FOOTNOTES:[14]Swedish Intelligencer, 1632.[15]Thomas Carve (Tipperariensis),Itinerarium, 12mo. 1639-1641.
FOOTNOTES:
[14]Swedish Intelligencer, 1632.
[14]Swedish Intelligencer, 1632.
[15]Thomas Carve (Tipperariensis),Itinerarium, 12mo. 1639-1641.
[15]Thomas Carve (Tipperariensis),Itinerarium, 12mo. 1639-1641.
Marshal Clarke,
GOVERNOR OF VIENNA AND BERLIN.
Henry James William Clarke, Duc de Feltre, Minister of War under the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, and afterwards under the Bourbons, was born on the 17th October, 1765, at Landrecies, a town of France, situate on the Sambre, westward of Maubeuge, and about one hundred miles from Paris.
His father belonged to one of the many exiled Irish families who followed to France the abdicated James VII. of Scotland, and II. of England; and after serving King Louis as a subaltern officer, died at an early age on obtaining the rank of colonel, leaving his son, the future general, an orphan, to the care of his uncle, Colonel Shee, who was then "Sécretaire des Commandement du Duc d'Orléans," and afterwards Prefect of Strasbourg, and a peer of France. It is strange how well fortune favoured all these Irish exiles in the various lands of their adoption.
By Colonel Shee, Henry Clarke was well and carefully reared, as he intended him for the service of Louis XVI. Thus, on the 17th of September, 1781, he entered the Military School at Paris as a cadet; and after going through a brief curriculum, left it on the 11th of November, 1782, to join the regiment of the Duc de Berwick as a sub-lieutenant. Wishing to join the cavalry, on the 5th of September, 1784, he was appointed cornet of hussars, with the rank of captain in the regiment of the colonel-general of this branch of the service.
On the 11th of July, 1790, he obtained a captaincy of dragoons, and in the same year received leave of absenceto visit Great Britain, as a gentleman in the suite of the ambassador.
It was to the friendship and patronage of the Duke of Orleans that Clarke owed these favours, and generally, his rapid advancement in the army; and it was to this prince that the hussar regiment of the colonel-general belonged, according to a custom of the oldrégime.
On his return to France, Clarke applied immediately for active service, and on the 5th of February, 1792, was appointed a captain of the first class, and soon after he attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel of cavalry.
He remained in command of his regiment during all the horrors of the Revolution; and, at its head, served in the two campaigns which followed the attack on the Tuileries, the deposition of the king, and the murders of 1792. In September he assisted very materially at the capture of Spire, theci-devantcapital of a bishopric in the palatinate of the Rhine, along the upper circle of which Custine had spread his brilliant conquests.
The French attacked the Austrians, who were in order of battle in front of the city. They were outflanked, and driven back; the gates were cut down by axes, or blown to pieces by cannon, and the republicans stormed the place, taking 3000 prisoners, with a vast train of cannon and mortars. Clarke bore a conspicuous part as an active cavalry officer in all the subsequent operations of the French army, including the capture of Worms, with all its stores, and of Mentz, before which the army arrived on the 19th of October, after forced marches, performed amid torrents of rain; and the taking of Frankfort, which was ransomed from destruction and pillage on the payment of 500,000 florins.
On the 17th of March, after the rout of Bingen, he defended the passage of the Nahe, a German stream, which falls into the Rhine near the former place, and there he was of signal service to the retreating troops. He was present at the affair of Horcheim, which was afterwards annexed to France, and the capture of Landau, on the 17th of May. His distinguished bravery on these occasions obtained him the rank of General of Brigade,provisionally, the commission of which he received on the field of battle. He then received the command of three regiments of dragoons, which formed the advanced guard of the army of the Rhine.
Soon afterwards we find him exercising in this army the functions ofChef d'Etat-Major Général; but on the 12th of October, 1793, the Commissioners of the National Convention, in virtue of a most unjust decree of that tyrannical assembly, deprived him of his rank, as he happened to be at that time on their secret list of thesuspected.
He received intelligence of this on the very evening before the Austrians stormed the French lines at Weissembourg, on the Lower Rhine, and he retired at once to Alsace, where he was confined on a species of parole; nor did he recover his military rank and position until after the downfall and death of the cruel and infamous Robespierre.
Under the protection of M. Carnot, who was then Minister of Public Safety, Clarke was placed at the head of a committee of military topography; and in this service he exhibited the greatest talent as a director and instructor, and spared no pains to fulfil the duties imposed upon him. The restless and suspicious Directory, in thus maintaining M. Carnot at the head of their affairs as minister, caused also the retention of Clarke, whose importance seemed to increase with that of his patron.
He was confirmed a General of Brigade in March, 1795; and on his appointment to the rank of General of Division, on the 17th of September, in the same year, our Irish exile could scarcely believe that fate had higher or more brilliant destinies in store for him; but now his talents as a diplomatist were about to be put in requisition. This was when the astonishing successes of Napoleon in Italy had alarmed the Directory, who dispatched Clarke to Vienna, entrusting to him the difficult mission of preparing the terms of the projected peace between Republican France and the Imperial Court; but, as he was adverse to the wishes of the Directory, and inimicalto the task, his arrangements proved unfortunately disadvantageous to the French.
After this he visited the army of Italy, the General-in-Chief of which, being influenced by the Directory, placed him in a subordinate position, alike repugnant to his love of freedom and authority. As simple plenipotentiary, Clarke, after traversing Germany, showed himself at Vienna to be the political confidant of the powerful Directory, and, above all, of M. Carnot.
In the minute instructions given to General Clarke by the French Government we are enabled to trace him in his route, which lay through Piedmont, Milan, Medina, Bologna, and Venice; and by the Directory he—more than all their other diplomatic agents—was specially recommended to observe narrowly the secret purposes of the different great personages who held important positions at the court of Vienna.
"Your journey, M. Clarke," said the minister De la Croix, in a letter written on the 17th November, 1796, "will be sufficiently useful when you have no longer anything to know or to discover for the profit of the Republic or the cause of humanity." But it was generally believed—nay, it was openly asserted in Paris—that the mission of Clarke to Vienna was all aruse, and was meant merely to conceal some artful plot woven by the Directory against Napoleon Bonaparte, before whose power and popularity they were beginning to tremble.
However, the Directory really wished a peace, and provisionally demanded an armistice; but Bonaparte, who had no desire to see a general peace in Europe, and, least of all, one formed by any person save himself, by his formidable interference and potent influence, caused the negotiations entirely to fail. We are enabled to perceive how the Directory, in their overtures for peace, above everything else counted on those territories which they could offer in exchange for Luxembourg and other provinces which they had annexed to France. This system of compensation admitted of alterations, which their envoy could vary at his pleasure, on perceiving the effectproduced by each offer on the various members of the Austrian cabinet.
In the armistice extended to the two armies they wished the terms to be similar to those given by their general, Napoleon Bonaparte, when besieging Mantua, viz.:—That they should be supplied daily with ammunition and provisions, according to their numerical strength. But Bonaparte declared these terms absurd; and explained to them that the suspension of arms alone gave to France the prospect of greater advantages than could accrue from terms based on those framed at Mantua. But the commands of the Directory were imperative; and the cabinet of Vienna, on receiving their overtures, had already sent the Baron Vincent to Vicenza, to confer with General Clarke, who repelled with all his energy the advice and interference of Bonaparte; but the latter, on being supported by Barras against him, as one trusted by Carnot, said plainly to Clarke, "Si vous êtes venu ici pour faire ma volonté, je vous verrai avec plaisir; si c'est le contraire vous pouvez retourner d'où vous êtes venu."
