a spirit which soon developed into unruliness: they had declared from
the outset that their force was not sufficiently strong for the task
assigned to it, and they now demanded a retreat. But the veteran
Masséna stood firm: his scouts had brought word of a certain
unprotected vale or rather depression of the land on the English left,
which, having apparently escaped Wellington's observation, was not
fortified, and the French commander determined to outflank his foe on
that line. The movement was thoroughly successful and the British
began a rapid retreat southward before the advancing French.

Masséna found easy sustenance for man and beast in the rich lowlands
about Coimbra, and halting in that town for a short time to recruit
his strength and nurse his sick, started at last in the full tide of
success for Lisbon and the sea, to drive the English to their ships
and complete the Continental embargo. As one day succeeded another,
his hopes grew higher until at last he overtook and began to skirmish
with the English rear-guard. But after a final dash on October
eleventh, that rear-guard suddenly vanished. Two days later the French
were brought suddenly to a standstill before a long, perfectly
constructed, and bristling line of fortifications of whose existence
they had known absolutely nothing. These were the famous lines of
Torres Vedras, constructed by Wellington in his recent enforced
vacation, to guard his eventual retreat and embarkment, provided Sir
John Moore's unfortunate campaign and the last Austrian war should
find a climax in a similar French victory over all Spain. These lines
effectually protected the right bank of the Tagus. They consisted of
one hundred and fifty-two redoubts, equipped with seven hundred guns
and manned by thirty thousand English, thirty thousand Portuguese,
and eight thousand Spaniards. As Masséna now had but forty-five
thousand men, there could be no question of storming such a fortress,
and nothing was left but to await reinforcements and plan a strategic
movement by which he might cross the Tagus, threaten Lisbon from the
left bank, draw off the foe to its defense, and thus perhaps, having
weakened the garrison, secure the possibility of a successful attack
on the fortified lines in front.

The notion was not visionary. Soult had been despatched with a strong
force southward into Andalusia, with orders to crush out the
resistance of that province; he was then to turn westward, join
Masséna in Portugal, and coöperate with him under his orders for the
expulsion of the English. The belated expedition had not arrived, but
in spite of the delay and disappointment it must surely come at last;
and if the Emperor would but consent to order up the troops lying in
Castile, the quickly formed and brilliant plan of Masséna would be
feasible. But, alas for the scheme, what was apparently jealousy on
the part of Soult had quenched all ardor in the Andalusian invasion.
He was at this moment before Cadiz, carrying on a siege in which
either the Spanish were displaying great courage or the French but
little heart. His sluggish progress was not unobserved at Paris, and
finally under pressure he left half his force before the walls of the
"white city," while with the other he advanced and captured the
fortress of Badajoz. There he paused of necessity, being falsely
informed that Masséna, who had only withdrawn toward Santarem, was in
full retreat, but being correctly notified that the portions of his
own force left before Cadiz were not able to hold their own. Having
been virtually defeated in his attack on Sir John Moore, his invasion
of Portugal in 1809 had been temporarily successful; but he had
occupied Oporto only to conspire like Junot for the crown of the
country, and he had been driven out without difficulty by the English.
Made commander-in-chief after the empty victory of Wellington at
Talavera, he had won a great battle at Ocaña on November nineteenth,
1809; but since then his time had been virtually wasted, for his
bickerings with Joseph and his jealousy of Masséna made all his
successes, even this last one at Badajoz, entirely useless. In a short
time he returned to Cadiz, and the French before Lisbon remained
therefore without their auxiliaries.

Both these checks displeased Napoleon greatly. It is often stated that
it was because he felt contempt alike for the Spanish guerrillas and
the English infantry that he delegated the conduct of affairs in the
peninsula to his lieutenants. Quite the reverse appears to be the
truth. Foy, Masséna's envoy, reached Paris about the end of November,
and found the Emperor in something like a dull fury. His personal
experience had now the confirmation of that undergone by Masséna and
Soult, two of his greatest lieutenants. He had himself found the
rugged and ill-cultivated country unable to support large armies. It
was a discouraging fact that neither Soult nor Masséna had succeeded
better than the great captain himself, and Napoleon was thus convinced
that the Continental System could not be enforced against such dogged
persistency as that of the unreasoning, disorganized, but courageous
and frenzied Spaniards, assisted by the cold, calculating, and lucky
Wellington: at least not without terrible cost in life and money.
Accordingly Masséna was left without immediate reinforcement, while on
December tenth, 1809, was promulgated the decree incorporating the
North Sea coast into the Empire. Alexander chose to regard this
fateful act as merely disrespectful, remonstrated with the French
envoy at St. Petersburg, and sent a circular to the powers reserving
the rights of his house over Oldenburg; he refused the petty
indemnification of Erfurt offered by Napoleon, and a year later, in
December, 1810, issued a ukase which laid prohibitive duties on French
silks and wines, while at the same time it favored the "neutral"
traffic in English wares. But at the moment he bore the affront
without any menace of war, and merely called attention to the common
obligations of friendship between sovereigns. If the breach were to
occur, it must be plainly and manifestly Napoleon's doing.

Napoleon's failure to reinforce Masséna left the situation before
Lisbon precarious. It cannot be proved that he understood all the
difficulties in Wellington's position, but it is not unlikely that he
did. Lisbon was overcrowded with fugitives, and demanded speedy relief
by offensive operations. If Masséna had opened a bombardment from the
opposite bank, its inhabitants would have risen in rebellion against
the English general. The opposition party in Westminster used what
seemed in England to be the perennial and everlasting delay of the
younger brother as ground to attack the older one's conduct and to
arraign the entire ministerial policy. The English people had heard of
the Spanish insurrection with wild delight, but the inefficiency and
stubbornness of the insurgent leaders, together with the
untrustworthiness of the provisional governments, had cooled their
ardor, and after the defeat at Ocaña--a battle which the vainglorious
Spaniards had fought in direct opposition to Wellington's advice--they
were loud in abuse of their allies. Lord Liverpool openly attacked
Wellington, popular discontent was heightened by the opposition
taunts, and it seemed for a time as if the ministry must abandon the
expedition or fall.

But if Wellington required all the force of his will and the
compulsion of a higher necessity to make him deaf to the clamor of his
allies for an advance, Masséna had equal need for strength to sustain
his forces, and to resist the clamor of his own generals for retreat.
Foy finally brought back the necessary orders for reinforcements to
come in from Castile; but, as a large proportion of the men stationed
in that province existed merely on paper, only nine thousand could be
spared from those who actually were there. Still Masséna stood like a
rock. Wellington wrote home that with all his money, and assisted by
the good will of the inhabitants, he could not have maintained one
division where all the winter long Masséna found sustenance for sixty
thousand men and twelve thousand beasts. This tribute to the
campaigning powers of the French reveals incidentally the exaggerated
conception of their strength entertained by the enemy.

The return of Soult to Cadiz emboldened Wellington to advance into
Spain. After various movements on the part of both sides, Masséna was
beaten at Fuentes de Onoro, and Almeida was retaken by the English.
Badajoz was beset by the English, and Soult once more advanced to its
assistance. He, too, was defeated in a battle at Albuera, but
succeeded finally in effecting a junction with Masséna, so that
Wellington felt compelled to retreat again into Portugal before the
united army. The exasperation of Napoleon at the failure of Masséna in
the battle of Fuentes de Onoro led to the disgrace of the old marshal,
and Marmont was sent to replace him. Such was the difficulty which the
French experienced in securing commissary stores from an impoverished
land that Wellington seemed content to let want fight his battles. The
season of 1811 was marked by inactivity on both sides except in the
east, where Suchet captured Aragon and Valencia, annihilating the
Spanish army under Blake. But at the close of the year Soult was
compelled to withdraw southward toward the coast, in the hope of
securing indispensable supplies. The Spanish guerrillas of central
Spain harassed the French soldiers and took the heart out of them.
Wellington at once resumed the offensive; Ciudad Rodrigo fell before
him on January twelfth, 1812, and on April eighth, after one of the
bravest and bloodiest assaults recorded in English annals, Badajoz
also was carried.

Marmont drew back for concentration, and the English advanced to the
Duero. Thereupon the French turned again, Wellington retreated on
Salamanca, and there made his stand, defeating his enemy on July
twenty-second, in a brilliant engagement. The French commander then
marched to Burgos, but his opponent, instead of following, turned
toward Madrid, in order first to drive Joseph from his capital. By
that time Burgos had been made so strong that all efforts to capture
it proved unavailing, Soult at once abandoned Cadiz and turned
northward to aid Joseph. The English were thus between two foes, and
such was the demoralization of the British soldiery when they
understood their danger that Wellington could with difficulty lead
them back into Portugal. At the close of 1812 the French were in
control of all Spain except the south, which had been freed by Soult's
northward movement. Cadiz became the capital of the nationalists, but
they could not restrain their revolutionary impulses long enough to
form a respectable or trustworthy government, and Wellington was once
more relegated to inactivity. His enforced leisure was occupied by the
consideration of plans for the great successes with which he crowned
the following season.

