mayence, Treves, and Cologne, were abolished, their position on the other side of the Rhine including them within the French territory. The archbishop of Mayence alone retained his dignity, and was transferred to Ratisbon. The whole of the imperial free cities were moreover deprived of their privileges, six alone excepted, Lubeck, Hamburg,[10] Bremen, Frankfort, Augsburg, and Nuremberg. The unsecularized bishoprics and abbeys were abolished. The petty princes, counts and barons, and the Teutonic order, were still allowed to exist, in order ere long to be included in the general ruin.
Prussia retained the bishoprics of Hildesheim and Paderborn, a part of Munster, numerous abbeys and imperial free towns in Westphalia and Thuringia, more particularly Erfurt. Bavaria had ever suffered on the conclusion of peace between France and Austria; in 1797, she had ceded the Rhenish Pfalz to France and a province on the Inn to Austria; by the treaty of Luneville she had been, moreover, compelled to raze the fortress of Ingolstadt.[11] The inclination for French innovations displayed by the reigning duke, Maximilian Joseph, who surrounded himself with the old Illuminati, caused her, on this occasion, by Bonaparte's aid, to be richly compensated by the annexation of the bishoprics of Bamberg, Wurzburg, Augsburg, and Freisingen, with several small towns, etc.; all the monasteries were abolished. Bavaria had formerly supported the institutions of the ancient church of Rome more firmly than Austria, where reforms had already been begun in the church by Joseph II. Hanover received Osnabruck; Baden, the portion of the Pfalz on this side the Rhine, the greatest part of the bishoprics of Constance, Basel, Strasburg, and Spires, also on this side the Rhine; Wurtemberg, both Hesses (Cassel and Darmstadt); and Nassau, all the lands in the vicinity formerly belonging to the bishopric of Mayence, to imperial free towns and petty lordships. Ferdinand, grandduke of Tuscany, younger brother to the emperor Francis II., was compelled to relinquish his hereditary possessions in Italy,[12] and received in exchange Salzburg, Eichstädt, and Passau. Ferdinand, duke of Modena, uncle to the emperor Francis II. and younger brother to the emperors Leopold II. and Joseph II., also resigned his duchy,[13] for which he received the Breisgau in exchange. William V., hereditary stadtholder of Holland, who had been expelled his states, also received, on this occasion, in compensation for his son of like name (he was himself already far advanced in years), the rich abbey of Fulda, which was created the principality of Orange-Fulda.[14] The electoral dignity was at the same time bestowed upon the Archduke Ferdinand, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, the duke of Wurtemberg, and the Margrave of Baden.
Submission, although painful, produced no opposition. The power of the imperial free cities had long passed away,[15] and the spiritual princes no longer wielded the sword. The manner in which the officers of the princes took possession, the insolence with which they treated the subject people, the fraud and embezzlement that were openly practiced, are merely excusable on account of the fact that Germany was, notwithstanding the peace, still in a state of war. The decree of the imperial diet can scarcely be regarded as the ignominious close of a good old time, but rather as a violent but beneficial incisure in an old and rankling sore. With the petty states, a mass of vanity and pedantry disappeared on the one side, pusillanimity and servility on the other; the ideas of the subjects of a large state have naturally a wider range; the monasteries, those dens of superstition, the petty princely residences, those hotbeds of French vice and degeneracy, the imperial free towns, those abodes of petty burgher prejudice, no longer existed. The extension of the limits of the states rendered the gradual introduction of a better administration, the laying of roads, the foundation of public institutions of every description, and social improvement, possible. The example of France, the ever-renewed warfare, and the conscriptions, created, moreover, a martial spirit among the people, which, although far removed from patriotism, might still, when compared with the spirit formerly pervading the imperial army, be regarded as a first step from effeminacy, cowardice, and sloth, toward true, unflinching, manly courage.
[Footnote 1: Scenes during the War of Liberation.]
[Footnote 2: Jourdan might easily have been annihilated during his retreat by the imperial cavalry, twenty-seven thousand strong, had his strength and position been better known to his pursuers.]
