Macdonald was in command at Versailles while these plans were maturing, and when Napoleon arrived at the Palace of St. Cloud. Though not actually in the conspiracy, he was in the secret, and knew that opposition to Napoleon would neither be for the interests of France, the army, or himself; thus he took the lead in the matter, and by suddenly closing or dispersing the political club at Versailles, made the inhabitants aware that he, at least, deemed the time had come, "when a just administration should obliterate the horrors of the last few years, and the fatal vacillation of the weak Directory."
On the 18th Brumaire, the attempt was to be made; and Napoleon, accompanied by Macdonald, De Bournouville, and Moreau, inspected in the gardens of the Tuileries ten thousand chosen soldiers on whose faith they could depend, and there Augereau, the future Duke of Castiglione, joined them.
"M. le Général," said he, embracing Napoleon, "you have not called forme, but I have come to join you."
"You are welcome," replied Napoleon.
It was a perilous task they had undertaken, to overthrow the political incubus that had pressed so long upon France; and while the startled Directory, who had already discovered the designs of those without, were debating about their own safety, and while Moulins urged that a battalion should be sent to seize Napoleon, the latter suddenly appeared, sword in hand, at the door of the hall, and entered with his grenadiers, three deep, at a time when the projected Consulate was being discussed by some of the Directory with very little chance of success. He decided the matter at once, by ordering his drummersto beat apas de charge, and by dismissing the judges with a promptitude worthy of Cromwell, and with a courage which evinced that, on his part, nothing would be wanting to retain the power he had won.
When an army was formed for the re-conquest of Naples, in 1800, Napoleon offered Macdonald the command of thecorps de reserve. He did this to testify his pleasure for his adherence to the revolution of the 18th Brumaire; but the general, who felt piqued by the offer of a command so subordinate, in a country where he had before led an army, urged illness and wounds as a reason for remaining in France. The penetration of Napoleon, was too keen for the true sentiments of Macdonald to escape him; thus on the 24th of August, in the same year, he was appointed to command the army of Switzerland, which was destined to penetrate into the Tyrol, to second the operations of the army of Italy and favour the columns of Moreau (who was then warring in Germany) by compelling the Austrians to employ at least thirty thousand of their best men among the Tyrolean mountains—the bulwark of the German empire.
Macdonald marched from Bearn in September, with forty thousand men,[26]towards Helvetia, accompanied by General Matthew Dumas, chief of the staff, a soldier who used his pen better than his sword. His first desire was that a corps of Helvetians should be formed to co-operate with the French against the Austrians; but this request the Swiss government declined; and he soon found his campaign to consist of a series of arduous marches among the mountains, where, as the season advanced and the winter drew on, his soldiers endured every misery that, toil, hunger, and cold could inflict.
In the passage of the Alps, when one of his columns, composed of the 80th Regiment, with some cavalry, artillery, sappers, and guides, under Laboissière, attempted to cross the Splugen, in the country of the Grisons, a dreadful avalanche suddenly came thundering down from the mountains to bar their march, and swept forty-twoof the 10th Dragoons, with their horses, over a precipice. His other columns met with equal difficulties. A letter in the Paris papers, dated "Head-quarters, Chicavenna, 7th December, 1800," relates:—
"It was necessary to traverse the Splugen and Mount Carduiet. These mountains, even in July, present all the horrors of winter; judge what they are in December! Threatening and inaccessible rocks, seas of snow on all sides, torrents of avalanches falling with a noise equally terrible. Since our first march, two hundred men, with their horses, have been swallowed up. After unheard-of labour, we succeeded in disengaging all of them except three. There was not the least trace of a road; but by labour and constancy we opened a narrow path, bordered by precipices which the eye could not fathom nor the foot always avoid."
Two-thirds of the pass, which leads towards Como had been traversed, the troops in front, with muskets slung, digging a path for their comrades in the rear, till the column, exhausted by cold and fatigue, began to retire without orders, though the dangers behind—snow, hunger, and avalanches—were the same as those in front. Macdonald galloped towards his sinking soldiers, and his presence had an immediate effect on them. They halted; he entreated and threatened; but they listened in sullen silence.
Then he dismounted, seized a shovel, and proceeded to dig the snow, exclaiming—
"My comrades, I would rather perish in the abyss than stoop to turn my steps on perils such as these!"
"Vive M. le Général!" cried the soldiers of the 80th. Confidence was inspired anew; again the muskets were slung, the shovels resumed, and after three days of labour, danger, and toil, the passage was achieved, and the troops of Macdonald debouched from that terrible gorge, where the frozen precipices seemed to hang from heaven, and where whirlwinds of hail, tempests of snow, with death in its most frightful form, had been encountered.
The resistance he experienced from the Austrian troops was trivial; and on the 7th of January, 1801, he madehimself master of the circle and city of Trent; but the armistice concluded at Treviso on the 16th of the same month put an end to the war. After this he remained for some time at Isola, suffering from an illness caused by the fatigues he had undergone at Splugen, and Delmas commanded in the interim.
At the close of the campaign he returned to Paris, where his opposition to some of the arbitrary measures of the First Consul made that haughty personage resolve on politely getting rid of a troublesome mentor, by sending him on a distant mission. He was accordingly dispatched to Denmark, as Minister Plenipotentiary from France to the Court of Christian VII. There he resided for three years, and there he encountered so many disagreeables, as his presence was unwelcome in Copenhagen, that he frequently solicited his recall; but Napoleon was jealous of Moreau, who was Macdonald's chief friend: thus he was only recalled when the First Consul was about to exchange the consular staff for an imperial sceptre.
It was about this time that the famous conspiracy of General Pichegreu and Georges Cadoudal, and their correspondence with the Prince of Condé, were discovered. In that correspondence Moreau was compromised to a dangerous extent; thus his friend Macdonald was received with greater coldness at the Tuileries.
The high indignation which he had the temerity to express after the mock trial and banishment of his brother soldier Moreau, who fled to America, completed the displeasure of the new Emperor, who withdrew all countenance from Macdonald, and, notwithstanding his past services, bravery, and endurance, his name was omitted from the list of marshals of the Empire who were then created.