Viewed from a military standpoint, the French warfare in Spain
appeared utterly disastrous.[37] Regiments melted away like ice before
an April sun; desertions became ominously numerous, and disease laid
thousands low. Guerrilla warfare demoralized the regular forces. The
new conscripts at first showed a noisy zeal, but they had been torn
too young from their home nurture, and had neither strength nor power
of resistance. The troops from vassal kingdoms and newly annexed
territories were dismayed by the sufferings they had to endure, and
beheld with interest the national uprising of the Spaniards, which, in
spite of local jealousies, of rabid and radical doctrines that could
lead to nothing but anarchy, of disastrous failure in government, of
feebleness and falsehood in the temporary rulers, seemed likely to
render of no avail the efforts and successes of a great empire.

         [Footnote 37: Oman, History of the Peninsular War, furnishes
         much valuable material on this period. His point of view in
         one feature is corrected by J. B. Rye and R. A.
         Bence-Pembroke of Oxford. See the Army Service Corps
         Quarterly, October, 1905.]

Yet in some respects the French character appeared in a stronger light
throughout the disasters of the Peninsular war than at any other time.
Marbot's tale of the beautiful young cantinière, or woman sutler, of
the Twenty-sixth regiment, who after Busaco rushed unhurt through the
English outposts in order to alleviate the sufferings of the captured
general of her brigade, and who returned on her donkey through the
lines without having suffered an insult, reflects equal credit on the
unselfish daring of the French, which she typified, and on the
pure-minded gallantry of the English. The same writer's narrative of
the French deserters who, under a leader nicknamed Marshal Stockpot,
established themselves as freebooters in a convent not far from
Masséna's headquarters at Santarem, and of the general's swift,
condign punishment of such conduct, graphically delineates the straits
of the French, which led them into the extreme courses that devastated
the land, but it also displays the quality of the discipline which was
exercised whenever possible. Nor should it be forgotten that the two
most splendid writers of France's succeeding age were profoundly
impressed with the terrible scenes of the French invasion of Spain.
George Sand was in Madrid as an infant for a considerable portion of
1808; Victor Hugo passed the year 1811 in a Madrid school, fighting
childish battles for "the great Emperor," whom his Spanish schoolmates
called Napoladron (Napo the robber). Upon both the fact of their
connection with the repulse of Napoleon's armies left a profound
impression. The former was irresistibly drawn to revisit the country;
the latter recalled his impressions in some of his noblest verse.

CHAPTER XXIII

BIRTH OF THE KING OF ROME[38]

         [Footnote 38: References as before, and Helfert: Marie
         Louise. Welschinger: La censure sous le premier empire.
         Wertheimer: Die Heirat der Erzherzogin Marie Louise mit
         Napoleon I. Montbel: Le duc de Reichstadt. Welschinger: Le
         roi de Rome.]

     England Under the Continental System -- End of Constitutional
     Government in France -- Napoleon's Personal Rule -- Wealth of his
     High Officials -- Literature and the Empire -- Mme. de Staël's
     Aspirations -- Her Attempts to Win Napoleon -- Her Genius Saved
     by Defeat -- The Decennial Prizes -- Pregnancy of Maria Louisa --
     The Heir of the Napoleon Dynasty.

[Sidenote: 1810-11]

It would be idle to suppose that during the winter of 1810-11 the
Spanish situation was not thoroughly appreciated by the imperial
bridegroom at Paris, or that he underrated the ultimate effects of
what was taking place in the Iberian peninsula if the process were to
go on. Still less is it probable that with the direction of all his
energy toward that quarter he could not have quenched the uncertain
and spasmodic efforts of Spanish patriotism, either by arts of which
he was a master, or by making a desert to call it a peace. No; every
indication is that his eye was still fixed on England at her vital
point, and that he took his measures in the North to deal her such a
thrust that the life-blood which sustained the Peninsular war would
either flow inefficacious, or be turned away altogether from Spain,
and change the ever-doubtful success of Wellington into assured
disaster. Wealthy as England was, it was certain that her credit could
not long hold out in view of the lavish subsidies she was constantly
granting to continental powers, while the expeditions to Spain,
Holland, and Sicily were even more costly, inconclusive as they had so
far been. In 1810 English bank-notes were twenty per cent. below par,
and the sovereign could be exchanged on the Continent for only
seventeen francs instead of the twenty-five it usually brought.
Business failures were becoming ominously frequent in London, and
panic was stalking abroad. What must be the necessary result if the
continental embargo were more thoroughly enforced? The enormous
contraband trade of the North was now virtually at an end. Where
English merchants had so far been able to secure at least half of the
prices obtained from the consumers by smugglers, they could now no
longer secure even that doubtful market at any price; the
incorporation of Holland and the North Sea shores into France left
virtually no opening into Europe for them except through Russia. The
fate of England and of the world seemed to hang on how far the Czar
could or would keep the engagements which he had made at Tilsit.

This might not have been so completely true if the French finances had
been desperate; but they were not--that is, the Emperor's personal
finances were not. After the legislative assembly met in December,
1809, it was soon clear to France that the farce of constitutional
government under the Empire was nearly played out. Not only were the
members of the senate, who should have retired according to the
constitution, kept in their seats by a decree of the body to which
they belonged, but an imperial edict appointed the deputies for the
new departments without even the form of an election. Fontanes retired
from the presidency of the senate to become grand master of the
university; the grand chamberlain of the palace was appointed in his
stead. The Emperor had already sold to private corporations the
canals which belonged to the state; the legislature ratified the
illegal act. The penal code was now ready. It contained the iniquitous
and dangerous penalty of confiscation for certain crimes, thus
punishing the children for the faults of their sires, and opening a
most tempting avenue to the courts for indulgence in venality under
legal forms. There was little debate, and the code was adopted in its
entirety as presented.

The reason for this paralysis of constitutional government is clear.
Even the immense war indemnities taken from conquered states did not
suffice for the maintenance of the enormous armies which covered
Europe like swarms of locusts. The marshals and generals were
insatiate, and the greed of the civil administrators was scarcely
less. From the top to the bottom of the public service every official
stood with open hand and hungry eyes. This state of things was
directly due to Napoleon's policy of attaching everybody to himself by
personal ties, and in giving he had the lavish hand of a parvenu. The
recipients were never content, hoarding their fees, and becoming
opulent, pursuing all the time each his personal ambitions, and
ofttimes returning insolence for favors. To meet these enormous
expenditures there had been inaugurated throughout Europe a system of
what may be termed private confiscations, the vast dimensions of which
can never be justly estimated. German princes and Spanish grandees,
English merchants and the Italian clergy, had all been wrung dry;
timorous statesmen, crafty churchmen and sly contractors, unprincipled
financiers and ambitious politicians, not one was forgotten or
overlooked in the accumulation of hoards which, having long been
called the army chest, were now erected into the dignity of an
"extraordinary domain."

Kept so far in a decent obscurity, these ill-gotten possessions, which
belonged, if not to their original owners, then to the state, were, in
the low condition of public morality, not merely recognized--they were
actually increased from new sources of supply. The confiscated
palaces, forests, lands, and fisheries, the proceeds from the sale of
American ships, values of every kind, were all made the private
property of the Emperor. If any of these rills of revenue should run
dry, the criminal code with its legislation of confiscation might be
relied on to supply a menace strong enough to express inexhaustible
treasure from storehouses yet untouched. One orator declared this
barbaric fund to have been in the Emperor's hands a "French
Providence, which made the laurel a fertile tree, the fruits of which
had nourished the brave whom its branches covered." Napoleon had found
the crown moneys sufficient for himself. Berthier now had a revenue of
one million three hundred and fifty thousand eight hundred francs, and
Davout was scarcely less regal with one of nine hundred and ten
thousand; Ney had only seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand, and
Masséna five hundred thousand; Soult was ambitious to increase his
income of three hundred and five thousand by securing the Portuguese
crown. What with the great public charities endowed from this
extraordinary fund, what with the great public works in Paris and
elsewhere which had been carried on by its means, the total
expenditures had been more than four hundred and thirty million
francs. The total receipts had risen to about seven hundred and sixty
millions, and there were therefore still in the Emperor's purse upward
of three hundred millions. He could not be called destitute or even
poor.

[Illustration: NAPOLEON BONAPARTE in 1809.

From a painting by René-Théodore Berthon, in the possession of the
painter's descendants in Canada.]

The same years which saw the extinction of the remnants of
legislative independence saw likewise the establishment of six state
prisons, in which were to be confined those disaffected persons who
were too powerful to be left at liberty, but whose trials in open
court would have revealed troublesome facts. The censorship of the
press was likewise reëstablished with iron rigidity, and the
publishers purchased the meager immunities they were permitted to
enjoy by the payment of whatever pensions the Emperor chose to grant
to needy men of letters. Chénier the poet, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre,
the author of "Paul and Virginia," and others enjoyed, in addition to
decorations of the Legion of Honor, substantial incomes that were
virtually paid by their fellow-craftsmen; while a chosen
few--including Gros, Gérard, Guérin, Lagrange, Monge, and
Laplace--were elevated to the new baronage. Even Carnot did not
hesitate to accept employment and place from Napoleon. At first he
solicited a loan for the relief of his urgent necessities. This the
Emperor made unnecessary by ordering the War Office to pay all arrears
in his rations and other perquisites, by giving him a commission to
prepare a volume on fortification, and by according him a pension of
ten thousand francs. The ponderous sledge-hammer of the censorship was
apparently forged to kill a gnat. Nothing is known to the history of
literature so subservient and humble as the conduct of the great
majority of French writers and artists under the Empire.