[Footnote 3: Scenes during the War of Liberation.]
[Footnote 4: The celebrated Lavater was, on this occasion, mortally wounded by a French soldier. The people of Zurich were heavily mulcted by Massena for having aided the Austrians to the utmost in their power. Zschokke, who was at that time in the pay of France, wrote against the "Imperialism" of the Swiss. Vide Haller and Landolt's Life by Hess.]
[Footnote 5: Concerning the wretched provision for the Austrian army, the embezzlement of the supplies, the bad management of the magazines and hospitals, see "Representation of the Causes of the Disasters suffered by the Austrians," etc. 1802.]
[Footnote 6: The contest lasted the whole day: the French already gave way on every side, when Desaix led the French centre with such fury to the charge that the Austrians, surprised by the suddenness of the movement, were driven back and thrown into confusion, and the French, rallying at that moment, made another furious onset and tore the victory from their grasp.]
[Footnote 7: The impregnable fortress of Hohentwiel, formerly so gallantly defended by Widerhold, was surrendered without a blow by the cowardly commandant, Bilfinger. Rotenburg on the Tauber, on the contrary, wiped off the disgrace with which she had covered herself during the thirty years' war. A small French skirmishing party demanded a contribution from this city; the council yielded, but the citizens drove off the enemy with pitchforks.]
[Footnote 8: The ancient ones, Berne, Zurich, Basel, Solothurn, Freiburg, Lucerne, Schaffhausen; the re-established ones, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Zug, Glarus, Appenzell, St. Gall (instead of Waldstätten, Linth, and Säntis), Valais (instead of Leman), Aargau, Constance, Grisons, Tessin (instead of Lugano and Bellinzona). The Bernese Oberland again fell to Berne. The ambassador, attempting to preserve its independence, was asked by Napoleon: "Where do you take your cattle, your cheese, etc.?" "À Berne," was the reply. "Whence do you get your grain, cloth, iron, etc.?" "De Berne." "Well," continued Napoleon, "de Berne, à Berne, you consequently belong to Berne."—The Bernese were highly delighted at the restoration of their independence, and the re-erection of the ancient arms of Berne became a joyous fête. A gigantic black bear that was painted on the broad walls of the castle of Trachselwald was visible far down the valley.]
[Footnote 9: Murald, in his life of Reinhard, records an instance of shameless fraud, the attempt made during a farewell banquet at Paris to cozen the Swiss deputies out of a million. After plying them well with wine, an altered document was offered them for signature; Reinhard, the only one who perceived the fraud, frustrated the scheme.]
[Footnote 10: Hamburg was, however, compelled to pay to the French 1,700,000 marcs banco, and to allow Rumbold, the English agent, to be arrested by them within the city walls.]
[Footnote 11: The university had been removed, in 1800, to Landshut.]
[Footnote 12: Bonaparte transformed them into a kingdom of Etruria, which he bestowed upon a Spanish prince, Louis of Parma, who shortly afterward died and his kingdom was annexed to France.]
[Footnote 13: He was son-in-law to Hercules, the last duke of Modena, who still lived, but had resigned his claims in his favor. This duke expired in 1805.]
[Footnote 14: Which he speedily lost by rejoining Napoleon's adversaries. Adalbert von Harstall, the last princely abbot of Fulda, was an extremely noble character; he is almost the only one among the princes who remained firmly by his subjects when all the rest fled and abandoned theirs to the French. After the edict of secularization he remained firmly at his post until compelled to resign it by the Prussian soldiery.]
[Footnote 15: The citizens of Esalingen were shortly before at law with their magistrate on account of his nepotism and tyranny without being able to get a decision from the supreme court of judicature.— Quedlinburg had also not long before sent envoys to Vienna with heavy complaints of the insolence of the magistrate, and the envoys had been sent home without a reply being vouchsafed and were threatened with the house of correction in case they ventured to return. Vide Hess's Flight through Germany, 1793.—Wimpfen also carried on a suit against its magistrate. In 1784, imperial decrees were issued against the aristocracy of Ulm. In 1786, the people of Aix-la-Chapelle rose against their magistrate. Nuremberg repeatedly demanded the production of the public accounts from the aristocratic town-council. The people of Hildesheim also revolted against their council. Vide Schlözer, State Archives.]
