CHAPTER XXXIX.

CHAPTER XXXIX.System of Education introduced into France by Napoleon—National University—its nature and objects—Lyceums—Proposed Establishment at Meudon.The reputation of Buonaparte as a soldier, was the means which raised him to the Imperial dignity; and, unfortunately for himself, his ideas were so constantly associated with war and victory, that peaceful regulations of every kind were postponed, as of inferior importance; and thus war, which in the eye of reason ought always, even when most necessary and justifiable, to be regarded as an extraordinary state into which a nation is plunged by compulsion, was certainly regarded by Napoleon as almost the natural and ordinary condition of humanity. He had been bred on the battle-field, from which his glory first arose. "The earthquake voice of victory," according to the expression of Britain's noble and lost bard, "was to him the breath of life."[329]And although his powerful mind was capable of applying itself to all the various relations of human affairs, it was with war and desolation that he was most familiar, and the tendency of his government accordingly bore an aspect decidedly military.PUBLIC EDUCATION.The instruction of the youth of France had been the subject of several projects during the Republic; which was the more necessary, as the Revolution had entirely destroyed all the colleges and seminaries of public instruction, most of which were more or less connected with the Church, and had left the nation almost destitute of any public means of education. These schemes were of course marked with the wild sophistry of the period. In many cases they failed in execution from want of public encouragement; in others, from want of funds. Still, however, though no fixed scheme of education had been adopted, and though the increasing vice and ignorance of the rising generation was sufficiently shocking, there existed in France two or three classes of schools for different purposes; as indeed it is not to be supposed that so great and civilized a nation could, under any circumstances, tolerate a total want of the means of educating their youth.The schemes to which we allude had agreed in arranging, that each commune (answering, perhaps, to our parish) shouldprovide a school and teacher, for the purpose of communicating the primary and most indispensable principles of education. This plan had in a great measure failed, owing to the poverty of the communes on whom the expense was thrown. In some cases, however, the communes had found funds for this necessary purpose; and, in others, the expense had been divided betwixt the public body, and the pupils who received the benefit of the establishment. So that these primary schools existed in many instances, though certainly in a precarious and languishing state.The secondary schools were such as qualified persons, or those who held themselves out as such, had established upon speculation, or by the aid of private contributions, for teaching the learned and modern languages, geography, and mathematics.There was besides evinced on the part of the Catholic clergy, so soon as the Concordat had restored them to some rank and influence, a desire to resume the task of public education, which, before the Revolution, had been chiefly vested in their hands. Their seminaries had been supported by the public with considerable liberality, and being under the control of the bishop, and destined chiefly to bring up young persons intended for the Church, they had obtained the name of Ecclesiastical Schools.LYCEUMS.Matters were upon this footing when Buonaparte brought forward his grand project of a National University, composed of a Grand Master, a Chancellor, a treasurer, ten counsellors for life, twenty counsellors in ordinary, and thirty inspectors-general; the whole forming a sort of Imperial council, whose supremacy was to be absolute on matters respecting education. All teachers, and all seminaries of education, were subjected to the supreme authority of the National University, nor could any school be opened without a brevet or diploma from the Grand Master, upon which a considerable tax was imposed. It was indeed the policy of the government to diminish as far as possible the number of Secondary and of Ecclesiastical Schools, in order that the public education might be conducted at the public seminaries, called Lyceums, or Academies.In these Lyceums the discipline was partly military, partly monastic. The masters, censors, and teachers, in the Lyceums and Colleges, were bound to celibacy; the professors might marry, but in that case were not permitted to reside within the precincts. The youth were entirely separated from their families, and allowed to correspond with no one save their parents, and then only through the medium, and under the inspection, of the censors. The whole system was subjected to the strict and frequent investigation of the University. The Grand Master might dismiss any person he pleased, and such a sentence of dismission disqualified the party receiving it from holding any civil employment.In the general case, it is the object of a place of learning to remove from the eyes of youth that pomp and parade of war,by which at an early age they are so easily withdrawn from severe attention to their studies. The Lyceums of Buonaparte were conducted on a contrary principle; every thing was done by beat of drum, all the interior arrangements of the boys were upon a military footing. At a period when the soldier's profession held out the most splendid prospects of successful ambition, it was no wonder that young men soon learned to look forward to it as the only line worthy of a man of spirit to pursue. The devotion of the young students to the Emperor, carefully infused into them by their teachers, was farther excited by the recollection, that he was their benefactor for all the means of instruction afforded them; and thus they learned from every circumstance around them, that the first object of their lives was devotion to his service, and that the service required of them was of a military character.There were in each Lyceum one hundred and fifty exhibitions, or scholarships, of which twenty were of value sufficient to cover the student's full expenses, while the rest, of smaller amount, were called half or three quarter bursaries, in which the parents or relations of the lad supplied a portion of the charge. From these Lyceums, two hundred and fifty of the most selected youth were yearly draughted into the more professional and special military schools maintained by the Emperor; and to be included in this chosen number, was the prime object of every student. Thus, every thing induced the young men brought up at these Lyceums, to look upon a military life as the most natural and enviable course they had to pursue; and thus Buonaparte accomplished that alteration on the existing generation, which he intimated, when he said, "The clergy regard this world as a mere diligence which is to convey us to the next—it must be my business to fill the public carriage with good recruits for my army."Of the whole range of national education, that which was conducted at the Lyceums, or central schools, was alone supported by the state; and the courses there taught were generally limited to Latin and mathematics, the usual accomplishments of a military academy. Undoubtedly Brienne was in Napoleon's recollection; nor might he perhaps think a better, or a more enlarged course of education necessary for the subjects of France, than that which had advanced their sovereign to the supreme government. But there was a deeper reason in the limitation. Those who, under another system of education, might have advanced themselves to that degree of knowledge which becomes influential upon the mind of the public, or the fortunes of a state, by other means than those of violence, were disqualified for the task by that which they received in the Lyceums; and the gentle, studious, and peaceful youth, was formed, like all the rest of the generation, to the trade of war, to which he was probably soon to be called by the conscription. If the father chose to place his son at one of the Secondary Schools, where a larger sphere of instructionwas opened, it was still at the risk of seeing the youth withdrawn from thence and transferred to the nearest Lyceum, if the Directors of the Academy should judge it necessary for the encouragement of the schools which appertained more properly to Government.Yet Napoleon appears to have been blind to the errors of this system, or rather to have been delighted with them, as tending directly to aid his despotic views. "My university," he was accustomed to say to the very last, "was a masterpiece of combination, and would have produced the most material effect on the public mind." And he was wont on such occasions to throw the blame of its failure on Monsieur Fontanes, the Grand Master, who, he said, afterwards took merit with the Bourbons for having encumbered its operation in some of its most material particulars.Buonaparte, it must be added, at a later period, resolved to complete his system of national education, by a species of Corinthian capital. He proposed the establishment of an institution at Meudon, for the education of his son, the King of Rome, where he was to be trained to the arts becoming a ruler, in the society of other young princes of the Imperial family, or the descendants of the allies of Napoleon. This would have been reversing the plan of tuition imposed on Cyrus, and on Henry IV., who were bred up among the common children of the peasants, that their future grandeur might not too much or too early obscure the real views of human nature and character. But it is unnecessary to speculate on a system which never was doomed to be brought to experiment; only, we may presume it was intended to teach the young Napoleon more respect to the right of property which his princely companions held in their toys and playthings, than his father evinced towards the crowns and sceptres of his brothers and allies.

System of Education introduced into France by Napoleon—National University—its nature and objects—Lyceums—Proposed Establishment at Meudon.

System of Education introduced into France by Napoleon—National University—its nature and objects—Lyceums—Proposed Establishment at Meudon.

The reputation of Buonaparte as a soldier, was the means which raised him to the Imperial dignity; and, unfortunately for himself, his ideas were so constantly associated with war and victory, that peaceful regulations of every kind were postponed, as of inferior importance; and thus war, which in the eye of reason ought always, even when most necessary and justifiable, to be regarded as an extraordinary state into which a nation is plunged by compulsion, was certainly regarded by Napoleon as almost the natural and ordinary condition of humanity. He had been bred on the battle-field, from which his glory first arose. "The earthquake voice of victory," according to the expression of Britain's noble and lost bard, "was to him the breath of life."[329]And although his powerful mind was capable of applying itself to all the various relations of human affairs, it was with war and desolation that he was most familiar, and the tendency of his government accordingly bore an aspect decidedly military.

PUBLIC EDUCATION.

The instruction of the youth of France had been the subject of several projects during the Republic; which was the more necessary, as the Revolution had entirely destroyed all the colleges and seminaries of public instruction, most of which were more or less connected with the Church, and had left the nation almost destitute of any public means of education. These schemes were of course marked with the wild sophistry of the period. In many cases they failed in execution from want of public encouragement; in others, from want of funds. Still, however, though no fixed scheme of education had been adopted, and though the increasing vice and ignorance of the rising generation was sufficiently shocking, there existed in France two or three classes of schools for different purposes; as indeed it is not to be supposed that so great and civilized a nation could, under any circumstances, tolerate a total want of the means of educating their youth.

The schemes to which we allude had agreed in arranging, that each commune (answering, perhaps, to our parish) shouldprovide a school and teacher, for the purpose of communicating the primary and most indispensable principles of education. This plan had in a great measure failed, owing to the poverty of the communes on whom the expense was thrown. In some cases, however, the communes had found funds for this necessary purpose; and, in others, the expense had been divided betwixt the public body, and the pupils who received the benefit of the establishment. So that these primary schools existed in many instances, though certainly in a precarious and languishing state.

The secondary schools were such as qualified persons, or those who held themselves out as such, had established upon speculation, or by the aid of private contributions, for teaching the learned and modern languages, geography, and mathematics.

There was besides evinced on the part of the Catholic clergy, so soon as the Concordat had restored them to some rank and influence, a desire to resume the task of public education, which, before the Revolution, had been chiefly vested in their hands. Their seminaries had been supported by the public with considerable liberality, and being under the control of the bishop, and destined chiefly to bring up young persons intended for the Church, they had obtained the name of Ecclesiastical Schools.

LYCEUMS.

Matters were upon this footing when Buonaparte brought forward his grand project of a National University, composed of a Grand Master, a Chancellor, a treasurer, ten counsellors for life, twenty counsellors in ordinary, and thirty inspectors-general; the whole forming a sort of Imperial council, whose supremacy was to be absolute on matters respecting education. All teachers, and all seminaries of education, were subjected to the supreme authority of the National University, nor could any school be opened without a brevet or diploma from the Grand Master, upon which a considerable tax was imposed. It was indeed the policy of the government to diminish as far as possible the number of Secondary and of Ecclesiastical Schools, in order that the public education might be conducted at the public seminaries, called Lyceums, or Academies.

In these Lyceums the discipline was partly military, partly monastic. The masters, censors, and teachers, in the Lyceums and Colleges, were bound to celibacy; the professors might marry, but in that case were not permitted to reside within the precincts. The youth were entirely separated from their families, and allowed to correspond with no one save their parents, and then only through the medium, and under the inspection, of the censors. The whole system was subjected to the strict and frequent investigation of the University. The Grand Master might dismiss any person he pleased, and such a sentence of dismission disqualified the party receiving it from holding any civil employment.

In the general case, it is the object of a place of learning to remove from the eyes of youth that pomp and parade of war,by which at an early age they are so easily withdrawn from severe attention to their studies. The Lyceums of Buonaparte were conducted on a contrary principle; every thing was done by beat of drum, all the interior arrangements of the boys were upon a military footing. At a period when the soldier's profession held out the most splendid prospects of successful ambition, it was no wonder that young men soon learned to look forward to it as the only line worthy of a man of spirit to pursue. The devotion of the young students to the Emperor, carefully infused into them by their teachers, was farther excited by the recollection, that he was their benefactor for all the means of instruction afforded them; and thus they learned from every circumstance around them, that the first object of their lives was devotion to his service, and that the service required of them was of a military character.

There were in each Lyceum one hundred and fifty exhibitions, or scholarships, of which twenty were of value sufficient to cover the student's full expenses, while the rest, of smaller amount, were called half or three quarter bursaries, in which the parents or relations of the lad supplied a portion of the charge. From these Lyceums, two hundred and fifty of the most selected youth were yearly draughted into the more professional and special military schools maintained by the Emperor; and to be included in this chosen number, was the prime object of every student. Thus, every thing induced the young men brought up at these Lyceums, to look upon a military life as the most natural and enviable course they had to pursue; and thus Buonaparte accomplished that alteration on the existing generation, which he intimated, when he said, "The clergy regard this world as a mere diligence which is to convey us to the next—it must be my business to fill the public carriage with good recruits for my army."