There was one exception--Mme. de Staël. That overestimated woman had
gained the halo of martyrdom by the so-called persecution of the
Emperor. But the persecution was, in the opinion of keen observers,
more on her part than his. The Committee of Public Safety had found
her an intriguer, and had called upon her husband to remove her from
Paris; the Directory kept her under watch at Coppet, and ordered her
arrest should she return to France. Her aspirations were boundless,
and Mallet du Pan, royalist agent, said that she shamelessly flaunted
her charms on public occasions. In 1796, aspiring to rule the country
through her friends, she wrote to Bonaparte, who was in Italy, that
the widow Beauharnais was far from possessing the necessary qualities
to supplement those of a genius such as he was, and on his return to
Paris she at once made suspicious advances to win his favor.
Bourrienne declares that he saw one of her letters to Bonaparte, in
which she flatly stated that they two, she herself and her
correspondent, had been created for each other. Mention has elsewhere
been made of the coldness with which Bonaparte treated her when by her
own request she was presented to him in Talleyrand's drawing-room. Not
long afterward, at the reception given by the minister of foreign
affairs to the conqueror of Italy, the indefatigable seeker for
notoriety addressed the latter once again.

The scene is given in the memoirs of Arnault. At first she plied her
suit with fulsome compliment. Bonaparte listened coldly, and the
conversation flagged. In despair she blurted out, "General, what woman
could you love the most?" "My own," was the stinging reply. ("Quelle
femme?" "La mienne.") Woman and wife being the same word in French,
Napoleon's retort was a disdainful pun. "Very well; but which would
esteem you the highest?" she persisted. "The best housekeeper." "Yes,
I understand; but which one would be for you the foremost among
women?" "She who should bear the most children, madame," was the icy
rejoinder, as the harried and disgusted soldier turned on his heel.
Somewhat later she said to Lucien in a melting voice, "I am but a fool
in my desire to please your brother. I am at a loss when I wish to
converse with him. I choose my language and modify my expressions; I
want to make him think of me and occupy himself with me. It ends in my
being and feeling as silly as a goose." When the complacent Lucien
reported the language his brother replied: "I know her thoroughly....
She declared to one who informed me that since I would neither love
her nor permit her to love me, there was nothing left but for her to
hate me, as she could not remain indifferent. What a virago!" In a
letter to Joseph, dated March nineteenth, 1800, the future Emperor
wrote: "M. de Staël is in the depths of misery, and his wife is giving
dinners and balls. If you should continue to see her, would it not be
well to have the woman allow her husband one thousand or one thousand
two hundred francs a month? Have we already reached a time when,
without any protest from decent people, not merely morality but the
most sacred ties which bind children to their parents can be trampled
under foot? Suppose we judge Mme. de Staël as we should a man,--only,
of course, as a man inheriting the fortune of M. de Necker,--one who
had long enjoyed the prerogatives of a distinguished name, and who
should leave his wife in misery while he lived in abundance: could we
associate with a man like that?"

Soon afterward the battle of Marengo was fought. All her passion being
now turned into hate, the scheming woman openly desired Bonaparte's
defeat. Thenceforward she was an avowed and bitter enemy; he would
have called her a conspirator. The ten years of her banishment, as she
herself declared, were occupied in wandering from court to court in
England, Russia, Prussia, and Sweden, engaged in the task of
undermining the Emperor's name and fame, and in fomenting the
coalitions which eventually ruined him. As Bonaparte became an
ultra-imperialist she became an ultra-liberal. Her book on Germany,
published in 1810, was a laudation, in the main just and fair, of a
regenerated land; but it held up to France as a model the achievements
of the country which was now her bitterest foe. The censors gave it a
fictitious renown by ordering its complete suppression.

When, in November, 1810, the decennial prizes, instituted as a spur to
literature and science, were distributed, the judges could find
nothing in science later than 1803 worthy of their favor; but the
prize-winners, old as they were, were all men of real distinction. The
names of the literary men who were crowned are now known only to the
student of history. Napoleon demanded why the name of Chateaubriand
had been omitted from the list, as it was. He may have remembered, as
one of his detractors suggests, that in that writer's great book the
Roman doctrine of obedience to constituted authority was attractively
presented; or else, and more probably, he may have wished his list of
authors to be more brilliant. The Emperor may have instituted those
prizes, as his apologists declared he himself said that he did, to
keep active minds from occupying themselves with politics; but the
exhibition of how the Empire had crushed out originality and fecundity
in the French brain must have appalled him, whatever were his
thoughts.

During the winter of 1810-11 Napoleon's private life was virtually
devoted to beneficence. In addition to the favors granted to Carnot,
he lavished money on other objects, some not so worthy. Canova, who
had been called from Rome to make a portrait-statue of the Empress,
obtained a substantial grant for the learned societies of that city.
Chénier, like Carnot, had been a pronounced adversary of the Empire.
He now sought employment under it, and was made inspector-general of
the university, an office which he did not live long to enjoy. All the
old favorites were remembered in a general distribution of good
things. Talleyrand having just lost an immense sum by the failure of a
trusted bank, the Emperor came to his relief by purchasing one of his
minister's most splendid palaces for more than two million francs. The
court resided sometimes at St. Cloud, sometimes at Rambouillet,
sometimes at the Trianon, but for the most part at Fontainebleau,
where the ceremonious life, to which all concerned were now well
accustomed, was marked by none of the old awkwardness and friction,
but ran as brilliantly as lavish expenditure could make it.

The pregnancy of the Empress was celebrated with great festivities,
during which Napoleon performed one of his most applauded acts--the
endowment of a vast maternity hospital. The Empress was brought into
great prominence as the president of a society consisting of a
thousand noble ladies under whose patronage the charity was placed.

The unconcealed and ecstatic delight of the prospective father found
vent in delicate and tender attention to the mother of his child, and
until her deliverance he was a gentle, devoted, and considerate
husband. His whole nature seemed transformed. When in the early
morning of March twentieth, 1811, word was brought that the Empress
was in labor, and that a false presentation made it of instant
necessity to choose between the life of the mother and that of the
child, the feelings of the Emperor can better be imagined than
described.

If the expected heir should die his dynasty would be jeopardized, his
enemies would once more be making appointments over his grave, the
hopes of a lifetime might be shattered. But there was not a moment's
wavering. "Think only of the mother," he cried. The fears of the
attending physician were vain, after all, and the man-child, coming
without a cry into the world and lying breathless for seven minutes as
if hesitating to accept or decline his destiny, finally gave a wail as
at last he caught the breath of life. Napoleon turned, caught up his
treasure, and pressed it to his bosom. A hundred guns announced the
birth, and the city burst into jubilations, which were reëchoed
throughout Europe from Dantzic to Cadiz. Festival succeeded festival,
and for an interval men believed that the temple of Janus would be
again closed. No boy ever came on the earthly stage amid such
splendors, or seemed destined to honors such as appeared to await this
one. The devotion of the father was passionate and unwavering. It
lasted even after he had been deserted and betrayed by the mother,
after the child had been estranged and turned into an Austrian prince.

CHAPTER XXIV

TENSION BETWEEN EMPEROR AND CZAR[39]

         [Footnote 39: References: Bernhardi, Geschichte Russlands,
         II. Ranke, Hardenberg u. Preussen (vol. 48 of his complete
         works, 1879). Lefebvre, Histoire des Cabinets de l'Europe.
         Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre Ier, parts of Vols. II and
         III.]

     Menaces of War -- Napoleon's "Extraordinary Domain" -- Rupture of
     the Concordat -- The Prospect of War -- The Empire Prepared for a
     Commercial Siege -- Napoleon's Self-deception -- The Empires of
     Ocean and Continent -- The Czar's Humiliation -- Poland and the
     French Empire -- Alexander's Approach to Francis -- Spurious
     Negotiations.

