Bonaparte's Plan of Campaign — His Relation to Moreau — The Reserve Army — The Movements of Moreau — The Austrians Defeated — Further Advance of Moreau — Bonaparte with the Army — The Italian Campaign — Position of the Austrians — The St. Bernard — Passage of the Alps — Military Problems — Grand Strategy — Bonaparte's Preparation.
By an article of the new French constitution the First Consul might not be also commander-in-chief of the forces; but, as he said to Miot de Melito, nothing forbade him to be present with the army. Nevertheless, his military greatness was now for the first time to display its stupendous proportions. Hitherto, superb as had been his achievements, they had been won as a subordinate carrying out one part of a large plan, and securing prominence for his own ideas only by disregarding those of nominal superiors. Now he had charge of a great war in its entirety. There was but one obstacle—Moreau's ability and jealousy. With thesuperiority of true greatness, Bonaparte at once took in the military situation, and, disregarding all the vexing details which would pass for essentials with men of less ability, analyzed it into its large and simple elements. If Kray were beaten, the French army could reach Vienna, and dictate peace before Melas could produce an effect in Italy. His plan, therefore, was to unite near Schaffhausen the various portions of the reserve army which he had quietly been organizing, and, covered by the Rhine, to effect a junction with Moreau; then by overwhelming superiority of numbers to turn Kray's left flank, cut off his connections, and, taking his army in the rear, either capture or annihilate it. Moreover, a detachment of this victorious force could then cross the easy lower passes of the Alps, and attack the Austrian army in Italy from the rear, even if in the interval that force should have been victorious. In this one great combination lies the proof of its author's genius. Its five great strategic principles are these: one line of operation, with one offensive; the massing of the army as the first aim; the line of operation on the enemy's flank verging toward his rear; the surrounding of the enemy's wing so as to jeopardize his connections; and lastly, the defense of your own connections. Standing in sharpest contrast with those of his great predecessor Frederick, these principles have not yet been overthrown even by modern science, nor by the revolutionary change which has taken place in the material of war and in the number of men engaged in modern conflicts.
But the idea was too great for the conditions. Moreau would not serve as second in command, and Bonaparte was perfectly aware that he himself was not yet sufficiently firm in his political seat to alienate a rival so influential. In fact, on March sixteenth, he wrote a private letter to Moreau, in which he said: "GeneralDessoles will tell you that no one is more interested than I am in your personal glory and in your happiness. The English are embarking in force. What do they want? I am to-day a sort of manikin which has lost its liberty and its happiness. Greatness is fine, but only in memory and in imagination. I envy your happy lot. You are going to do great things with brave men. I would gladly exchange my consular purple for the epaulets of a brigade commander under your orders." All the First Consul's military conceptions had to be carefully propounded; that for a campaign in central Germany was not carried out until several years later. Moreau, conscious of his own powers, would not even accept Bonaparte's suggestions for conducting the passage of the Rhine. He was therefore left perforce to act independently except for instructions from Paris that he should take the offensive at once, and drive the enemy into Bavaria behind the Lech, so as to intercept his direct communication with Milan by way of Lake Constance and the Grisons. Lecourbe, with twenty thousand men, was to watch the higher Alpine passes. The dangerous rival was then left entirely to himself, and the destination of the reserve army was changed to Italy. This, of course, was done in order that such success as Moreau would certainly have won with its aid might not endanger the political situation in Paris. He must not be permitted to retrieve a reputation sullied both by his suspected connection with Pichegru's conspiracy, and by his participation, contrary to lifelong professions, in the revolution of Brumaire.
Early in March the existence of the hitherto hidden army was revealed by an order for its advance toward Zurich to prepare for crossing the Alps. Switzerland, having fallen into French hands through Masséna's operations of the previous year, and being therefore nolonger neutral, its territory was open for use in offensive operations against the foe. Masséna had received his first instructions a few days earlier. They were to concentrate the Army of Italy in order to defend Genoa and the entrance to France. Melas would surely follow the well-worn Austrian plan of advancing in three columns for a concentric attack. The French general was to avoid two, and meet the third with all his strength. In April, however, he was informed of the new combination, and told to stand on the defensive until the reserve army had crossed the Alps. "The art of war," Bonaparte always said, "is to gain time when your strength is inferior." This Masséna, with brilliant capacity, undertook to do when, on April sixth, the brave and veteran Melas attacked him with sixty thousand men. But in spite of repeated successes against superior numbers, before the end of the month active resistance became impossible, and the whole French center was compelled to withdraw on April twenty-first behind the walls of Genoa, the situation of which now became precarious, for it was blockaded by the English fleet, and provisions were growing very scanty, not more than sufficient stores for a month being available. Suchet, with the left of Masséna's army, ten thousand strong, retreated along the coast, pursued by Melas with twenty-eight thousand, until on May fourteenth the former crossed the Var. Ott, with twenty-four thousand men, was left to beleaguer Genoa, in which Masséna held out until June fourth—a siege considered one of the most stubborn in history.
Such had been the wretched management of the previous year in the department of war at Paris that Moreau's force was not properly supplied in any particular, and he would not move until a month after the time arranged. It was not until April twenty-fifth,after an urgent request from Bonaparte, that he ventured to carry out his own cautious plan for the passage of the Rhine in four divisions instead of in one united body, as the First Consul had suggested. Less was risked, and probably less was won; but the complicated movement was prosperous. Making a feint as if to occupy the Black Forest, he completely misled Kray as to his real intentions, and induced him to abandon his strong position at Donaueschingen. By a series of clever countermarches, in which the Rhine was crossed and recrossed several times by various French corps, the whole of Moreau's command was finally united beyond the Black Forest, having successfully outflanked not only that dangerous mountain-range, but also the enemy, which was still occupied in guarding its eastern exits.
The movement was brought to a fortunate conclusion by the French advance, before which the Austrians withdrew to secure a position. In the last days of April Moreau found himself with only twenty-five thousand men facing the mass of the Austrians under Kray at Engen. In the rear, on his left, but beyond reach, was a division of his own army under Saint-Cyr. On May second, expecting their speedy arrival, he joined battle with his inadequate force. The reinforcements did not arrive; but after a desperate fight, with serious loss, he defeated the enemy. Next day Saint-Cyr came in, and the Austrians, having learned that Stockach with its abundant stores had fallen into the hands of the French division under Lecourbe, withdrew northeastward toward the Danube. Moreau's success was unqualified. Kray could no longer retreat toward the Tyrol by Switzerland and the Vorarlberg; he had also lost a large supply of munitions most precious to their captors, besides five thousand prisoners and three thousand killed.