Of the whole range of national education, that which was conducted at the Lyceums, or central schools, was alone supported by the state; and the courses there taught were generally limited to Latin and mathematics, the usual accomplishments of a military academy. Undoubtedly Brienne was in Napoleon's recollection; nor might he perhaps think a better, or a more enlarged course of education necessary for the subjects of France, than that which had advanced their sovereign to the supreme government. But there was a deeper reason in the limitation. Those who, under another system of education, might have advanced themselves to that degree of knowledge which becomes influential upon the mind of the public, or the fortunes of a state, by other means than those of violence, were disqualified for the task by that which they received in the Lyceums; and the gentle, studious, and peaceful youth, was formed, like all the rest of the generation, to the trade of war, to which he was probably soon to be called by the conscription. If the father chose to place his son at one of the Secondary Schools, where a larger sphere of instructionwas opened, it was still at the risk of seeing the youth withdrawn from thence and transferred to the nearest Lyceum, if the Directors of the Academy should judge it necessary for the encouragement of the schools which appertained more properly to Government.

Yet Napoleon appears to have been blind to the errors of this system, or rather to have been delighted with them, as tending directly to aid his despotic views. "My university," he was accustomed to say to the very last, "was a masterpiece of combination, and would have produced the most material effect on the public mind." And he was wont on such occasions to throw the blame of its failure on Monsieur Fontanes, the Grand Master, who, he said, afterwards took merit with the Bourbons for having encumbered its operation in some of its most material particulars.

Buonaparte, it must be added, at a later period, resolved to complete his system of national education, by a species of Corinthian capital. He proposed the establishment of an institution at Meudon, for the education of his son, the King of Rome, where he was to be trained to the arts becoming a ruler, in the society of other young princes of the Imperial family, or the descendants of the allies of Napoleon. This would have been reversing the plan of tuition imposed on Cyrus, and on Henry IV., who were bred up among the common children of the peasants, that their future grandeur might not too much or too early obscure the real views of human nature and character. But it is unnecessary to speculate on a system which never was doomed to be brought to experiment; only, we may presume it was intended to teach the young Napoleon more respect to the right of property which his princely companions held in their toys and playthings, than his father evinced towards the crowns and sceptres of his brothers and allies.

CHAPTER XL.Military Details—Plan of the Conscription—Its Nature—and Effects—Enforced with unsparing rigour—Its influence upon the general Character of the French Soldiery—New mode of Conducting Hostilities introduced by the Revolution—Constitution of the French Armies, Forced Marches—La Maraude—Its Nature—and Effects—on the Enemy's Country, and on the French Soldiers themselves—Policy of Napoleon, in his personal conduct to his Officers and Soldiers—Altered Character of the French Soldiery during, and after, the Revolution.THE CONSCRIPTION.We have shown that the course of education practised in France was so directed, as to turn the thoughts and hopes of the youth to a military life, and prepare them to obey the call of the conscription. This means of recruiting the military force, the most formidableever established in a civilized nation, was originally presented to the Council of Five Hundred in 1798.[330]It comprehended a series of lists, containing the names of the whole youth of the kingdom, from the age of twenty to twenty-five, and empowering government to call them out successively, in such numbers as the exigencies of the state should require. The classes were five in number. The first contained those who were aged twenty years complete, before the commencement of the year relative to which the conscription was demanded, and the same rule applied to the other four classes of men, who had attained the twenty-first, twenty-second, twenty-third, twenty-fourth, and twenty-fifth years successively, before the same period. In practice, however, the second class of conscripts were not called out until the first were actually in service, nor was it usual to demand more than the first class in any one year. But as the first class amounted to 60 or 80,000, so forcible and general a levy presented immense facilities to the government, and was proportionally burdensome to the people.[331]This law, undoubtedly, has its general principle in the duty which every one owes to his country. Nothing can be more true, than that all men capable of bearing arms are liable to be employed in the defence of the state; and nothing can be more politic, than that the obligation which is incumbent upon all, should be, in the first instance, imposed upon the youth, who are best qualified for military service by the freshness of their age, and whose absence from the ordinary business of the country will occasion the least inconvenience. But it is obvious, that such a measure can only be vindicated in defensive war, and that the conduct of Buonaparte, who applied the system to the conduct of distant offensive wars, no otherwise necessary than for the satisfaction of his own ambition, stands liable to the heavy charge of having drained the very life-blood of the people intrusted to his charge, not for the defence of their own country, but to extend the ravages of war to distant and unoffending regions.The French conscription was yet more severely felt by the extreme rigour of its conditions. No distinction was made betwixt the married man, whose absence might be the ruin of his family, and the single member of a numerous lineage, who could be easily spared. The son of the widow, the child of the decrepid and helpless, had no right to claim an exemption. Three sons might be carried off in three successive years from the same desolated parents; there was no allowance made for having already supplied a recruit. Those unable to serve were mulcted in a charge proportioned to the quota of taxes which they or their parents contributed to the state, and which might vary from fifty to twelve hundred francs. Substitutes might indeed be offered,but then it was both difficult and expensive to procure them, as the law required that such substitutes should not only have the usual personal qualifications for a military life, but should be domesticated within the same district as their principal, or come within the conscription of the year. Suitable persons were sure to know their own value, and had learned so well to profit by it, that they were not to be bribed to serve without excessive bounties. The substitutes also had the practice of deserting upon the road, and thus cheated the principal, who remained answerable for them till they joined their colours. On the whole, the difficulty of obtaining exemption by substitution was so great, that very many young men, well educated, and of respectable families, were torn from all their more propitious prospects, to bear the life, discharge the duties, and die the death, of common soldiers in a marching regiment.There was no part of Napoleon's government enforced with such extreme rigour as the levy of the conscriptions.[332]The mayor, upon whom the duty devolved of seeing the number called for selected by lot from the class to whom they belonged, was compelled, under the most severe penalties, to avoid showing the slightest indulgence—the brand, the pillory, or the galleys, awaited the magistrate himself, if he was found to have favoured any individuals on whom the law of conscription had claims. The same laws held out the utmost extent of their terrors against refractory conscripts, and the public functionaries were every where in search of them. When arrested, they were treated like convicts of the most infamous description. Clothed in a dress of infamy, loaded with chains, and dragging weights which were attached to them, they were condemned like galley slaves to work upon the public fortifications. Their relations did not escape, but were often rendered liable for fines and penalties.But perhaps the most horrible part of the fate of the conscript, was, that it was determined for life. Two or three, even four or five years spent in military service, might have formed a more endurable, though certainly a severe tax upon human life, with its natural prospects and purposes. But the conscription effectually and for ever changed the character of its victims. The youth, when he left his father's hearth, was aware that he was bidding it adieu, in all mortal apprehension, for ever; and the parents who had parted with him, young, virtuous, and ingenuous, and with a tendency, perhaps, to acquire the advantages of education, could only expect to see him again (should so unlikely an event ever take place) with the habits, thoughts, manners, and morals, of a private soldier.But whatever distress was inflicted on the country by this mode of compulsory levy, it was a weapon particularly qualified to serve Buonaparte's purposes. He succeeded to the power which it gave the government, amongst other spoils of the Revolution, and he used it to the greatest possible extent.The conscription, of course, comprehended recruits of every kind, good, bad, and indifferent; but chosen as they were from the mass of the people, without distinction, they were, upon the whole, much superior to that description of persons among whom volunteers for the army are usually levied in other countries, which comprehends chiefly the desperate, the reckless, the profligate, and those whose unsettled or vicious habits render them unfit for peaceful life. The number of young men of some education who were compelled to serve in the ranks, gave a tone and feeling to the French army of a very superior character, and explains why a good deal of intellect and power of observation was often found amongst the private sentinels. The habits of the nation also being strongly turned towards war, the French formed, upon the whole, the most orderly, most obedient, most easily commanded, and best regulated troops, that ever took the field in any age or country. In the long and protracted struggle of battle, their fiery courage might sometimes be exhausted before that of the determined British; but in all that respects the science, practice, and usages of war, the French are generally allowed to have excelled their more stubborn, but less ingenious rivals. They excelled especially in the art of shifting for themselves; and it was one in which the wars of Napoleon required them to be peculiarly adroit.[333]The French Revolution first introduced into Europe a mode of conducting hostilities, which transferred almost the whole burden of the war to the country which had the ill-fortune to be the seat of its operations, and rendered it a resource rather than a drain to the successful belligerent. This we shall presently explain.THE CONSCRIPTION—CORPS D'ARMÉE.At the commencement of a campaign, nothing could be so complete as the arrangement of a French army. It was formed into large bodies, calledcorps d'armée, each commanded by a king, viceroy, mareschal, or general officer of high pretensions, founded on former services. Each corps d'armée formed a complete army within itself, and had its allotted proportion of cavalry, infantry, artillery, and troops of every description. The corps d'armée consisted of from six to ten divisions, each commanded by a general of division. The divisions, again, were subdivided into brigades, of which each, comprehending two or three regiments, (consisting of two or more battalions,) was commanded by a general of brigade. A corps d'armée might vary in number from fifty to eighty thousand men, and upwards; and the general of such a body exercised the full military authority over it, without the controlof any one excepting the Emperor himself. There were very few instances of the Emperor's putting the officers who were capable of this high charge under command of each other; indeed, so very few, as might almost imply some doubt on his part, of his commands to this effect being obeyed, had they been issued. This system of dividing his collected forces into separate and nearly independent armies, the generals of which were each intrusted with and responsible for his execution of some separate portion of an immense combined plan, gave great celerity and efficacy to the French movements; and, superintended as it was by the master-spirit which planned the campaign, often contributed to the most brilliant results. But whenever it became necessary to combine two corps d'armée in one operation, it required the personal presence of Napoleon himself.Thus organised, the French army was poured into some foreign country by forced marches, without any previous arrangement of stores or magazines for their maintenance, and with the purpose of maintaining them solely at the expense of the inhabitants. Buonaparte was exercised in this system; and the combination of great masses, by means of such forced marches, was one great principle of his tactics. This species of war was carried on at the least possible expense of money to his treasury; but it was necessarily at the greatest possible expenditure of human life, and the incalculable increase of human misery. Napoleon's usual object was to surprise the enemy by the rapidity of his marches, defeat him in some great battle, and then seize upon his capital, levy contributions, make a peace with such advantages as he could obtain, and finally return to Paris.LA MARAUDE.In these dazzling campaigns, the army usually began their march with provisions, that is, bread or biscuit for a certain number of days, on the soldiers' backs. Cattle also were for a time driven along with them, and slaughtered as wanted. These articles were usually provided from some large town or populous district, in which the troops might have been cantoned. The horses of the cavalry were likewise loaded with forage, for the consumption of two or three days. Thus provided, the army set forward on its expedition by forced marches. In a very short time the soldiers became impatient of their burdens, and either wasted them by prodigal consumption, or actually threw them away. It was then that the officers, who soon entertained just apprehensions of the troops suffering scarcity before another regular issue of provisions, gave authority to secure supplies by what was calledla maraude, in other words, by plunder. To ensure that these forced supplies should be collected and distributed systematically, a certain number of soldiers from each company were despatched to obtain provisions at the villages and farm-houses in the neighbourhood of the march, or of the ground upon which the army was encamped. These soldiers were authorised to compel the inhabitants to deliver their provisions withoutreceipt or payment; and, such being their regular duty, it may be well supposed that they did not confine themselves to provisions, but exacted money and articles of value, and committed many other similar abuses.THE FRENCH SOLDIERY.It must be owned, that the intellectual character of the French, and the good-nature which is the real ground of their national character, rendered their conduct more endurable under the evils of this system than could have been expected, provided always that provisions were plenty, and the country populous. A sort of order was then observed, even in the disorder of themaraude, and pains were taken to divide regularly the provisions thus irregularly obtained. The general temper of the soldiery, when unprovoked by resistance, made them not wholly barbarous; and their original good discipline, the education which many had received, with the habits of docility which all had acquired, prevented them from breaking up into bands of absolute banditti, and destroying themselves by their own irregularities. No troops except the French could have subsisted in the same manner; for no other army is sufficiently under the command of its officers.But the most hideous features of this system were shown when the army marched through a thinly-peopled country, or when the national character, and perhaps local facilities, encouraged the natives and peasants to offer resistance. Then the soldiers became animated alike by the scarcity of provisions, and irritated at the danger which they sometimes incurred in collecting them. As their hardships increased, their temper became relentless and reckless, and, besides indulging in every other species of violence, they increased their own distresses by destroying what they could not use. Famine and sickness were not long of visiting an army which traversed by forced marches a country exhausted of provisions. These stern attendants followed the French columns as they struggled on. Without hospitals, and without magazines, every straggler who could not regain his ranks fell a victim to hunger, to weather, to weariness, to the vengeance of an incensed peasantry. In this manner, the French army suffered woes, which, till these tremendous wars, had never been the lot of troops in hostilities carried on between civilized nations. Still Buonaparte's object was gained; he attained, amid these losses and sacrifices, and at the expense of them, the point which he had desired; displayed his masses to the terrified eyes of a surprised enemy; reaped the reward of his despatch in a general victory; and furnished new subjects of triumph to theMoniteur. So much did he rely upon the celerity of movement, that if an officer asked time to execute any of his commands, it was frequently his remarkable answer—"Ask me for any thing except time." That celerity depended on the uncompromising system of forced marches, without established magazines; and we have described how wasteful it must have been to humanlife.[334]But when the battle was over, the dead were at rest, and could not complain; the living were victors, and soon forgot their sufferings; and the loss of the recruits who had been wasted in the campaign, was supplied by another draught upon the youth of France, in the usual forms of the conscription.Buonaparte observed, with respect to his army, an adroit species of policy. His mareschals, his generals, his officers of high rank, were liberally honoured and rewarded by him; but he never treated them with personal familiarity. The forms of etiquette were, upon all occasions, strictly maintained. Perhaps he was of opinion that the original equality in which they had stood with regard to each other, would have been too strongly recalled by a more familiar mode of intercourse. But to the common soldier, who could not misconstrue or intrude upon his familiarity, Buonaparte observed a different line of conduct. He permitted himself to be addressed by them on all suitable occasions, and paid strict attention to their petitions, complaints, and even their remonstrances. What they complained of was, in all instances, inquired into and reformed, if the complaints were just. After a battle, he was accustomed to consult the regiments which had distinguished themselves, concerning the merits of those who had deserved the Legion of Honour, or other military distinction. In these moments of conscious importance, the sufferings of the whole campaign were forgotten; and Napoleon seemed, to the soldiery who surrounded him, not as the ambitious man who had dragged them from their homes, to waste their valour in foreign fields, and had purchased victory at the expense of subjecting them to every privation, but as the father of the war, to whom his soldiers were as children, and to whom the honour of the meanest private was as dear as his own.Every attention was paid, to do justice to the claims of the soldier, and provide for his preferment as it was merited. But with all this encouragement, it was the remark of Buonaparte himself, that the army no longer produced, under the Empire, such distinguished soldiers as Pichegru, Kleber, Moreau, Massena, Desaix, Hoche, and he himself above all, who, starting from the ranks of obscurity, like runners to a race, had astonished the world by their progress. These men of the highest genius, had been produced, as Buonaparte thought, in and by the fervour of the Revolution; and he appears to have been of opinion, that, since things had returned more and more into the ordinary and restricted bounds of civil society, men of the same high class were no longer created. There is, however, some fallacyin this statement. Times of revolution do not create great men, but revolutions usually take place in periods of society when great principles have been under discussion, and the views of the young and of the old have been turned, by the complexion of the times, towards matters of grand and serious consideration, which elevate the character and raise the ambition. When the collision of mutual violence, the explosion of the revolution itself actually breaks out, it neither does nor cancreatetalent of any kind. But it brings forth, (and in general destroys,) in the course of its progress, all the talent which the predisposition to discussion of public affairs had already encouraged and fostered; and when that talent has perished, it cannot be replaced from a race educated amidst the furies of civil war. The abilities of the Long Parliament ceased to be seen under the Commonwealth, and the same is true of the French Convention, and the Empire which succeeded it. Revolution is like a conflagration, which throws temporary light upon the ornaments and architecture of the house to which it attaches, but always ends by destroying them.It is said also, probably with less authority, that Napoleon, even when surrounded by those Imperial Guards, whose discipline had been so sedulously carried to the highest pitch, sometimes regretted the want of the old Revolutionary soldiers, whose war-cry, "Vive la Republique!" identified each individual with the cause which he maintained. Napoleon, however, had no cause to regret any circumstance which referred to his military power. It was already far too great, and had destroyed the proper scale of government in France, by giving the military a decided superiority over all men of civil professions, while he himself, with the habits and reasoning of a despotic general, had assumed an almost unlimited authority over the fairest part of Europe. Over foreign countries, the military renown of France streamed like a comet, inspiring universal dread and distrust; and whilst it rendered indispensable similar preparations for resistance, it seemed as if peace had departed from the earth for ever, and that its destinies were hereafter to be disposed of according to the laws of brutal force alone.