[Sidenote: 1811]

Among other bodies which sent deputations to congratulate the Emperor
on the birth of his child was the Paris Chamber of Commerce. Their
address was sufficiently adulatory, but it contained a suggestion that
the trade and commerce of the country were not all that could be
desired. Napoleon replied in language which attracted attention
throughout Europe. There was some irritability in his tone, but there
was an unqualified assurance with regard to the future. He said, among
other things, that England was depressed. This was true; the new
measures taken to enforce the Continental system had told. British
harbors were glutted with the products of all the colonies--not only
of her own, but of those she had seized during the Napoleonic wars.
The storehouses could hold no more; and as colonial trade was
conducted by barter, all the products of English industry must remain
at home for lack of an export market. Business was at a standstill,
and the specter of English bankruptcy stalked abroad. As to France,
the Emperor declared that he was in no sense the successor of either
Louis XIV or Louis XV, but of Charles the Great; for the present
Empire was but the continuation of the old Frankish dominion. In four
years, he said in substance, I shall have a navy. When my fleets shall
have been three or four years at sea we can hold our own with the
English. I know I may lose three or four battles; very good, I will
lose them. But we are ever courageous, ever booted and spurred, and we
shall succeed. Before ten years have expired I shall have beaten
England. No state of Europe will any longer have intercourse with her.
It is my customhouses which do the greatest harm to the English. Her
blockade has injured herself the most by teaching us how to get on
without her products, her sugar, her indigo. A few years longer, and
we shall be thoroughly accustomed to it. I shall soon have enough
beet-root sugar to supply all Europe; for your manufactures there is
an open market in France, Italy, Naples, and Germany. At the close he
added words to this effect: The Bank of France is full of silver,
while that of England has not a white sou [five francs]. Since 1806 I
have taken over a milliard francs in contributions. I alone have
money. Austria is already bankrupt, and Russia and England will be.
There exist three versions of this famous allocution. In one of them
are the words: "I showed mercy to the Emperor of Russia at Tilsit in
return for promises of help; but if those promises are not kept, I
will go, if need be, to Riga, to Moscow, to St. Petersburg."

Three points of the utmost significance demand attention in this, a
typical deliverance of the "imperator," uttered at the flood-tide of
imperial success: two of them, both negative, are ominous; the third
is positive and plain. There is no reference to the financial
condition of France, or to the ecclesiastical situation. Russia was
openly threatened. The boast of wealth referred to Napoleon's own
"extraordinary domain." About this time Metternich reported to his
government that France was the richest country in Europe, but that her
treasury was empty. The budget of 1811 had nine hundred millions on
the credit side, but it had also nine hundred and fifty-four millions
on the debit. The previous year had required five hundred and ten
millions for army and navy, the present required six hundred and fifty
millions. It was a fixed principle of the Emperor to make each
generation pay its own expenses. The only source of supply he could
find was an increase of the indirect taxes and the institution of a
state monopoly in tobacco. His remedy would have been adequate but for
two causes--the drought of the ensuing summer and Russia's hostile
attitude in regard to French silks and wines. The year 1811 closed
with a deficit of forty-eight millions. This fact had a bearing on the
political situation because in general the Emperor's remedy for an
empty treasury was a new war.

The ecclesiastical situation had now become acute. As one bishopric
after another had fallen vacant, bishops had been nominated by the
Emperor; but the Pope, who was still sitting in captivity at Savona,
had from the moment of his incarceration steadily refused to institute
them. For a time, as has been explained, the difficulty had been
ingeniously avoided by the process of ecclesiastical law, according to
which the chapters of the various dioceses elected the imperial
candidates as vicars capitular, and thus enabled them to perform
episcopal functions without regard to institution. But this could not
go on forever, and every effort had been made to induce the prisoner
of Savona to yield. In response he took a firmer stand, and indicated
to the chapters both of Italy and France that they should no longer
elect the imperial nominees as vicars capitular. This was a rupture of
the Concordat, and was so regarded by Napoleon. The attitude of all
pious Catholics was becoming uneasy, and this new declaration of war
by the Church could only serve to heighten the bellicose humor of the
Emperor. The Pope was eventually brought to terms, partly by
increasing the rigors of his imprisonment, partly by terrorizing his
agents in France, but chiefly through the representations made to him
by the ablest ecclesiastics of the realm, and by the summoning of a
church council, which turned out nearly as subservient to the secular
authority as the Jewish Sanhedrim had been.

With reference to the third point, it seems impossible to determine
whether the menace to Russia was actually made, as one version of the
reply has it, or whether a later speech, at the opening of the
legislature in June, and the report on the situation of France, issued
in the same month, have not both been confused with the Emperor's talk
in March. In either case the result was identical, for France and
Europe instinctively took in the situation, and clearly understood
that the Emperor was not indisposed toward the renewal of war in
northern Europe. This third point was of course the most noteworthy of
the three, for it could be only a question of time when the storm
should burst.

If it were possible at that epoch of the world's history to
distinguish between Napoleon the man and Napoleon the embodied
political force of Europe, the aspect of the former would abound in
human interest. Filled with paternal tenderness, his sole ambition
appeared for a time to be that of retaining what he had gained, the
leadership of a Western empire as splendid as that of Charles the
Great. To make sure of this acquisition and hand it on to his heir,
he seems for a moment to have dreamed of standing forth as the
pacificator of Europe. He actually withdrew the mass of his troops
from Germany for use in Spain, leaving only enough to watch Prussia
and guard Westphalia; with the former power he finally formulated his
pecuniary demands, as if thus to put an end to strife. The "rebellion"
in Spain he intended to crush out by the pacific operations of a
commercial warfare with England, which he felt certain would bring
Great Britain to terms, now that for the first time since the outbreak
of hostilities the blood of her soldiers "was flowing in a stream." He
was probably strengthened in this conviction by the reluctant consent
of the cabinet of St. James to open negotiations for the exchange of
prisoners on the very basis he had suggested long before. Believing,
moreover, that European princes had by this time lost their delicate
sensibility, it seemed no monstrous crime to consolidate his empire
for its commercial siege by the simple expedient of removing the Duke
of Oldenburg from his hereditary domains which bordered on the ocean
and offering him the inland sovereignty of Erfurt, or by adopting the
alternative expedient of leaving him to enjoy the former under French
protection. It seems presumptuous to attempt any revelation of his
feelings, but surely he might hope that then, controlling every inlet
to European commerce from Corfu around by Triest, Italy, Spain, and
the Texel as far as Lübeck, his wall of protection for French
manufactures would do its work, that in a few years France would be
the industrial and commercial center of continental Europe. With Paris
the capital of a new Western empire, the true relation between the
secular and ecclesiastical heads of the world would be reëstablished,
as it could not be while the papacy had its seat at Rome, and all
things would work together under a strong hand to humble the island
empire of England, destroy her ascendancy on the mainland, and thus
bring in a moral and material millennium for the civilized world.

But alas for such self-deception, if, indeed, it ever existed. Nature
is too complex and habit too strong for such sudden sublimations of
purpose. Had the true, complex Napoleon in his supposed communing
asked the question, What then? sincerity would have compelled him to
reply, More beyond. Men remembered to have heard him use the
expression, "Emperor of the Continent," in these very days, jocularly,
perhaps, but still with significance. Orders were issued in March,
1811, to fit out vessels for two expeditions, one against Sicily and
Egypt, one against Ireland; if these were successful he could then
work his will at the Cape of Good Hope and ultimately in the East and
West Indies. "They want to know where we are going, where I shall
plant the new Pillars of Hercules," he said. "We will make an end of
Europe, and then, as robbers fling themselves on others less bold, we
will fling ourselves on India, which the latter class have mastered."
About the same time the Bavarian minister, pleading for peace,
received the retort: "Three years more, and I am lord of the
universe." When Mollien advised against war, on account of the fiscal
disorders, the reply was: "On the contrary, the finances are falling
into disorder, and for that very reason need war." Behind Napoleon the
father was the ambitious and haughty statesman combined with the
self-reliant general, the embodiment of French ambitions as they had
consolidated in the old régime, and had been transmitted through the
Revolution, the Directory, and the Consulate to the Empire.

But there were two other gladiators in the arena: England, hard
pressed but still undaunted in her mastery of the seas which flowed
around her majestic colonial empire; Russia, grimly determined to hold
an even balance with France in Europe while reëstablishing by the
overthrow of Turkey the eastern counterpoise to Napoleon's western
dominion. The Czar of Muscovy would fain have passed for a
philosopher. Fourteen years earlier, when in his eighteenth year, he
had fallen under the charm of Prince Adam Czartoryski, a youth of
about his own age, whom the Empress Catherine had taken as a hostage
after the final dismemberment of Poland in 1795. Trained by his
grandmother to play her own rôle of enlightened despot, the young
ruler, still in those early years when generous impulses rule,
conversed with his friend, the representative of a downtrodden land,
about the possibility of a restored and regenerated Poland, avowing
his secret detestation of all that he was compelled in public to
profess. We may picture the joy of the noble Pole at the thought of
his country made whole once more, even though it were destined to be
but semi-autonomous as a member of the Russian empire. But years
rolled by, and Czartoryski, though preferred to place and honor by the
Czar, heard less and less of the young philosopher's scheme. In 1805
he finally wrung from Alexander a promise that he would begin to act;
but it was very soon withdrawn, and Czartoryski retired to his
estates. The realities and selfishness of life eclipsed the man of
sensibility and developed the despot. For a time, however, he essayed
the rôle of European mediator, with what success Tilsit is the
witness.

Disgusted from the practical point of view with the old dynasties and
their chicanery, Alexander had not only eschewed the idea of a
reconstructed Poland, but had become indifferent to the territorial
lines of all ancient Europe, and momentarily dreamed of Napoleon as
his twin emperor. To this end he too must likewise be a conqueror.
Finland he had gained, but at the price of adhesion to a commercial
system which was gradually ruining his people. The exhausting,
slow-moving war with Turkey was still dragging on, and neither
Moldavia nor Wallachia was yet acquired. Oldenburg was incorporated
into France. The grand duchy of Warsaw was not merely the specter of a
restored Poland: the addition of Galicia to its territories had given
it solidity and substance. The Franco-Austrian alliance was a menace
to all the Czar's aspirations on the Balkan peninsula. It was clear
that he must choose between keeping his engagements to the letter and
an open rupture. He had been beaten and humiliated at his own game.