By this language he made Clarke feel that his patron, Carnot, was not secure in office, and that he must prepare other supporters for himself. Indeed, some rumour of this nature had reached him before. The result of these disagreements between Clarke and Napoleon caused the former to omit all praise of the latter in public communications to the government at Paris; but, in the first report of Clarke to the minister De la Croix, dated 7th December, 1796, we find him exculpating Bonaparte of all blame for the awful ravages and atrocities committed by his troops in Italy.
Bonaparte succeeded in postponing the conferences at Vicenza until the 3rd January, 1797; and so many despatches passed to and fro between the Directory, Carnot, and Clarke, that the Baron Vincent lost patience, and declared, that if France had any further communications to make, they must in future be addressed, not to him, but to Gherardini, the Austrian minister at Turin. Bonaparte took care that this resolution of the baron should be effectual. Clarke was several times at Turinand Lombardy, negotiating; and after happily completing a friendly arrangement with his general, was left without other duties to fulfil, than to complete, with the Piedmontese court, those amicable treaties which were terminated by an alliance with France on the 5th April, 1797.
After this, he brought before the Directory a series of complaints against certain generals and commissaries of the French army in Italy. With the substance of the charges against these officers he had been furnished by Bonaparte; and the result was, that many of them were displaced and recalled to France.
The complaints or charges furnished to Clarke were sometimes far from correct; but Bonaparte, by means of the envoy, wished to rid his army of those devastators and peculators, without drawing upon himself their lasting and personal hostility. To the honour of Clarke, it must be confessed that his dislike for those who had been guilty of mal-demeanour in Italy was at least sincere; and in this he proved himself worthy to be the friend of Carnot.
He found himself again at Turin during the discussion which ensued concerning the preliminaries of Leoben. Bonaparte, who had neither desire nor authority to conclude anything that resembled a peace, affected to wish much for the presence of Clarke as a plenipotentiary, while he secretly contrived such means to delay his journey, that it was impossible he could arrive in time. Thus ten days passed, and on the 17th of April Clarke had not appeared, so Bonaparte signed the articlesalone; and on the 6th of the following month, the Directory invested them both with full power to sign the final treaty.
Two negotiators, the Marquis di Gallo and Meerfeldt, had been appointed by Austria to meet them; but at the very commencement of their proceedings the proud and haughty spirits of Bonaparte and Gallo domineered over their colleagues so completely, that they became as mere machines in their hands. Clarke had, nevertheless, occasionally sole charge of the negotiations at Udina, a town in Friuli, where they had many meetings concerning theentangled affairs of France and Austria; but this was only when the tergiversations of the latter, who wished to recommence the war, were embarrassing the conferences, which, according to the caustic expression of Bonaparte, "were nothing more than a series of pleasantries."
In the midst of these incertitudes and delays, a new revolution took place at Paris, on the 4th September, 1797, when the legislative was entirely absorbed by the executive power, and when the famous pamphlet of Bailleul, which provoked such a violent debate in the Council of Five Hundred, was the tocsin of alarm. On this day—the 18thFructidor—Clarke was declared a "creature of Carnot;" and, as such, was deprived of all power. Thus Bonaparte was left sole plenipotentiary of the Republic, and had the honour of signing alone the famous treaty of Campo Formio, which secured a peace between France and the Emperor Francis II., and which took its name from the place of meeting—a castle of maritime Austria, situated on a hill in the province of Friuli. It was signed on the 17th October, and was undoubtedly more glorious for France than the treaty which General Clarke had prepared for the same purpose in November, 1796. But Bonaparte behaved with great generosity towards his fallen colleague: he defended him against the virulence of the Parisian pamphleteers and journalists, protected him while in Italy, and employed him about his staff and person in many ways. "Could he do less to the star which he had so completely made his satellite?" exclaims a French writer.
The brilliant reception which awaited Bonaparte on his triumphant return to France, and still more, the high enthusiasm kindled by his departure for Egypt, threw Clarke completely into the shade; and he was almost forgotten by the volatile Parisians during two years that he lived in retirement.
M. Xavier Audoin, son-in-law of Pache, succeeded Clarke as chief of the Bureau Topographique et Militaire at the Directory. The Parisian journals accused the general of having enjoyed the confidence of Carnot too much, and to be too deeply attached to the House ofOrleans, to which he and his family were indebted for much of their good fortune in France.
TheDublin Journalof the 7th October, 1797, contains a paragraph to the effect that it was known that Clarke had been "for forty hours, during the last week," in that city, "that he had held conferences with the leaders of the United Irishmen, and having obtained his information and given his directions, had embarked in a fishing smack from Killinbay, on Sunday morning last. That he could have no other purpose than the arrangement of a French invasion we have no doubt," adds the editor, "and when our readers have learned that there is strong ground to believe that he has been for some time past in the north of Ireland, they will naturally join in our opinion. Our readers will recollect that this General Clarke was announced in the French papers to have left the Italian army some time since on his way to Vienna to negotiate with the emperor—there has beennonegotiation at Vienna—the treaty is under discussion at Udina—so that this journey has obviously been fabricated toconcealhis real destination."
But, notwithstanding all these details, there is no solid proof for believing that General Clarke ever visited the land of his forefathers on this secret duty.
He ought, perhaps, to have followed Napoleon, even as a volunteer, to the banks of the Nile; but being of a proud and jealous spirit, he was unfortunately without this feeling of devotion to his new protector. Bonaparte appeared to feel this; for on his return from his distant and dangerous expedition, and finding himself master of the government, by the 18thBrumaire(9th November, 1799), he seemed to look coldly on the general at times.
Clarke now neglected nothing that might serve to reinstate him in the good graces of the First Consul, who, in September, 1800, intrusted him finally with the charge of the negotiations at Luneville, and soon after with the military command of that large city, which lies in the departement of the Meurthe. But Clarke felt that these two posts were alike insignificant and unworthy one of histalent and enterprise; for the recent victories in Germany and Italy had greatly simplified his duties as a negotiator, and the little that remained Bonaparte directed in Paris. When the arrangements were completed, to the infinite annoyance of Clarke, he sent his brother Joseph to sign them.
Clarke had meanwhile been preparing for the departure of a body of Russian officers who were prisoners of war at Lisle; and the kindness with which he did so, caused the Emperor Paul I. to present him with a magnificent sword, and other marks of his approbation.
Such is the weakness of the human heart, that these honours inflated Clarke so much, that for a time he appeared to feel himself equal to the First Consul, and indeed he was rash enough, and unwise enough, to say so.
Coming early one evening to the opera, he entered the box usually appropriated to Napoleon, and assumed that august person's place in the front seat. When the First Consul came, Clarke had the bad taste to sit still during the performance, and leave to his master the second place!
These mistakes of temper, united to his punctilious spirit, in affairs of state, and love of diplomatic work, caused the French government to give him the office of minister of France at Florence, that he might be away from Paris and near the young Duke of Parma, who wished to be named King of all Italy; but this post, say theMemoirs of St. Helena, proved exceedingly distasteful to him.