Military Details—Plan of the Conscription—Its Nature—and Effects—Enforced with unsparing rigour—Its influence upon the general Character of the French Soldiery—New mode of Conducting Hostilities introduced by the Revolution—Constitution of the French Armies, Forced Marches—La Maraude—Its Nature—and Effects—on the Enemy's Country, and on the French Soldiers themselves—Policy of Napoleon, in his personal conduct to his Officers and Soldiers—Altered Character of the French Soldiery during, and after, the Revolution.

Military Details—Plan of the Conscription—Its Nature—and Effects—Enforced with unsparing rigour—Its influence upon the general Character of the French Soldiery—New mode of Conducting Hostilities introduced by the Revolution—Constitution of the French Armies, Forced Marches—La Maraude—Its Nature—and Effects—on the Enemy's Country, and on the French Soldiers themselves—Policy of Napoleon, in his personal conduct to his Officers and Soldiers—Altered Character of the French Soldiery during, and after, the Revolution.

THE CONSCRIPTION.

We have shown that the course of education practised in France was so directed, as to turn the thoughts and hopes of the youth to a military life, and prepare them to obey the call of the conscription. This means of recruiting the military force, the most formidableever established in a civilized nation, was originally presented to the Council of Five Hundred in 1798.[330]It comprehended a series of lists, containing the names of the whole youth of the kingdom, from the age of twenty to twenty-five, and empowering government to call them out successively, in such numbers as the exigencies of the state should require. The classes were five in number. The first contained those who were aged twenty years complete, before the commencement of the year relative to which the conscription was demanded, and the same rule applied to the other four classes of men, who had attained the twenty-first, twenty-second, twenty-third, twenty-fourth, and twenty-fifth years successively, before the same period. In practice, however, the second class of conscripts were not called out until the first were actually in service, nor was it usual to demand more than the first class in any one year. But as the first class amounted to 60 or 80,000, so forcible and general a levy presented immense facilities to the government, and was proportionally burdensome to the people.[331]

This law, undoubtedly, has its general principle in the duty which every one owes to his country. Nothing can be more true, than that all men capable of bearing arms are liable to be employed in the defence of the state; and nothing can be more politic, than that the obligation which is incumbent upon all, should be, in the first instance, imposed upon the youth, who are best qualified for military service by the freshness of their age, and whose absence from the ordinary business of the country will occasion the least inconvenience. But it is obvious, that such a measure can only be vindicated in defensive war, and that the conduct of Buonaparte, who applied the system to the conduct of distant offensive wars, no otherwise necessary than for the satisfaction of his own ambition, stands liable to the heavy charge of having drained the very life-blood of the people intrusted to his charge, not for the defence of their own country, but to extend the ravages of war to distant and unoffending regions.

The French conscription was yet more severely felt by the extreme rigour of its conditions. No distinction was made betwixt the married man, whose absence might be the ruin of his family, and the single member of a numerous lineage, who could be easily spared. The son of the widow, the child of the decrepid and helpless, had no right to claim an exemption. Three sons might be carried off in three successive years from the same desolated parents; there was no allowance made for having already supplied a recruit. Those unable to serve were mulcted in a charge proportioned to the quota of taxes which they or their parents contributed to the state, and which might vary from fifty to twelve hundred francs. Substitutes might indeed be offered,but then it was both difficult and expensive to procure them, as the law required that such substitutes should not only have the usual personal qualifications for a military life, but should be domesticated within the same district as their principal, or come within the conscription of the year. Suitable persons were sure to know their own value, and had learned so well to profit by it, that they were not to be bribed to serve without excessive bounties. The substitutes also had the practice of deserting upon the road, and thus cheated the principal, who remained answerable for them till they joined their colours. On the whole, the difficulty of obtaining exemption by substitution was so great, that very many young men, well educated, and of respectable families, were torn from all their more propitious prospects, to bear the life, discharge the duties, and die the death, of common soldiers in a marching regiment.

There was no part of Napoleon's government enforced with such extreme rigour as the levy of the conscriptions.[332]The mayor, upon whom the duty devolved of seeing the number called for selected by lot from the class to whom they belonged, was compelled, under the most severe penalties, to avoid showing the slightest indulgence—the brand, the pillory, or the galleys, awaited the magistrate himself, if he was found to have favoured any individuals on whom the law of conscription had claims. The same laws held out the utmost extent of their terrors against refractory conscripts, and the public functionaries were every where in search of them. When arrested, they were treated like convicts of the most infamous description. Clothed in a dress of infamy, loaded with chains, and dragging weights which were attached to them, they were condemned like galley slaves to work upon the public fortifications. Their relations did not escape, but were often rendered liable for fines and penalties.

But perhaps the most horrible part of the fate of the conscript, was, that it was determined for life. Two or three, even four or five years spent in military service, might have formed a more endurable, though certainly a severe tax upon human life, with its natural prospects and purposes. But the conscription effectually and for ever changed the character of its victims. The youth, when he left his father's hearth, was aware that he was bidding it adieu, in all mortal apprehension, for ever; and the parents who had parted with him, young, virtuous, and ingenuous, and with a tendency, perhaps, to acquire the advantages of education, could only expect to see him again (should so unlikely an event ever take place) with the habits, thoughts, manners, and morals, of a private soldier.

But whatever distress was inflicted on the country by this mode of compulsory levy, it was a weapon particularly qualified to serve Buonaparte's purposes. He succeeded to the power which it gave the government, amongst other spoils of the Revolution, and he used it to the greatest possible extent.

The conscription, of course, comprehended recruits of every kind, good, bad, and indifferent; but chosen as they were from the mass of the people, without distinction, they were, upon the whole, much superior to that description of persons among whom volunteers for the army are usually levied in other countries, which comprehends chiefly the desperate, the reckless, the profligate, and those whose unsettled or vicious habits render them unfit for peaceful life. The number of young men of some education who were compelled to serve in the ranks, gave a tone and feeling to the French army of a very superior character, and explains why a good deal of intellect and power of observation was often found amongst the private sentinels. The habits of the nation also being strongly turned towards war, the French formed, upon the whole, the most orderly, most obedient, most easily commanded, and best regulated troops, that ever took the field in any age or country. In the long and protracted struggle of battle, their fiery courage might sometimes be exhausted before that of the determined British; but in all that respects the science, practice, and usages of war, the French are generally allowed to have excelled their more stubborn, but less ingenious rivals. They excelled especially in the art of shifting for themselves; and it was one in which the wars of Napoleon required them to be peculiarly adroit.[333]

The French Revolution first introduced into Europe a mode of conducting hostilities, which transferred almost the whole burden of the war to the country which had the ill-fortune to be the seat of its operations, and rendered it a resource rather than a drain to the successful belligerent. This we shall presently explain.

THE CONSCRIPTION—CORPS D'ARMÉE.

At the commencement of a campaign, nothing could be so complete as the arrangement of a French army. It was formed into large bodies, calledcorps d'armée, each commanded by a king, viceroy, mareschal, or general officer of high pretensions, founded on former services. Each corps d'armée formed a complete army within itself, and had its allotted proportion of cavalry, infantry, artillery, and troops of every description. The corps d'armée consisted of from six to ten divisions, each commanded by a general of division. The divisions, again, were subdivided into brigades, of which each, comprehending two or three regiments, (consisting of two or more battalions,) was commanded by a general of brigade. A corps d'armée might vary in number from fifty to eighty thousand men, and upwards; and the general of such a body exercised the full military authority over it, without the controlof any one excepting the Emperor himself. There were very few instances of the Emperor's putting the officers who were capable of this high charge under command of each other; indeed, so very few, as might almost imply some doubt on his part, of his commands to this effect being obeyed, had they been issued. This system of dividing his collected forces into separate and nearly independent armies, the generals of which were each intrusted with and responsible for his execution of some separate portion of an immense combined plan, gave great celerity and efficacy to the French movements; and, superintended as it was by the master-spirit which planned the campaign, often contributed to the most brilliant results. But whenever it became necessary to combine two corps d'armée in one operation, it required the personal presence of Napoleon himself.