Nevertheless, he was still undismayed, and two days later made a stand at Messkirch. After an embittered and sanguinary conflict on May fifth he was again defeated. The victory of Moreau would have been overwhelming but for a second inexplicable failure of Saint-Cyr to bring his division into action. Investigation revealed that while that division general had displayed no zeal and had evinced no good will in the interpretation of orders, he had strictly obeyed their letter. His laxity was therefore overlooked. It was soon found that the Austrians were again gathered to defend their depots at Biberach. This time Saint-Cyr was ardent, and with conspicuous fire he led his inferior numbers against the enemy's center, driving them from their position. Still aglow with victory, he then called in a second division under Richepanse, and attacking again the main body of the enemy's army, which was drawn up on the slopes of the Mettenberg, dislodged them from that position also. Two days later Lecourbe captured Memmingen with eighteen hundred prisoners, and on the tenth the Austrians withdrew to make a determined stand on a fortified camp at Ulm. It is probable that in two days Moreau would have driven them from that position if his force had been left intact; but Carnot had come in person to ask for the detachment of Lecourbe's corps to serve in Italy, and a request from such a man could not well be denied.
The First Consul had studied the situation of France as carefully as he had analyzed that of Europe. Bernadotte was chief in command of all the soldiers within the confines of the republic. He was bound in the most solemn way to treat every faction with the utmost consideration and gentleness far and near throughout the land; above all, to lull the West into repose. Tothe judicious Cambacérès was intrusted the supreme power at Paris: "during the absence of the First Consul," his orders ran. His duty was to repress without pity every symptom of disturbance by the aid of the police under Fouché and the soldiery under Dubois. The news was carefully spread about that Bonaparte would soon return, very shortly in fact; there was uneasiness among the best-disposed at the thought of his absence, of his carefully balanced machinery left to the care of others. His departure was carefully arranged. The partizans of Masséna were alert that the fortunes of their hero should not be sacrificed. The news, true though inaccurate, that Kléber had capitulated in Egypt made little stir, but the fact was rather ugly. "Have it understood," were Bonaparte's later instructions to Talleyrand, "that had I remained in Egypt that superb colony would have been ours, just as, had I remained in France, we would not have lost Italy." Desaix, of whose eminent ability and vigorous character Bonaparte had formed the highest opinion, was already on the way, and for him a letter was left urging his presence at the earliest moment in Italy. The glorious news of Moreau's brilliant successes was read from the stage of the opera, where the First Consul led the enthusiastic cheering, and that very night, having sent a message of congratulation to the conqueror, "glory and thrice glory," he departed for Dijon. Next day Paris was reassured, gay and brilliant. It so continued until his own triumphant return. Resting for a short day at Dijon, he hurried on to Geneva, where he remained for three days in consultation with Necker. Thence he passed to Lausanne, where Carnot arrived with the news of his successful mission. Moreau had been flattered by the great consideration implied in such an embassy. From every side the news was satisfactory. Berthier's work of organizationwas thorough and complete: the raw recruits were drilled to efficiency. The generals were resplendent in health, spirits, and fine uniforms. The First Consul, clad in the blue frock of his civil office, wearing at times his rather shabby gray overcoat, with a slim sword at his side and a soft cocked hat on his head, was a very inconspicuous figure indeed. He was with the army, but not apparently in formal command.
Bonaparte's earlier plan for using the reserve army was that it should take up the division of Lecourbe, cross from Zurich by the Splügen into Italy, where, absorbing Masséna's force, it would finally number over a hundred thousand, and be sufficiently strong to conquer Melas. But the latter's immense superiority of numbers throughout April had enabled him in the mean while to cut off all communication with Masséna, and the worst was feared. It was determined, therefore, to cross the Alps much farther to the westward; and Berthier was ordered to study first the St. Gotthard and the Simplon, then both the Great and Little St. Bernard passes, the former of which was still erroneously held to be Hannibal's route. This easy adaptation to changing conditions was another sign of the First Consul's military greatness. The idea of a march to Milan was likewise quickly abandoned in order to relieve Masséna the sooner by way of Tortona. By May ninth all was in order. By "general's reckoning, not that of the office," as Berthier's words were, there were forty-two thousand men on or near the Lake of Geneva. When Bonaparte arrived at Lausanne on the tenth, Lannes was at the foot of the Great St. Bernard, with eight thousand infantry; four other divisions, comprising twenty-five thousand men, stood between Lausanne and the head of the lake; another, of five thousand men, under Chabran, was in Savoy at the footof the Little St. Bernard. Besides these, Turreau, with five thousand men who had originally formed part of Masséna's left wing, was at the southern end of the Mont Cenis pass; and the fifteen thousand men detached from Moreau were already marching under Moncey toward the northern entrance of the St. Gotthard.
The situation of the Austrians and the French in Italy had not materially changed on May thirteenth, and was of course still to the advantage of the former. Masséna was in Genoa with twelve thousand available troops and sixteen thousand sick or wounded. Ott was conducting the siege with twenty-four thousand men. Melas, with his twenty-eight thousand men, was still on the Var, firmly convinced that the French reserve army would unite with Suchet's ten thousand in Provence and attack from the front. Five days later he was informed of the truth, and leaving a corps of seventeen thousand to guard the Riviera, hurried with the rest back to Turin, which he reached on the twenty-fifth. Ten thousand Austrians were watching the St. Gotthard at Bellinzona, three thousand were in the valley of the Dora Baltea to observe the southern exit from the St. Bernard range, while five thousand were on the Dora Riparia and one thousand on the Stura for similar purposes regarding the Mont Cenis. Six thousand were marching from Tuscany to reinforce Melas, and three thousand remained there; while in the Romagna, in Istria, and in various garrisons of upper Italy, were sixteen thousand more.
On May fourteenth began what has been justly considered one of Bonaparte's most daring and brilliant moves. Even at the present day and after extensive improvement of grade, the road over the Great St. Bernard is for a long stretch barely passable for wheeled vehicles; it was then a wretched mule-track, more likethe bed of a mountain torrent than a highway, and at that season of the year storms of snow and sleet often rage about the hospice and on the higher reaches of the path. The First Consul had carefully considered the great outlines of his strategy; the detail had wisely been left to able lieutenants. One by one the successive divisions, with that of Lannes at the front, climbed the steeps, crossed the yoke, and passed down on the other side to Aosta. There was, of course, some snow, and there was in any case no track for the gun-carriages; the cannon were therefore dismounted, laid in sledges of hollowed logs, and dragged by sheer human force along the rough highway.
The passage into the upper vale of Aosta was commonplace enough, and on the sixteenth the head of Chabran's column also arrived there safely by way of the Little St. Bernard. But every enterprise has its crisis. Lower down, on an abrupt and perpendicular rock, was Fort Bard, which entirely controlled the valley. It proved to be impregnable. Lannes hesitated for a day. Berthier wrote him that the fate of Italy, perhaps of the republic, hung upon its capture. This proved to be a pardonable exaggeration. The French van took a rude mountain-path which lay to the northward over Monte Albaredo, and, leaving their artillery behind, advanced, or rather climbed across, toward Ivrea. Bonaparte himself came up two days later, and, hearing that Melas had now left the Var, ordered the path to be improved. Lannes, in the interval, attacked Ivrea, but failed for want of cannon. Marmont, the chief of artillery, could not wait for the engineers to complete the new road, but, wrapping all his wheels in hay, and strewing the streets of the hamlet at the foot of Fort Bard with dung, carried all the guns safely past under cover of night. The Austrians couldnot fire in a plumb-line downward, and, though aware of the movement, they were helpless. The garrison held out for a time, but surrendered on June first. Ivrea fell at once; the three thousand Austrians in the valley were scattered; and the Italian plains lay open to the daring adventurers, many of whom, having once outflanked the Alps under the same leader, had now attacked and surmounted them. Their enemy was first incredulous, then surprised and undecided; his forces were so scattered that it seemed as if he could no longer hold Tortona. Should that fortress fall into French hands, Genoa could be promptly relieved.