Clarke's talent—a most useful, if not brilliant one—consisted in an amazing facility for keeping on the best possible terms with all the parties among whom he was cast. The secret of his influence with Bonaparte appears to have been, a sentiment of profound gratitude in the latter for the high praise bestowed by Clarke in his "Secret Report" to the Directory on the conduct of the young general in Italy. This document afterwards fell into the hands of the First Consul, who never forgot its contents.
Clarke, tired of his residence in Florence, wrote letter after letter, demanding his recal to Paris, terming his embassy a species of exile; and Bonaparte, believing that his punishment was sufficiently severe, at last gave him leave to return; but desired him to travel by the way of Lisle (a fortified city in the departement of the north), to the camp at Boulogne. In Belgium he gave him the title of Councillor of State, and created for him two places in the cabinet—one as secretary for the marine, and the other for the war.
Arrived at the camp of Boulogne, one of the earliest matters entrusted to the general was the proposed establishment of Irish brigades, to co-operate in the projected invasion of Britain; and these corps Clarke believed might be recruited among the Irishmen who were prisoners of war in France. While this project was on thetapis, he had many interviews with the famous Theobald Wolfe Tone, who had been appointed by the Directory chef-de-brigade, and afterwards adjutant-general; and with Lazarus Hoche, a frank, resolute, and zealous republican, who, from being a stable-boy and private of the French guards, raised himself to one of the highest positions in the army of France. In 1792, he was a corporal; in 1793, he was ageneral, commanding the army of the Moselle; and in the two subsequent years he subdued La Vendée.
Tone was introduced to Hoche by Clarke, and in hisMemoirshe details the questions they asked him concerning the state of Ireland; where a landing might be effected; where provisions might be relied on, particularly bread; whether French auxiliaries might count on being able to form an Irish Provisional Government, either of the Catholic Committee, or of the chiefs of the Irish patriots? On these subjects Tone had many a long and anxious conference with his countryman Clarke, and with Hoche.
After a long interview with Hoche, in the cabinet of Fleury one day, Wolfe Tone was asked, what form of government the Irish would adopt, in the event of their successfully encountering the British troops?
"I was going to answer him with great earnestness," says Tone, in his interestingMemoirs, "when General Clarke entered, to request that we would come to dinner with Citizen Carnot. We accordingly adjourned the conversation to the apartment of the President, where we found Carnot, and one or two more. Hoche, after some time, took me aside, and repeated his question. I replied, 'Most decidedly a republic.' He asked again, 'Are you sure?' I said, 'As sure as I can be of anything. I know nobody in Ireland who thinks of any other system——.' Carnot joined us here, with a pocket-map of Ireland, and the conversation between Clarke, Hoche, and him became pretty general, every one else having left the room. I said scarcely anything, as I wished to listen. Hoche related to Carnot the substance of what passed between him and me. When he mentioned his anxiety as to bread, Carnot laughed and said, 'There is plenty of beef in Ireland—if you cannot get bread, you must eat beef.' I told him I hoped they would find both; adding, that within twenty years Ireland had become a great corn country, so that at present it made a considerable article in her exports."—Vol. ii. pp. 14-18.
The patience of Wolfe Tone was sorely tried by many and unnecessary delays; and, after all, the hopes of the Irish exiles ended only in mustering a regiment of their countrymen, which, instead of embarking for Ireland, marched to the invasion of Spain, under the unfortunate Colonel Lewis Lacy, the son of a race of hereditary Irish soldiers, as related elsewhere.
In the year following his double appointment as minister for the war and marine, Clarke made the German campaign on the staff of Bonaparte, and was present at the capture of the free city of Ulm, in the Swabian circle, on the 17th October, 1805, and at other operations, which drove the army of the Archduke Ferdinand across the Danube; and, on the capture of Vienna by the corps of the brave Murat and Lannes, he was named governor of the city and also of Upper and Lower Austria, Carinthia, Styria, Friuli, Trieste, &c. His moderation and justice in this high command elevated him among thevictors, and won him the love and esteem of the vanquished. He also received the cordon of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, and soon after was ordered to define the line of demarcation between Brisgau, in the kingdom of Wirtemberg, and the Grand Duchy of Baden.
Two months were spent by him in conferences and diplomacy. From the 9th to the 20th of July, 1806, he was engaged with the Russian plenipotentiary, and their interviews were terminated by the wonderful treaty which opened and ceded to France, Cattaro, a Venetian territory in Dalmatia, with its capital, harbour, and citadel; and which maintained Gustavus IV. in possession of the ancient Duchy of Pomerania, and left to be achieved, at an early period, the junction of Sicily to the kingdom of Murat—the whole being arranged by them, without condescending to ask the advice of Great Britain, which was then the faithful ally of Prussia. This treaty was never ratified by the Emperor Alexander. The other conferences took place between Clarke and Lord Yarmouth, to whom Charles Fox added the Scottish Earl of Lauderdale; while, to assist Clarke, the French government added Jean Baptiste Champagny, the Duc de Cadore, who was only a spectator of the negotiations, which were without result, and are of no consequence to the reader; but Clarke, who had displayed his usual acuteness, tact, and skill in all his meetings with the Lords Yarmouth and Lauderdale, was not a little proud of having prevailed upon M. D'Oubril to sign certain clauses he submitted to him.
Russia, however, was in no haste to evacuate Cattaro, and the Emperor Alexander began to augment his army; so from September, 1806, it became evident that if France declared war against Prussia, she would have to encounter Russia also. In the first meeting concerning these affairs Clarke said, "that the convention recently concluded with Russia was for France equivalent to a victory; and that henceforward his master, the Emperor Napoleon, had the right of proposing articles more advantageous than those he had lately made." He qualified the terms of the treaty which he wished them to adopt, and in particularl'uti possedetis; of vague conversations on the politics of Rome, he said that Bonaparte had never adopted thisuti possedetisfor a basis, without which Moravia, Styria, and Carniola would have remained still in his hands.
Similar language, encumbered by diplomatic technicalities, was applied to the two envoys of Fox, but failed to succeed with them, as they were resolved not to depart in a single instance from the basis of the position taken before by the envoy of Prince Talleyrand. The death of Charles Fox put an end to all the hopes of peace, although Lauderdale and Champagny did not despair of procuring it until the 6th of October; but by this time Clarke had set out for Germany, having accompanied Napoleon to the Prussian campaign. After the two battles of the 14th October, he was named Governor of Erfurt, a fortified city on the Gera, and capital of the Elector of Mentz. It was then crowded with Prussian prisoners, and with sick and wounded Frenchmen.
For having been more in the palaces than in the camps of Bonaparte, and being, moreover, of foreign blood, Clarke was reproached with being more of a diplomatist than a soldier by those who were envious of the favour shown him by the Emperor. While at Erfurt he caused the Saxon grenadiers of Hündt to take arms, and supplied them with ammunition, colours, and several pieces of cannon.
On the 27th Napoleon summoned him to Berlin, and appointed him governor, saying:—
"I wish that in thesame yearyou should have under your orders the capitals of two monarchies we have conquered—Prussia and Austria."