Thus organised, the French army was poured into some foreign country by forced marches, without any previous arrangement of stores or magazines for their maintenance, and with the purpose of maintaining them solely at the expense of the inhabitants. Buonaparte was exercised in this system; and the combination of great masses, by means of such forced marches, was one great principle of his tactics. This species of war was carried on at the least possible expense of money to his treasury; but it was necessarily at the greatest possible expenditure of human life, and the incalculable increase of human misery. Napoleon's usual object was to surprise the enemy by the rapidity of his marches, defeat him in some great battle, and then seize upon his capital, levy contributions, make a peace with such advantages as he could obtain, and finally return to Paris.

LA MARAUDE.

In these dazzling campaigns, the army usually began their march with provisions, that is, bread or biscuit for a certain number of days, on the soldiers' backs. Cattle also were for a time driven along with them, and slaughtered as wanted. These articles were usually provided from some large town or populous district, in which the troops might have been cantoned. The horses of the cavalry were likewise loaded with forage, for the consumption of two or three days. Thus provided, the army set forward on its expedition by forced marches. In a very short time the soldiers became impatient of their burdens, and either wasted them by prodigal consumption, or actually threw them away. It was then that the officers, who soon entertained just apprehensions of the troops suffering scarcity before another regular issue of provisions, gave authority to secure supplies by what was calledla maraude, in other words, by plunder. To ensure that these forced supplies should be collected and distributed systematically, a certain number of soldiers from each company were despatched to obtain provisions at the villages and farm-houses in the neighbourhood of the march, or of the ground upon which the army was encamped. These soldiers were authorised to compel the inhabitants to deliver their provisions withoutreceipt or payment; and, such being their regular duty, it may be well supposed that they did not confine themselves to provisions, but exacted money and articles of value, and committed many other similar abuses.

THE FRENCH SOLDIERY.

It must be owned, that the intellectual character of the French, and the good-nature which is the real ground of their national character, rendered their conduct more endurable under the evils of this system than could have been expected, provided always that provisions were plenty, and the country populous. A sort of order was then observed, even in the disorder of themaraude, and pains were taken to divide regularly the provisions thus irregularly obtained. The general temper of the soldiery, when unprovoked by resistance, made them not wholly barbarous; and their original good discipline, the education which many had received, with the habits of docility which all had acquired, prevented them from breaking up into bands of absolute banditti, and destroying themselves by their own irregularities. No troops except the French could have subsisted in the same manner; for no other army is sufficiently under the command of its officers.

But the most hideous features of this system were shown when the army marched through a thinly-peopled country, or when the national character, and perhaps local facilities, encouraged the natives and peasants to offer resistance. Then the soldiers became animated alike by the scarcity of provisions, and irritated at the danger which they sometimes incurred in collecting them. As their hardships increased, their temper became relentless and reckless, and, besides indulging in every other species of violence, they increased their own distresses by destroying what they could not use. Famine and sickness were not long of visiting an army which traversed by forced marches a country exhausted of provisions. These stern attendants followed the French columns as they struggled on. Without hospitals, and without magazines, every straggler who could not regain his ranks fell a victim to hunger, to weather, to weariness, to the vengeance of an incensed peasantry. In this manner, the French army suffered woes, which, till these tremendous wars, had never been the lot of troops in hostilities carried on between civilized nations. Still Buonaparte's object was gained; he attained, amid these losses and sacrifices, and at the expense of them, the point which he had desired; displayed his masses to the terrified eyes of a surprised enemy; reaped the reward of his despatch in a general victory; and furnished new subjects of triumph to theMoniteur. So much did he rely upon the celerity of movement, that if an officer asked time to execute any of his commands, it was frequently his remarkable answer—"Ask me for any thing except time." That celerity depended on the uncompromising system of forced marches, without established magazines; and we have described how wasteful it must have been to humanlife.[334]But when the battle was over, the dead were at rest, and could not complain; the living were victors, and soon forgot their sufferings; and the loss of the recruits who had been wasted in the campaign, was supplied by another draught upon the youth of France, in the usual forms of the conscription.

Buonaparte observed, with respect to his army, an adroit species of policy. His mareschals, his generals, his officers of high rank, were liberally honoured and rewarded by him; but he never treated them with personal familiarity. The forms of etiquette were, upon all occasions, strictly maintained. Perhaps he was of opinion that the original equality in which they had stood with regard to each other, would have been too strongly recalled by a more familiar mode of intercourse. But to the common soldier, who could not misconstrue or intrude upon his familiarity, Buonaparte observed a different line of conduct. He permitted himself to be addressed by them on all suitable occasions, and paid strict attention to their petitions, complaints, and even their remonstrances. What they complained of was, in all instances, inquired into and reformed, if the complaints were just. After a battle, he was accustomed to consult the regiments which had distinguished themselves, concerning the merits of those who had deserved the Legion of Honour, or other military distinction. In these moments of conscious importance, the sufferings of the whole campaign were forgotten; and Napoleon seemed, to the soldiery who surrounded him, not as the ambitious man who had dragged them from their homes, to waste their valour in foreign fields, and had purchased victory at the expense of subjecting them to every privation, but as the father of the war, to whom his soldiers were as children, and to whom the honour of the meanest private was as dear as his own.

Every attention was paid, to do justice to the claims of the soldier, and provide for his preferment as it was merited. But with all this encouragement, it was the remark of Buonaparte himself, that the army no longer produced, under the Empire, such distinguished soldiers as Pichegru, Kleber, Moreau, Massena, Desaix, Hoche, and he himself above all, who, starting from the ranks of obscurity, like runners to a race, had astonished the world by their progress. These men of the highest genius, had been produced, as Buonaparte thought, in and by the fervour of the Revolution; and he appears to have been of opinion, that, since things had returned more and more into the ordinary and restricted bounds of civil society, men of the same high class were no longer created. There is, however, some fallacyin this statement. Times of revolution do not create great men, but revolutions usually take place in periods of society when great principles have been under discussion, and the views of the young and of the old have been turned, by the complexion of the times, towards matters of grand and serious consideration, which elevate the character and raise the ambition. When the collision of mutual violence, the explosion of the revolution itself actually breaks out, it neither does nor cancreatetalent of any kind. But it brings forth, (and in general destroys,) in the course of its progress, all the talent which the predisposition to discussion of public affairs had already encouraged and fostered; and when that talent has perished, it cannot be replaced from a race educated amidst the furies of civil war. The abilities of the Long Parliament ceased to be seen under the Commonwealth, and the same is true of the French Convention, and the Empire which succeeded it. Revolution is like a conflagration, which throws temporary light upon the ornaments and architecture of the house to which it attaches, but always ends by destroying them.

It is said also, probably with less authority, that Napoleon, even when surrounded by those Imperial Guards, whose discipline had been so sedulously carried to the highest pitch, sometimes regretted the want of the old Revolutionary soldiers, whose war-cry, "Vive la Republique!" identified each individual with the cause which he maintained. Napoleon, however, had no cause to regret any circumstance which referred to his military power. It was already far too great, and had destroyed the proper scale of government in France, by giving the military a decided superiority over all men of civil professions, while he himself, with the habits and reasoning of a despotic general, had assumed an almost unlimited authority over the fairest part of Europe. Over foreign countries, the military renown of France streamed like a comet, inspiring universal dread and distrust; and whilst it rendered indispensable similar preparations for resistance, it seemed as if peace had departed from the earth for ever, and that its destinies were hereafter to be disposed of according to the laws of brutal force alone.