Bonaparte at once became perfectly aware not only of the Austrian position, but also of the favorable opportunity it opened for him. His ideas began immediately to expand and change. Why not take advantage of the time which must intervene before the Austrians could concentrate for a decisive action, leave Masséna to hold Genoa a few days longer, himself march to Milan and secure Lombardy, then cross the Po, and, after having cut off all Melas's connections, offer him battle? That a single battle might decide the fate of Italy was the conception of a strategist. The inverse order of defeating Melas, relieving Genoa, taking Milan, and driving the enemy behind the Adda, would have meant a long campaign. This was the first appearance of this keen conception, which recurs twice more in Napoleon's life—in 1809 and in 1813.
Before the end of the month every portion of the army had done its work. Turreau was over Mont Cenis, and had driven in the Austrian guards. Moncey had passed the St. Gotthard in safety, and was ready at Bellinzona. A side column under Bethencourt had crossed the Simplon and was near Domo d'Ossola. On June second the united French force had crossedthe Ticino in safety, and the vanguard entered Milan as the Austrian garrison withdrew first to Lodi and then to Crema. Murat was despatched with his cavalry to drive the retreating columns so far that they could not interfere with the next serious operation, the crossing of the Po. Bonaparte celebrated his return not only by the reëstablishment of the Cisalpine Republic and by great civic festivals, but by a religious solemnity at which he declared his respect for the Holy Father and his attachment to the faith. The great cathedral was his special charge. Among the statues of saints which adorn its myriad pinnacles, one of the best is his own portrait.
Surrender of Genoa — Bonaparte's Strategy — Politics at Milan — His Over-confidence — The Chosen Battle-field — Victor at Marengo — The French Overpowered — Defeat Retrieved — Desaix and Kléber — A Pattern Campaign — Plots in Paris — France Conquered in Italy — Significance of Marengo — Bonaparte Returns to Paris — His Bid for Peace — Austria Disavows the Negotiations — Conferences at Lunéville — Hostilities Renewed.
The news of all these movements reached Melas at Turin, where, with the ordinary perspicacity of a good army general, he had expected the battle. With Suchet to the westward on the Var, and Bonaparte in front, his situation was critical. His first intention was to advance by Vercelli, and fall on Bonaparte's rear; but learning how great the force was which had crossed the St. Gotthard, he chose as a rallying-point for his army the town, of Alessandria, the situation of which amid lowlands and sluggish streams resembles that of Mantua, and made it in those days of short range and weak projectiles a powerful fortress. It was his daring intention to break through the French center.Meantime Masséna, having conducted the defense of Genoa with heroism and persistency until the last, had been forced to open negotiations for surrender. He was embittered, charging that he was both deserted and sacrificed: a glance at the map will show how utterly impossible it would have been for the French forces from the north to have crossed and recrossed the Apennines for his relief, and moreover the strategic moves did not and could not foresee the ill-advised Austrian tenacity in the siege of Genoa, at a time when Melas's necessity required every man within reach to rally at Alessandria as swiftly as possible. Could the French general have held out for three days longer, Ott would have been compelled to raise the siege in order to release his own troops for the greater struggle soon to take place. As it was, the terms offered were the best possible, and on June fourth the French marched out with eight thousand men under no conditions, leaving the scene by water, however, instead of joining Suchet to strengthen the army at once: a move which Bonaparte savagely condemned in his latter days. On the sixth Ott left with his army for the Austrian rendezvous. Had he renounced the capture of Genoa, he might have joined the force of Melas with his army unharmed. The sequel showed that some one had made a serious mistake; and that some one was not the French commander-in-chief.
Simultaneously Bonaparte was directing from Milan the slow passage of the great river at three points between Piacenza and Pavia, and bringing in from all around the scattered companies which had been clearing the country in various skirmishes. He left a fortified camp at Stradella and five available bridges over the Po, in case he should be beaten and compelled to retreat. On the eighth one of Melas's couriers to Vienna was captured, and his despatches, which told of the disaster at Genoa,also put the First Consul in full possession of his antagonist's movements and plans. The French and Austrians began their advance about the same time; the former, however, in closer formation and less widely separated from one another. Ott and Lannes met at Casteggio, near Montebello. Bonaparte's orders were to destroy, if possible, the first Austrian column which appeared, "as it must of necessity be weak." In the first struggle the French, who were much inferior in numbers, were worsted; but reinforcements coming up quickly under Victor, their rout was speedily turned into victory, and the enemy was driven back upon the Scrivia, with the loss of four thousand men.
The short week in Milan, from June second onward, was a fine exhibition of Bonaparte's concentrated energy. There were a triumphal entry, most impressive, a series of eloquent bulletins, soul-stirring and illuminating, and a political reorganization of the Cisalpine Republic, object-lesson to France of what she had to expect. The horrors of Austrian rule were exhibited and execrated. What else could be expected from the kings of Europe? As to religion, the people want their worship, let the priests perform the desired rites. From Genoa, when it fell into French hands, as it did within a few days, the proclamation went forth announcing the policy of the Consulate. In the exercise of its power the government would completely restore the Roman Catholic cult, first because religion is essential to and in man, second because that of Rome is the best form, and lends itself best to democratic republican institutions. What had already happened in France was sufficient evidence that the First Consul would arrange matters with the new Pope, and recognize him, irregular as his election had been.
Map of the Marengo Campaign.
Map of the Marengo Campaign.
Melas was still west of Alessandria, at a distance oftwo days' march. Bonaparte, after leaving Milan for headquarters, remained in the rear, gathering and ordering the advancing army, but giving no sign, by a personal appearance on the front, until all was in readiness, of where the decision would be taken. It was a maxim ever on his lips to prepare for a decisive action by bringing in every available man; no one could tell when the result might turn on the presence of a few men more or less. In this instance he was apparently untrue to his own principle; for no less than twenty-three thousand men had been sent so far out of reach—some to cut off all chance of Austrian escape to the north, east, and south, and some for various other purposes—that he now had only thirty-four thousand men available. His over-confidence was in a sense justified by the enemy's mistakes, but it came near to costing dearly. It went so far that Loison, with six thousand soldiers more, was left behind at Piacenza. By the twelfth Melas had joined Ott at Alessandria, which, in view of Bonaparte's grand strategy, was inevitable. Desaix, in obedience to the urgent summons he had received from the First Consul, had finally reached the French headquarters at Stradella on the eleventh, and was immediately put in command of one of the three corps, his colleagues being Victor and Lannes.