He retired to the country, inspired by a mortification which he could not repress; and remained in seclusion, unnoticed, during the early part of the new war against Spain and Austria, and until 1809 would seem to have been forgotten; but he had perhaps the consolation of remembering "that he must not fear who thirsts for glory; and although we often find that true merit is eclipsed fora time, we have never known it to be entirely lost; it bursts at last through the clouds which environ it, and appears resplendent in its bright and genuine colours."
These were the words of Fabius Maximus to Emilius when, with Varro, he went to lead the Roman army; and thus the "true merit," the coolness and intrepidity of Macdonald, were destined to shine again, for he was remembered by Napoleon when that monarch became entangled with the Italian and Peninsula wars—when the great armies of Austria pressed him on one hand and the distant hordes of Russia were gathering on the other; then, but not till then, did he seem to remember the brave soldier whom petty quarrels and court intrigues had compelled him to overlook. This was in that year when the perfidy of Napoleon to the royal family of Spain and to the whole Spanish nation excited such indignation, not only at the Court of Vienna, but throughout the whole of Germany and Europe generally.
Macdonald was now offered the command of a division in that corps of the army of Italy led by Prince Eugene Beauharnois, who was then evincing his usual intrepidity, but was experiencing severe checks from the Archduke John of Austria. This offer he at once accepted, for he had grown weary alike of peace and of retirement. He joined Prince Eugene; and from that period was deemed his mentor rather than his second in command.
At the head of the right wing he crossed the Isola on the 14th and 15th of April, 1809, and drove the Austrians from their strong positions at Goritz, capturing eleven of their guns and much munition of war.
These successes led to those at Raab and at Laybach, both of which were the result of Macdonald's combinations and manœuvres; and pushing on vigorously, without leisure or delay, with his division, he joined the grand army of the Emperor before the gates of Vienna.
On the 5th and 6th of July he was at the famous battle of Wagram, where he led two divisions of infantry, some of which were battalions of the Garde Impériale. With these he advanced under a fire, when two hundred piecesof cannon were engaged on both sides, and when the roar of the conflict was the greatest ever heard even by the oldest veteran of these warlike armies. Three-fourths of his column perished under the storm of shot by which it was assailed as he advanced to break the Austrian centre, the task assigned to him by the Emperor.
The fury with which his troops came on was irresistible. He drove back the brigades of the archduke with immense loss, and a total rout of the Austrians ensued, thus terminating a two days' conflict which will ever be remembered in the annals of carnage—for few prisoners were taken on either side, which proved the resolution of both—to conquer or die!
Thirty-six thousand, seven hundred and seventy-three officers and soldiers of both armies lay killed or wounded on the field and round the walls of Vienna; while, as related in the memoir of Count O'Reilly, corpses in every variety of uniform, gashed and bloody, floated in hundreds down the dark waters of the Danube, or were daily thrown upon its shores to feed the wolves or to fester and decay. Such was the field of Wagram, and it was the culminating point in the fortunes of Stephen Macdonald.
Napoleon, though little disposed to view him with favour, when the field was won, sprang from his horse, and embraced him with ardour, exclaiming,—
"Now, Macdonald, we are together for life and death!"
He complimented him before his staff, extolled him in the bulletin, and on the field of battle made him at last a Marshal of the Empire.
Of all the French marshals he was the only one who thus received a bâton in the field, and soon after he was created Duke of Tarentum, from a town of that name in Naples.
"Among all the marshals of France," says the editor of Bourienne'sMemoirs, "there is not one so pure from every stain on the soldier's character—so daringly honest with Napoleon in his prosperity—so lastingly true to him in his adversity, as this, his only Scottish officer."
Napoleon thus bore honourable testimony to the value of his service at Wagram, the glory of which another marshal sought to appropriate to himself.
"As his majesty commands his army in person," says Napoleon, in a private order, dated Camp of Schœnbrunn, 9th of July, 1809, "to him belongs the exclusive right of assigning the degree of glory which each merits. His majesty owes the success of his arms to the French troops, and not to strangers. Prince Ponte Corvo's order of the day, tending to give false pretensions to troops, at best not above mediocrity, is contrary to truth, to discipline, and to national honour. The corps of the Prince of Ponte Corvo did not remain immovable as iron. It was the first to retreat. His majesty was obliged to cover it by the corps of the Guard and the division commanded by Marshal Macdonald, by the division of heavy cavalry commanded by General Nautsonby, and by a part of the cavalry of the Guard.To Marshal Macdonald belongs the praise which the Prince of Ponte Corvo arrogates to himself.His majesty desires that this testimony of his displeasure may serve as an example to every marshal not to attribute to himself the glory which belongs to others."[27]
After Wagram he commanded in the duchy of Gratz, and maintained in his army a discipline so severe in repressing plunder and outrage, that on his departure at the peace with Austria, before his division began its homeward march for France, the States prayed him to accept an offering of two hundred thousand francs, but he resolutely declined them.
"Messieurs," said he, "I am a soldier—I have done but my duty."
Then the deputies offered him a jewel-box of great value, as a bridal gift for one of his daughters; and to the bearers he made the following reply:—
"Gentlemen, if you believe that you owe me anything, you shall have the means of repaying me amply, by the care you will take of three hundred poor invalid soldiers, whom I shall leave in your city."
Napoleon was now in the zenith of his power; his marriage with Maria Louisa—an espousal more politic than honourable—had been celebrated at the close of the year of Wagram; and in the year following, Holland, the Valais, and the Hanse Towns were annexed to France; territories which, with those of Rome, gave to the new empire an augmentation of nearly 5,000,000 of subjects.
The war was now raging in the Peninsula, and there the feeble measures of Augereau in Catalonia made Napoleon resolve to supersede him. The Duke of Tarentum was named his successor, and, as such, he soon restored order among the Catalans. In their mountainous province, more than in any other part of Spain, military talent and energy were required; as the entire population—a brave, resolute, and hardy race—were in arms against the invaders. Augereau's losses in the desultory warfare maintained by the Guerillas were so severe that they more than counterbalanced his success in the sieges he undertook; and these losses were so indicative of mismanagement that they ensured his recal to France. He marched for the frontier laden with the plunder of Barcelona, and of all the officers who formed its escort, General Chabran was the only one—as the Catalan journals remarked—who did not pillage the house in which he had been quartered; but returned to the Patron de Caza the silver spoons he had used at table.
At this time rapine was the order of the day in the French army; a hammer and a small saw invariably formed a portion of a soldier's accoutrements, that he might have tools at hand to break open every lock-fast place, when the work of pillage began.