CHAPTER XLI.Effects of the Peace of Tilsit—Napoleon's views of a State of Peace—Contrasted with those of England—The Continental System—Berlin and Milan Decrees—British Orders in Council—Spain—Retrospect of the Relations of that Country with France since the Revolution—Godoy—His Influence—Character—and Political Views—Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias, applies to Napoleon for Aid—Affairs of Portugal—Treaty of Fontainbleau—Departureof the Prince Regent for Brazil—Entrance of Junot into Lisbon—His unbounded Rapacity—Disturbances at Madrid—Ferdinand detected in a Plot against his Father, and imprisoned—King Charles applies to Napoleon—Wily Policy of Buonaparte—Orders the French Army to enter Spain.The peace of Tilsit had been of that character, which, while it settled the points of dispute between two rival monarchies, who had found themselves hardly matched in the conflict to which it put a period, left both at liberty to use towards the nations more immediately under the influence of either, such a degree of discretion as their power enabled them to exercise. Such was Napoleon's idea of pacification, which amounted to this:—"I will work my own pleasure with the countries over which my power gives me not indeed the right, but the authority and power; and you, my ally, shall, in recompense, do what suits you in the territories of other states adjoining to you, but over which I have no such immediate influence."This was the explanation which he put upon the treaty of Amiens, and this was the species of peace which long afterwards he regretted had not been concluded with England. His regrets on that point were expressed at a very late period, in language which is perfectly intelligible. Speaking of France and England, he said, "We have done each other infinite harm—we might have rendered each other infinite service by mutual good understanding. If the school of Fox had succeeded, we would have understood each other—there would only have been in Europe one army and one fleet—we would have governed the world—we would have fixed repose and prosperity every where, either by force or by persuasion. Yes—I repeat how much good we might have done—how much evil we have actually done to each other."[335]Now, the fundamental principle of such a pacification, which Buonaparte seems to the very last to have considered as the mutual basis of common interest, was such as could not, ought not, nay, dared not, have been adopted by any ministry which England could have chosen, so long as she possessed a free Parliament. Her principle of pacification must have been one that ascertained the independence of other powers, not which permitted her own aggressions, and gave way to those of France. Her wealth, strength, and happiness, do, and must always, consist in the national independence of the states upon the continent. She could not, either with conscience or safety, make peace with a usurping conqueror, on the footing that she herself was to become a usurper in her turn. She has no desire or interest to blot out other nations from the map of Europe, in order that no names may remain save those of Britain and France; nor is she interested in depriving other states of their fleets, or of their armies.Her statesmen must disclaim the idea of governing the world, or a moiety of the world, and of making other nations either happy or unhappy by force of arms. The conduct of England in 1814 and in 1815, evinced this honest and honourable policy; since, yielding much to others, she could not be accused of being herself influenced by any views to extend her own dominion, in the general confusion and blending which arose out of the downfall of the external power of France. That, however, is a subject for another place.In the meanwhile, France, who, with Russia, had arranged a treaty of pacification on a very different basis, was now busied in gathering in the advantages which she expected to derive from it. In doing so, it seems to have been Buonaparte's principal object so to consolidate and enforce what he called his Continental System, as ultimately to root out and destroy the remaining precarious communications, which England, by her external commerce, continued to maintain with the nations of the continent.EFFECTS OF THE PEACE OF TILSIT.To attain this grand object, the treaty of Tilsit and its consequences had given him great facilities. France was his own—Holland was under the dominion, nominally, of his brother Louis, but in a great measure at his devotion. His brother Jerome was established in the kingdom of Westphalia. It followed, therefore, in the course of his brother's policy, that he was to form an alliance worthy of his new rank. It has been already noticed that he had abandoned, by his brother's command, Elizabeth Paterson, daughter of a respectable gentleman of Baltimore, whom he had married in 1803. He was now married at the Tuileries to Frederica Catherine, daughter of the King of Wirtemberg.[336]Prussia, and all the once free ports of the Hanseatic League, were closed against English commerce, so far as absolute military power could effect that purpose. Russia was not so tractable in that important matter as the terms of the treaty of Tilsit, and Napoleon's secret engagements with the Czar, had led him to hope. But Alexander was too powerful to be absolutely dictated to in the enforcement of this anti-commercial system; and, indeed, the peculiar state of the Russian nation might have rendered it perilous to the Czar to enforce the non-intercourse to the extent which Napoleon would have wished. The large, bulky, and heavy commodities of Russia—hemp and iron, and timber and wax, and pitch and naval stores—that produce upon which the Boyards of the empire chiefly depended for their revenue, would not bear the expense of transportation by land; and England, in full and exclusive command of the sea, was her only, and at the same time her willing customer. Under various elusorydevices, therefore, England continued to purchase Russian commodities, and pay for them in her own manufactures, in spite of the decrees of the French Emperor, and in defiance of the ukases of the Czar himself; and to this Buonaparte was compelled to seem blind, as what his Russian ally could not, or would not, put an end to.The strangest struggle ever witnessed in the civilized world began now to be maintained, betwixt Britain and those countries who felt the importation of British goods as a subject not only of convenience, but of vital importance, on the one hand, and France on the other; whose ruler was determined that on no account should Britain either maintain intercourse with the continent, or derive the inherent advantages of a free trade. The decrees of Berlin were reinforced by others of the French Emperor, yet more peremptory and more vexatious. By these, and particularly by one promulgated at Milan, 17th December, 1807, Napoleon declared Britain in a state of blockade—all nations whatever were prohibited not only to trade with her, but to deal in any articles of British manufactures.[337]Agents were named in every seaport and trading-town on the part of Buonaparte. There was an ordinance that no ship should be admitted into any of the ports of the continent without certificates, as they were called, of origin; the purpose of which was to show that no part of their cargo was of British produce. These regulations were met by others on the part of Britain, called the Orders in Council.[338]They permitted all neutrals to trade with countries at peace with Great Britain, providing they touched at a British port, and paid the British duties. Neutrals were thus placed in a most undesirable predicament betwixt the two great contending powers. If they neglected the British Orders in Council, they were captured by the cruizers of England, with which the sea was covered. If they paid duties at British ports, they were confiscated, if the fact could be discovered, on arrival at any port under French influence. This led to every species of deception by which the real character of the mercantile transaction could be disguised. False papers, false entries, false registers, were every where produced; and such were the profits attending the trade, that the most trusty and trusted agents of Buonaparte, men of the highest rank in his empire, were found willing to wink at this contraband commerce, and obtained great sums for doing so. All along the sea-coast of Europe, this struggle was keenly maintained betwixt the most powerful individual the world ever saw, and the wants and wishes of the society which he controlled—wants and wishes not the less eagerly entertained, that they were directed towards luxuries and superfluities.But it was chiefly the Spanish Peninsula, in which the dominionof its ancient and natural princes still nominally survived, which gave an extended vent to the objects of British commerce. Buonaparte, indeed, had a large share of its profits, since Portugal, in particular, paid him great sums to connive at her trade with England. But at last the weakness of Portugal, and the total disunion of the Royal Family in Spain, suggested to Napoleon the thoughts of appropriating to his own family, or rather to himself, that noble portion of the continent of Europe. Hence arose the Spanish contest, of which he afterwards said in bitterness, "That wretched war was my ruin; it divided my forces—obliged me to multiply my efforts, and injured my character for morality."[339]But could he expect better results from a usurpation, executed under circumstances of treachery perfectly unexampled in the history of Europe? Before entering, however, upon this new and most important era of Napoleon's history, it is necessary hastily to resume some account of the previous relations between France and the Peninsula since the Revolution.MANUEL DE GODOY—SPAIN.Manuel de Godoy, a favourite of Charles IV. and the paramour of his profligate Queen, was at this time the uncontrolled minister of Spain.[340]He bore the title of Prince of the Peace, or of Peace, as it was termed for brevity's sake, on account of his having completed the pacification of Basle, which closed the revolutionary war betwixt Spain and France. By the subsequent treaty of Saint Ildefonso, he had established an alliance, offensive and defensive, betwixt the two countries, in consequence of which Spain had taken from time to time, without hesitation, every step which Buonaparte's interested policy recommended. But notwithstanding this subservience to the pleasure of the French ruler, Godoy seems in secret to have nourished hopes of getting free of the French yoke; and at the very period when the Prussian war broke out, without any necessity which could be discovered, he suddenly called the Spanish forces to arms, addressing to them a proclamation of a boastful, and, at the same time, a mysterious character, indicating that the country was in danger, and that some great exertion was expected from the Spanish armies in her behalf. Buonaparte received this proclamation on the field of battle at Jena, and is said to have sworn vengeance against Spain.[341]The news of that great victory soon altered Godoy's military attitude, and the minister could find no better excuse for it, than to pretend that he had armed against an apprehendedinvasion of the Moors. Napoleon permitted the circumstance to remain unexplained. It had made him aware of Godoy's private sentiments in respect to himself and to France, if he had before doubted them; and though passed over without farther notice, this hasty armament of 1806 was assuredly not dismissed from his thoughts.In the state of abasement under which they felt their government and royal family to have fallen, the hopes and affections of the Spaniards were naturally turned on the heir-apparent, whose succession to the crown they looked forward to as a signal for better things, and who was well understood to be at open variance with the all-powerful Godoy. The Prince of the Asturias, however, does not seem to have possessed any portion of that old heroic pride, and love of independence, which ought to have marked the future King of Spain. He was not revolted at the sway which Buonaparte held in Europe and in Spain, and, far from desiring to get rid of the French influence, he endeavoured to secure Buonaparte's favour for his own partial views, by an offer to connect his own interest in an indissoluble manner with those of Napoleon and his dynasty. Assisted by some of the grandees, who were most especially tired of Godoy and his administration, the Prince wrote Buonaparte a secret letter, [11th October,] expressing the highest esteem for his person; intimating the condition to which his father, whose too great goodness of disposition had been misguided by wicked counsellors, had reduced the flourishing kingdom of Spain; requesting the counsels and support of the Emperor Napoleon, to detect the schemes of those perfidious men; and entreating, that, as a pledge of the paternal protection which he solicited, the Emperor would grant him the honour of allying him with one of his relations.[342]In this manner the heir-apparent of Spain threw himself into the arms, or, more properly, at the feet of Napoleon; but he did not meet the reception he had hoped for. Buonaparte was at this time engaged in negotiations with Charles IV., and with that very Godoy whom it was the object of the Prince to remove or ruin; and as they could second his views with all the remaining forces of Spain, while Prince Ferdinand was in possession of no actual power or authority, the former were for the time preferable allies. The Prince's offer, as what might be useful on some future occasion, was for the present neither accepted nor refused. Napoleon was altogether silent. The fate of the royal family was thus in the hands of the Stranger. Their fate was probably already determined. But before expelling the Bourbons from Spain, Napoleon judged it most politic to use their forces in subduing Portugal.The flower of the Spanish army, consisting of sixteen thousand men, under the Marquis de la Romana, had been marchedinto the north of Europe, under the character of auxiliaries of France. Another detachment had been sent to Tuscany, commanded by O'Farrel. So far the kingdom was weakened by the absence of her own best troops; the conquest of Portugal was to be made a pretext for introducing the French army to dictate to the whole Peninsula.Portugal was under a singularly weak government. Her army was ruined; the soul and spirit of her nobility was lost; her sole hope for continuing in existence, under the name of an independent kingdom, rested in her power of purchasing the clemency of France, and some belief that Spain would not permit her own territories to be violated for the sake of annihilating an unoffending neighbour and ally.Shortly after the treaty of Tilsit, the Prince Regent of Portugal was required, by France and Spain jointly, to shut his ports against the English, to confiscate the property of Britain, and to arrest the persons of her subjects wherever they could be found within his dominions. The Prince reluctantly acceded to the first part of this proposal; the last he peremptorily refused, as calling upon him at once to violate the faith of treaties and the rights of hospitality. And the British merchants received intimation, that it would be wisdom to close their commercial concerns, and retire from a country which had no longer the means of protecting them.In the meantime, a singular treaty was signed at Fontainbleau, for the partition of the ancient kingdom of Portugal. By this agreement, a regular plan was laid for invading Portugal with French and Spanish armies, accomplishing the conquest of the country, and dividing it into three parts. The province of Entre Minho y Douro, with the town of Oporto, was to belong to the King of Etruria (who was to cede his Italian dominions to Napoleon,) with the title of King of Northern Lusitania; another portion, consisting of Alenteyo and the Algarves, was to be given in sovereignty to Godoy, with the title of Prince of the Algarves; and a third was to remain in sequestration till the end of the war.[343]By the treaty of Fontainbleau, Napoleon obtained two important advantages; the first, that Portugal should be conquered; the second, that a great part of the Spanish troops should be employed on the expedition, and their native country thus deprived of their assistance. It is impossible to believe that he ever intended Godoy, or the King of Etruria, should gain any thing by the stipulations in their behalf.JUNOT ADVANCES UPON LISBON.Junot, one of the most grasping, extravagant, and profligate of the French generals, a man whom Buonaparte himself has stigmatized as a monster of rapacity,[344]was appointed to march upon Lisbon, and intrusted with the charge of reconciling to the yokeof the invaders, a nation who had neither provoked war, nor attempted resistance.Two additional armies, consisting partly of French and partly of Spaniards, supported the attack of Junot. A French army, amounting to 40,000 men, was formed at Bayonne, in terms of the treaty of Fontainbleau, destined, it was pretended, to act as an army of reserve, in case the English should land troops for the defence of Portugal, but which, it had been stipulated, was on no account to enter Spain, unless such a crisis should demand their presence. It will presently appear what was the true purpose of this army of reserve, and under what circumstances it was really intended to enter the Spanish territory.Meantime, Junot advanced upon Lisbon with such extraordinary forced marches, as very much dislocated and exhausted his army. But this was of the less consequence, because, aware that he could not make an effectual resistance, the Prince Regent had determined that he would not, by an ineffectual show of defence, give the invaders a pretext to treat Portugal like a conquered country. He resolved at this late hour to comply even with the last and harshest of the terms dictated by France and Spain, by putting the restraint of a register on British subjects and British property; but he had purposely delayed compliance, till little was left that could be affected by the measure. The British Factory, so long domiciliated at Lisbon, had left the Tagus on the 18th of October, amid the universal regret of the inhabitants. The British resident minister, Lord Strangford, although feeling compassion for the force under which the Prince Regent acted, was, nevertheless, under the necessity of considering these unfriendly steps as a declaration against England. He took down the British arms, departed from Lisbon accordingly, and went on board Sir Sidney Smith's squadron, then lying off the Tagus. The Marquis of Marialva was then sent as an ambassador extraordinary, to state to the courts of France and Spain, that the Prince Regent had complied with the whole of their demands, and to request that the march of their forces upon Lisbon should be countermanded. Junot and his army had by this time crossed the frontiers of Portugal, entering, he said, as the friends, allies, and protectors of the Portuguese, come to save Lisbon from the fate of Copenhagen, and relieve the inhabitants from the yoke of the maritime tyrants of Europe.[345]He promised the utmost good discipline on the part of his troops, while, at the same time the constant plunder and exactions of the French were embittered by wanton scorn and acts of sacrilege, which, to a religious people, seemed peculiarly horrible.[346]Nothing, however, retarded thecelerity of his march; for he was well aware that it was his master's most anxious wish to seize the persons of the Portuguese royal family, and especially that of the Prince Regent.ROYAL FAMILY EMBARK FOR BRAZIL.But the Prince, although his general disposition was gentle and compromising, had, on this occasion, impressions not unworthy of the heir of Braganza. He had determined that he would not kiss the dust at the feet of the invader, or be made captive to enhance his triumph. The kingdom of Portugal had spacious realms beyond the Atlantic, in which its royal family might seek refuge. The British ambassador offered every facility which her squadron could afford, and, as is now known, granted the guarantee of Great Britain, that she would acknowledge no government which the invaders might establish in Portugal, to the prejudice of the House of Braganza. The Prince Regent, with the whole royal family, embarked on board the Portuguese vessels of the line, hastily rigged out as they were, and indifferently prepared for sea; and thus afforded modern Europe, for the first time, an example of that species of emigration, frequent in ancient days, when kings and princes, expelled from their native seats by the strong arm of violence, went to seek new establishments in distant countries. The royal family embarked (27th Nov.) amid the tears, cries, and blessings of the people, from the very spot whence Vasco de Gama loosened his sails to discover for Portugal new realms in the East. The weather was as gloomy as were the actors and spectators of this affecting scene; and the firmness of the Prince Regent was applauded by the nation which he was leaving, aware that his longer presence might have exposed himself to insult, but could have had no effect in ameliorating their own fate.Junot, within a day's march of Lisbon, was almost frantic with rage when he heard this news. He well knew how much the escape of the Prince, and the resolution he had formed, would diminish the lustre of his own success in the eyes of his master. Once possessed of the Prince Regent's person, Buonaparte had hoped to get him to cede possession of the Brazils; and transmarine acquisitions had for Napoleon all the merit of novelty. The empire of the House of Braganza in the new world, was now effectually beyond his reach; and his general, thus far unsuccessful, might have some reason to dread the excess of his master's disappointment.Upon the first of December, exhausted with their forced marches, and sufficiently miserable in equipment and appearance,[347]the French vanguard approached the city, and their general might see the retreating sails of the vessels which deprived him of so fair a portion of his prize. Junot, however, was soonled to resume confidence in his own merits. He had been connected with Buonaparte ever since the commencement of his fortunes, which he had faithfully followed. Such qualifications, and his having married a lady named Comnene,[348]who affirmed herself to be descended from the blood of the Greek emperors, was sufficient, he thought, to entitle him to expect the vacant throne of Lisbon from the hand of his master. In the meantime, he acted as if already in possession of supreme power. He took possession of the house belonging to the richest merchant in the city, and although he received twelve hundred crusadoes a-month for his table, he compelled his landlord to be at the whole expense of his establishment, which was placed on the most extravagant scale of splendour. His inferior officers took the hint, nor were the soldiers slow in following the example. The extortions and rapacity practised in Lisbon seemed to leave all former excesses of the French army far behind. This led to quarrels betwixt the French and the natives; blood was shed; public executions took place, and the invaders, proceeding to reduce and disband the remnant of the Portuguese army, showed their positive intention to retain the kingdom under their own exclusive authority.This purpose was at last intimated by an official document or proclamation, issued by Junot [1st Feb.] under Buonaparte's orders. It declared, that, by leaving his kingdom, the Prince of Brazil had, in fact, abdicated the sovereignty, and that Portugal, having become a part of the dominions of Napoleon, should, for the present, be governed by the French general-in-chief, in name of the Emperor.[349]The French flag was accordingly displayed, the arms of Portugal every where removed. The property of the Prince Regent, and of all who had followed him, was sequestrated, with a reserve in favour of those who should return before the 15th day of February, the proclamation being published upon the first day of that month. The next demand upon the unhappy country, was for a contribution of forty millions of crusadoes, or four millions and a half sterling;[350]which, laid upon a population of something less than three millions, came to about thirty shillings a-head; while the share of the immense numbers who could pay nothing, fell upon the upper and middling ranks, who had still some property remaining. There was not specie enough in the country to answer the demand; but plate, valuables, British goods, and colonial produce, were received instead of money. Some of the French officers turned jobbers in these last articles, sending them off to Paris, where they were sold to advantage. Some becamemoney-brokers, and bought up paper-money at a discount—so little does the profession of arms retain of its disinterested and gallant character, when its professors become habituated and accustomed depredators.[351]The proclamation of 2d February, vesting the government of Portugal in General Junot, as the representative of the French Empire, seemed entirely to abrogate the treaty of Fontainbleau, and in fact, really did so, except as to such articles in favour of Napoleon, as he himself chose should remain in force. As for the imaginary princedom of Algarves, with which Godoy was to have been invested, no more was ever said or thought about it; nor was he in any condition to assert his claim to it, however formal the stipulation.[352]INTRIGUES AT MADRID.While the French were taking possession of Portugal, one of those scandalous scenes took place in the royal family at Madrid, which are often found to precede the fall of a shaken throne.We have already mentioned the discontent of the Prince of Asturias with his father, or rather his father's minister. We have mentioned that he had desired to ally himself with the family of Buonaparte, in order to secure his protection, but that the Emperor of France had given no direct encouragement to his suit. Still, a considerable party, headed by the Duke del Infantado, and the Canon Escoiquiz, who had been the Prince's tutor,[353]relying upon the general popularity of Ferdinand, seem to have undertaken some cabal, having for its object probably the deposition of the old King and the removal of Godoy. The plot was discovered; the person of the Prince was secured, and Charles made a clamorous appeal to the justice of Napoleon, and to the opinion of the world. He stated that the purpose of the conspirators had been aimed at his life, and that of his faithful minister; and produced, in support of this unnatural charge, two letters from Ferdinand, addressed to his parents, in which he acknowledges (in general terms) having failed in duty to his father and sovereign, and says "that he has denounced his advisers, professes repentance, and craves pardon."[354]The reality of this affair is not easily penetrated. That there had been a conspiracy, is more than probable; the intended parricide was probably an aggravation, of which so weak a man as Charles IV. might be easily convinced by the arts of his wife and her paramour.So standing matters in that distracted house, both father and son appealed to Buonaparte as the august friend and ally of Spain, and the natural umpire of the disputes in its royal family. But Napoleon nourished views which could not be served by givingeither party an effectual victory over the other. He caused his ambassador, Beauharnois, to intercede in favour of the Prince of Asturias. Charles IV. and his minister were alarmed and troubled at finding his powerful ally take interest, even to this extent, in behalf of his disobedient son. They permitted themselves to allude to the private letter from the Prince of Asturias to Napoleon, and to express a hope that the Great Emperor would not permit a rebellious son to shelter himself by an alliance with his Imperial family. The touching this chord was what Buonaparte desired. It gave him a pretext to assume a haughty, distant, and offended aspect towards the reigning King, who had dared to suspect him of bad faith, and had mentioned with less than due consideration the name of a lady of the Imperial house.Godoy was terrified at the interpretation put upon the remonstrances made by himself and his master, by the awful arbiter of their destiny. Izquierdo, the Spanish ambassador, was directed to renew his applications to the Emperor, for the especial purpose of assuring him that a match with his family would be in the highest degree acceptable to the King of Spain. Charles wrote with his own hand to the same purpose. But it was Napoleon's policy to appear haughty, distant, indifferent, and offended; and to teach the contending father and son, who both looked to him as their judge, the painful feelings of mutual suspense. In the meantime, a new levy of the conscription put into his hands a fresh army; and forty thousand men were stationed at Bayonne, to add weight to his mediation in the affairs of Spain.PROJECTS AGAINST SPAIN.About this period, he did not hesitate to avow to the ablest of his counsellors, Talleyrand and Fouché, the resolution he had formed, that the Spanish race of the House of Bourbon should cease to reign. His plan was opposed by these sagacious statesmen, and the opposition on the part of Talleyrand is represented to have been obstinate.[355]At a later period, Napoleon found it more advantageous to load Talleyrand with the charge of being his adviser in the war with Spain, as well as in the tragedy of the Duke d'Enghien. In Fouché's Memoirs, there is an interesting account of his conversation with the Emperor on that occasion, of which we see room fully to credit the authenticity. It places before us, in a striking point of view, arguments for and against this extraordinary and decisive measure. "Let Portugal take her fate," said Fouché, "she is, in fact, little else than an English colony. But that King of Spain has given you no reason to complain of him; he has been the humblest of your prefects. Besides, take heed you are not deceived in the disposition of theSpaniards. You have a party amongst them now, because they look on you as a great and powerful potentate, a prince, and an ally. But you ought to be aware that the Spanish people possess no part of the German phlegm. They are attached to their laws; their government; their ancient customs. It would be an error to judge of the national character by that of the higher classes, which are there, as elsewhere, corrupted and indifferent to their country. Once more, take heed you do not convert, by such an act of aggression, a submissive and useful tributary kingdom into a second La Vendée."Buonaparte answered these prophetic remarks, by observations on the contemptible character of the Spanish government, the imbecility of the King, and the worthless character of the minister; the common people, who might be influenced to oppose him by the monks, would be dispersed, he said, by one volley of cannon. "The stake I play for is immense—I will continue in my own dynasty the family system of the Bourbons, and unite Spain for ever to the destinies of France. Remember that the sun never sets on the immense Empire of Charles V."[356]Fouché urged another doubt; whether, if the flames of opposition should grow violent in Spain, Russia might not be encouraged to resume her connexion with England, and thus place the empire of Napoleon betwixt two fires? This suspicion Buonaparte ridiculed as that of a minister of police, whose habits taught him to doubt the very existence of sincerity. The Emperor of Russia, he said, was completely won over, and sincerely attached to him.[357]Thus, warned in vain of the wrath and evil to come, Napoleon persisted in his purpose.But, ere yet he had pounced upon the tempting prey, in which form Spain presented herself to his eyes, Napoleon made a hurried expedition to Italy. This journey had several motives. One was, to interrupt his communications with the royal family of Spain, in order to avoid being pressed to explain the precise nature of his pretensions, until he was prepared to support them by open force. Another was, to secure the utmost personal advantage which could be extracted from the treaty of Fontainbleau, before he threw that document aside like waste paper; it being his purpose that it should remain such, in so far as its stipulations were in behalf of any others than himself. Under pretext of this treaty, he expelled from Tuscany, or Etruria, as it was now called, the widowed Queen of that territory. She now, for the first time learned, that by an agreement to which she was no party, she was to be dispossessed of her own original dominions, as well as of those which Napoleon himself had guaranteed to her, and was informed that she was to receive a compensation in Portugal.This increased her affliction. "She did not desire," she said, "to share the spoils of any one, much more of a sister and a friend." Upon arriving in Spain, and having recourse to her parent, the King of Spain, for redress and explanation, she had the additional information, that the treaty of Fontainbleau was to be recognised as valid, in so far as it deprived her of her territories, but was not to be of any effect in as far as it provided her with indemnification.[358]At another time, or in another history, this would have been dwelt upon as an aggravated system of violence and tyranny over the unprotected. But the far more important affairs of Spain threw those of Etruria into the shade.After so much preparation behind the scenes, Buonaparte now proposed to open the first grand act of the impending drama. He wrote from Italy to the King of Spain, that he consented to the proposal which he had made for the marriage betwixt the Prince of Asturias and one of his kinswomen; and having thus maintained to the last the appearances of friendship, he gave orders to the French army, lying at Bayonne, to enter Spain on different points, and to possess themselves of the strong fortresses by which the frontier of that kingdom is defended.