The flat land about Tortona and Alessandria is watered by two small rivers, the Scrivia and the Bormida, which flow parallel to each other northward toward the Po. Irrigating canals and minor tributary streams, all bordered by pollard willows and other low trees, separate the fields, which are themselves planted with orchards, or yield rich crops of cereals. It was customary for Bonaparte to select an open plain for his battles, if possible. He could then, without fear of being hampered,use his favorite arm, the artillery, which he frequently massed with terrible effect on the wings, while his effective cavalry were sent in repeated onsets to break his enemy's center, and deliver the opposing ranks in broken masses to the musket-fire and bayonet charge of his infantry. Such fields were, of course, numerous between Tortona on the Scrivia and Alessandria on the Tanaro just west of its confluence with the Bormida. The best was near the great highway which, coming from the east, connects these two towns, and goes on, due westward, by Asti to Turin. Two roads of importance lead southerly, one from each town, to Novi, where they unite, and then proceed to Genoa. On the northern side of the triangle thus formed, and only three miles eastward from Alessandria, lies the hamlet of Marengo, where Victor was posted on June thirteenth, awaiting the attack of Melas when he should sally from the fortress. Lannes was about three miles behind at San Giuliano. Desaix had been sent southward toward Novi, lest Melas should swerve in that direction to try a flank movement. Bonaparte, with the consular guard,—a picked corps of twelve hundred trusted veterans which he had developed from that formed for personal protection in his first Italian campaign,—stood at Tortona. He could hardly trust himself to believe that the Austrians would be bold enough to make a direct attack, and had therefore disposed his troops in this scattered way.
But Melas, though slow and old-fashioned, was intrepid, and the Austrians were daring fighters. On the morning of the fourteenth he began to cross the Bormida, and as his van drove the French outposts to Marengo, he was able to deploy east of the stream. Victor received orders to hold the village at any cost, in order to gain time for concentrating the scatteredFrench columns to the right and left of his position, which was to be the center. On a level battle-field the solid brick or stone walls of a village, of a churchyard, or of great farm-courts like those of Lombardy, afford the most desirable shelter, and oftentimes, as at Marengo, Aspern, and even Waterloo, the loss or gain of such a position turns the tide of battle; for an army equipped with flint-lock muskets and small unrifled field-pieces, though victorious in the open, dares not leave a considerable portion of their enemy thus ensconced in the rear. Hence the ever-recurring and enormous importance of farmsteads and hamlets in the Napoleonic battle-fields. Lannes was to deploy on the right, and Murat was sent with his cavalry in part to support the forming line, and in part to prevent a flank movement along the slow, willow-bordered current of the Bormida. If Desaix could come up in time, he would form the left; in the mean time the younger Kellermann was stationed with his dragoons to guard Victor's open flank.
The first attacks of the Austrians were repulsed, but with loss and difficulty. At ten in the morning Ott came up, and attacked Lannes's flank. The fighting grew ever hotter and more desperate, and the news from Desaix was that it would be four in the afternoon before he could arrive. Bonaparte called in his small reserve, under Monnier, to strengthen Lannes; but it was of no avail. By midday the French were driven out of Marengo, their front was broken, and their columns were in full retreat to the eastward toward San Giuliano. The First Consul was in despair, and as a last resource sent in eight hundred of the consular guard. For the first hour of the afternoon the retreat was stayed. But the French were soon outflanked on their left by Austrian cavalry, and again began to withdraw.Bonaparte sat by the roadside, and, swishing his riding-whip, called to the flying men to stand and wait for the reserve, a body of troops which did not exist. Seven thousand soldiers—a fifth of his entire available force—had, it is estimated, already fallen. Desaix was not yet within reach. Melas believed he had won the day. Perhaps if the weight of seventy years, and a slight wound, had left the Austrian commander personally less exhausted, he would, in spite of having long endured the heat, fatigue, and dust, have carried his victorious columns onward until he had utterly scattered his enemy. As it was, he deputed the final discomfiture of the disorganized yet slowly, stubbornly retreating Frenchmen to Zach, his chief of staff, and returned to Alessandria. His command, ordered in single main column, followed directly on, while Ott, with a minor one, deviated toward the left to seek a parallel line of pursuit.
At this juncture, about five in the afternoon, Desaix appeared at the head of his hurrying line. In an instant Bonaparte had despatched riders in every direction, who were instructed to declare that "the French line is forming again." The discouraged men who were still in the ranks took fresh courage, many stragglers were gathered in, and the line was really formed once more. Marmont even collected a battery of eighteen guns, and Kellermann, with the brigade of dragoons which had so long covered Victor's left flank, suddenly reappeared in good condition on Desaix's right. In a moment all was changed. Desaix and Kellermann threw themselves with fury on the head and left of the main Austrian column. The first half was soon in confusion; six thousand men laid down their arms. The second half was demoralized, and took to flight. Their officers rallied the flying lines with difficulty, but sufficiently to hold abridge over the Bormida until Ott had joined the retreat and safely passed. Before dark a portion of Melas's army, about twenty thousand of the thirty he had collected at Alessandria, were all behind the stream, and the French were again in full possession of Marengo. But the gallant Desaix had perished in the moment of victory. "Of all the generals of the Revolution," said Napoleon to Gourgaud, "I only know Hoche and Desaix who could have gone further." Of the latter he said, during the voyage to St. Helena, that he was the best general he had ever known.
There were, however, two others he might have recalled. It is true that among all the purely French generals of the republic and the Directory, the name of Hoche, so prematurely cut off by death, stands highest. But there was another of similar renown: second only to his is that of Kléber. The latter, recognizing the desperate situation of the French colony in Egypt, early in the year 1800 concluded with Sir Sidney Smith, at El Arish, a treaty for honorable withdrawal. But there was delay in accepting it at London, and no preparations to fulfil the terms were made. In the interval Kléber, alarmed by the gathering force of Turkish troops, turned on the Turkish pasha—who now stood at Heliopolis with seventy thousand men—with the sadly diminished army of twelve thousand French, and on March twentieth, 1800, in the most amazing fight ever seen by an Egyptian sun, swept the horde out of existence. It was his admirable administration during the ensuing months which, together with the achievements of its scholars, gave all the luster to the ill-starred expedition which was ever shed upon it. On the very day on which, at Marengo, Desaix received in his heart the fatal ball, Kléber fell a victim to the dagger of a Mohammedan fanatic. The French humiliationin Egypt was completed a year later by the surrender of his successor, Menou. Moreau, therefore, was now the solitary able survivor of Revolutionary traditions in warfare.
MARENGO 14 June 1800.A distance of about three and a half miles separates the field of the morning battle at Marengo from the field of the evening battle near San Giuliano; the Austrians retreated across the Bormida to Alessandria; the French bivouacked near Marengo.
MARENGO 14 June 1800.