The first steps toward a rupture had already been taken before
Napoleon's second marriage. In the last days of 1809 Alexander had
negotiated with Caulaincourt, the French ambassador at St. Petersburg,
a treaty requiring from his ally a formal promise that Poland should
never be restored and the name never officially used. It is certain,
from the language used at the time, that the two questions of Poland
and the Russian marriage were not connected; the former he could raise
merely as an ally with a just expectation of a favorable reply. It is
of course possible that Alexander hoped Napoleon might connect them,
and thus sign the Polish treaty in the hope that his request for the
grand duchess would be granted as a return. In that case the Russian
emperor could still have refused his sister's hand, putting his ally's
compliance in regard to Poland on the ground of existing political
relations. He might then have laughed in his sleeve at his outwitted
dupe. Be that as it may, Napoleon was the craftier. He replied that he
would sign, not this document, but one slightly different, though
quite as satisfactory to Russia. Accordingly he drew up, executed, and
forwarded to Russia a counter-project promising "never to give help or
assistance to any power, or to any internal rising whatsoever, looking
to a restoration of the kingdom of Poland." A few days after its
arrival at St. Petersburg came the news of the Austrian marriage.

Two courses were now open to the Czar. One was to take advantage of
the strong Russian party which existed among the Poles in Warsaw,
promise a restoration of Poland with himself as king, and enter on an
offensive campaign against France. This scheme is contained in an
extant letter addressed to him by Prince Galitzin. The other was to
negotiate further and await events. After dallying for a time with the
former idea, the Czar at length told Czartoryski that he could never
consider giving up provinces already incorporated into Russia,--which
meant of course that he would not restore the integrity of
Poland,--but that he might accept the crown of the grand duchy of
Warsaw as it was, including Galicia. Secret agents were thereupon
despatched to sound the Austrian court. If the partition of Turkey
should take place, as was already determined, could not Russia and
Austria join hands to secure each her own interests against France? In
view of the fact that Napoleon had rejected the idea of destroying
Turkey because Russia had displayed jealousy of Austria and had
refused her any share in the Turkish lands, this was a virtual
declaration of hostilities.

Alexander's overture was unheeded at Vienna, at least for the moment,
because Metternich was in Paris wooing Napoleon's good will.
Simultaneously and openly, therefore, the fencing between Paris and
St. Petersburg went on. A rejoinder to the counter-project was laid
on Napoleon's desk, containing the identical words, "that the kingdom
of Poland shall never be restored." This persistence angered the
recipient, and seemed capable of but one interpretation. If Alexander
did not consider the guarantees given by France after Friedland and
Wagram to be sufficient, could Napoleon see in this reiterated demand
anything more or less than a determination of the Czar not to abide by
the engagements of Russia unless new ones were given by himself? He
returned therefore a softly worded, non-committal reply, and began to
make unmistakable preparations: a journey to Flanders for the purpose
of rousing public opinion on his behalf, the strengthening of certain
fortresses, and a general rapprochement to Austria in all his
relations. The negotiations continued a little longer, Russia
insisting on the phrase as first written, France declaring that its
use would be a confession of the insinuation contained in it, and
therefore incompatible with her dignity. Any other equivalent language
she would use, but not that.

CHAPTER XXV

THE ARRAY OF NATIONS[40]

         [Footnote 40: References as before, to which add Lehmann:
         Scharnhorst, Vol. II.]

     Estrangement of France and Russia -- Premonitions of War --
     Alexander's Secret Policy -- The Various Factors in the Situation
     -- Bernadotte -- The Eve of a General Conflagration -- England
     and Prussia -- Austria and Prussia -- Alliance between Sweden and
     Russia -- England and the United States -- The Confederation of
     the Rhine -- The State of France.

[Sidenote: 1811-12]

Meanwhile Metternich, confident that in the partition of Turkey better
terms could be obtained for Austria from Napoleon than from Alexander,
was doing his utmost to embitter the relations of France and Russia. A
strong Russian party in Vienna was in close touch with the numerous
Poles in Warsaw who looked to Alexander for the restoration of their
country's integrity. In both places there was much talk of the
restoration of Poland, in Warsaw especially, and the phrase was
constantly in the newspapers. Alexander's ambassador in Paris made
urgent representations concerning "a persistent rumor that the Emperor
intends to restore Poland." Napoleon retorted in fury, and threatened
war, but immediately wrote a soothing assurance that he was still true
to the engagements of Tilsit, and as to the treaty itself he would
agree to changes, but would never brand his own memory with dishonor.
On July first, while the lines were in the copyist's hands, there
occurred the incident which many thought at the time changed the
course of history. During a magnificent festival given by the Austrian
ambassador, the decorations in an open court took fire, and the
conflagration spread, enveloping the entire embassy. All the important
guests escaped unhurt except Kourakine, the Russian ambassador, who
was so injured that he could no longer perform his official duties. It
appeared to throw a strong light on Napoleon's character as a man that
almost immediately his humor seemed to change; his personal
obligations to the much-abused but well-bred envoy could not now be
wiped out by a gentle reply to the master; hence, apparently, he
curtly dismissed the Russian chargé d'affaires, and ended the
negotiation. It was when this news reached St. Petersburg that
Alexander a second time offered Norway to Sweden.

The real cause of Napoleon's abrupt manner was the news communicated
by Metternich that the Russian army had advanced successfully to the
Danube. On July seventeenth Francis despatched an envoy requesting his
new son-in-law to join him in a protest against the aggressions of the
Czar; in other words, to throw the agreements of Tilsit and Erfurt to
the winds. Napoleon returned an unhesitating and honorable refusal,
but said significantly to Metternich: "If Russia quarrels with us she
will lose Finland, Moldavia, and Wallachia," adding that if the Czar,
contrary to his engagement of 1808, should seize anything south of the
Danube, then he himself would intervene on Austria's behalf. But all
Europe seemed convinced that war was inevitable. In all the
watering-places the talk was of nothing else. The Russian party in
Vienna grew bolder; Pozzo di Borgo, Napoleon's life-long foe, who had
been temporarily under a cloud in Russia, appeared in Vienna in his
Russian uniform, courted and oracular. A French interpreter on his way
to Persia was stopped by him, and bribed to enter the Russian service.
In a terse personal note written by his own hand, Napoleon called
Alexander's attention to the facts, but without awaiting the reply he
went further. Kourakine, partly recovered, was leaving Paris for home.
Through him the Emperor poured into his ally's ear a long exposure of
the situation, saying in substance that war was to be avoided, that he
had not the slightest intention of restoring Poland, and that if the
Czar would write what was desired as a guarantee in the form of a
newspaper article, the words should be inserted unchanged in the
"Moniteur." At the same time orders were sent commanding Caulaincourt
to end all negotiation, and the Poles were peremptorily enjoined to
silence. Simultaneously schemes for a new naval campaign were
gradually being perfected, so that they might be realized the
following year.

Something of Alexander's secret diplomacy must have leaked out, but he
appeared unmoved. He was steadily preparing for war, strengthening his
fortresses, and locating fortified camps in the district between the
Dwina and the Dnieper. But his chief concern was with Poland. Relying
on the Jesuit influence at Warsaw for support against the jailer of
the Pope, he again took up his old scheme of restoring the country as
an appanage of the Russian crown, and wrote to Czartoryski. The plan
was dazzling: a national army, a national administration, and a
liberal constitution. But that nobleman, after a long residence in his
native land, had learned how strong was the conviction of his
countrymen that Napoleon would give them a more complete autonomy than
the Czar, and sent back what must have been a discouraging reply,
although it has never been found. Alexander on its receipt determined
that the coming war should be defensive on his part, and immediately
opened communications with England and Sweden concerning the
Continental System. Finally, in the closing days of the year, he
issued a ukase excluding wines, silks, and similar luxuries from
France, but facilitating the entry of the colonial wares in which
England dealt. This was an act of open hostility to his old ally, a
declaration of commercial war. Prussia immediately made semi-official
advances to the Czar, but they were repelled.

It is not easy to estimate Napoleon's responsibility for what had
happened and was about to happen. He was persistently domineering,
contemptuous of national feeling and dynastic politics, over-confident
in the unswerving devotion of France, inflexible in his policy of
territorial aggrandizement, ruthless in applying his peculiar
conceptions of finance and political economy, and pitiless in his own
self-seeking. On the other hand, Alexander, having received Prussia's
autonomy as his part, had proved an untrustworthy ally from the
outset. Having seized Finland, he would not pay the price, but first
evaded the Continental System, then rejected it, and finally declared
commercial war on France; in the latest conflict between France and
Austria he had actually wooed the latter's favor. Procrastinating in
the marriage affair, he was furious when the suppliant turned
elsewhere, and at once displayed an insulting mistrust concerning
Poland; finally, he declared diplomatic war by his overtures to
England and his secret machinations in Vienna; there was but a final
step in the evolution of complete hostility, the declaration of
military war. Austria, too, had done her utmost to bring on a
conflict, hoping to find her account in the dissensions of the two
empires. Her policy demanded her territorial aggrandizement at the
expense of Turkey; in a war between France and Russia she was sure to
find her account, and there was nothing in Metternich's dealings
with Napoleon which tended to preserve the peace of Europe.