"Thus Clarke, the inevitable Clarke, was appointed Governor of Berlin," says De Bourienne, "and under his administration the wretched inhabitants, who could not flee, were overwhelmed by every species of impost and oppression. As in the execution of every measure there operated the most servile compliance with the orders of Napoleon, so the name of Clarke is held in detestation throughout Prussia."
The measures of Clarke, as Governor of Berlin, were doubtless mortifying, ruinous, and often sanguinary; but then it must be remembered that he was compelled to enforce the iron will, and obey the stern orders, of his inflexible master; though it must be acknowledged that it would have been more noble in him to have softened them to the vanquished Prussians. The military contributions were rigorously levied, and those were not the least of the severities exercised upon the people of Berlin. Offences were uselessly created, and then barbarously judged of by a military commission.
The punishment of the unfortunate Burgomaster of Ciritz is forgotten amid the many barbarous executions of which Prussia became the theatre, and against which her people dared not protest. When the king, Frederick William, found himself seated with Clarke at the table of Louis XVIII. in 1815, he could not refrain from bitterly reproaching Clarke with what he termed "the useless murder of the father of a family."
"Sire," responded Clarke, "it was an unfortunate error."
"An error, monsieur?" reiterated the king, striking his hand upon the table; "an error—it was a crime!"
Withal, it must be acknowledged that Clarke, in the high place he occupied, fulfilled, in every way, the trust reposed in him by Napoleon; and that during his command at Berlin, which occupied a year, he gave ample proof of his inflexible probity; and we may perhaps believe, that many of the accusations made against him were the echoes of those complaints which are naturally raised by the vanquished against the troops of the victor. Doubtless he would have received greater praise had he striven to please others more, and his master less. By the official collections of Schœll, we are informed that Vendomme one day wished to appropriate to himself the magnificent furniture in the palace of Potsdam, where he resided; but that Clarke, by his determined intervention, forced him to relinquish the idea.
Clarke was again named minister of war,viceMarshal Berthier, Duke of Neufchatel and Prince of Wagram.He acquitted himself with great credit during his administration, which was prolonged without interruption for several years; but it was marked by two remarkable episodes—the descent upon Walcheren in 1809, and the conspiracy of Mallet in 1812. But we ought previously to have mentioned that in 1808 Clarke had been ennobled by the title of Count Hunebourg, and in 1809 he was created Duc de Feltre, from a town in Venetian Lombardy.
The descent of the British upon Walcheren took Clarke by surprise; but seconded by Bernadotte and Fouche he collected, in less than five weeks, an army of 100,000 men, near the mouths of the Scheldt, to watch their operations; but the swamps of South Beveland, and the Walcheren fever, proved more deadly to the British troops than the bayonets of France.
When Napoleon was absent on his disastrous Russian campaign, the unfortunate disturbance, or rather wild enterprise of the republican General Mallet, with his compatriots Guidal and Lahoire, placed Paris for some hours in the hands of an armed mob. The coolness and presence of mind exhibited by Clarke during this momentous crisis is above all common praise. Mallet forged an account of Bonaparte's death; and on obtaining twelve hundred men from the 10th cohort of the National Guard, made prisoners M. Pasquer and Savary, the Duke of Rovigo, and assailing General Hullin, Commandant of Paris, in his quarters, shot him through the head by a pistol-ball. Mallet led his party to seize Clarke as minister of war; but the plot was soon discovered, and Mallet was captured and disarmed. This finished his proposed reassertion of the Republic, and fourteen of his followers were put to death, while Clarke ordered the arrest of many others upon very slight suspicions. He then dispatched to Bonaparte a report, which displayed his own vigilance and acuteness in escaping the snare into which General Hullin, Colonel Soulier, Savary, and Pasquer had fallen so easily.
The excessive zeal of Clarke began to relax about the end of 1813, although his language always continued thesame; thus, when Napoleon, acting under the pressure of his disasters in Russia, proposed to make a peace, and yield up some of his conquests, the Duc de Feltre, knowing how to touch one of the sensitive chords in his breast, said, "that he would consider the Emperor dishonoured if he consented to abandon the smallest village which had been united to the Empire by a senatorial decree!"
"What a fine thing it is to talk!" added old Bourienne.
Clarke's opinion, however, prevailed with Napoleon, and the war, so fatal to him, continued; though without doubt, in his secret soul, he had begun to see the exact and perilous position of the Emperor. Before the startling events of March, 1814, when the allies advanced upon Paris, and before the communications of Joseph had forced the determination of the Assembly, the acute Clarke had advised, very decidedly, the departure of Maria Louisa, who set out at once for Blois. The ostentatious language with which he accompanied this advice failed to deceive any one; but in spite of his efforts it was singularly cold and discouraging.
He commenced his oration by a vivid picture of the conflicting state of parties, and of the state of Paris and its environs; and his enemies accused him not only of exaggerating the dangers which menaced the capital, but of concealing its actual resources; but one fact is evident, Clarke was clearly and honestly of opinion that Paris was indefensible, and that to resist would be to destroy it! It is said that Bonaparte had a contrary opinion, though it was not then publicly avowed.
When once Maria Louisa had left Paris, Clarke, foreseeing its certain capitulation, did not take the necessary measures either to defend it or to check the progress of the allies. For three days he did not open the arsenals to the Parisians, nor would he allow them to transport the cannon from the Hôtel des Invalides, and the Ecole Militaire to the heights about the city; finally he clubbed all the troops of the line about Montmartre. "Posterity," says a recent writer, "will decide if these measures were correct."
Then followed the battle of Paris; Marshal Marmont's return within its walls; the nights of the 30th and 31st of March; the capitulation; the entry of the allies, and the strange enthusiasm with which the vacillating population received them. Napoleon was dethroned by a decree of the Senate, and a Provisional Government was formed; and changing, like many others, in that time of change, to this new government, Clarke sent in his formal adhesion on the 8th of April, about one week after Paris was taken.
On the 4th of the following June he was created, by Louis XVIII., a peer of France.
When Marshal Soult retired from office, King Louis appointed Clarke Minister of War—the same post he had held under the Emperor, who was then maturing plans of new operations in the little isle of Elba.
It was tauntingly said of Clarke that it was his destiny and misfortune to see the affairs of both Bonaparte and the Bourbons go to wreck, while entrusted to his care.
TheMemoirs of St. Helenaassure us that Clarke, during the events of the Hundred Days, wished toretakeservice under the Emperor Napoleon! If so, how different was his conduct from the faith that characterized Ney, Cambronne, and Macdonald! A rumour of this, in 1815, led to the immediate departure of Clarke for Ghent, where, at the fugitive court of Louis XVIII., he exercised his functions as Minister of War; and from thence, some time after, he travelled to London, charged with a mission from the king to the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV.
During the time the allied armies occupied Paris, Clarke had a remarkable interview with the King of Prussia. On this occasion he was accompanied by M. de Bourienne and Marshal Berthier. They remained for some time in the saloon, before his Prussian Majesty appeared from his closet, and when he did so, the embarrassment of his manner, and the cloudy severity of his countenance, was apparent to the three visitors.
"Marshal," said he to Berthier, "I should have preferred receiving you as a peaceful visitor at Berlin; butwar has its successes, as well as its reverses. Your troops are brave and ably led; but you cannot oppose numbers, and Europe is armed against the Emperor; patience has its limits. You have passed no little time, marshal, in making war on Germany, and I have great pleasure in saying to you that I shall never forget your conduct, your justice, and moderation in those seasons of misfortune."