In Catalonia, Macdonald found himself at the head of 17,000 men; in the adjoining province of Aragon, Suchet led 16,000; and the Spanish corps of O'Donnel were the only regular troops opposed to them both.
On Suchet laying siege to Tortosa, a fortified city on the left bank of the Ebro, Macdonald marched with 12,000 men to secure the entrance of a convoy of provisions into Barcelona; and this he achieved in triumph,defeating a vigorous attempt of the Spaniards to intercept it.
O'Donnel, general of the Spaniards, now directed his main efforts to relieve Tortosa, where the Conde de Alacha Miguel Lili, with 7800 brave fellows, who had survived or escaped from the battle of Tudela, made a stout resistance. O'Donnel left nothing undone to impede the operations of the besiegers and raise the blockade; till Macdonald, to distract his attention and favour the operations of Suchet, marched upon Tarragona, a seaport near the mouth of the Francoli. It is picturesquely situated upon a hill, and is surrounded by old Moorish walls, having turrets at intervals. As it is a place of importance, the Spaniards were anxious to preserve it, and pressed Macdonald so severely that he was forced to take up a position in sight of the town, in a plain so near the sea that one of his flanks was exposed to a cannonade from a British frigate. Finding this position untenable, after a sharp encounter, and reaping no other advantage from his march than the plunder of Reus, a wealthy little manufacturing town, he retreated across the plains of Tarragona, harassed on both flanks by the troops of Sarsfield and Ibarrola, who slew 300 of his soldiers, captured 130, and retook most of the pillage found in Reus and elsewhere.
As a central point, from whence he could cover Suchet's operations against Tortosa, and command a space of country capable of supplying the troops with food and forage, Macdonald chose a strong position near Cervera, in sight of the Mediterranean. Finding him secure here, O'Donnel, instead of attacking him, turned the attention of his own troops against the French elsewhere, and cut off several of their small garrisons, until he received a wound which disabled him.
On the 13th December, Macdonald received a welcome reinforcement of ten thousand men; but, notwithstanding, Eroles, Sarsfield, and Campoverde, at the head of the Spanish regiments of the line and Guerillas of Catalonia, fought him successfully in almost every instance. Yet his movements so completely covered the siege of Tortosa that, after five months' delay, Suchet was able to break ground before it,and the Conde Lili surrendered at discretion; for which sentence of death was pronounced against him by the Spanish authorities; and with great solemnity, in the market-place of Tarragona, the head was struck from hiseffigyby the public executioner.
In 1811, Macdonald possessed himself of Figueras, a small Catalonian town situated in a fertile plain, not far from the frontier of France. On an eminence it has a magnificent castle, with bomb-proof towers and undermined approaches. This important strength had been taken by the French three years before; but on the night of the 10th April, 1811, some Catalonians who had been forced into the ranks of a French regiment, finding themselves, by a lucky coincidence, all on guard together, resolved to have their revenge. They opened a sally-port to their countrymen, who entering the castle sword in hand, made the garrison, to the number of four thousand men, prisoners, without a shot being exchanged. On the 19th of the following August, Macdonald, after meeting with a determined resistance from these Catalonians, retook the castle of Figueras, by capitulation, and garrisoned it again for Joseph Bonaparte.
After this recapture, Catalonia seemed to be subjugated to the yoke of France; yet, for some reason unknown, Macdonald was withdrawn from the command of the army there, and it was bestowed upon General Decaen. It is supposed that Napoleon, who disliked that any one should assume the part of monitor or judge of his soldiers, was piqued at the tenor of an obscure passage in Macdonald's report, in which he detailed to Marshal Berthier the recapture of Figueras. It ran thus:—
"I please myself in rendering justiceto the army, in the hope that the Emperor will view with an eye of favour these brave fellows, entreating your excellencyto cause it to be remarkedto his Majesty that his army in Catalonia is a stranger to the event which has re-united it in this place."
"How happens it," said General Sarrazen, "that Macdonald, who does not want for good sense, should have permitted himself to use such awkward observations?"
In the disastrous invasion of Russia he had command of the 10th Corps, of which the Prussians formed a part. The details of that terrible winter campaign are too well known to all the world to require recapitulation in these memoirs.
The Emperor led his army to Smolensko, on the great road to Moscow, and crossed the Niemann on the 27th of June.
Macdonald crossed the same river, on the same day, at Tilsit, by a bridge of boats, and at the head of his French and Prussians (the Corps d'Yorck) seized Dunabourg, while Kowno, in Lithuania, fell without a struggle, and the great army of the Empire marched through it in splendid order, with all its bands playing and colours flying. How different was the aspect of the few surviving fugitives of that army when they repassed Kowno in December following!
With orders to occupy the line of Riga, and if it was captured, to threaten St. Petersburg, Macdonald marched towards the capital of Livonia, which was occupied by a numerous garrison, whose defensive measures were ably seconded by a British naval force. Napoleon conceived that if the main body of the Russians fell back on St. Petersburg, he would, when following them, be able to effect a junction with the 10th Corps under Macdonald, after which they could push on together; but though the latter burned the suburbs of Riga, his operations against the place were long retarded by the bravery of the besieged. Though not regularly fortified, the town has considerable means of defence, being encircled by an earthen rampart, and having a citadel, while a fortress guards the entrance of the Duna or Dwina.
The project of Napoleon became a failure, when the route pursued by the retreating Russians proved different from the one he anticipated. Thus he was obliged to advance after them to Moscow, while Macdonald remained for a time before Riga, on which he could make no impression, though he fought under its walls a series of bloody conflicts, in futile assaults and repulsing desperate sorties. Suspicion of the faith of his Prussian regimentswas not his least source of anxiety. When St. Cyr was alarmed that his flanks might be turned by the Russians from Finland, he wrote an urgent letter to Macdonald requesting him to oppose the march of those troops who were led by Wittgenstien and Steinheil, and whose line of march lay in front of the position before Riga; adding that if he (Macdonald) objected to detach any part of his forces from the blockade, to come and assume command of St. Cyr's division in person, and meet this army from Finland. "But Macdonald," adds Count Segur, "did not conceive himself justified in making so important a movement without express orders. He distrusted Yorck, the Prussian general, whom he suspected of intending to deliver up to the Russians his park of siege artillery. He replied, that to defend it was his first and most indispensable duty, and he declined to quit his station."