Effects of the Peace of Tilsit—Napoleon's views of a State of Peace—Contrasted with those of England—The Continental System—Berlin and Milan Decrees—British Orders in Council—Spain—Retrospect of the Relations of that Country with France since the Revolution—Godoy—His Influence—Character—and Political Views—Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias, applies to Napoleon for Aid—Affairs of Portugal—Treaty of Fontainbleau—Departureof the Prince Regent for Brazil—Entrance of Junot into Lisbon—His unbounded Rapacity—Disturbances at Madrid—Ferdinand detected in a Plot against his Father, and imprisoned—King Charles applies to Napoleon—Wily Policy of Buonaparte—Orders the French Army to enter Spain.

Effects of the Peace of Tilsit—Napoleon's views of a State of Peace—Contrasted with those of England—The Continental System—Berlin and Milan Decrees—British Orders in Council—Spain—Retrospect of the Relations of that Country with France since the Revolution—Godoy—His Influence—Character—and Political Views—Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias, applies to Napoleon for Aid—Affairs of Portugal—Treaty of Fontainbleau—Departureof the Prince Regent for Brazil—Entrance of Junot into Lisbon—His unbounded Rapacity—Disturbances at Madrid—Ferdinand detected in a Plot against his Father, and imprisoned—King Charles applies to Napoleon—Wily Policy of Buonaparte—Orders the French Army to enter Spain.

The peace of Tilsit had been of that character, which, while it settled the points of dispute between two rival monarchies, who had found themselves hardly matched in the conflict to which it put a period, left both at liberty to use towards the nations more immediately under the influence of either, such a degree of discretion as their power enabled them to exercise. Such was Napoleon's idea of pacification, which amounted to this:—"I will work my own pleasure with the countries over which my power gives me not indeed the right, but the authority and power; and you, my ally, shall, in recompense, do what suits you in the territories of other states adjoining to you, but over which I have no such immediate influence."