A distance of about three and a half miles separates the field of the morning battle at Marengo from the field of the evening battle near San Giuliano; the Austrians retreated across the Bormida to Alessandria; the French bivouacked near Marengo.
Exactly a month after the passage of the St. Bernard had begun, the Austrians opened negotiations, and their general agreed to evacuate all northern Italy, with its strong places, as far as the river Mincio. The only Italian lands to be left in Austrian occupation were Tuscany and Ancona. The strategical lesson which Bonaparte drew from the victory at Marengo is often repeated by writers on military science; namely, that the art of war is the art of combinations. His detractors claim the honors of the day for Desaix and Kellermann. The judgment of posterity must be that of his contemporary critics. To plan is already to manœuver; but in war, as elsewhere, to will is one thing, to do is another. A successful battle disorganizes an opposing army, but successful strategy entirely destroys its power. When will and deed accompany each other the result is conclusive. The victory at Marengo was such a decision. Bonaparte the army commander lost it; Bonaparte the general-in-chief won it, exactly as it was. But even if Desaix had not appeared, success would have been gained elsewhere. The road to Stradella was open, the French connections were unbroken. Although such later explanations have little value, Napoleon was probably right when he said to Gourgaud: The French army was in an abnormal position with its rear toward Mantua and Austria. Its only line of retreat was by the left bank of the Po, and to leave that line of communication without defense was not permissible. In an ordinary position all the detachments should be drawn in for battle. Here this was impossible without losing all the advantage of thecampaign. Had we been defeated, this fault would have been no reproach, though properly enough the loss of the battle would have been attributed to it; in that case the strength of the positions held by the troops would have been manifest, since to it the army would have owed its safety, together with the chance to await reinforcements from Switzerland and France, and to reassemble at Mentz, for thus we could have maintained ourselves on the left bank of the Po, while Melas could hope only to withdraw to Mantua and take his normal position. This was Napoleon's commentary at the close of his life: likewise he had declared, as Antommarchi asserts, that he would have crossed the Po on one of his five bridges covered by his batteries, would have combined his first division with those he had left behind, and then would have attacked and destroyed each successive Austrian corps as it crossed the stream in pursuit. In any case Marengo was the pattern of an offensive campaign organized, not to win battles and spare the lives of soldiers, but to destroy an enemy. In a just cause this policy is great and humane; in an unjust cause any warfare is butchery. To assert, as many do, that Marengo was superb, but unpatriotic, is simply to renounce the cause in which it was fought. As to the strategy of the campaign, the final judgment must be that of Napoleon himself: To be a good general you must know mathematics; that serves in a thousand circumstances to clarify your ideas. Perhaps I owe my success to my mathematical ideas: a general should never make pictures, this is the worst of all. Because a partizan has captured a position, you need not think the whole army was there; my great talent, my chief distinction, is to see clear in everything, it is even the style of my eloquence to see beneath all its appearances the root of the question. It is the perpendicular,shorter than the oblique. The great art of battle is during the action to change the line of operations: my own idea, entirely new. That made me the victor at Marengo: the enemy moved against my line of operations to cut it; I had changed it and he then found himself cut off.
Throughout his absence from Paris, Bonaparte's mind was almost as much absorbed in home as in foreign affairs. His correspondence, packed as it is with details, gives only a faint idea of the multiplicity of his cares in regard to his family, the army, and the nation. The capital was full of conspiracies, machinations, complots, and intrigues: it could not be otherwise, and he felt it. There were the British and the Chouans combining to rekindle the flames of civil war, and rid the earth of the man who would not restore the Bourbons. The Institute was embroiled over the restoration of the Fructidorians it had expelled. There was Fouché to be cajoled and bribed with promises, if only the police would repress the cabals forming everywhere like mushrooms. There were Bernadotte and all the touchy generals, aspirants to power, who must be flattered and soothed. There were the newspapers to be inspired and fed by a carefully organized news bureau. There was Josephine clamoring for money, and his brothers to be appeased. There were the consuls to be guided and the wheels of government to be kept oiled. All these matters received his attention.
But in spite of such comprehensive care, things went wrong. On June nineteenth Cadoudal wrote to Grenville that everything was arranged, insurrection would break out in the west and south: the royalists were certain of success if only the sixty men selected should remove the "personage" from the scene. Fouché warned his chief that the baser radicals, a group composed of redJacobins and disgruntled half-pay soldiery, had despatched an agent to dog his footsteps. The purpose may be imagined. Royalists and anarchists considered the First Consul vermin. Talleyrand was carrying water on both shoulders: the insiders of the administration styled him and Sieyès with their adherents the Orleanist party, scheming to put some member of that line on an ineffectual throne as a creature of the other monarchies. Lucien and the Bonaparte family began to discuss heredity and talk of a succession in the Consulate as in a kingdom. They gathered many adherents: Orleanists and Bonapartists alike counted on the possibility of the First Consul's death, either by assassination or in battle, on the still higher probability of his defeat. Death and defeat they considered were for him synonymous, all the plotters of every sort and condition forming plans to share in the contingent legacy of his overthrow. Victory alone could save the First Consul and his personal rule: to conquer in Italy was to reign supreme in France. The plain folk seem never to have doubted for a moment, and their instinct was true.
Heretofore we have seen in Bonaparte the general and the politician commingled, with the former preponderating; now we have carefully to distinguish not one but almost two men in the First Consul, as afterward in the Emperor—the statesman and the general. The former is henceforward always prominent, always in evidence; the latter often hides himself, and does his great work, in the service of the former. The conflict at Marengo was the first of the statesman's four decisive battles, and he knew it. It gave him the undisputed mastery of France. There never was a fight more carefully explained to a nation, both at the time and subsequently, than this one. There was real danger that the temporary check might obscure in the common mindthe true greatness of the main conception and its execution. To prevent such a mishap was essential. In the form of bulletins, of inspired articles in the obsequious press, in conversations, by hints, innuendos, and every other known channel, such reports were put in circulation as insured the full value of a great success to the chief magistrate of France. Combined with the victories of Moreau, it restored the finances of the country; for that general, who had in the interval occupied Munich, levied forty millions of francs in a lump on South Germany, while Piedmont and the reorganized Ligurian and Cisalpine republics were now each to pay monthly tribute amounting annually to a similar sum.
Leaving Masséna to command the Army of Italy, the First Consul hastened to Milan, where he tarried only long enough to despatch a peace commissioner to Vienna. He then hurried on to Paris. The public had not at first understood that the chief magistrate would so daringly violate the constitution. When his intention to assume military command became clear, there was no audible discontent; the only effect was to create a coterie about Talleyrand which discussed the consequences if the daring adventurer were to be killed. While deliberating whether Carnot or Lafayette should be the coming man, their session was indefinitely adjourned by receipt of the news and by the speedy return of Bonaparte. His journey through the provinces was a continuous ovation; every town had its triumphal arch. By his command the reception which Paris gave to the man whom victory was fast making her idol was ostentatiously kept within moderate limits, but on the evening of his return—July third, 1800—the entire city burst into one great illumination. Every one was talking of Hannibal and the Alps, of the army climbing like chamois and toiling like oxen, of the hospice ofSt. Bernard with its devoted brothers and their sagacious dogs, of precipices and avalanches, and of the climax to all these toils in the plains of Italy, not forgetting the touching loss of the gallant and handsome Desaix.