Macdonald's suspicions soon proved correct; for on the 13th December, 1812, when in presence of the enemy, he was abandoned by the whole of the Prussians under General Yorck; and was thus compelled to retire, though resisting with indomitable energy the attack of the Russians, who followed him closely, when sword in hand he sought to hew a passage to the rear. By this time all was lost elsewhere.
He survived the perils of that frightful campaign, in which out of 300,000 soldiers, who, in June, passed the Niemann in all the pomp of war and pride of former victories, scarcely 50,000 escaped out of Russia; and of these the greater number had suffered so dreadfully from wounds, hunger and frost, as to be quite unfit for future service.
With 1131 pieces of cannon, there were taken by the Russians 41 generals, 1298 officers. 167,410 sergeants and rank and file. Therestwere accounted for by the frost and snow, the Cossack lances, the bullet and the sabre, rendering the paths across the whitened wastes of Russia impassable with the bodies of the dying and the dead. Never in all the annals of war were greater sufferings detailed than those endured by the miserable French on their retreat from flaming Moscow.
In 1813, Macdonald commanded a corps in Saxony, where, on the 29th April, he had the satisfaction of routing at Mercebourg the division of General Yorck, composed of thesamePrussians who had abandoned him at Riga during the previous year; and at Lutzen, where, on the 2nd May, the combined forces of Russia and Prussia met the French in battle, led by the Emperor in person, he attacked the Prussian reserve, and after a long and severe engagement cut it to pieces.
"Now," said he, "I have fully avenged the desertion of General Yorck."
After this Napoleon retired and established his head-quarters at Dresden, while Leipzig and Breslau were also occupied by his troops. On being reinforced by the Saxons, whose king he held as a species of hostage for his people, he resolved on attacking the northern allies near Bautzen; and Macdonald hastened with his division across the Spree, to share in the battle which ensued in June. The French triumphed, and their foes had to retreat, but in fine order, into Silesia. Macdonald was despatched by the Emperor in pursuit; but was compelled to fall back, as the roads by which he must have marched were almost inundated.
Nowhere did he attain more distinction than during the horrors of the three days of Leipzig.
This Saxon city, which is situated in a fertile plain, has suffered in many wars, but by none so much as the campaign of 1813. In that year Napoleon made it the general hospital for the sick and wounded of his army; thus its beautiful environs soon became the sad scene of many important events. In several battles and skirmishes the allies had defeated the French during the months of August and September; but Napoleon, who, with his characteristic obstinacy, adhered to Dresden as the centre of his position, found himself out-manœuvred, when eighty milesin his rearhe heard of Marshal Blucher passing the Black Elster, and that Bernadotte, a prince of his own making, but now in arms against him, had arrived, after a long and circuitous march, near the suburbs of Leipzig, while Schwartzenbourg drew near that city from the south-east.
This was in the month of October.
The French numbered 160,000 bayonets and sabres; the allies 240,000. The outposts were soon engaged on the 16th; the following day was spent in skirmishes and manœuvres till the three allied armies formed a junction, and the stern conflict of the 18th began with all its terrors over an extent of line that covered seven miles. A little village on the French right, where Napoleon had posted himself, was lost and retaken again and again at the bayonet's point under a storm of round and grape shot. Noon arrived, but the battle was still undecided, when all breathless with speed, an officer, with his uniform torn and bloody, rushed towards the Emperor.
"Sire," he exclaimed, "the left wing has given way; the Saxon cavalry and artillery have gone over to the enemy!"
"Silence!" replied Napoleon, sternly; "silence!"
The intelligence was kept secret from the right and centre, and still the strife went on.
By three p.m. came the still more alarming tidings that the Saxon infantry had deserteden masseto the allies. This also was kept a secret from the French troops, though the Imperial Guard was ordered to take their place; but the power thus attained by the allies was no longer to be withstood, and a precipitate retreat towards the Rhine became the first thought of the vanquished Emperor.
At nightfall he gave the order to fall back, leaving the environs of Leipzig strewed with dead and dying; but his order was tardily executed, as all the French fugitives with their baggage, cannon, and wounded, on horseback, on foot, or in waggons, were compelled to takeoneroad, every other being occupied by the cavalry and horse artillery of the victors; consequently, the sufferings and slaughter of the French, even after the field was lost, became dreadful. Napoleon, before retiring, had ordered that the bridge of the White Elster should be undermined, and directed Macdonald and Prince Joseph Poniatowski, with their divisions, to defend a portion of the suburbs that lay between the advancing enemy and the Borna road; and to leave nothing undone to maintaintheir post to the last, that the retreat of the army and baggage might be fully covered.
Poniatowski was brave as a lion. He was nephew of Stanislaus Augustus, the last King of Poland, and was animated alike by the purest patriotism and hatred of the Russians; hence he served France against them as the oppressors of his house and native country. He had 2000 Polish infantry and a few horse with him; and seeing the desperation of affairs, as the waggons of wounded, dripping with blood, the heavy artillery with their tumbrils, and the masses of fugitive soldiery exhausted by three days of fighting and excitement, pressed in close ranks across the bridge of the Elster, he drew his sabre and turning to his countrymen—
"Gentlemen," said he, "here we must win or lose our honour!—Forward!" and at the head of a few Polish cuirassiers he made a rush towards the enemy. At that moment the bridge of the Elster wasblown up, and his retreat cut off for ever!
Macdonald was similarly circumstanced, as his troops had manned and enfiladed the suburbs, where they were firing briskly to keep the foe in check from walls, houses, and hedgerows.
According to theMoniteur, it was the intention of Napoleon to have the bridge blown up only at the last moment, and when all his troops had passed the stream. General Dussaussoy had remitted this duty to Colonel Montfort, who, in turn, had remitted it to a corporal and four sappers. On the first appearance of the enemy upon the road, and when the cuirassiers of Poniatowski charged, the startled corporal fired the train, and a dark cloud of dust and stones ascending into the air with a mighty roar, announced the destruction of the bridge; while Macdonald and his whole corps, with eighty pieces of cannon, all their eagles, and several hundred carriages laden with powder, baggage, and wounded men, were on thewrongside of the river. A shout of astonishment and dismay arose from those who had crossed; and many an anxious eye was turned back to Leipzig, where the roar of musketry was yet heard in the rear.