CCLIII. Fall of the Holy Roman-Germanic Empire
A great change had, meanwhile, taken place in France. The republic existed merely in name. The first consul, Bonaparte, already possessed regal power. The world beheld with astonishment a nation that had so lately and so virulently persecuted royalty, so dearly bought and so strictly enforced its boasted liberty, suddenly forget its triumph and restore monarchy. Liberty had ceased to be in vogue, and had yielded to a general desire for the acquisition of fame. The equality enforced by liberty was offensive to individual vanity, and the love of gain and luxury opposed republican poverty. Fame and wealth were alone to be procured by war and conquest. France was to be enriched by the plunder of her neighbors. Bonaparte, moreover, promoted the prosperity and dignity of the country by the establishment of manufactures, public institutions, and excellent laws. The awe with which he inspired his subjects insured their obedience; he was universally feared and reverenced. In whatever age this extraordinary man had lived, he must have taken the lead and have reduced nations to submission. Even his adversaries, even those he most deeply injured, owned his influence. His presence converted the wisdom of the statesman, the knowledge of the most experienced general, into folly and ignorance; the bravest armies fled panic-struck before his eagles; the proudest sovereigns of Europe bowed their crowned heads before the little hat of the Corsican. He was long regarded as a new savior, sent to impart happiness to his people, and, as though by magic, bent the blind and pliant mass to his will. But philanthropy, Christian wisdom, the virtues of the Prince of peace, were not his. If he bestowed excellent laws upon his people, it was merely with the view of increasing the power of the state for military purposes. He was ever possessed and tormented by the demon of war.
On the 18th of May, 1804, Bonaparte abolished the French republic and was elected hereditary emperor of France. On the 2d of December, he was solemnly anointed and crowned by the pope, Pius VII., who visited Paris for that purpose. The ceremonies used at the coronation of Charlemagne were revived on this occasion. On the 15th of March, 1805, he abolished the Ligurian and Cisalpine republics, and set the ancient iron crown of Lombardy on his head, with his own hand, as king of Italy. He made a distinction betweenla Franceandl'empire, the latter of which was, by conquest, to be gradually extended over the whole of Europe, and to be raised by him above that of Germany, in the same manner that the western Roman-Germanic empire had formerly been raised by Charlemagne above the eastern Byzantine one.
The erection of France into an empire was viewed with distrust by Austria, whose displeasure had been, moreover, roused by the arbitrary conduct of Napoleon in Italy. Fresh disputes had also arisen between him and England; he had occupied the whole of Hanover, which Wallmoden's[1] army had been powerless to defend, with his troops, and violated the Baden territory by the seizure of the unfortunate Duc d'Enghien, a prince of the house of Bourbon, who was carried into France and there shot. Prussia offered no interference, in the hope of receiving Hanover in reward for her neutrality.[2] Austria, on her part, formed a third coalition with England, Russia, and Sweden.[3] Austria acted, undeniably, on this occasion, with impolitic haste; she ought rather to have waited until Prussia and public opinion throughout Germany had been ranged on her side, as sooner or later must have been the case, by the brutal encroachments of Napoleon. Austria, unaided by Prussia, could scarcely dream of success.[4] But England, at that time fearful of Napoleon's landing on her coast, lavished her all-persuasive gold.