The hour for display was past, the time for solid achievement had arrived. First, if possible, the peace so ardently desired must be secured. In a letter from Milan to the Emperor Francis, explaining why it was Austria's interest to abandon England, and become the friend of France, on the old terms of Campo Formio, Bonaparte wrote: "Let us give peace and quiet to the present generation. If future generations are foolish enough to fight, very well; they will learn after a few years of warfare how to grow wise and live in peace." But Austria, having just bargained for a new subsidy from the apparently inexhaustible coffers of England, could not consider a separate peace, and the cabinet sent an agent with very limited powers to see whether France might not be brought to make some concessions which would be useful toward a general pacification. The personage chosen was one of those who seem by accident to enter now and then the solemn councils of history in order to enliven their gravity by blunders and mock heroism. The Count of St. Julien, an Austrian diplomatist attached after the fall of Genoa to the army, had been chosen by Bonaparte to carry his proposition for a general armistice to Vienna. It was he who was sent back to Milan with an Austrian counter-proposition, accepting the armistice, but suggesting clearer definition of the terms on which peace was to be negotiated than could be found in the treaty of Campo Formio, a document which intervening circumstances and new engagements had rendered impossible of execution.
The luckless diplomat, finding in Milan that Bonapartewas already in Paris, transcended his instructions, and followed. Arrived on the banks of the Seine, he was welcomed with ostentatious heartiness, and intrusted to the wiles of Talleyrand, who intended so to use his victim as to convince the French people that peace was within easy reach since they had a living plenipotentiary among them. Accepting the French minister's large interpretation of his powers, the flattered ignoramus made his first misstep, and began negotiations. Within a week he had actually signed preliminaries the execution of which would have definitely sundered Austria and England. When St. Julien reached Vienna, in August, Thugut was infuriated, and passed sleepless nights at the mere thought of a formal negotiation having taken place without the knowledge of Great Britain, his master's ally and indispensable support. In order to undo the mischief as far as possible, an account of the facts was promptly sent to England, Talleyrand's preliminaries were utterly rejected, and St. Julien himself was disavowed and imprisoned.
The Austrian strength was nearly worn out, but new troops were raised. The Archduke John, still a mere boy, but with talents vaunted as superior to those of the Archduke Charles, was put in Kray's place. Melas was removed to make way for Bellegarde, a younger but less able man. The former had eighty thousand men and a reserve under Klenau; General Iller, with thirty thousand, was in the Tyrol; and Bellegarde was on the Mincio, with ninety thousand. The tried and skilful Cobenzl was sent to reopen negotiations. Joseph Bonaparte was appointed French plenipotentiary to meet him. Their conferences were held chiefly at Lunéville, a frontier town southeast of Nancy. The prolongation of the armistice necessary for these arrangements was bought by the cession of three fortresses toMoreau, and was the more easily secured because Bonaparte, though furious at his failure to secure peace in consequence of Marengo, still felt that peace was imperative. Soon afterward court intrigue at Vienna overthrew Thugut, and Cobenzl was forced to betray the inherent weakness of his position. In order to conceal Austria's exhaustion, he had been instructed to make a bold demand for an English associate, and to plead urgency for a general peace; but he secretly gave Talleyrand to understand that sufficient concession in Italy would secure a separate peace with Austria. Bonaparte had no intention either of suing for peace with England, or of granting more than he had originally offered to Austria. Finally, in November, he determined to renew hostilities, declaring that the state of the nation and Austria's procrastination justified the prosecution of the war. Joseph Bonaparte and the Austrian plenipotentiary continued their parleyings at Lunéville, but the armistice was ended.
Hostilities in Germany — Moreau's Position — Battle of Hohenlinden Moreau's Renown — The Peace of Lunéville — The Czar Withdraws from the Coalition — The Temper of France Bonaparte and the Plain People — His Capacity for Work His Social Defects — His Strength and Independence The Emigrant Nobility — Their Return — Their Treatment.
On the opening of hostilities in Germany, the Austrians held a position of great strength behind the Inn. Moreau's line was near Munich, skirting the forests on the Isar. To strengthen his force, troops enough were sent to raise his numbers to about a hundred thousand men, and twenty-five thousand were stationed under Augereau on the Main. Masséna, whose ever more pronounced republicanism had not passed unnoticed at Paris, was found guilty of bad administration in Italy, and was replaced by Brune. This eclipse was, as it was intended to be, only temporary. Murat was stationed in central Italy to watch Naples; Macdonald stood in the Grisons with fifteen thousand troops, ready to turn north or south at a moment's notice, as exigency should demand. The time had come for the conclusive blow where alone it could be delivered, in Bavaria.
The defensive position of the Archduke John was very strong. Moreau had carefully studied the advantages for battle of the high plain on which he himself stood, and in the raw, damp days of early winter reluctantly began to prepare for an advance. His enemy, with the over-confidence of youth, made ready simultaneously to abandon all the strength of his position, and likewise moved forward. The French could hardly believe their senses when, on December first, their left was checked in its advance and driven back by what was evidently the main army of their enemy. Moreau made ready to receive the Austrians on familiar ground. The evening of the next day found his army arrayed near Hohenlinden, eighteen miles east of Munich, so that every avenue of approach by the neighboring forests was in their hands, and every road to Munich closed.
1800—01
The famous battle began on the morning of December fourth. It opened at half-past seven, the main attack being on the center. Moreau, supported by Grenier, Ney, and Grouchy, easily sustained the onset, while right and left the wings began to infold the Austrians, who were now blundering through the unknown woodland paths. When all was ready, Ney and Grouchy were suddenly detached to break through and join their forces to those of Richepanse, which had reached the Austrian rear. The manœuver was successfully accomplished, and by three in the afternoon the day was won for the French, with a loss that was slight in comparison with that of the Austrians, which was upward of twentythousand killed and wounded, besides much artillery and immense stores. The flight was a rout, and even the Archduke narrowly escaped capture. Moreau's pursuit was sharp, and a fortnight later he was within easy reach of Vienna, where confusion and terror would have reigned supreme had not the Archduke Charles been persuaded to resume the chief command in the extremity. Fortunately also for Francis, this rapidity had left Augereau's corps in danger from the possible advance of Klenau, and, much as Moreau would have liked to eclipse his rival in Paris, he dared go no further, and was compelled to rest content with having won a victory greater than any Bonaparte had gained. The campaign was of course ended, and to release Augereau from all menace an armistice was signed at Steyer on Christmas day. In Italy, Brune had with difficulty advanced to Trent on the Adige. He was there to join Macdonald, whose feat of leading fifteen thousand men across the Splügen in the heart of winter had scarcely attracted the attention it deserved.