This was the explanation which he put upon the treaty of Amiens, and this was the species of peace which long afterwards he regretted had not been concluded with England. His regrets on that point were expressed at a very late period, in language which is perfectly intelligible. Speaking of France and England, he said, "We have done each other infinite harm—we might have rendered each other infinite service by mutual good understanding. If the school of Fox had succeeded, we would have understood each other—there would only have been in Europe one army and one fleet—we would have governed the world—we would have fixed repose and prosperity every where, either by force or by persuasion. Yes—I repeat how much good we might have done—how much evil we have actually done to each other."[335]

Now, the fundamental principle of such a pacification, which Buonaparte seems to the very last to have considered as the mutual basis of common interest, was such as could not, ought not, nay, dared not, have been adopted by any ministry which England could have chosen, so long as she possessed a free Parliament. Her principle of pacification must have been one that ascertained the independence of other powers, not which permitted her own aggressions, and gave way to those of France. Her wealth, strength, and happiness, do, and must always, consist in the national independence of the states upon the continent. She could not, either with conscience or safety, make peace with a usurping conqueror, on the footing that she herself was to become a usurper in her turn. She has no desire or interest to blot out other nations from the map of Europe, in order that no names may remain save those of Britain and France; nor is she interested in depriving other states of their fleets, or of their armies.Her statesmen must disclaim the idea of governing the world, or a moiety of the world, and of making other nations either happy or unhappy by force of arms. The conduct of England in 1814 and in 1815, evinced this honest and honourable policy; since, yielding much to others, she could not be accused of being herself influenced by any views to extend her own dominion, in the general confusion and blending which arose out of the downfall of the external power of France. That, however, is a subject for another place.

In the meanwhile, France, who, with Russia, had arranged a treaty of pacification on a very different basis, was now busied in gathering in the advantages which she expected to derive from it. In doing so, it seems to have been Buonaparte's principal object so to consolidate and enforce what he called his Continental System, as ultimately to root out and destroy the remaining precarious communications, which England, by her external commerce, continued to maintain with the nations of the continent.

EFFECTS OF THE PEACE OF TILSIT.

To attain this grand object, the treaty of Tilsit and its consequences had given him great facilities. France was his own—Holland was under the dominion, nominally, of his brother Louis, but in a great measure at his devotion. His brother Jerome was established in the kingdom of Westphalia. It followed, therefore, in the course of his brother's policy, that he was to form an alliance worthy of his new rank. It has been already noticed that he had abandoned, by his brother's command, Elizabeth Paterson, daughter of a respectable gentleman of Baltimore, whom he had married in 1803. He was now married at the Tuileries to Frederica Catherine, daughter of the King of Wirtemberg.[336]

Prussia, and all the once free ports of the Hanseatic League, were closed against English commerce, so far as absolute military power could effect that purpose. Russia was not so tractable in that important matter as the terms of the treaty of Tilsit, and Napoleon's secret engagements with the Czar, had led him to hope. But Alexander was too powerful to be absolutely dictated to in the enforcement of this anti-commercial system; and, indeed, the peculiar state of the Russian nation might have rendered it perilous to the Czar to enforce the non-intercourse to the extent which Napoleon would have wished. The large, bulky, and heavy commodities of Russia—hemp and iron, and timber and wax, and pitch and naval stores—that produce upon which the Boyards of the empire chiefly depended for their revenue, would not bear the expense of transportation by land; and England, in full and exclusive command of the sea, was her only, and at the same time her willing customer. Under various elusorydevices, therefore, England continued to purchase Russian commodities, and pay for them in her own manufactures, in spite of the decrees of the French Emperor, and in defiance of the ukases of the Czar himself; and to this Buonaparte was compelled to seem blind, as what his Russian ally could not, or would not, put an end to.

The strangest struggle ever witnessed in the civilized world began now to be maintained, betwixt Britain and those countries who felt the importation of British goods as a subject not only of convenience, but of vital importance, on the one hand, and France on the other; whose ruler was determined that on no account should Britain either maintain intercourse with the continent, or derive the inherent advantages of a free trade. The decrees of Berlin were reinforced by others of the French Emperor, yet more peremptory and more vexatious. By these, and particularly by one promulgated at Milan, 17th December, 1807, Napoleon declared Britain in a state of blockade—all nations whatever were prohibited not only to trade with her, but to deal in any articles of British manufactures.[337]Agents were named in every seaport and trading-town on the part of Buonaparte. There was an ordinance that no ship should be admitted into any of the ports of the continent without certificates, as they were called, of origin; the purpose of which was to show that no part of their cargo was of British produce. These regulations were met by others on the part of Britain, called the Orders in Council.[338]They permitted all neutrals to trade with countries at peace with Great Britain, providing they touched at a British port, and paid the British duties. Neutrals were thus placed in a most undesirable predicament betwixt the two great contending powers. If they neglected the British Orders in Council, they were captured by the cruizers of England, with which the sea was covered. If they paid duties at British ports, they were confiscated, if the fact could be discovered, on arrival at any port under French influence. This led to every species of deception by which the real character of the mercantile transaction could be disguised. False papers, false entries, false registers, were every where produced; and such were the profits attending the trade, that the most trusty and trusted agents of Buonaparte, men of the highest rank in his empire, were found willing to wink at this contraband commerce, and obtained great sums for doing so. All along the sea-coast of Europe, this struggle was keenly maintained betwixt the most powerful individual the world ever saw, and the wants and wishes of the society which he controlled—wants and wishes not the less eagerly entertained, that they were directed towards luxuries and superfluities.

But it was chiefly the Spanish Peninsula, in which the dominionof its ancient and natural princes still nominally survived, which gave an extended vent to the objects of British commerce. Buonaparte, indeed, had a large share of its profits, since Portugal, in particular, paid him great sums to connive at her trade with England. But at last the weakness of Portugal, and the total disunion of the Royal Family in Spain, suggested to Napoleon the thoughts of appropriating to his own family, or rather to himself, that noble portion of the continent of Europe. Hence arose the Spanish contest, of which he afterwards said in bitterness, "That wretched war was my ruin; it divided my forces—obliged me to multiply my efforts, and injured my character for morality."[339]But could he expect better results from a usurpation, executed under circumstances of treachery perfectly unexampled in the history of Europe? Before entering, however, upon this new and most important era of Napoleon's history, it is necessary hastily to resume some account of the previous relations between France and the Peninsula since the Revolution.

MANUEL DE GODOY—SPAIN.

Manuel de Godoy, a favourite of Charles IV. and the paramour of his profligate Queen, was at this time the uncontrolled minister of Spain.[340]He bore the title of Prince of the Peace, or of Peace, as it was termed for brevity's sake, on account of his having completed the pacification of Basle, which closed the revolutionary war betwixt Spain and France. By the subsequent treaty of Saint Ildefonso, he had established an alliance, offensive and defensive, betwixt the two countries, in consequence of which Spain had taken from time to time, without hesitation, every step which Buonaparte's interested policy recommended. But notwithstanding this subservience to the pleasure of the French ruler, Godoy seems in secret to have nourished hopes of getting free of the French yoke; and at the very period when the Prussian war broke out, without any necessity which could be discovered, he suddenly called the Spanish forces to arms, addressing to them a proclamation of a boastful, and, at the same time, a mysterious character, indicating that the country was in danger, and that some great exertion was expected from the Spanish armies in her behalf. Buonaparte received this proclamation on the field of battle at Jena, and is said to have sworn vengeance against Spain.[341]The news of that great victory soon altered Godoy's military attitude, and the minister could find no better excuse for it, than to pretend that he had armed against an apprehendedinvasion of the Moors. Napoleon permitted the circumstance to remain unexplained. It had made him aware of Godoy's private sentiments in respect to himself and to France, if he had before doubted them; and though passed over without farther notice, this hasty armament of 1806 was assuredly not dismissed from his thoughts.

In the state of abasement under which they felt their government and royal family to have fallen, the hopes and affections of the Spaniards were naturally turned on the heir-apparent, whose succession to the crown they looked forward to as a signal for better things, and who was well understood to be at open variance with the all-powerful Godoy. The Prince of the Asturias, however, does not seem to have possessed any portion of that old heroic pride, and love of independence, which ought to have marked the future King of Spain. He was not revolted at the sway which Buonaparte held in Europe and in Spain, and, far from desiring to get rid of the French influence, he endeavoured to secure Buonaparte's favour for his own partial views, by an offer to connect his own interest in an indissoluble manner with those of Napoleon and his dynasty. Assisted by some of the grandees, who were most especially tired of Godoy and his administration, the Prince wrote Buonaparte a secret letter, [11th October,] expressing the highest esteem for his person; intimating the condition to which his father, whose too great goodness of disposition had been misguided by wicked counsellors, had reduced the flourishing kingdom of Spain; requesting the counsels and support of the Emperor Napoleon, to detect the schemes of those perfidious men; and entreating, that, as a pledge of the paternal protection which he solicited, the Emperor would grant him the honour of allying him with one of his relations.[342]

In this manner the heir-apparent of Spain threw himself into the arms, or, more properly, at the feet of Napoleon; but he did not meet the reception he had hoped for. Buonaparte was at this time engaged in negotiations with Charles IV., and with that very Godoy whom it was the object of the Prince to remove or ruin; and as they could second his views with all the remaining forces of Spain, while Prince Ferdinand was in possession of no actual power or authority, the former were for the time preferable allies. The Prince's offer, as what might be useful on some future occasion, was for the present neither accepted nor refused. Napoleon was altogether silent. The fate of the royal family was thus in the hands of the Stranger. Their fate was probably already determined. But before expelling the Bourbons from Spain, Napoleon judged it most politic to use their forces in subduing Portugal.

The flower of the Spanish army, consisting of sixteen thousand men, under the Marquis de la Romana, had been marchedinto the north of Europe, under the character of auxiliaries of France. Another detachment had been sent to Tuscany, commanded by O'Farrel. So far the kingdom was weakened by the absence of her own best troops; the conquest of Portugal was to be made a pretext for introducing the French army to dictate to the whole Peninsula.

Portugal was under a singularly weak government. Her army was ruined; the soul and spirit of her nobility was lost; her sole hope for continuing in existence, under the name of an independent kingdom, rested in her power of purchasing the clemency of France, and some belief that Spain would not permit her own territories to be violated for the sake of annihilating an unoffending neighbour and ally.

Shortly after the treaty of Tilsit, the Prince Regent of Portugal was required, by France and Spain jointly, to shut his ports against the English, to confiscate the property of Britain, and to arrest the persons of her subjects wherever they could be found within his dominions. The Prince reluctantly acceded to the first part of this proposal; the last he peremptorily refused, as calling upon him at once to violate the faith of treaties and the rights of hospitality. And the British merchants received intimation, that it would be wisdom to close their commercial concerns, and retire from a country which had no longer the means of protecting them.

In the meantime, a singular treaty was signed at Fontainbleau, for the partition of the ancient kingdom of Portugal. By this agreement, a regular plan was laid for invading Portugal with French and Spanish armies, accomplishing the conquest of the country, and dividing it into three parts. The province of Entre Minho y Douro, with the town of Oporto, was to belong to the King of Etruria (who was to cede his Italian dominions to Napoleon,) with the title of King of Northern Lusitania; another portion, consisting of Alenteyo and the Algarves, was to be given in sovereignty to Godoy, with the title of Prince of the Algarves; and a third was to remain in sequestration till the end of the war.[343]By the treaty of Fontainbleau, Napoleon obtained two important advantages; the first, that Portugal should be conquered; the second, that a great part of the Spanish troops should be employed on the expedition, and their native country thus deprived of their assistance. It is impossible to believe that he ever intended Godoy, or the King of Etruria, should gain any thing by the stipulations in their behalf.

JUNOT ADVANCES UPON LISBON.

Junot, one of the most grasping, extravagant, and profligate of the French generals, a man whom Buonaparte himself has stigmatized as a monster of rapacity,[344]was appointed to march upon Lisbon, and intrusted with the charge of reconciling to the yokeof the invaders, a nation who had neither provoked war, nor attempted resistance.

Two additional armies, consisting partly of French and partly of Spaniards, supported the attack of Junot. A French army, amounting to 40,000 men, was formed at Bayonne, in terms of the treaty of Fontainbleau, destined, it was pretended, to act as an army of reserve, in case the English should land troops for the defence of Portugal, but which, it had been stipulated, was on no account to enter Spain, unless such a crisis should demand their presence. It will presently appear what was the true purpose of this army of reserve, and under what circumstances it was really intended to enter the Spanish territory.