The Archduke Ferdinand was placed at the head of the Austrian troops in Germany; the Archduke Charles, of those in Italy. Ferdinand commanded the main body and was guided by Mack, who, without awaiting the arrival of the Russians, advanced as far as Ulm, pushed a corps, under Jellachich, forward to Lindau, and left the whole of his right flank exposed. He, nevertheless, looked upon Napoleon's defeat and the invasion of France by his troops as close at hand. He was in ill-health and highly irritable. Napoleon, in order to move with greater celerity, sent a part of his troops by carriage through Strasburg, declared to the Margrave of Baden, the duke of Wurtemberg, and the elector of Bavaria, his intention not to recognize them as neutral powers, that they must be either against him or with him, and made them such brilliant promises (they were, moreover, actuated by distrust of Austria), that they ranged themselves on his side. Napoleon instantly sent orders to General Bernadotte, who was at that time stationed in Hanover, to cross the neutral Prussian territory of Anspach,[5] without demanding the permission of Prussia, to Mack's rear, in order to form a junction with the Bavarian troops. Other corps were at the same time directed by circuitous routes upon the flanks of the Austrian army, which was attacked at Memmingen by Soult, and was cut off to the north by Ney, who carried the bridge of Elchingen[6] by storm. Mack had drawn his troops together, but had, notwithstanding the entreaties of his generals, refused to attack the separate French corps before they could unite and surround him. The Archduke Ferdinand alone succeeded in fighting his way with a part of the cavalry through the enemy.[7] Mack lost his senses and capitulated on the 17th of October, 1805. With him fell sixty thousand Austrians, the elite of the army, into the hands of the enemy. Napoleon could scarcely spare a sufficient number of men to escort this enormous crowd of prisoners to France. Wernek's corps, which had already been cut off, was also compelled to yield itself prisoner at Trochtelfingen, not far from Heidenheim.
Napoleon, while following up his success with his customary rapidity and advancing with his main body straight upon Vienna, despatched Ney into the Tyrol, where the peasantry, headed by the Archduke John, made a heroic defence. The advanced guard of the French, composed of the Bavarians under Deroy, were defeated at the Strub pass, but, notwithstanding this disaster, Ney carried the Schaarnitz by storm and reached Innsbruck. The Archduke John was compelled to retire into Carinthia in order to form a junction with his brother Charles, who, after beating Massena at Caldiero, had been necessitated by Mack's defeat to hasten from Italy for the purpose of covering Austria. Two corps, left in the hurry of retreat too far westward, were cut off and taken prisoner, that under Prince Rohan at Castellfranco, after having found its way from Meran into the Venetian territory, and that under Jellachich on the Lake of Constance; Kinsky's and Wartenleben's cavalry threw themselves boldly into Swabia and Franconia, seized the couriers and convoys to the French rear, and escaped unhurt to Bohemia.
Davoust had, in the meanwhile, invaded Styria and defeated a corps under Meerveldt at Mariazell. In November, Napoleon had reached Vienna, neither Linz nor any other point having been fortified by the Austrians. The great Russian army under Kutusow appeared at this conjuncture in Moravia. The czar, Alexander I., accompanied it in person, and the emperor, Francis II., joined him with his remaining forces. A bloody engagement took place between Kutusow and the French at Durrenstein on the Danube, but, on the loss of Vienna, the Russians retired to Moravia. The sovereigns of Austria and Russia loudly called upon Prussia to renounce her alliance with France, and, in this decisive moment, to aid in the annihilation of a foe, for whose false friendship she would one day dearly pay. The violation of the Prussian territory by Bernadotte had furnished the Prussian king with a pretext for suddenly declaring against Napoleon. The Prussian army was also in full force. The British and the Hanoverian legion had landed at Bremen and twenty thousand Russians on Rugen; ten thousand Swedes entered Hanover; electoral Hesse was also ready for action. The king of Prussia, nevertheless, merely confined himself to threats, in the hope of selling his neutrality to Napoleon for Hanover, and deceived the coalition.[8] The emperor Alexander visited Berlin in person for the purpose of rousing Prussia to war, but had no sooner returned to Austria in order to rejoin his army than Count Haugwitz, the Prussian minister, was despatched to Napoleon's camp with express instructions not to declare war. The famous battle, in which the three emperors of Christendom were present, took place, meanwhile, at Austerlitz, not far from Brunn, on the 2d of December, 1805, and terminated in one of Napoleon's most glorious victories.