The attention of Napoleon, who had left the city by the road which led by the bridge to Lindenau (the direct route for France) was arrested by the explosion, and one of his aides-de-camp exclaimed,
"Sire—sire—they have blown up the bridge of the Elster, and Macdonald's corps isyet in Leipzig!"
"At that time," to quote Bourienne, "Napoleon was accused of having given orders for the destruction of the bridge, immediatelyafterhis own passage, to secure his retreat from the active pursuit of the enemy. The English journals were unanimous on this point, and there were few of the inhabitants of Leipzig who doubted the fact."
If this be true, it was a baseness only equalled by the strangulation of Pichegreu, the torture of Captain Wright in the Temple, and the lonely butchery of the hapless Duc d'Enghien.
Finding all lost, and that his retreat was cut off, Macdonald sheathed his sword, and calling on his soldiers to escape as they best could, threw himself into the river, the waters of which were darkening as the night drew on. He swam across, and reached the other side in safety. Poor Poniatowski, though bleeding and severely wounded, imitated his example; but he was pierced by a bullet, from one of the enemy's skirmishers, who had now lined the steep bank of the Elster, and opened a murderous fire upon the mass of unfortunate fugitives, the wreck of Macdonald's corps, who were struggling in the stream. In the dark, the unfortunate prince was swept away with his charger and drowned. Five days after, his corpse was found by a fisherman, and interred on the bank of the stream. A granite sarcophagus, surrounded by acacias and weeping-willows, marks the place where he lies.
Colonel Montfort, the corporal, and the four sappers, were delivered over to a court-martial.
Such was the closing episode of that terrible day at Leipzig, the anniversary of the more glorious events of Ulm and of Jena—a day that cost France nearly forty thousand men.
Napoleon continued his retreat to Mayence, with anarmy exhausted by toil, crushed by defeat, and savage in spirit, but lacking the stamina to make one more vigorous stand for France, save at Hanau; for French soldiers, more than any other, are the worst to retrieve a disaster.
"Thedefensivesystem," to quote theMemoirsof Marshal Ney, "accords ill with the disposition of the French soldier, at least if it is not to be maintained by successive diversions and excursions; in a word, if you are not constantly occupied in that little warfare, inactivity destroys the force of troops who rest continually on the defensive. They are obliged to be constantly on the alert night and day; while, on the other hand, offensive expeditions wisely combined raise the spirit of the soldier, and prevent him from having time to ponder on the real cause of his dangerous situation. It is in theoffensivethat you find the French soldier inexhaustible in resources. His active disposition and valour in assaults double his power. A general should never hesitate to march with the bayonet against an enemy, if the ground is favourable for the use of that weapon. It is in theattack, in fine, that you accustom the French soldier to every species of warfare—alike to brave the enemy's fire, and to leave the field open to the development of his intelligence and courage."
But now the spirit of the French soldiers was almost dead for a time; and so ill was this retreat conducted, that the rear-guard, with 20,000 sick and wounded, fell into the hands of the enemy.
Macdonald was at the battle of Hanau, the last stand made by this discomfited host in Hesse Cassel. There the French were attacked by the Austrians and Bavarians, whom they routed, and then continued retreating, the whole of their cavalry hewing a passage, sword in hand, through the lines of the enemy.
He was now despatched by the Emperor to Cologne, with orders to organize a new army. These instructions he found the impossibility of fulfilling, so he abandoned the Rhine, along the banks of which the bayonets of the allies were glittering everywhere, and falling back into the interior of ancient France, with the war-worn veterans of his shattered column, he formed the left wing of theretreating army; and at its head, during the campaign of 1814, he gave more than one severe repulse to the Prussians, who were pressing towards Paris under Marshal Blucher. These encounters were chiefly on the banks of the Marne, and especially at Nangis, in the north of France, where he fought a severe action with the allies on the 17th of February; but these struggles and all the valour of the French Imperialists were vain, for ere long the capital was taken; then Germany found itself freed from oppression; Holland rang with acclamations on the downfall of Napoleon; and Wellington had halted in his long career of victory, on the banks of the Garonne, and by the hill of Toulouse.
Macdonald adhered to the fallen Emperor—the child of Destiny—and was with him in the old palace of Fontainebleau at the time of his abdication from the most splendid of European thrones. Hope had fled. His army was dispersed and crumbling to pieces; its great officers and leaders had abandoned him; and such is the instability of human affairs, that the people of whose blood he had been so lavish—the people to whom he had been a demi-god—were turning with ardour to another monarch, and welcomed the foemen against whom they had struggled for more than twenty years of war and carnage that were without parallel.
"The wreck of the army assembled at Fontainebleau," says General Bourienne, "the remains of a million of men levied in fifteen months—comprising the corps of Marshals Oudinot, Ney, Macdonald, and General Gerard—did not exceed twenty-five thousand."
Various interviews that took place between Napoleon and the Duke of Tarentum about this time are carefully detailed by this gossiping old soldier, in the supplement to theBiographie Universelle, and other memoirs.
Macdonald with his corps had marched in with all speed from Montereau, on receipt of an order from the Emperor, that he meant to march on Paris—a resolution that filled his officers with consternation. On the marshal's arrival at the palace, the generals waited on him in a body, to request that he would place before the Emperor,the rashness and desperation of attempting to recapture Paris from the allies.
"Messieurs," said he, "in the present juncture, such advice might displease his Majesty—leave the matter to me."
As soon as he presented himself before Napoleon—
"Well, marshal," said he, "how do things go?"
"Very ill, sire."
"What! Very ill? How is your division disposed?"
"It is completely discouraged, sire; recent events at Paris have spread consternation through its ranks."
"Think you," asked the Emperor, "it will join with me in a movement upon Paris?"
"Trust not to that, sire," was the desponding answer; "should I give such an order, I should hazard being disobeyed."
"But what are we to do?" said the Emperor, passionately. "I cannot remain as I am! I shall march against Paris; I will punish these inconstant Parisians, and the folly of the senate! Woe to the government they have plastered up waiting the return of their Bourbons. To-morrow I shall place myself at the head of my Old Guard, and to-morrow we shall be in the Tuileries!"
"Sire," urged Macdonald, "are you ignorant that a provisional government has been established?"