Sweden, under Bernadotte, was manifestly anxious to find a cause of
offense, being defiant in temper, and ready to do anything for the
purpose of strengthening the hands of Alexander and escaping from
French protection. So feeble was the titular King of Sweden that the
adoptive crown prince speedily became the real ruler, and his personal
desires were soon the public policy. It was a strange transformation
which took place in the man. He had been generous and kindly in the
difficult positions he held as a French general. Avowedly a
revolutionary democrat of the most radical stripe, he was nevertheless
a true Gascon and failed to display his great abilities wherever his
heart was not engaged. He had, moreover, basked in the sunshine of
imperial favor, and in an age of atheism had remained in the fold of
the Roman Church. Having himself schemed against Napoleon under the
promptings of personal ambition, he often gave aid and comfort to the
Emperor's enemies. When adopted into the royal family of Sweden it
cost him little effort to profess Lutheranism; his republican
sympathies were quenched, and he developed into a beneficent despot
anxious to put Sweden in line with Russia. He never was able to win
the affections of his people, and when before the close of his life
they demanded a liberal constitution, this democratic sovereign,
brought up under the illumination of French revolutionary doctrines,
held back until the paper had to be wrung from him. The phases of
Napoleon's life are scarcely more startling than those of this rather
commonplace actor on a stage which was provincial when compared with
the cosmopolitan scene of the Emperor's life-drama.

In the spring of 1811 all Europe knew that war was inevitable. "It
will occur," wrote Napoleon on April second of that year, "in spite of
me, in spite of the Emperor Alexander, in spite of the interests of
France and those of Russia. I have already so often seen this that it
is my experience of the past which unveils to me the future.... It is
all a scene in an opera, and the English control the machinery." A
week later he notified Alexander that he was aware of the movement of
Russian troops toward Poland, and declared that he himself was
likewise preparing. Lauriston was sent to replace the too pacific
Caulaincourt at St. Petersburg, and Champagny was removed from the
Foreign Office to make way for the fiery Maret. There was much to be
done before the actual outbreak of hostilities. England's history is
the story of her struggles for nationality, for religious, civil, and
political liberty, and for mercantile ascendancy. Her inborn longings
for the highest civilization were not inconsistent with her grim
determination to resist a system that stood on the Continent for
progress, but which she had come to believe meant national ruin for
her. Prussia, with a new vigor born of self-denial, education, and
passionate patriotism; Sweden, restless and uneasy under the yoke of
Napoleonic supremacy; Denmark, friendly, but independent in her
quasi-autonomy; the United States, chafing under the restrictions of
her commerce; Turkey, sick to death, but then as now pivotal in all
European politics--the relation of all these powers to the coming
conflict was still a question, and during a year much might be done in
a diplomatic way to determine it. The whole civilized world was to be
in array, although the life-and-death struggle was to be between two
insatiate despotisms, one Western and modern, the other Oriental and
theocratic. Napoleon grasped the tendency of his own career but dimly.
Goethe said of him, "He lives entirely in the ideal, but can never
consciously grasp it." Unconsciously, too, Alexander the Great had
fought for the extension of Greek culture; Cæsar, to destroy the
stifling institutions of a worn-out system; Charles the Great, to
realize the "city of God" on earth; Napoleon, for nationality,
individual liberty, popular sovereignty. What was personal and petty
in the work of these Titans, being ephemeral, disappeared in the death
of each; what was human and large has endured and will endure. The
creative ideas of the revolutionary era with which Napoleon's name is
so closely connected are no longer called in question; his own career
was now verging to its decline, but in his fall the fundamental
conceptions of the epoch were firmly established.

In January, 1812, Wellington, as has been mentioned, stormed Ciudad
Rodrigo; on April sixth Badajoz fell. On April eighteenth Napoleon
offered terms of peace, Spain to be kept intact under Joseph, Portugal
to be restored to the house of Braganza, Sicily to remain under
Ferdinand, and Naples under Murat. Considering all the circumstances,
the offer was worthy of consideration; but the English cabinet refused
it. The possibility of peace with Great Britain being thus
extinguished, Napoleon considered what course he should pursue toward
the other great Protestant land, which also felt itself to be
struggling for life. Some well-informed persons asserted that at first
the Emperor contemplated destroying the Hohenzollern power utterly. If
so, he quickly dismissed the idea as involving unnecessary risk. With
the reforms of Stein and Hardenberg successfully accomplished, with
her educational system completed and her army reorganized, with her
people electrified at last into true patriotism, Prussia was again a
redoubtable power. Her influence permeated all Germany, and the
secret associations which ramified everywhere labored for German
unity, their members already dreaming of the Jura, Vosges, and
Ardennes as the western frontier of their fatherland. At first
Frederick William made overtures to the Czar, offering an army of a
hundred thousand men. Alexander, desiring a purely defensive war, was
cold; but late in 1811 he agreed, in case of an attack on Prussia, to
advance as far as the Vistula, "if possible."

Meantime Austria had at first contemplated neutrality, but she
abandoned the policy when convinced that, whichever side should be
victorious, Prussia would be dismembered. Francis saw Alexander's
continued successes on the Danube with growing anxiety, and, learning
that Napoleon would put four hundred thousand men into the field, made
up his mind that France must win. Accordingly, in March, 1812, a
treaty was executed which put thirty thousand Austrian troops under
Napoleon's personal command, and stipulated for Austria's enlargement
by Galicia, Illyria, and even Silesia, in certain contingencies.
During these negotiations Frederick William had learned how stupendous
Napoleon's preparations were, and, with some hesitancy, he finally
sent Scharnhorst to sound Austria. The result was determinative, and
on February twenty-fourth, 1812, a treaty between France and Prussia
was signed, which gave Prussia nothing, but exacted from her twenty
thousand men for active service, with forty-two thousand for garrison
duty, and afforded the French armies free course through her
territories, with the right to charge up such requisitions as were
made against the war indemnity. To this pass Alexander's narrowness
had brought the proud, regenerated nation; its temper can be imagined.

French diplomacy, triumphant elsewhere, was utterly unsuccessful
with Sweden. Alexander offered Norway as the price of alliance, with
hints of the crown of France for Bernadotte somewhere in the dim
future. Napoleon temptingly offered Finland for forty thousand Swedish
soldiers. But the new crown prince was seemingly coy, and dallied with
both. This temporizing was brought to a sudden end in January, 1812,
when Davout occupied Swedish Pomerania. On April twelfth the alliance
between Sweden and Russia was sealed. It carried with it an armistice
between Russia and Great Britain. This was essential to the Czar, for
he would be compelled to withdraw his troops from the Danube for
service in the North, and to that end must make some arrangement with
Turkey. He offered the most favorable terms; Napoleon, on the other
hand, demanded a hundred thousand men if he were to restore to the
Sublime Porte all it had lost. England threatened to bombard
Constantinople if there should be too much hesitancy, and on May
twenty-eighth, 1812, the Sultan closed a bargain with Russia which
gave him the Pruth as a frontier.

In spite of Turkey's submission, Great Britain was not to be left
passive. The neutrality of the United States had, on the whole, been
successfully maintained, but their commerce suffered. On May first,
1810, Congress enacted that trade with Great Britain should be
forbidden if France revoked her decrees, and vice versa. Madison and
the Republicans believed that this would relieve the strain under
which farmers as well as merchants were now suffering. This enabled
Napoleon, in those days of slow communication, to make a pretense of
relaxing the Berlin and Milan decrees, while continuing to seize
American ships as before. England was not for a moment deceived, and
enforced the orders in council with added indignities. This conduct so
exasperated the American people that they demanded war with the
oppressor, and on June nineteenth the war of 1812 began. Napoleon's
diplomatic juggling had been entirely successful.

A year earlier the princes of the Rhenish Confederation had received
their orders. Their peoples were unresponsive, but the zeal of the
rulers overcame all opposition. The King of Saxony was grateful in a
lively sense of favors to come, and his grand duchy of Warsaw became
an armed camp, the Poles themselves expecting their national
resurrection. The prince primate's realm was erected into a grand
duchy for Eugène, whose viceroyalty was destined for the little King
of Rome, and under the stimulus of a fresh nationality the people gave
more than was demanded. Würtemberg and Baden learned that Napoleon
"preferred enemies to uncertain friends," and both found means to
supply their respective quotas. Jerome, true to the fraternal
instincts of the Bonapartes, hesitated; but his queen was a woman of
sound sense, and both were alive to the uncertainties of tenure in
royal office, so that, receiving a peremptory summons, Westphalia fell
into line. Bavaria and Switzerland furnished their contingents as a
matter of course. Among the Germans, some hated Napoleon for his
dealings with the papacy, some as the destroyer of their petty
nationalities; some devout Protestants even thought him the
antichrist. But the great majority were in a state of expectancy, many
realizing that even the dynastic politics of Europe had been vitalized
by his advent; others, liberals like Goethe, Wieland, and Dalberg,
hoped for the complete extinction of feudalism and dynasticism before
his march.