Marshal Berthier, who deserved this eulogium, made a suitable reply; after which the King of Prussia turned sternly to the Duc de Feltre, saying,—
"As foryou, General Clarke, I cannot say the same of your conduct as of the marshal's. The inhabitants of Berlin will long remember your government. You abused victory strangely, and carried to an extreme measures of rigour and vexation. If I have an advice to give you, it is—never show your face in Prussia."
"Clarke was so overwhelmed by this reception from a crowned head," says M. de Bourienne, "that Berthier and myself, each taking an arm, were absolutely obliged to support him down the grand stair."
On returning to King Louis, at Ghent, he resumed his duties of Minister for the War Department; and assuredly his task was both a severe and a difficult one.
He had to arrange the disbanding of the Imperial and the re-organization of a Royal army; he had to examine and decide upon the various claims presented by hundreds of soldiers; he had to satisfy the demands of two thousand officers who adhered to the king, and to send them into the interior; he had to classify nine thousand officers of the disbanded army; to arrange for the pay of six thousand others who werere-formed—that is, continued on pay, but without being regimented; he had to examine six thousand claims for arrears of pay and pensions, claims that could admit of no delay, and which amounted to forty-six millions of francs; he had to organize the Royal Garde du Corp; to reconstitute the gendarmerie; to provide for the maintenance of the allied armies of occupation; and all this he had to do, amid obstacles, disorders, and complexities without example.
Such was the mighty mass of labour submitted to the care of Clarke; and of this herculean task he nobly and ably acquitted himself in less than two years.
All impartial writers unite in exculpating him from the angry and unjust accusation of peculating with the enormous sums which were required and absorbed by the re-organization of the French army. But he was severely handled by military men for instituting those tribunals styledLes Cours Prévotales.
In June, 1815, Clarke was with Louis XVIII. at Arnouville, and while there saved his friend, François Marquis de Lagrange, a lieutenant-general who in 1813 commanded the 3rd Regiment of Gardes d'Honneur, from great danger, if not from death. The marquis had been accused of offering his services to Napoleon, and hastily arrived at Arnouville with his son, on the 30th June. As he was about to wait upon Louis he was assailed by several soldiers, in whose hearts the love of Napoleon was strong. They called him atraitor, and tore away his sword, cross, and epaulettes. On becoming aware of these outrages, Clarke sent two influential officers to repress the tumult, and himself led the marquis to Louis XVIII., who appointed him captain of the Black Musketeers.
The zeal which Clarke now employed in the cause of the house of Bourbon was ultimately the means of his downfall. Louis XVIII., who each day conceded more and more to the enemies of his dynasty, after bestowing upon Clarke the bâton of a Marshal of France, displaced him from office, and appointed Gouvin St. Cyr in his room.
We know that after his dismissal all was changed in the department of the Minister of War.
The position in which Clarke found himself during the last years of his stirring, active, and useful life was very painful and humiliating, especially to one of so proud a spirit as his. Some of the more favoured personages who crowded the court of Louis XVIII., could not behold with a favourable eye this foreigner, who had been the War Minister of the great Napoleon, a confidant of his, and his co-operator in a thousand schemes of conquest; onthe other hand, his old comrades of the Imperial army affected to see in Clarke a deserter, a transferer of his allegiance, and, indeed, all but a traitor. Those whose base extortions he had repressed in other times now joined their clamours against him, and the Royalists cared not to say a word in his defence.
Thus, at the end of his career, he was unjustly despised alike for his talents and virtues, as for his mistakes and weaknesses—for the good he had done as well as for evil. Clarke now found himself isolated and abandoned, and the conviction of this, together with the coldness with which he was treated, sank deeply into his proud and sensitive heart.
It aggravated an illness which preyed upon him, and he died on the 28th of October, 1818, in his fifty-third year.
Such was the career of the Duc de Feltre, one of the most famous of the Irish exiles.
Clarke was master of many languages. He wrote with ease, with elegance, and with correctness; his style was often brilliant, and he knew thoroughly all that appertained to the details of a war administration. The state of complete disorganization in which he found the French service after March, 1814, proves the admirable tact and skill with which he could bring order out of disorder.
Many of the old Imperialists, his enemies, coarsely accused him of treason and treachery, but Napoleon takes care partly to exculpate him from charges so severe. On being asked at St. Helena if he believed that Clarke had been true to him, the fallen Emperor said, with a sigh—
"True to me—yes, when I was in my strength;" and after a time he added—"I cannot boast of him being more constant to me than Fortune."
This lessens the alleged crime of Clarke, while, at the same time, it lessens his nobility of conduct; though it must be acknowledged that he did not leave Napoleon until he could no longer be of service to him. The Emperor was not easily deceived as to the fidelity of a follower.
From Bourienne we know that, in 1796 and 1797, after all that passed between Napoleon and Clarke, the former still trusted in the latter, and never attempted to interrupt his despatches to the Directory or to the Chevalier de la Croix; and nothing was ever found in them displeasing to the Commander-in-chief.
Two great traits in the character of Clarke were, first, his hatred of all peculation and political knavery; the other was his mania for office, and the despatches and details connected therewith. So poor was he during the earlier years of his career, that Napoleon had to portion one of his daughters; and no instance of profusion or luxury has been cited against him.
Inflated by his patent of nobility, he wished to make his genealogy great and lofty, and one day he believed that he had discovered his descent, by the female side, from the Plantagenets—an idea which exceedingly amused Napoleon, who once said to him in a numerous company, about the time of his projected invasion of Britain,—
"Clarke, you have not yet spoken of your claims to the English throne—you oughtnowto make them good!"[16]
FOOTNOTES:[16]Biographie Universelle, &c.
FOOTNOTES:
[16]Biographie Universelle, &c.
[16]Biographie Universelle, &c.
General Kilmaine,
COMMANDANT OF LOMBARDY AND GENERAL OF THE ARMÉE D'ANGLETERRE.
Charles Jennings Kilmaine, a gallant and celebrated general in the French army, was born in Dublin in the year 1750, and was descended from an ancient Irish family which had always been strongly attached to the Roman Catholic religion, and opposed to the interests of England. So deep was the animosity of his father to the church and government as established in Ireland, that in 1765 he took Charles to France, and there recommended him, when only in his fifteenth year, to enlist as a private hussar in the Regiment de Lauzun, a distinguished cavalry corps of the old French service, raised originally in the departement of the Garonne. He accompanied this corps to America, where he served in the War of Independence under the celebrated Marquis de Lafayette, Grand Provost of the kingdom of France, and was present in most of those battles in which Washington and his generals so signally discomfited the troops of Great Britain. Association with officers of the United States army, added to those impressions made upon him during his youth in Ireland and the teachings of his father, caused Kilmaine to imbibe strongly the sentiments of a revolutionist.
He repeatedly distinguished himself in action; and his colonel, the gallant Biron, after passing him through the more subordinate ranks, appointed him sous-lieutenant of a troop.