"I know it."
"Then, sire, read this—a letter from Marshal Bournonville, announcing the sentence of forfeiture pronounced by the senate, and the resolution of the allied generals not to treat with you."
The countenance of Napoleon became violently contracted. After a pause, he exclaimed, furiously,
"I shall march upon Paris!"
"March upon Paris, sire," reiterated Macdonald; "that design must be renounced, for not a sword will leave its scabbard to follow you."
Finding all indeed over, the bitter subject of his abdication came to be gravely considered, and he handed to the marshal a document, on the 4th April, stating that he was ready to quit the throne of France.
The tender and honourable part acted by Macdonald at this humiliating but memorable time was duly appreciated by the Emperor, who has done him ample justice. With Marshal Ney and the Duke of Vicenza, he was named one of the commissioners sent by Napoleon to the Emperor Alexander.
"Well, Duke of Tarentum," said the former, before the marshal left Fontainebleau, "do you think a regency is the only thing possible?"
"Yes, sire."
"Well," continued Napoleon, who had now recovered his composure; "I charge you with my message to the Emperor Alexander; you will go with Ney instead of Marmont.I rely on you, and I hope you have entirely forgotten the circumstances which separated us so long?"
"Oh, sire, I have never once thought of them since 1809."
"I rejoice to hear it," replied Napoleon with emotion; "but marshal—I must now make the acknowledgment—I was wrong."
"Sire!" exclaimed Macdonald; the Emperor pressed his hand and faltered out but one word,
"Go."[28]
Macdonald vehemently urged that a regency should be established in France, in the person of Maria Louisa, in favour of her son, the young King of Rome, and violent altercations took place at the conference.
"Speak not to me, sir," said he to Bournonville, who opposed him; "your conduct has made me forget the friendship of thirty years!" "As foryou, sir," he added, turning to Dupont, "your behaviour towards the Emperor is not generous. I acknowledge that he may have been unjust to you in the affair of Baylen; but how long has it been the fashion to avenge a personal wrong at the expense of the country?"
"Gentlemen," exclaimed the Duke of Vicenza, "do not forget that you are in the presence of the Emperor of Russia."
The energy with which Macdonald urged the cause ofNapoleon embarrassed the Emperor of Russia; but neither the eloquence with which he spoke of the military glory of France, and the resolution of himself and his comrades never to abandon the family of one who had led them so often to victory, and with whom they had shared so many perils in war, nor the arguments with which he sought to enforce the regency, were successful; and at midnight on the 6th, he returned in dejection to Fontainebleau, to render, with Ney and Caulaincourt, an account of his mission. Napoleon again exhibited much emotion, and said, with a sigh,
"I know, marshal, all you have done for me—with what warmth you have pleaded the cause of my son. They desire my simple and unconditional abdication? Well—act on my behalf. Go, and again defend my interests and those of my family."
Bourienne and others thus relate their last interview.
"Alas!" said Napoleon, "I am no longer rich enough to recompense your last service, Macdonald; but I can perceive how unwisely I was formerly prejudiced against you. I can also see the designs of those who inspired me with that prejudice."
"Sire," replied the marshal, "I have already had the honour to assure you, that since 1809 I have been yours in life and death!"
"Since I can no longer recompense you as I would wish, I pray you to remember that I shallNEVERforget the faithful service you have rendered me!"
Napoleon then turned to Caulaincourt, saying,
"Duke of Vicenza, bring my sabre."
Caulaincourt brought the weapon, which was one of exquisite workmanship, and placed it in the hands of the Emperor.
"Behold," said he, "a recompence, Macdonald, which, I believe, will give you pleasure. This sabre, which was given to me by Murad Bey, in Egypt, after we had won the battle of Mount Tabor, accept, my friend—a gift which, I believe, will gratify you."
"Sire," replied the marshal, whose voice trembled as he received the sabre from the Emperor; "if ever I have ason, this weapon shall be his noblest heritage; and as such I will guard it with my life."
"Give me your hand, and embrace me!" exclaimed Napoleon; and throwing themselves into each others arms, they parted in tears—parted never to meet again as friends.[29]
In obedience to the commands of the fallen Emperor, the marshal, on the day succeeding this impressive farewell, sent in his adhesion to the new government.
"Now," he wrote, "that I am freed from my allegiance to the Emperor Napoleon, I have the honour to announce to you—the provisional government—that I accord with the national wish which recalls the dynasty of Bourbon to the throne of France."
On the 6th May, he was named member of the Council of War, and Chevalier of St. Louis. This was an order instituted by Louis XIV. in 1693, and, until the revolution, it remained entirely in possession of the French army. The badge was a gold cross of eight points, hung from a broad crimson ribbon. On the 6th June, he was created a peer of the realm by the surviving descendant of the Capet family, Louis XVIII., who seemed now firmly seated on the throne of France. But this monarch, as soon as order was duly established, was sufficiently rash and unwise to raise doubts about the validity of that law by which, during the stormy days of the republic, the property of the emigrant noblesse had been confiscated and sold. This was an unpleasant topic to broach at a time when Napoleon, like a caged lion, in Elba was watching for the moment to break forth; and Macdonald foresaw that misfortunes might ensue from its discussion; thus, on the 3rd December, 1814, he made an oration which succeeded in tranquillizing the fears of those who had made fortunes amid the anarchy of the republic, or with the growth of the late military empire. He had, moreover, the amiable intention of succouring the aged nobles and chevaliers of St. Louis, who were returning home after twenty-two yearsof exile, and the families of those whose fidelity to the ancient monarchy had involved them in penury, expatriation, and ruin.
His proposition was to raise twelve millions of annual rents, to be divided in proportions according to the rank and necessities of the claimants. His motion was received by all honourable men with favour, and with lively gratitude by those whose cause he had undertaken. He also advocated the hard case of his old comrades, the veteran soldiers of the Empire, who had lost their pay and pensions by the success of the restoration.
Macdonald won the hearts of all by these proposed measures; but they were brought forward too late in the year to have any practical or beneficial result; for now the eyes of all men were turned towards the little isle of Elba, from whence theViolet, as his soldiers named Napoleon, was confidently expected to come with the spring.