[9] This battle decided the policy of Prussia, and Haugwitz confirmed her alliance with France by a treaty, by which Prussia ceded Cleves, Anspach, and Neufchâtel to France in exchange for Hanover.[10] This treaty was published with a precipitation equalling that with which it had been concluded, and seven hundred Prussian vessels, whose captains were ignorant of the event, were seized by the enraged English either in British harbors or on the sea. The peace concluded by Austria, on the 26th of December, at Presburg, was purchased by her at an enormous sacrifice. Napoleon had, in the opening of the campaign, when pressing onward toward Austria, compelled Charles Frederick, elector of Baden,[11] Frederick, elector of Wurtemberg, and Maximilian Joseph, elector of Bavaria (in whose mind the memory of the assassination of the ambassadors at Rastadt, the loss of Wasserburg, the demolition of Ingolstadt, etc., still rankled), to enter into his alliance; to which they remained zealously true on account of the immense private advantages thereby gained by them, and of the dread of being deprived by the haughty victor of the whole of their possessions on the first symptom of opposition on their part. Napoleon, with a view of binding them still more closely to his interests by motives of gratitude, gave them on the present occasion an ample share in the booty. Bavaria was erected into a kingdom,[12] and received, from Prussia, Anspach and Baireuth; from Austria, the whole of the Tyrol, Vorarlberg and Lindau, the Margraviate of Burgau, the dioceses of Passau, Eichstädt, Trent, and Brixen, besides several petty lordships. Wurtemberg was raised to a monarchy and enriched with the bordering Austrian lordships in Swabia. Baden was rewarded with the Breisgau, the Ortenau, Constance, and the title of grandduke. Venice was included by Napoleon in his kingdom of Italy, and, for all these losses, Austria was merely indemnified by the possession of Salzburg. Ferdinand, elector of Salzburg, the former grandduke of Tuscany, was transferred to Wurzburg. Ferdinand of Modena lost the whole of his possessions.
The imperial crown, so well maintained by Napoleon, now shone with redoubled lustre. The petty republics and the provinces dependent upon the French empire were erected into kingdoms and principalities and bestowed upon his relatives and favorites. His brother Joseph was created king of Naples; his brother Louis, king of Holland; his stepson Eugene Beauharnais, viceroy of Italy; his brother-in-law Murat, formerly a common horse-soldier, now his best general of cavalry, grandduke of Berg; his first adjutant, Berthier, prince of Neufchâtel; his uncle, Cardinal Fesch, was nominated successor to the elector of Mayence, then resident at Ratisbon. In order to remove the stigma attached to him as a parvenu, Napoleon also began to form matrimonial alliances between his family and the most ancient houses of Europe. His handsome stepson, Eugene, married the Princess Augusta, daughter to the king of Bavaria; his brother Jerome, Catherine, daughter to the king of Wurtemberg; and his niece, Stephanie, Charles, hereditary prince of Baden. All the new princes were vassals of the emperor Napoleon, and, by a family decree, subject to his supremacy. All belonged to the great empire. Switzerland was also included, and but one step more was wanting to complete the incorporation of half the German empire with that of France.
On the 12th of July, 1806, sixteen princes of Western Germany concluded, under Napoleon's direction, a treaty, according to which they separated themselves from the German empire and founded the so-called Rhenish Alliance, which it was their intention to render subject to the supremacy of the emperor of the French.[13] On the 1st of August, Napoleon declared that he no longer recognized the empire of Germany! No one ventured to oppose his omnipotent voice. On the 6th of August, 1806, the emperor, Francis II., abdicated the imperial crown of Germany and announced the dissolution of the empire in a touching address, full of calm dignity and sorrow. The last of the German emperors had shown himself, throughout the contest, worthy of his great ancestors, and had, almost alone, sacrificed all in order to preserve the honor of Germany, until, abandoned by the greater part of the German princes, he was compelled to yield to a power superior to his. The fall of the empire that had stood the storms of a thousand years, was, however, not without dignity. A meaner hand might have levelled the decayed fabric with the dust, but fate, that seemed to honor even the faded majesty of the ancient Caesars, selected Napoleon as the executioner of her decrees. The standard of Charlemagne, the greatest hero of the first Christian age, was to be profaned by no hand save that of the greatest hero of modern times.