On the conclusion of the war, the Irish hussar returned with his regiment to France, full of those ideas of liberty and insurrection which he had seen so signally triumphant in the New World; and nearly all his brother officers hadimbibed the same opinions. Thus it was with ill-concealed joy that the young Kilmaine and his comrades, the Hussars de Lauzun, in 1789, saw a Revolution which seemed destined to achieve results like those they had witnessed in America, break forth in old monarchical France.
In 1789 he was appointed captain of his troop, and continued to serve with the hussars, who became so much attached to him, that during the tumults of 1794 he contributed greatly, by his influence, presence and example, to retain under their colours nearly the whole of the regiment, which like the regiment of Royal Germans and the Hussars de Saxe, seemed disposed to deserten masse. Thanks to the patriotic zeal displayed by Kilmaine in the cause of his adopted country, the officers of noble family who chose to become emigrants were alone lost to the service; but this proved to him a new source of advancement, and he was soon appointed achef d'escadre, which in the French army is equal to the rank of a general officer, being commander of a division; and about this time he enjoyed the friendship of his countryman, the Comte O'Kelly, who was ambassador of France at Mayence, with an income of 30,000 livres per annum.
As a chef d'escadre Kilmaine served throughout the first campaigns of the Revolution, and under Dumourier and Lafayette commanded a corps of that army which burst into the Netherlands and annexed that territory to republican France.
He fought with remarkable bravery at the great battle of Gemappes, on the 6th November, 1792, and with his hussars repeatedly charged the Austrians, driving themsabre à la mainalong the road that leads from Mons to Valenciennes; and so pleased was his general, the unfortunate Dumourier, that in the moment of victory he named him colonel; but this nomination was not confirmed by the minister of war. However, he was soon after gratified by a brevet of maréchal de camp, which made him, in rank, second only to a lieutenant-general.
He continued to serve with this army, and to be one of its most active and able officers, during all the sufferingswhich succeeded the victory at Gemappes. It consisted of forty-eight battalions of infantry, and three thousand two hundred cavalry. In December, by the neglect of the Revolutionary Government, these troops were shirtless, shoeless, starving and in rags; fifteen hundred men deserted; the cavalry of Kilmaine were soon destitute of boots, saddles, carbines, pistols and even sabres; the military chest was empty, and six thousand troop and baggage horses died at Lisle and Tongres, for want of forage. "To such a state," says Dumourier, "was the victorious army of Gemappes reduced after the conquest of Belgia!"
Honourable testimony has been given to the unceasing efforts of Kilmaine to preserve order among his soldiers amid these horrors; and with other staff-officers, he frequently endeavoured by private contribution to make out a day's subsistence for their men, who roved about in bands, robbing the villages around their cantonments at Aix-la-Chapelle, and in revenge many were murdered by the peasants when found straggling alone beyond their out—posts.
After the defection and flight of General Dumourier, Kilmaine adhered to the National Convention, and by that body was appointed a general of division; and now he redoubled his energies to restore order in the army, which by the defection of its leader was almost disbanded; thus, in one month after General Dampierre took command, so ably was he seconded by Kilmaine, the discipline was completely established.
He commanded the advance-guard of Dampierre in the new campaign against the allied powers, on the failure of the congress at Antwerp on the 8th of April, 1793; and his leader bears the highest testimony to the gallantry and noble conduct of Kilmaine, in the "murderous affairs of the 1st and 2nd May;" in which, according to the official report, he had two chargers shot under him.
Six days of incessant skirmishing succeeded, during which Kilmaine never had his boots off, nor returned his sabre once to the scabbard; and he displayed the most reckless valour on the 8th of May, in that battle fought by Dampierre to deliver Condé.
The French were routed with great loss; Dampierre was slain; and on Kilmaine as an active cavalry officer devolved the task of covering the retreat of the infuriated and disorderly army, which fell back from Condé-sur-l'Escaut, which is a barrier town, and was then the nominal lordship of the unfortunate Duke d'Enghien.
On General la Marche succeeding Dampierre, he sent Kilmaine with his division to the great forest of Ardennes, which formed a part of the theatre of war, on the invasion of France by the allies; but he remained there only a short time, and rejoined the main army, which he found in the most critical circumstances.
The fall of Dampierre and the arrestment of Custine acted fatally on the army of the North, which was now reduced to about thirty thousand rank and file, and these remained in a disorderly state, without a proper chief, and without aim or object—its manœuvres committed to chance or directed by ignorance; for, with the exception of Kilmaine, its leaders were destitute of skill, experience, and energy. Quitting the camp of Cæsar, they returned to their fortified position at Famars, three miles distant from Valenciennes, the approach to which it covered. Here they were attacked on the 23rd of May, driven back, and obliged to abandon the city to its own garrison under General Ferrand; a success which enabled the allies under the Duke of York to lay immediate siege to Condé and to Valenciennes, the two most important barrier towns upon the northern frontier. While the army of the North continued in full retreat towards the Scheldt, the British commander-in-chief briskly attacked Valenciennes, which General Ferrand first laid in ashes, and then delivered up; his garrison, as the reward of their obstinate defence, being permitted to march out by the gate of Cambray, on the 28th of July, with allthe honours of war. Condé had already fallen on the 10th of the same month.
General Custine, who in the two preceding campaigns had rendered such essential services to the faithless Convention, was meanwhile brought to trial on the charge of corresponding with the enemy, and fell a sacrifice to the malice of his accusers.
It was on the banks of the Scheldt that Kilmaine rejoined the army early in August, with his division from Ardennes; and now his position became almost desperate. In presence of the scaffold erected by the ferocious mutineers for all the vanquished generals, and in a camp where no suspected person dared to assume the precarious office of leader, when pressed upon him, he accepted the bâton provisionally, and in the meantime said to the representatives who were sent from Paris to manage affairs and act as spies upon the army, "that he wished another more skilful than himself should take the great responsibility of leading the troops of the Republic."
His presence for a time appeased the tumults in the army. Though upon the banks of the Scheldt, and having before him both the Duke of York and the Prince of Coburg, Kilmaine, with only twenty-four thousand ill-appointed troops, dared not attempt to attack them; for if he fought and lost the day, he could thereafter assume no position of sufficient strength to prevent the allies from penetrating to Paris and crushing the power of the Convention. After so many levies and enrolments, that body had no longer a battalion to spare, and had around it only the frothy orators of armed clubs, and the refuse of prisons; thus it dared not abandon the capital or retire beyond the Loire, for now the men of Poitou, Bretagne, and La Vendée were in arms under the white banner, and elsewhere the tides of war and politics were setting in against them. At this crisis Mayence had capitulated, after a three months' bombardment. Toulon was under the cannon of the British; the Spaniards had invaded Roussillon; the Austro-Sardinians menaced Provence, the ancient patrimony of the House of Anjou; and on the Alps their troops hung over Dauphine and Vienne; finally, after the revolution of the 31st of May, which had assured the triumph of Robespierre, Lyons, Marseilles, and all the departments of the south, with those of the west, were roused against the pride, power, and oppression of the Convention.
If it was really true that the allied monarchs wished to re-establish the fallen throne of Louis XVI.,—if, asthey had so proudly announced in their manifestos, it was to restore order to bleeding and desolated France, and to repress the Republic and its horrors,—they had displayed their standards in the Netherlands, never were circumstances more favourable to them than after the retreat of Kilmaine towards the Scheldt: but the secret measures of wily diplomatists had more influence then, on events, than the arms of the allied kings.