This had already been accomplished in France, and for that reason the
peasantry and the townsfolk upheld the Empire. In Paris the upper
classes had never forgotten the Terror, and were ready for monarchy
in any form if only it brought a settled order and peace. There were
still a few radicals and many royalists, but the masses cared only for
two things, glory and security. They enjoyed the temporary repose
under a rule which protected the family, property, and in a certain
sense even religion. Family life at the Tuileries was a model, the
Emperor finding his greatest pleasure in domestic amusements, playing
billiards, riding, driving, and even romping, with his young wife,
while his tenderness for the babe was phenomenal. Still he was no
puritan, and the lapsed classes could indulge themselves in vice if
only they paid; from their purses fabulous sums were turned into the
Emperor's secret funds. Under the Continental System industry was at a
standstill, and every household felt the privation of abstaining from
the free use of sugar and other colonial wares. There was, however,
general confidence in speedy relief, and there were worse things than
waiting. The peasantry were weary of seeing their soldier sons return
from hard campaigning with neither glory nor booty, and began to
resent the conscription law, which tore the rising generation from
home while yet boys. Desertions became so frequent that a terrible law
was passed, making, first the family, then the commune, and lastly the
district, responsible for the missing men. It was enforced mercilessly
by bodies of riders known as "flying columns." Finally, every
able-bodied male was enrolled for military service in three
classes--ban, second ban, and rear ban, the last including all between
forty and sixty. Nevertheless, and in spite of all other hardships,
there was much enthusiasm at the prospect of a speedy change for the
better. In March, 1812, Napoleon could count not far from four hundred
and seventy-five thousand men ready for the field. Berthier was
retained as chief of staff. In the guard were forty-seven thousand
picked men, the old guard under Lefebvre, the young guard under
Bessières. Davout's corps numbered seventy-two thousand, all French;
Oudinot's thirty-seven thousand, French and Swiss; Ney's thirty-nine
thousand, French and Würtembergers; Prince Eugène's forty-five
thousand, French and Italians; Poniatowski's thirty-six thousand, all
Poles; Gouvion Saint-Cyr's twenty-five thousand, all Bavarians;
Regnier's seventeen thousand, all Saxons; Vandamme's eighteen
thousand, Hessians and Westphalians; Macdonald's thirty-two thousand,
Prussians and Poles. Murat commanded the cavalry reserve of four corps
under Nansouty, Montbrun, Grouchy, and Latour-Maubourg respectively,
and numbering in all forty thousand. In addition to this majestic
array there were thirty thousand Austrians under Schwarzenberg, and
the ninth corps of thirty-three thousand French and Germans under
Victor was to follow. "I have never made greater preparations," the
Emperor wrote to Davout.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE CONGRESS OF KINGS[41]

         [Footnote 41: References: Bittard des Portes: Les
         préliminaires de l'entrevue d'Erfurt (1808). In Revue
         d'histoire diplomatique, tom. IV, pp. 95-144. Sklower:
         Entrevue de Napoleon Ier et de Goethe suivie de notes et
         commentaires.]

     Forebodings -- Napoleon and Maria Louisa -- The Czar's Ultimatum
     and the Emperor's Choice -- Napoleon's Last Diplomatic Move --
     The Imperial Court at Dresden -- Napoleon and Poland -- The
     Health of Napoleon -- His Strategic Powers Undiminished.

[Sidenote: 1812]

Ready--at least to outward appearance, Napoleon was in truth ready as
far as equipment, organization, commissariat, strategic plan, and every
nice detail of official forethought could go. But how about the
efficiency and zeal of men and officers? There had been murmurings for
some years past. It was remarked that Napoleon's studies in 1808 were
the campaigns of Rome against the Parthians from the days of Crassus
onward; from his death-bed Lannes had warned his chief in 1809 how ready
many of his most trusted servants were to betray him if he continued his
career of conquest; Decrès, another true friend, expressed his anxiety
in 1810 lest they should all be thrown into a final horrid elemental
crash; and in 1811 Regnault de Saint-Jean-d'Angély exclaimed, "The
unhappy man will undo himself, undo us all, undo everything." The
Emperor heard neither of these last forebodings, but is doubtfully
reported to have himself declared, "I am driven onward to a goal which I
know not." Caulaincourt made no secret of how his anxiety increased as
he knew Russia better. He was recalled because, having learned Russia's
pride and Russia's resources, he made no attempt to conceal his aversion
to the final arbitrament of bloodshed. Poniatowski believed Lithuania
would refuse to rise against her despot; Ségur and Duroc foresaw that
France, if degraded to be but one province of a great empire, would lose
her enthusiasm; even Fouché, having been permitted, on the plea of
ill-health, to return from his exile in Italy, ventured to draw up a
vigorous and comprehensive memorial against war, and instanced the fate
of Charles XII. The contents of Fouché's paper were divulged to Napoleon
by a spy, and when the author presented it he was met by contemptuous
sarcasm. The Emperor believed Prussia to be helpless, chiding Davout for
his doleful reports of the new temper which had been developed. Jomini
declared, but long afterward, that the great captain had avowed to a
confidential friend his eagerness for the excitement of battle.

But in spite of the anxiety felt by a few leading Frenchmen, there was
general confidence, and it was not until after the catastrophe that
details like those enumerated were recalled. It is customary to
attribute Napoleon's zeal for war to the fiery counsels of Maret. But
there is no necessity to seek any scapegoat. In reality the outlook in
1812 was better than in 1809. Napoleon's spirits were higher, his
conscripts were not visibly worse than any drafted since the beginning
of the Consulate, and the veteran Coignet's remark concerning the
march to Russia is that "Providence and courage never abandon the good
soldier." As to the commander-in-chief, he had largely forsaken his
licentious courses, partly from reasons of policy, partly because of
his sincere attachment to wife and child. Throughout the years of
youth and early manhood he had indulged his amorous passions, but
until his second marriage not a single woman had been preferred to
power, not even Josephine. Maria Louisa, however, was an imperial
consort, for whom no attention, no elevation, was too great. Pliant
while an Austrian archduchess, she remained so as empress, apparently
without will or enterprise. Men felt, nevertheless, that, remaining an
Austrian externally, she was probably still one at heart, perhaps a
mere lure thrown out to keep the hawk from other quarry. There was
much in her subsequent conduct to justify such suspicions, but the
utter shamelessness of her later years argues rather the
self-abandonment of one in revolt against the rigid social restraints
and personal annihilation of early life. The hours which Napoleon
spent with her were so many that he laid himself open to the charge of
uxoriousness. The physician attendant at the birth of the infant King
of Rome declared that the mother would succumb to a second
confinement, and the father exercised a self-restraint consonant with
the consideration he had displayed at the birth of his heir. He was
the squire and constant attendant of his spouse, her riding-master
even, and often her playfellow in the romps of which she was still
fond. Scenes of idyllic bliss were daily observed by the keen eyes of
the attendants. The choice of governesses, tutors, and servants for
the little prince was personally superintended by his sire, and every
detail of the feeding, dressing, and airing of the prospective emperor
was the subject of minute inquiry and regulation. When it was clear
that war was imminent, Napoleon seemed for the first time ready to
abandon his abhorrence for female governance. Certainly his domestic
happiness had not sapped his moral power; possibly it rendered him
over-anxious at times, and, perhaps in revulsion from anxiety,
over-confident.

During two years of diplomatic fencing the initiative had been
Russian, the instigation French. For the war which followed no single
cause can be assigned. Some blamed Napoleon, claiming that with his
scheme of universal empire it was inevitable; Metternich said Russia
had brought on war in an unpardonable manner. The Tilsit alliance was
personal; the separation of the contracting parties inevitably
weakened it. The affiliations of the Russian aristocracy with the
Austrian; the smart of both under the Continental System, which
rendered their agriculture unprofitable; England's stand under
Castlereagh; the Oldenburg question--all these were cumulative in
their effect. With Alexander, Poland and the Continental System were
the real difficulties; the marriage question was only secondary. On
January twelfth, 1812, the Czar with mournful and solemn mien declared
his hands clean of blood-guiltiness and laid down his ultimatum. To
the concentration of Russian troops Napoleon had replied by sending
his own to Erfurt and Magdeburg. Alexander formally stated his
readiness to take back his own move if the Emperor would withdraw the
French soldiers; he would even accept Erfurt for Oldenburg, and permit
Warsaw to be capital of a Saxon province. But he said not a word about
the Continental System, being fully determined not to yield one jot,
and for Napoleon this was the primary matter. Alexander's ultimatum by
its clever form compelled his ally either to abandon the scheme of
Western empire or to fight. Both parties to the Tilsit alliance
understood that with European harbors shut to English trade, Great
Britain must cease to support the Spanish insurrection, which in that
case a few thousand troops could hold in check. Then the great scheme
of revolutionary extension which had been inaugurated by the
Convention and logically developed by Napoleon step by step in every
war and treaty since Campo Formio would in a few short years be
complete. But two real powers would thus remain in continental
Europe--France and Russia. They could by united action crush British
power both by land and by sea. To dash this brimming cup from his lips
was for Napoleon an insupportable thought. With the hope, apparently,
of securing from the Czar the last essential concession, he set his
troops in motion toward the Vistula on the very day after his treaty
with Prussia was signed.