The sober judgment of posterity in the light of the fullest information is that well-nigh every movement of both the Austrian and French armies at Hohenlinden was haphazard and bungling, the former ignorant, the latter lucky. But what with an open road to Vienna on the north and the prompt successes of the French forces south of the Alps, the consequences were decisive. Moreau enjoyed a renown in France that was, though fictitious, of enormous political value. The First Consul must be the first in generous recognition so as not to alienate an important group of republican supporters; he was quick to see it and to use the fruits of victory.
Hohenlinden brought matters at Lunéville to a speedy conclusion. A separate peace for Austria was signed on February ninth, 1801, which virtually shattered thetime-honored Hapsburg policy of territorial expansion. Her line in northern Italy was fixed at the Adige; the Grand Duke of Tuscany lost his land, and, like him of Modena, received no other compensation except a grant from the Breisgau in Germany; the Rhine, from source to mouth, was to be the French boundary; and the temporal princes so maimed were to be indemnified by the secularization of the ecclesiastical lands on the right bank. Austria was thus not only left insignificant in Italy, she was deprived of her independent station as a great power in Europe; she was even threatened in her Germanic ascendancy, for the spiritual princes of the empire were her main support in the Diet, and the diminution of their numbers meant the supremacy of Prussia in Germany. The treaty was negotiated for France by Joseph Bonaparte; it was signed by Austria, not only for herself, but for the Germanic body, in which, according to its terms, the First Consul might, if necessary, intervene in order to secure the execution of the stipulations made in the document.
Such provisions could only mean either the permanent humiliation of Austria, or the resumption of hostilities whenever recruited strength would permit. It is doubtful whether they would have been accepted even then had not the First Consul finally succeeded in winning the Czar to his cause. It will be remembered that in the previous year the cession of Malta to Russia had been suggested by the French envoy at St. Petersburg. This was, of course, another step in the process of widening the dissension already created in the coalition. The proposition had been received by the Czar with great delight; and when, on September fifth, 1800, the English compelled the French garrison of that fortress to capitulate, and, careless of the Grand Master's rights, entered on full possession of the island, Paul, openlyaccusing England and Austria of treachery, entered an "armed neutrality" with Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia to check English aggression at sea. The real motive of Frederick William III in joining this movement was to repress Austria's aspirations for the annexation of Bavarian lands. He persisted in his neutrality, and would make no alliance with Bonaparte; but he was glad to see his rival weakened. The Czar believed that by diminishing Austria's power in Italy that state would be impotent to restrain Russia's ambition in the Orient. One authority declares that the Czar had been assured by the First Consul that he was about to restore the Bourbons, and would himself be content with an Italian principality; but this is doubtful. So ardent was the Russian autocrat, however, that he urged forward the preparation of plans for the projected Franco-Russian expedition, which was to march by way of Khiva and Herat, and strike at the heart of England's power by the conquest of India. This was the first of those sportive tricks which for years to come Bonaparte was so triumphantly to play with the old dynasties of Europe. The success of this combination temporarily secured the peace of the Continent on terms most advantageous to himself.
The people of France were tired of the awful earnestness which had characterized the philosophical and political upheavals of the eighteenth century, and were ever more and more eager for glory and for pleasure. This was true of all political schools, excepting only a very few men of serious minds. The masses had come to loathe royalty. They were living under what was called a republic, and when an expression was needed for the national life as a whole they and their writers employed the common classical term "empire." The word "citizen," used in both genders as a form ofaddress, recalled the days of rude leveling. It had lasted through the Directory; with the Consulate it disappeared, first from official documents, and then, in spite of resistance by a few radicals, it soon gave place everywhere to the old "monsieur" and "madame." In like manner the former habits of polite society quietly reasserted themselves with the return to prominence of those who had been trained in them. Liberty could no longer be endangered by admirable usages whose connection with monarchy was forgotten. Such incidents were significant of the movement which, with the assured stability of the Consulate, brought immediately to its service those persons who represented, not exactly the greatness, but the capacity of France. Excepting that which was resident in a few royalists and in a few radicals, the power of the nation rallied to the support of the new order. When Daunou, Cabanis, Grégoire, Carnot, and Lafayette were identified with the Consulate, the Jacobinism which had turned the early nobility of the Revolution into baseness might well hide its head. For a time, at least, the majority believed that the highest aims of the Revolution were to be attained under the new government.
The Bonapartes resided in the Luxembourg from November, 1799, to February, 1800. In that short time a little coterie of visitors, with many royalists in its number, had been regular in attendance; but the republican side was studiously kept prominent, and thence the First Consul had married his sister Caroline to Murat, the son of an innkeeper at Cahors. During that period the anniversary of the death of Louis XVI was stricken from the list of public festivals, but those of July fourteenth, the storming of the Bastille, and of September twenty-second, the founding of the republic, were kept. After the installation of the family at theTuileries, in February, 1800, there was little change, except that a clever beginning was made in ceremonial and etiquette, which augured further changes, and the bearers of noble names became more and more prominent. "It is not exactly a court," said the Princess Dolgoruki of the receptions, "but it is no longer a camp." Toward those who aspired to the familiar address of equality the First Consul grew more forbidding; to the plain people in civil and military life he was always accessible, and with them he was simple, even confidential, in his manner and tone. "I have your letter, my gallant comrade," he wrote to a sergeant. "I know your services: ... you are one of the brave grenadiers of the army. You are included in the list for one of a hundred presentation swords which I have ordered distributed. Every soldier in your corps thought you deserved it most. I wish much to see you again. The minister of war is sending you an order to come to Paris." After the battle of Montebello, the affair fought by Lannes five days before Marengo, when Coignet, a common soldier who could neither read nor write, but who had performed several daring deeds in that, his first engagement, was by Berthier's orders presented at ten in the evening to the Consul, the latter playfully caught his visitor by the ear, and held him thus during a short catechism. At the close, the delighted peasant, entranced by such familiarity, saw his services noted in a mysterious book, and was dismissed with the remark that no doubt, eventually, he would merit service in the guard, the members of which must be veterans of four campaigns. The effect of such incidents was to turn the popular admiration into a passion.
No one ever declared that Napoleon Bonaparte was a gentleman animated by trained self-respect and considerationfor others. Many thought his accesses of feverish sensitiveness, which now began to be noted, were due to a hysterical temperament: in society he often sat in forbidding silence; sometimes he wept tears which the world would consider unmanly, and appeared to be temporarily disordered in his mind. But he had much rude good nature and considerable wholesome sensibility. He worked regularly from twelve to fifteen hours a day, evolving schemes which paralyzed his secretaries by their magnitude. The hours which such a man of affairs spent in the companionship of women were not marked by that quick appreciation and attention which gratify the great lady. No one has suffered more at the hands of women than Bonaparte. Mme. Junot and Mme. de Rémusat forgot nothing which would place his rude passions in glaring contrast with their own chastity, or even with the polished laxity of that notoriously immoral society which scorned old-fashioned restraints. The long struggle for recognition and attention which that "femme incomprise," Mme. de Staël, waged with Bonaparte ended in her defeat, and she then turned against her antagonist the weapon of her clever pen.