About this time, learning that Madame Moreau, the widow of his old friend and brother soldier, had secretly applied in his favour to an influential friend at Naples, to the effect that the revenues of the dukedom of Tarentum, which had been long withheld, should be continued to him, he wrote to the French plenipotentiary at the court of Ferdinand, praying that, with all gratitude to Madame Moreau, there might be no interference in the matter.
"Ferdinand of Naples," said he, with noble spirit, "owes me nothing, for having routed his armies, revolutionized his kingdom, and forced him to seek refuge in Sicily."
"Had I not laid it down as a principle," replied Ferdinand, "not to maintain one of the French endowments, I would assuredly have made an exception in favour of Marshal Macdonald."
On the 1st of March, 1815, the Emperor landed from Elba, and again Europe vibrated with war. The followers of the Bourbons were struck with consternation, and the soldiers to whom Louis XVIII. looked for protection and defence, were naturally enough flocking to the standard of their old leader; and he could turn to none, in his desertion and dismay, save a few officers ofhigh rank, whose spirit of honour made them adhere to their oath of allegiance. The first to whom he addressed himself was Marshal Macdonald. He sent that officer to Lyons, where he arrived on the 8th of March, and found the Comte d'Artois in despair at the sullen and mutinous spirit exhibited by the troops he commanded.
Macdonald, of course, could not be surprised at this conduct in the soldiers, while his own heart led him towards the Emperor, and anoathtied him to the throne of the Bourbons; but he ordered a general parade of all the troops, and reviewed them before the prince. Still the same sullenness and the same silence, so unusual in French soldiers during a time of excitement, were apparent in the officers and men. So strong did this feeling become, that the Comte d'Artois (according to theVoice from St. Helena) had to withdraw in haste from Lyons, accompanied byonesolitary dragoon, while Macdonald marched with a regiment of cavalry and two battalions of infantry of the line towards the bridge of the Rhone, which Napoleon was approaching at the head of a few soldiers of the Old Guard and a force increasing every hour by the regiments which deserted as they were despatched against him.
The marshal seized and barricaded the bridge, his soldiers still obeying in silence, till the brass drums of the Emperor were heard ringing on the highway; again the old tri-colour was seen, and the eagles that had spread their gilded wings over so many fatal fields were glittering in the sun. The marshal ordered his troops to fix bayonets and load with ball-cartridge.
Where was then the memory of that farewell at Fontainebleau? and where the sword of Murad Bey—the souvenir of Mount Tabor? The marshal was deeply moved at that moment, but he remembered the oath he had sworn to Louis XVIII.
The 4th Hussars, who formed the imperial advanced guard, dashed boldly up to the bridge at full speed, and, brandishing their sabres, shouted their old battle-cry, "Vive l'Empereur!"
The effect was electric. The soldiers of Macdonaldcould no longer restrain their long-smothered enthusiasm. They, at least, had sworn no fealty to King Louis. With a shout they responded, and, waving their caps and muskets in welcome, tore aside the barricade, and rushed to meet the Emperor, leaving the marshal on horseback, and by the roadsidealone.
The 4th Hussars wished to seize and deliver him to the Emperor, but, animated by a high sense of chivalry, his own dragoons, who had come with him from Lyons, would by no means permit this, and drew their ranks across the road until he escaped. He returned immediately to Paris, and was desired by Louis XVIII. to command in the army formed under the Duc de Berri. This army proved, however, but a phantom, as the soldiers composing it almost to a man joined the banner of the Emperor.
Left thus alone, Macdonald repaired to the unfortunate king, and on the night of the 20th of March accompanied him on his retreat to Menin; but he again returned to Paris, where pleading his oath of fidelity, sworn by the Emperor's desire to the Bourbons, he declined to serve the imperial cause or become one of the Chamber of Peers under it—a refusal, doubtless, most painful to one who knew that he owed all his rank and honours to Napoleon. Relinquishing all these, as it were, for a time, the marshal duke enrolled himself as a simple grenadier in the National Guard of Paris, and as such did military duty during the usurpation, as it was named; and in the plain uniform of this corps, divested of medals, crosses, and epaulettes, he appeared as a private sentinel before Louis XVIII. on his return to the Tuileries.
On the capitulation of Paris to the allies the remains of Napoleon's army, then encamped beyond the Loire, were placed under the command of Macdonald, whose instructions were to remodel and re-organize the regiments, a difficult and arduous mission, which he accomplished with equal fidelity and address; but the soldiers, dispirited by the defeat at Waterloo, awed into submission by the flight of their idol Napoleon, and the presence of the overwhelming masses of the allies, obeyed him in silenceand dejection. All was over now with the Bonapartists. The army of the Empire was broken and scattered, like the marshal dukes who had led it to those glories and conquests of which there remained but the memory now!
In the words of M. Fleury de Chabulon, "Marshal Ney was the first to give the alarm and despair of the safety of his country. Marshal Soult had abjured his command, Marshal Massena, exhausted by victory, had no longer the strength required by circumstances; Marshal Macdonald, deaf to the war-cry of his old companions, left his sword peacefully in its scabbard; Marshal Jourdan was on the Rhine; Marshal Mortier had the gout at Beaumont; Marshal Suchet evinced repugnance and irresolution; and finally, the Marshals Davoust and Grouchy no longer enjoyed the confidence of the army."
Thus the throne that had been so long propped by bayonets and by the splendid chivalry of the Old Guard and of the whole imperial army, had crumbled into dust at last!
For his talent in organizing the army of the Loire Macdonald received the office of Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour, succeeding the Abbé de Pradt on the 10th of January, 1816, and on the 3rd of May, in that year, he was appointed Knight Commander of St. Louis.
It is related that, when dining one day at the Tuileries, Charles X. said to him—
"How came it to pass, marshal, that when serving in our Irish regiment of Dillon, which emigratedwith usentirely, you still remained in France?"
"Sire," he replied, "because I was in love with Mademoiselle Jacob; and I applaud myself for it, since to that girl's love I owe the honour of being this day at table with your Majesty."
"How so?"
"Because, had I emigrated, I might have lived in penury and died of despair; but now, sire, I am a duke and marshal of France."
This reply was so frank and politic, that the king questioned him no more on that subject. He was one of the four marshals who had command of the Royal Guard;and as one of a commission appointed to inquire into the recruiting of the army, on the 24th of February, 1818, he made an able report upon the oppressive law of conscription, urging upon the French ministry the British system of voluntary enlistment.