It appears that, in the second campaign, when the allies were masters of Condé and Valenciennes, and saw that the road to Paris was almost open to them, the Austrians wished to take their revenge locally for the cruel deeds of which they had been spectators in the Camp de la Lune; and were more intent upon gratifying this sentiment than advancing into the heart of France.
The Prince of Coburg had shown himself from the first frank, loyal, and gallant; he had promised to Dumourier to concur in his daring project for re-establishing the monarchy, and for that purpose had engaged to form an auxiliary force to aid him, while solemnly renouncing all projects of aggrandizement for the crown of Austria. But for these engagements he had not received from his cabinet either instructions or authority. When Thugut was supreme director of the Austrian affairs, it was to these rash promises of the prince his consent was required; he disapproved of them so strongly, that they were cancelled by the Emperor of Austria, and a congress met at Antwerp, where, in concert with Britain, it was decided that in the result of the war the allies ought to find indemnities for the past, and guarantees for the future peace of Europe.
These were the expressions of the protocol which the members of the congress comprehended without difficulty; but French diplomatists loudly declared that a projected dismemberment of France was clearly announced in its phraseology.
One thing is certain: not a reference was made therein to the House of Bourbon, or to the throne of Louis—that throne of which Dumourier, in concert with thePrince of Coburg, had so boldly promised the restoration in his manifesto of the 5th April; and not a measure was taken for the advantage or safety of the beautiful and unhappy Marie Antoinette, then languishing in prison at Paris, and over whose devoted head hung the blade of the guillotine, and whom a simple menace from her nephew the Emperor, threatening the advance of his armies, might perhaps have saved.
At all events, it seemed sufficiently evident to the jealous and excitable French that the allies were no longer true to the interests of the fallen Bourbons; and equally so that it was not to restore them the Austrians at least made war. It was inhis own name—not that of Louis XVII., king of France and Navarre—their emperor took possession of those fortified places and provinces which his armies overran; and after he became master of Condé and Valenciennes, he no longer cared to define or form a frontier for those districts of the Netherlands which once he proposed to cede to the Prussians; but which Thugut now wished to preserve to the descendants of Rudolph of Hapsburg.
At the same time the Duke of York, who from his own cabinet had received orders and instructions similar to those given to the Prince of Coburg, in the name of George III., resolved to seize upon Dunkerque, which the English had coveted of old; but he did not wait for the departure of a British fleet prepared for this object. The naval squadron was delayed, and in the meantime the duke deliberated with the Austrian general under the ramparts of Valenciennes, to learn if, before engaging in new sieges, they might not give to the French army a final blow which would deprive Kilmaine of all power of interrupting their combined operations.
This was a very simple question, yet they were fourteen days in coming to a conclusion. Though Valenciennes, as already stated, had capitulated on the 28th of July, it was not until the 8th of August that the Austro-British army was in motion, and its advance guard beheld the camp of Cæsar; this on the very day afterKilmaine had wisely evacuated the fortifications and retreated southwards.
It is said that he fully anticipated the march of the combined armies; and this was sufficiently probable, for we know that the committees of the National Convention had mysterious means of procuring secret intelligence, not only from the cabinets of the allies, but from the staff officers of the German troops!
Kilmaine in retiring only obeyed the dictates of wisdom and necessity, and quitted a position which he could not defend, as his army was reduced by defeat and desertion, mutinous, or as the French style it,demoralized.
If the allies had wished to follow and engage him upon the Scarpe or the Somme, a last effort could easily have been made to disperse his troops completely, and then seize upon Paris, where they might have torn the Revolution from its very basis. But such was not the intention of the allied generals. "Their aim on this occasion," says a French writer, "was to profit by our disorders and revolutions to make themselves masters of our places and provinces after assuring themselves of indemnities and guarantees, and to leave the volcano to consume itself, as a Prussian prince said, not long ago: it must be admitted, that never had this policy shown itself more evidently in its shameful nudity!" But the reader must bear in mind that these are the opinions of a Frenchman and a sympathizer with the Convention.
Such was the state of matters when Kilmaine, having abandoned the untenable camp of Cæsar, and fallen back beyond the Scarpe, a navigable river of French Flanders (but still a narrower barrier than the Scheldt) prepared again for retreat, and marched towards the Somme, another river which falls into the British Channel between Crotoy and Sainte Valori. This was his last position—his last asylum; and now the chiefs of the allies, instead of pushing on in pursuit of his retiring bands to complete the triumphs so well begun, faced about, and wheeled off to seize Dunkerque and Quesnay.
It was in autumn that the Royal Duke appeared before the former; and there his troops received a checkwhich proved but the commencement of a long series of disasters; the latter was stormed by the Austrians, and retaken by the French in the following year.
But what must astonish us, even at this epoch of deception and duplicity, political insanity and revenge, is the startling fact that the brave Kilmaine, who had rendered such gallant services to that new and most faithless Republic—he who by a judicious retreat (executedagainstthe advice of the meddling and presumptuous representatives of the people, and in consequence thereof perilled his life) had preserved to shattered France her most important army, was precisely for that reason denounced to the Convention, arrested by its orders, and flung into a loathsome prisons at Paris, where he passed a year; being but too happy, in the obscurity of his dungeon, that he had not perished on the scaffold like the gallant Custine, his predecessor in the command; like his old colonel and protector Biron, and like Houchard, who for the brief period of fifteen days had been his successor, and who, after winning a signal and decided victory over the Duke of York—a victory alike honourable to himself and to the arms of France, expiated by a cruel death the grave fault of having forgotten for a moment the powers of a bullying representative of the people!
Kilmaine only recovered his liberty after the fall of Robespierre; but he still remained for some time in Paris, without military employment, though he eagerly and anxiously sought it. He found himself there at the epoch of the insurrection of the 22nd May, 1795, and with much zeal and valour he seconded General Pichegru in the struggle made by that officer to defend the National Convention against the excited mobs of the Parisian fauxbourgs. Amid a thousand dangers Kilmaine continued to fight for the Convention until the 13th Vendemaire of the year following, actively co-operating with Bonaparte and the revolutionary party.
Being appointed to the command of a division in the army of Italy, he marched with Napoleon across the Alps to the invasion of that country, and shared in theglory of his first victories, and in that brilliant campaign in which the French destroyed two armies, took two hundred and eighty pieces of cannon, and forty-nine stand of colours from the Austrians, who were commanded by the veteran Wurmser, the bravest of all brave men.
At the head of his division Kilmaine fought with remarkable courage at Castiglione delle Stiviere, a fortified town in Lombardy, where, in the beginning of August, 1796, several severe engagements took place between the French and Austrians, which resulted in the discomfiture of the latter. Mantua was the next scene of Kilmaine's achievements; and in July that ancient city, after fifty years of peace, beheld the army of Napoleon before its walls, while all the country on the right bank of the Po was laid under contribution.
The whole direction and charge of the siege of Mantua was committed to Kilmaine by Bonaparte in September, when Wurmser, after being successful against General Massena, was overthrown by Augereau and our Irish soldier, and after a six days' contest shut himself up in the city on the 12th, after which the siege was pressed with great vigour. Twice after this did an Austrian army under Alvinzi attempt its relief, and twice were they baffled by the besiegers; on the last occasion an advancing corps of seven thousand men were compelled to surrender to Bonaparte and Kilmaine within gunshot of the walls, and the position of the aged Wurmser, his garrison, and the Mantuans, became desperate in the extreme.