It is certain that with all his genius the great statesman and the great general failed to understand the power of woman. His youth gave him no due share in the society of those mothers, sweethearts, and female friends who, in the routine of daily life, by instinct, training, and ability, mold every generation as it rises to its place. The years of nonage were absorbed in political intrigue, and those of early manhood in tasks not laid upon most men until middle life. Amid the storms of the Revolution was formed a general without experience in those social forces of peace which finally overpower all others. His married life began in passionand ambition; the relation was checked in its normal development by ensuing hurricanes of alternating jealousy and physical attraction. The social power of his wife was great, but superficial; and while she powerfully supported her husband's ambitions, and often captivated his senses, she failed in creating any companionship with him in noble enterprise. The innate coarseness of a giant was, therefore, never diminished, and the society of those who turned pleasing and pleasure into a fine art, who regarded entertainment as the chief concern of life, was generally irksome to a man who looked upon many over-ready women as instruments for gratifying physical passion; to a general who saw in all women the possible mothers of soldiers; to a "scientific" politician who looked on the family and on children as inert factors in a mathematical problem; to a wilful dictator ignorant of the unalterable supremacy of woman in her own sphere. But even Mme. de Rémusat admits that there were times and places when serious women with earnest notions of duty received at his hands the most gracious and considerate treatment. In the main, Napoleon's nature was so dominated by his gigantic schemes that he was impervious to the feminine fascinations by which men are so often ruled. He would tolerate neither Egerias nor Hypatias, neither Cleopatras nor Messalinas, although the times might easily have furnished him with examples of each type.
The Consulate is the period of Bonaparte's greatest and most enduring renown. In what he did the new France was heartily sympathetic; the old France, with all its vices, spite, and bitterness, though existent, was in abeyance, and remained so for some years to come. The multitudinous memoirs concerning the time were for the most part written in the days of theRestoration, when the revulsion of feeling created a passion for the basest defamation, and unduly magnified the small defects of etiquette, behavior, and dress in the preceding régime. The scraps of evidence which these writings afford ought to be carefully examined, and viewed from the standpoint of the circumstances which produced them. Such a task being well-nigh hopeless, the deeds of the First Consul must speak for him rather than the statements about them and him which he himself and others have made. He was not in touch with the polite society of Paris; he certainly did most arbitrarily banish from its precincts Mme. de Staël, the brilliant woman whose writings many praise but few now read, and whose home was the focus for the discontented ability of the time; he never appreciated the spirit of true liberty, and he often misapprehended the gentler spirits who in its name sought his powerful protection and patronage; he was not sensitive to the finer sentiments of the mind, often mocking at the "ideologues"; and while he enjoyed the society of Josephine and her friends, he repelled their interference with his plans, and apparently never forgot that her jealous devotion had grown with his power and reputation. All this must be admitted in characterizing Bonaparte at the height of his greatness; but the vile innuendos, insinuations, and imputations of sordid traits, which so abound in the diaries of the time, must be considered in relation to the murky natures of those who recorded them, and, with allowances for the time and the training of the man, may be consigned to the limbo of malice from which they came.
Exile had broken the spirit but had neither softened the hearts nor enlightened the minds of the long-banished aristocracy and their friends. The new society looked on the thousands and thousands of returnedemigrants with some pity and much indifference as they wandered about Paris and the other cities in faded, worn, old-fashioned garb. Their abodes were in garrets and cellars, their ancient titles were carefully concealed; the few who were recognized and betrayed by some vindictive spy were persecuted by legal tricks even to death, and the rest were cowed. Their cowardly precipitate flight had saved their lives, but it had destroyed their king, their honor, and their self-respect. Artois at Turin, Condé at Worms, the petty nobles at Coblentz, the great ones at Brussels, the clergy in England with their adherents, grandees and gentlemen; each of these groups had suffered in a different way from the rest, but all had finally found themselves objects of suspicion to their hosts, and had long since been reduced to an ignoble poverty. The employment in foreign armies for which they had hoped was so guardedly measured to them that their services were inappreciably small. They had been driven for support to teaching and other such noble employments as they could secure, then by a sure descent many became artisans, craftsmen, and even menials, but, failing that, they were frequently reduced to base mendicity, holding their hands for the alms which their sad appearance and murmured pleas drew from the passers-by. This was particularly the case at Hamburg, where twenty-five thousand took refuge, and at Erlangen in Bavaria. But they had scattered everywhere and had been a byword in all Europe.
Nevertheless, throughout Convention, Terror, and Directory they had cherished high hopes, preserved some forms of courtliness and organization, had kept their anniversaries, their military style, and even a formal system, social and military; had dreamed of a restoration in full form and a return to one-time wealth, dignity, and social power; political power they had nothad within the memories of men, ecclesiastical power they enjoyed not as Frenchmen but as Romanists. Their old-time merry arrogance had given place to an acrid humor born of hunger and want, but they kept their temper and ambition in spite of the mistakes they committed and heaped one upon another, cradling their own hopes in the disasters of the Directory, which so outdid their own as to insure, they were convinced, the reëstablishment of monarchy. Brumaire and its consequences opened their eyes and confounded their plans; every step in the consolidation of Bonaparte's power was a new blow to their pretensions, and the amnesty which he tendered of his mercy was gall and bitterness. But facts are stronger than feelings; they returned in throngs, a hundred and twenty-five thousand at the lowest estimate, slowly and painfully securing the erasure of their names from the list of proscription, reveling in their mother tongue and familiar scenes, winning a poor livelihood by their accustomed arts while scheming, fawning even to secure the crumbs which fell from the tables of those in power. The great ladies who had never fled gave them some poor comfort, the Jacobins scoffed and jeered, but the versatile Talleyrand, and above all the plotting Fouché, were open to suggestions.
Within some months their plight began to awaken considerable sympathy, and that sympathy gradually found expression in the theaters and newspapers. The next development was a movement to secure restoration, at least in part, of patrimony and station. Then a mild but symptomatic storm burst on their heads. The sequestered estates, ecclesiastical and secular, were now in new hands, and as order followed anarchy their values to the republicans who had acquired them were steadily increasing. Any attempt to dislodge thepossessors would have meant the overthrow of Bonaparte's still insecure power. So he treated the suppliants with contemptuous disdain. What he had done was done. They were home once more and might remain, if subservient: otherwise their existence was their own affair. In the perspective of St. Helena he thought he had erred; that he might have assembled all the considerable estates still in state ownership and have distributed them in bits to former proprietors. Possibly and yet improbably he might have conciliated a large constituency of the social and ecclesiastical hierarchy for use in the empire. In this thought the history of France has measurably justified his regrets. But in fact he put the old stock of the nobility in a place far below the middle and upper burghers who rallied to his support. It was a choice of enemies, and he chose radicals and royalists. They accepted the challenge and met the fate of conspirators.