Meantime, Junot advanced upon Lisbon with such extraordinary forced marches, as very much dislocated and exhausted his army. But this was of the less consequence, because, aware that he could not make an effectual resistance, the Prince Regent had determined that he would not, by an ineffectual show of defence, give the invaders a pretext to treat Portugal like a conquered country. He resolved at this late hour to comply even with the last and harshest of the terms dictated by France and Spain, by putting the restraint of a register on British subjects and British property; but he had purposely delayed compliance, till little was left that could be affected by the measure. The British Factory, so long domiciliated at Lisbon, had left the Tagus on the 18th of October, amid the universal regret of the inhabitants. The British resident minister, Lord Strangford, although feeling compassion for the force under which the Prince Regent acted, was, nevertheless, under the necessity of considering these unfriendly steps as a declaration against England. He took down the British arms, departed from Lisbon accordingly, and went on board Sir Sidney Smith's squadron, then lying off the Tagus. The Marquis of Marialva was then sent as an ambassador extraordinary, to state to the courts of France and Spain, that the Prince Regent had complied with the whole of their demands, and to request that the march of their forces upon Lisbon should be countermanded. Junot and his army had by this time crossed the frontiers of Portugal, entering, he said, as the friends, allies, and protectors of the Portuguese, come to save Lisbon from the fate of Copenhagen, and relieve the inhabitants from the yoke of the maritime tyrants of Europe.[345]He promised the utmost good discipline on the part of his troops, while, at the same time the constant plunder and exactions of the French were embittered by wanton scorn and acts of sacrilege, which, to a religious people, seemed peculiarly horrible.[346]Nothing, however, retarded thecelerity of his march; for he was well aware that it was his master's most anxious wish to seize the persons of the Portuguese royal family, and especially that of the Prince Regent.

ROYAL FAMILY EMBARK FOR BRAZIL.

But the Prince, although his general disposition was gentle and compromising, had, on this occasion, impressions not unworthy of the heir of Braganza. He had determined that he would not kiss the dust at the feet of the invader, or be made captive to enhance his triumph. The kingdom of Portugal had spacious realms beyond the Atlantic, in which its royal family might seek refuge. The British ambassador offered every facility which her squadron could afford, and, as is now known, granted the guarantee of Great Britain, that she would acknowledge no government which the invaders might establish in Portugal, to the prejudice of the House of Braganza. The Prince Regent, with the whole royal family, embarked on board the Portuguese vessels of the line, hastily rigged out as they were, and indifferently prepared for sea; and thus afforded modern Europe, for the first time, an example of that species of emigration, frequent in ancient days, when kings and princes, expelled from their native seats by the strong arm of violence, went to seek new establishments in distant countries. The royal family embarked (27th Nov.) amid the tears, cries, and blessings of the people, from the very spot whence Vasco de Gama loosened his sails to discover for Portugal new realms in the East. The weather was as gloomy as were the actors and spectators of this affecting scene; and the firmness of the Prince Regent was applauded by the nation which he was leaving, aware that his longer presence might have exposed himself to insult, but could have had no effect in ameliorating their own fate.

Junot, within a day's march of Lisbon, was almost frantic with rage when he heard this news. He well knew how much the escape of the Prince, and the resolution he had formed, would diminish the lustre of his own success in the eyes of his master. Once possessed of the Prince Regent's person, Buonaparte had hoped to get him to cede possession of the Brazils; and transmarine acquisitions had for Napoleon all the merit of novelty. The empire of the House of Braganza in the new world, was now effectually beyond his reach; and his general, thus far unsuccessful, might have some reason to dread the excess of his master's disappointment.

Upon the first of December, exhausted with their forced marches, and sufficiently miserable in equipment and appearance,[347]the French vanguard approached the city, and their general might see the retreating sails of the vessels which deprived him of so fair a portion of his prize. Junot, however, was soonled to resume confidence in his own merits. He had been connected with Buonaparte ever since the commencement of his fortunes, which he had faithfully followed. Such qualifications, and his having married a lady named Comnene,[348]who affirmed herself to be descended from the blood of the Greek emperors, was sufficient, he thought, to entitle him to expect the vacant throne of Lisbon from the hand of his master. In the meantime, he acted as if already in possession of supreme power. He took possession of the house belonging to the richest merchant in the city, and although he received twelve hundred crusadoes a-month for his table, he compelled his landlord to be at the whole expense of his establishment, which was placed on the most extravagant scale of splendour. His inferior officers took the hint, nor were the soldiers slow in following the example. The extortions and rapacity practised in Lisbon seemed to leave all former excesses of the French army far behind. This led to quarrels betwixt the French and the natives; blood was shed; public executions took place, and the invaders, proceeding to reduce and disband the remnant of the Portuguese army, showed their positive intention to retain the kingdom under their own exclusive authority.

This purpose was at last intimated by an official document or proclamation, issued by Junot [1st Feb.] under Buonaparte's orders. It declared, that, by leaving his kingdom, the Prince of Brazil had, in fact, abdicated the sovereignty, and that Portugal, having become a part of the dominions of Napoleon, should, for the present, be governed by the French general-in-chief, in name of the Emperor.[349]The French flag was accordingly displayed, the arms of Portugal every where removed. The property of the Prince Regent, and of all who had followed him, was sequestrated, with a reserve in favour of those who should return before the 15th day of February, the proclamation being published upon the first day of that month. The next demand upon the unhappy country, was for a contribution of forty millions of crusadoes, or four millions and a half sterling;[350]which, laid upon a population of something less than three millions, came to about thirty shillings a-head; while the share of the immense numbers who could pay nothing, fell upon the upper and middling ranks, who had still some property remaining. There was not specie enough in the country to answer the demand; but plate, valuables, British goods, and colonial produce, were received instead of money. Some of the French officers turned jobbers in these last articles, sending them off to Paris, where they were sold to advantage. Some becamemoney-brokers, and bought up paper-money at a discount—so little does the profession of arms retain of its disinterested and gallant character, when its professors become habituated and accustomed depredators.[351]

The proclamation of 2d February, vesting the government of Portugal in General Junot, as the representative of the French Empire, seemed entirely to abrogate the treaty of Fontainbleau, and in fact, really did so, except as to such articles in favour of Napoleon, as he himself chose should remain in force. As for the imaginary princedom of Algarves, with which Godoy was to have been invested, no more was ever said or thought about it; nor was he in any condition to assert his claim to it, however formal the stipulation.[352]

INTRIGUES AT MADRID.

While the French were taking possession of Portugal, one of those scandalous scenes took place in the royal family at Madrid, which are often found to precede the fall of a shaken throne.

We have already mentioned the discontent of the Prince of Asturias with his father, or rather his father's minister. We have mentioned that he had desired to ally himself with the family of Buonaparte, in order to secure his protection, but that the Emperor of France had given no direct encouragement to his suit. Still, a considerable party, headed by the Duke del Infantado, and the Canon Escoiquiz, who had been the Prince's tutor,[353]relying upon the general popularity of Ferdinand, seem to have undertaken some cabal, having for its object probably the deposition of the old King and the removal of Godoy. The plot was discovered; the person of the Prince was secured, and Charles made a clamorous appeal to the justice of Napoleon, and to the opinion of the world. He stated that the purpose of the conspirators had been aimed at his life, and that of his faithful minister; and produced, in support of this unnatural charge, two letters from Ferdinand, addressed to his parents, in which he acknowledges (in general terms) having failed in duty to his father and sovereign, and says "that he has denounced his advisers, professes repentance, and craves pardon."[354]The reality of this affair is not easily penetrated. That there had been a conspiracy, is more than probable; the intended parricide was probably an aggravation, of which so weak a man as Charles IV. might be easily convinced by the arts of his wife and her paramour.

So standing matters in that distracted house, both father and son appealed to Buonaparte as the august friend and ally of Spain, and the natural umpire of the disputes in its royal family. But Napoleon nourished views which could not be served by givingeither party an effectual victory over the other. He caused his ambassador, Beauharnois, to intercede in favour of the Prince of Asturias. Charles IV. and his minister were alarmed and troubled at finding his powerful ally take interest, even to this extent, in behalf of his disobedient son. They permitted themselves to allude to the private letter from the Prince of Asturias to Napoleon, and to express a hope that the Great Emperor would not permit a rebellious son to shelter himself by an alliance with his Imperial family. The touching this chord was what Buonaparte desired. It gave him a pretext to assume a haughty, distant, and offended aspect towards the reigning King, who had dared to suspect him of bad faith, and had mentioned with less than due consideration the name of a lady of the Imperial house.

Godoy was terrified at the interpretation put upon the remonstrances made by himself and his master, by the awful arbiter of their destiny. Izquierdo, the Spanish ambassador, was directed to renew his applications to the Emperor, for the especial purpose of assuring him that a match with his family would be in the highest degree acceptable to the King of Spain. Charles wrote with his own hand to the same purpose. But it was Napoleon's policy to appear haughty, distant, indifferent, and offended; and to teach the contending father and son, who both looked to him as their judge, the painful feelings of mutual suspense. In the meantime, a new levy of the conscription put into his hands a fresh army; and forty thousand men were stationed at Bayonne, to add weight to his mediation in the affairs of Spain.

PROJECTS AGAINST SPAIN.

About this period, he did not hesitate to avow to the ablest of his counsellors, Talleyrand and Fouché, the resolution he had formed, that the Spanish race of the House of Bourbon should cease to reign. His plan was opposed by these sagacious statesmen, and the opposition on the part of Talleyrand is represented to have been obstinate.[355]At a later period, Napoleon found it more advantageous to load Talleyrand with the charge of being his adviser in the war with Spain, as well as in the tragedy of the Duke d'Enghien. In Fouché's Memoirs, there is an interesting account of his conversation with the Emperor on that occasion, of which we see room fully to credit the authenticity. It places before us, in a striking point of view, arguments for and against this extraordinary and decisive measure. "Let Portugal take her fate," said Fouché, "she is, in fact, little else than an English colony. But that King of Spain has given you no reason to complain of him; he has been the humblest of your prefects. Besides, take heed you are not deceived in the disposition of theSpaniards. You have a party amongst them now, because they look on you as a great and powerful potentate, a prince, and an ally. But you ought to be aware that the Spanish people possess no part of the German phlegm. They are attached to their laws; their government; their ancient customs. It would be an error to judge of the national character by that of the higher classes, which are there, as elsewhere, corrupted and indifferent to their country. Once more, take heed you do not convert, by such an act of aggression, a submissive and useful tributary kingdom into a second La Vendée."

Buonaparte answered these prophetic remarks, by observations on the contemptible character of the Spanish government, the imbecility of the King, and the worthless character of the minister; the common people, who might be influenced to oppose him by the monks, would be dispersed, he said, by one volley of cannon. "The stake I play for is immense—I will continue in my own dynasty the family system of the Bourbons, and unite Spain for ever to the destinies of France. Remember that the sun never sets on the immense Empire of Charles V."[356]

Fouché urged another doubt; whether, if the flames of opposition should grow violent in Spain, Russia might not be encouraged to resume her connexion with England, and thus place the empire of Napoleon betwixt two fires? This suspicion Buonaparte ridiculed as that of a minister of police, whose habits taught him to doubt the very existence of sincerity. The Emperor of Russia, he said, was completely won over, and sincerely attached to him.[357]Thus, warned in vain of the wrath and evil to come, Napoleon persisted in his purpose.

But, ere yet he had pounced upon the tempting prey, in which form Spain presented herself to his eyes, Napoleon made a hurried expedition to Italy. This journey had several motives. One was, to interrupt his communications with the royal family of Spain, in order to avoid being pressed to explain the precise nature of his pretensions, until he was prepared to support them by open force. Another was, to secure the utmost personal advantage which could be extracted from the treaty of Fontainbleau, before he threw that document aside like waste paper; it being his purpose that it should remain such, in so far as its stipulations were in behalf of any others than himself. Under pretext of this treaty, he expelled from Tuscany, or Etruria, as it was now called, the widowed Queen of that territory. She now, for the first time learned, that by an agreement to which she was no party, she was to be dispossessed of her own original dominions, as well as of those which Napoleon himself had guaranteed to her, and was informed that she was to receive a compensation in Portugal.This increased her affliction. "She did not desire," she said, "to share the spoils of any one, much more of a sister and a friend." Upon arriving in Spain, and having recourse to her parent, the King of Spain, for redress and explanation, she had the additional information, that the treaty of Fontainbleau was to be recognised as valid, in so far as it deprived her of her territories, but was not to be of any effect in as far as it provided her with indemnification.[358]At another time, or in another history, this would have been dwelt upon as an aggravated system of violence and tyranny over the unprotected. But the far more important affairs of Spain threw those of Etruria into the shade.

After so much preparation behind the scenes, Buonaparte now proposed to open the first grand act of the impending drama. He wrote from Italy to the King of Spain, that he consented to the proposal which he had made for the marriage betwixt the Prince of Asturias and one of his kinswomen; and having thus maintained to the last the appearances of friendship, he gave orders to the French army, lying at Bayonne, to enter Spain on different points, and to possess themselves of the strong fortresses by which the frontier of that kingdom is defended.

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