In an action before Mantua in October, Kilmaine had his horse killed under him, and a rumour was spread through France and Britain that he was killed. Wurmser made several furious sallies, and on one occasion was severely routed by Bonaparte. In theCourier du Bas Rhin, we are told that the French repulsed him with the loss of eleven hundred men and five pieces of cannon, and that "their dispositions were made by General Kilmaine, commander of the siege of Mantua." Bonaparte, in his dispatch to the Directory, dated the first day of October, writes thus:—
"On the 20th of September, the enemy advanced towards Castellocio, with a body of horse 12,000 strong. Pursuant to the orders they had received, our advanced posts fell back, but the enemy did not push forward any further. On the 23rd September, they proceeded to Governolo, along the right bank of the Mincio, but were repulsed, after a very brisk cannonade, with the loss of eleven hundred men and five pieces of cannon.
"Le Général Kilmaine, who commands the two divisions which press the siege of Mantua, remained on the 29th ultimo in his former position, and was still in hopes that the enemy would attempt a sortie to carry forage into the place; but instead they took up a position before the gate of Pradello, near the Carthusian convent and the chapel of Cerese. The brave General Kilmaine made his arrangements for an attack, and advanced in two columns against these two points; but he had scarcely begun to march when the enemy evacuated their camps, their rear having fired only a few musket-shots at him. The advanced posts of General Vaubois have come up with the Austrian division which defends the Tyrol, and made one hundred and ten prisoners."
In November a series of sanguinary actions were fought between the French and Austrians at Arcola, where the latter were completely overthrown; and there fell Citizen Elliot, a Scotsman, who was one of Bonaparte's principal aides-de-camp. During this time Kilmaine was at Vicenza with three thousand men; all the French cavalry were sent there to be under his orders; and though still commanding the operations against Mantua, he shared in the disastrous battle fought near Vicenza by the aged Alvinzi, who was advancing to raise the siege. Despairing to reach Mantua, the latter fell back upon the Vicenza road, and was routed after a bloody conflict of eight hours' duration.
Early in December, Wurmser led a sortie, sword in hand, against Kilmaine. The Imperialists sallied out of Mantua at seven in the morning, and almost in the dark, under a furious cannonade, which lasted all day; "but General Kilmaine," says Bonaparte, "made him return, asusual, faster than he came out, and took from him two hundred men, one howitzer, and two pieces of cannon. This is his third unsuccessful attempt." So energetic were the measures, and so able the precautions of Kilmaine, that Wurmser, seeing all hope of succour at an end, surrendered, after a long, desperate, and disastrous defence, at ten o'clock on the morning of the 3rd February, 1797, giving up his soldiers as prisoners of war. The following is a translation of Kilmaine's brief letter on this important acquisition:—
"Kilmaine, Général de Division and Commandant of Lombardy, to the Minister of War. Milan, 17 Pluviose (Feb. 5), 1797."Citizen Minister—I avail myself of a courier which General Bonaparte sends from Romagna (in order to announce to the Directory the defeat of the Papal troops), to acquaint you with the capture of Mantua, the news of which I received yesterday evening by a courier from Mantua itself. I thought it necessary to announce this circumstance, because General Bonaparte, who is occupied in Romagna annihilating the troops of his Holiness, may probably have been ignorant of this fact whenhiscourier departed. The garrison are our prisoners of war, and are to be sent into Germany in order to be exchanged. I have not yet received the articles of capitulation; but the commander-in-chief will not fail to send them by the first courier."Kilmaine."
"Kilmaine, Général de Division and Commandant of Lombardy, to the Minister of War. Milan, 17 Pluviose (Feb. 5), 1797.
"Citizen Minister—I avail myself of a courier which General Bonaparte sends from Romagna (in order to announce to the Directory the defeat of the Papal troops), to acquaint you with the capture of Mantua, the news of which I received yesterday evening by a courier from Mantua itself. I thought it necessary to announce this circumstance, because General Bonaparte, who is occupied in Romagna annihilating the troops of his Holiness, may probably have been ignorant of this fact whenhiscourier departed. The garrison are our prisoners of war, and are to be sent into Germany in order to be exchanged. I have not yet received the articles of capitulation; but the commander-in-chief will not fail to send them by the first courier.
"Kilmaine."
The capture of Mantua was celebrated in Paris by the firing of cannon and the erection of arches in honour of Bonaparte and the Irish Commandant of Lombardy, and a general joy was diffused through every heart in the city on the fall of what they styled theGibraltarof Italy; while Bonaparte, loaded with the diamonds of the vanquished Pope, and the spoils of our Lady of Loretto, pushed on to seek fresh conquests and new laurels.
Kilmaine remained for some time in command at Mantua after its capitulation.
During the siege and other events, a revolutionary spirit had pervaded the Venetian States. Peschiera, a fortified town in the province of Verona, and Brescia, a large city in the beautiful plain on the Garza, had been both seized, garrisoned, and republicanized by the French. The people rose in arms, fired by new and absurd ideas of liberty and equality, and frightful scenes of bloodshed ensued when the more loyal and sensible inhabitants resisted these new patriots; but the latter, on being joined by fifteen hundred banditti from Bergamo, pressed the Venetian troops, who were driven out with great slaughter.
On hearing of these things, the politic Kilmaine wrote from Mantua to the French general commanding in Brescia, desiring him "notto interfere in behalf of these insurgents, lest by so doing he might infringe that strict neutrality which the generals of the French Republic were bound to observe."
In April, however, he was compelled, by the violent proceedings of the Italians against the French garrison in Verona, to unite his forces to those of Generals Victor and La Hotze, and march to the succour of General Ballaud, who was there assailed by forty-five thousand men, whose war-cry wasViva San Marco!who had cut to pieces six hundred Frenchmen, taken two thousand more after a four hours' contest, and driven the rest into the castle. From its ramparts Ballaud threatened to lay in ruins the unfortunate city, which had enjoyed profound peace for ages, until Bonaparte arrived on the banks of the Adige, and added it to the new kingdom of Italy.
On the 24th the insurgent Veronese capitulated, for on the approach of Kilmaine the governor, the two proveditori, and the Venetian general Stratico, fled with all their cavalry; on which he took as hostages the bishop, four of the principal nobles of the city, and several cavaliers of distinction, and peace was thus restored for a time. He disarmed all the insurgents, and seized three thousand slaves, whom he marched under an escort to Milan. In every way Kilmaine aided Napoleon most efficiently in these operations which preceded the captureand subjugation of Venice; and thus gave his great leader a thousand causes to admire and appreciate him during those campaigns which were so disastrous to Italy, but so glorious to the arms of France. During his command in Lombardy he settled or compromised the contested question of the free navigation of the Lake of Lugano, in the south of Switzerland, which had occasioned many angry disputes between the jealous Switzers and the aggressive generals of the French army in Italy. By his intervention it was satisfactorily arranged that France should have the open navigation of the lake by boats of any size: but the cantons violated the treaty; on which Napoleon threatened to send a column of his troops among them, if they did not behave more amicably towards their faithful and ancient allies.