Four years after this, by a royal ordinance, he procured the reversion of his rank and titles to the Marquis de Rochedragon, his son-in-law; but this ordinance was useless, as there was no prospect of that noble having any family. Thus, the marshal being anxious to have a male heir—all his children being daughters—he married, in his fifty-eighth year, Mademoiselle de Bourgoing, and from that period led a quiet and retired life. Soon after his marriage he came to Scotland, the land of his forefathers.
Accompanied by his aide-de-camp, Colonel Count Couessin, a nobleman who was descended from an ancient family in Brittany, and was the husband of his niece, Macdonald arrived in Edinburgh about the middle of June, 1825. He remained at an hotel, where he received the cards of all persons of distinction in the vicinity, and was visited by every gentleman in the city who bore his name. He attended mass in the Catholic church of St. Mary, and viewed all the great "sights" of the Scottish metropolis. A Mr. Macdonald Buchanan invited him to a dinner at which Sir Walter Scott, Lord Jeffrey, and Henry Cockburn, were present, with several gentlemen who claimed the marshal as a clansman and relation. "From what I see of you, gentlemen," said he, when returning thanks after his health had been proposed, "and from what I have remarked of this country, I feel more pride than ever in having Scottish blood in my veins."
With great interest he visited the battle-field of Prestonpans, and viewed the ground from the Thorntree, where Colonel Gardiner was slain by the Highlanders. After beingfêtedat Hopeton House, he left Edinburgh for the Highlands, with the intention of visiting every part of the country in which his father had accompanied Prince Charles Edward, during their flight and concealment after Culloden.
On his way north, he visited the field of Bannockburn,on the 24th of June, the anniversary of the battle; and, after surveying the ground with a soldier's eye, he praised the dispositions and the valour of Robert Bruce. Everywhere he expressed himself "enraptured with the beauty of the country; and above all, of the metropolis of Scotland." He visited the "fair city" of Perth; and accompanied by Macdonald of Staffa, reached Inverness early in July, and went immediately to the field of Culloden, where his father's sword had been drawn for the last of the Stuarts. There he gazed about him long and thoughtfully, surveying the desert moor, which is yet dotted by the green graves of the loyal and brave men who fell there.
He expressed astonishment that the prince, with his slender army of swordsmen, destitute alike of horse and artillery, should have fought twice the number of regular troops on such ground, instead of retiring into the mountains, and harassing the army of Cumberland by a guerilla warfare.
In the ill-fatedComet(a steamer which was wrecked a short time after, under distressing circumstances) he left the Highland capital for the wild mountain-shore of Arisaig; and to a large dinner-party on board he made an address expressive of his admiration for the Scottish clans, "than whom," said he, "no people, I think, deserve to be more esteemed for their national character and uniform good conduct." Everywhere he wasfêtedand welcomed with Highland ardour and hospitality, and in many instances by old Highland soldiers and retired officers, who had served against him in Holland, Germany, and Spain.
On his landing under the walls of Armidale Castle in Sleat, on the southern shore of Skye, he was saluted by fifteen pieces of cannon, and was received by a body of his clansmen in full Highland arms and array, under Lord Macdonald.
At the beautiful ruins of Castle Tiorm, in "the country of Clanranald," there was presented to him an aged clansman, named Alaster Macdonald, then in his hundredth year, who had known his father, and remembered the melancholy embarkation of Prince Charles and his fugitive followers, seventy-nine years before. With this old namesake the marshal conversed long, and asked him many questions about the personal appearance, &c., of Prince Charles Edward.
He left the Scottish isles in a government ship, and reached Dublin on the 16th of July; and there he again met Sir Walter Scott, who had arrived in the same city on the previous day.
"Respecting his visit (to Scotland) a singular tradition is preserved in France," says Dr. Memes; "namely, that, on being introduced to Sir Walter Scott, the marshal offered to place at the disposal of the historian authentic and unpublished intelligence on certain important and misrepresented events. Sir Walter declined the proffered aid, with the remark, 'Thank you, marshal; but I prefer taking my materials from popular and current reports.' We relegate this to the class of fables."
After his return to France, he led a life of quiet and retirement, and for nearly twenty-five years his name was rarely heard. He grew rapidly feeble; for his long career of war in almost every country in Europe, and the numerous severe wounds he had received, brought age quickly upon him.
He died in his seventy-fifth year, on the 24th of September, 1840, at his country house near Courcelles. A noble and generous eulogy was pronounced upon him by General Count Philip de Segur, author of a history of Napoleon's Russian expedition, and who in former days had been the aide-de-camp of Macdonald.
The latter was pure in spirit and generous in heart, faithful and benevolent in peace, as he was brave and true in battle. Sarrazen thus describes him:—
"The Duke of Tarentum is of a good size, of a slender make, but robust and pale-faced, with eyes full of fire; his smile is sardonic, his bearing military, and his manners polished. I believe him to be a sincere friend; and although he showed a weakness of character in the council of war which occasioned the loss of the battle of Trebia,we cannot but allow him to have all the firmness necessary to a good general."
It has been already shown that the misfortune on the banks of the Trebia arose from circumstances over which the marshal had no control; but it was a battle that he fought long and gallantly.
He was thrice married; first to Mademoiselle Jacob, one of the most beautiful girls in France, by whom he had two daughters, one of whom married Sylvester Rene, Duke of Massa, in Italy; and the youngest to Alphonse Comte de Perregaux. He married secondly, Madame Joubert, formerly Mademoiselle de Montholon, widow of his comrade the brave General Joubert, who was slain in battle against Suwarrow at Novi, on the 16th of August, 1799. By her the marshal had an only daughter, afterwards the Marchioness de Rochedragon. He married thirdly, Madame de Bourgoing, daughter of the superintendent of the Royal Hospital at St. Denis, and widow of the Ambassador Baron de Bourgoing.[30]
They had two children: to the joy of the old marshal one of these was a son, whom he named Alexander, and who in October, 1824, was held at the baptismal font by his Majesty Charles X. and Madame the Dauphinesse, and who now inherits the dukedom of Tarentum, and the sabre of Mont Tabor.
Such was the career of Stephen Macdonald, the son of an obscure Scottish fugitive from the field of Culloden, who thus became a Marshal Duke of the Empire, and by his worth and bravery shed a glory on his father's name and on the rank he won.