The natural counter-move to Napoleon's advance would be the invasion
of Warsaw; although the new Poland was fortified for defense, yet it
might be overwhelmed before assistance could reach the garrisons.
Moreover, there were ominous signs in France at the opening of 1812.
Food supplies were scarce, and speculators were buying such as there
were. Napoleon felt he must remain yet a little while to check such an
outrage and to strengthen public confidence. Ostensibly to avoid a
final rupture, but really to prevent the premature opening of war, he
therefore summoned Czernicheff, the Czar's aide-de-camp, who, as a
kind of licensed spy, had been hovering near him for three years past,
and offered to accept every item of the Russian ultimatum, if only an
equitable treaty of commerce could be substituted for the ukase of
December, 1810; in other words, if Alexander would agree to observe
the letter and spirit of the Continental System. During the two months
intervening before the Czar's reply not a Cossack set foot on Polish
soil, while day by day Napoleon's armies flowed onward across Europe
toward the plains of Russia, and a temporary remedy for the economic
troubles of France was found. When, late in April, the answer came, it
was, as expected, a declaration that without the neutral trade Russia
could not live; she would modify the ukase somewhat, but, as a
condition antecedent to peace, France must evacuate Prussia and make
better terms with Sweden. On May first the French army reached the
Vistula; on May ninth Napoleon and his consort started for Dresden,
whither all the allied sovereigns had been summoned to pay their court
as vassals to the second Charles the Great.

The surge of German patriotism had nearly drowned Napoleon in 1809,
but for manifest reasons it had again receded. The Austrian marriage
had withdrawn the house of Hapsburg from the leadership of Germany;
the imperial progress to Dresden and the high imperial court held
there were intended to dazzle the masses of Europe, possibly to
intimidate the Czar. The French were genuinely enthusiastic; the
Germans displayed no spite; princes, potentates, and powers swelled
the train; all the monarchs of the coalition, under Francis as dean of
the corps, stood in array to receive the august Emperor. From the
spectacular standpoint Dresden is the climax of the Napoleonic drama.
Surrounded by men who at least bore the style of sovereigns, the
Corsican victor stood alone in the focus of monarchical splendor. At
his side, and resplendent, not in her own but in his glory, was the
daughter of the Cæsars, the child of a royal house second to none in
antiquity or majesty, his wife, his consort, his defiance to a passing
system. Maria Louisa was as haughty as the Western Empress should be,
patronizing her father and stepmother, and boasting how superior the
civilization of Paris was to that of Vienna. It was during these days
that she first saw Neipperg, the Austrian chamberlain, who was later
her morganatic husband. Napoleon appeared better: self-possessed,
moderate, and genial. His vassals and his relatives, his marshals and
his generals, all seemed content, and even merry. The King of Prussia
had lost his beautiful and unfortunate queen; he alone wore a sad
countenance. Yet it was rumored that the Prussian crown prince was a
suitor for one of Napoleon's nieces. Beneath the gay exterior were
many sad, bitter, perplexed hearts. The Emperor was seldom seen except
as a lavish host at public entertainments; most of the time he spent
behind closed doors with the busy diplomats. As a last resort,
Narbonne was sent to Russia, ostensibly to invite Alexander's presence
in the interest of peace; actually, of course, to get a final glimpse
of his preparations. The Abbé de Pradt was despatched into Poland to
fan the enthusiasm for France.

This unparalleled court was dismissed on May twenty-eighth, the
Empress returning by way of Prague to Paris, Napoleon hastening by
Posen and Warsaw to Thorn. The Poles were exuberant in their delight;
they little knew that their supposed liberator had bargained away
Galicia to Francis in return for Austrian support. For this betrayal,
and his general contempt of the Poles, he was to pay dearly. Had he
labored sincerely to organize a strong nucleus of Polish nationality,
a coalition of Russia, Prussia, and Austria such as finally
overwhelmed him would have been difficult, perhaps impossible. But the
founder of an imperial dynasty could not trust a Polish democracy.
When the Diet, sitting at Warsaw, besought him to declare the
existence of Poland, he criticized the taste which made them compose
their address in French instead of Polish, and gave a further inkling
of his temper by sending his Austrian contingent to serve in Volhynia,
so that neither French nor Polish enthusiasm might rouse the Russian
Poles. When he reached Vilna he found that the impassive Lithuanians
had no intention of rising against Russia, and no attempt was made to
rouse them. If, as appears, his first intention had been to wage a
frontier campaign, that plan was quickly changed. Retaining Venice
and Triest for use against the Orient, with Austria virtually a member
of his system, he determined to force Russia back on to the confines
of Europe, perhaps into Asia, and then--Who can say? It seems as if
Poland was to have been divided into French departments instead of
being erected into another troublesome nation, vassal state, or
semi-autonomous power.

At the opening of the Russian campaign the gradual change which had
been steadily going on in Napoleon's physique was complete. He was now
plethoric, and slow in all his movements. Occasionally there were
exhibitions of quickened sensibility, which have been interpreted as
symptoms of an irregular epilepsy; but in general his senses, like his
expression, were dull. He had premonitions of a painful disease
(dysuria), which soon developed fully. His lassitude was noticeable,
and when he roused himself it was often for trivialities. In other
campaigns he had stolen away from Paris in military simplicity; this
time he had brought the pomp of a court. He planned, too, to bring
theater companies and opera troupes to the very seat of war. Above
all, he was deeply concerned with his imperial state, having in his
trunks the baubles and dress he had worn at his coronation in Notre
Dame. His bearing was proud, but there was no sparkle in his eye; he
seemed spiritless and ailing; he showed no confidence in his
magnificent army.

The haughty, exacting mien of 1812 was very different from the
half-jocular, half-sarcastic curl of the lip and sparkle of the eye
which had inspired his followers in former days quite as much as his
stirring, incisive harangues. Yet careful study will prove that his
sagacity as a great captain was in no way dimmed; his military
combinations were greater than any he had ever formed. As no parallel
to the numbers engaged in this enterprise can be found in European
story, nothing comparable to its organization can be found in the
history of any land or age. Every corps had its ammunition-train, and
great reserves of supplies were stored in Modlin, Thorn, Pillau,
Dantzic, and Magdeburg. In the two last-named arsenals were
siege-trains for beleaguering Dünaburg and Riga. There were pontoons
and bridge material in abundance; one thousand three hundred and fifty
field-pieces, and eighteen thousand horses to draw them. The
commissary stores were prodigious, and there were thousands of
ox-wagons to transport them. The cattle were eventually to be
slaughtered and eaten. In various convenient strongholds there were,
besides, stores for four hundred thousand men for fifty days. Knowing
Russia, he had prepared to conquer streams and morasses, to feed the
army without fear of a devastating population, and to trust the seat
of war for nothing except forage. His strategic plan was amazing,
containing, as it did, the old elements of unexpected concentration,
of breaking through the opposing line, of conclusive victory, and
occupation of the enemy's capital. It was carried also to successful
completion, and in one respect the execution was fine. The obstacles
to be surmounted made every movement slow, and while a vast,
complicated military organization may be reliable for weeks, to make
it work for months requires qualities of greatness which increase in
geometrical ratio according to the extension of time. Twice Napoleon
bared his inmost thought, once to Metternich in Dresden, once to
Jomini at a dinner company in Vilna. The first season he intended to
seize Minsk and Smolensk, winter there, and organize his conquests. If
this should not produce a peace, he would advance in the following
season into the heart of the country, and there await the Czar's
surrender. To his army he issued an address as direct and ringing as
that which had echoed sixteen years before across the plains of
Lombardy. Its substance is that the second Polish war would bring the
same renown to French arms as the first, but the peace would be such
as should end forever the haughty interference of Russia in European
affairs. It seemed to those who heard it as if Russia's hour had
struck.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE INVASION OF RUSSIA--BORODINO[42]

         [Footnote 42: References: Tatistcheff: Alexandre Ier et
         Napoléon. Czartoryski: Memoirs. De Chambray: Oeuvres. Ségur:
         La campagne de Russie. Labaume: Relation circonstanciée de la
         campagne de Russie. Wilson: A Narrative of the Campaign in
         Russia during the Year 1812. Du Casse: Mémoires et
         Correspondance du Prince Eugène. Rapp: Mémoires. Bausset:
         Mémoires. Davout: Correspondance (ed. Mazade, 1885), Vol.
         III. Lossberg, V., Briefe in die Heimat geschrieben während
         d. Feldzugs 1812 in Russland. Yorck von Wartenburg: Napoleon
         als Feldherr. Stoltyk: Napoléon en Russie.]

     Success and Failure -- The Struggle with Summer Heat -- Napoleon
     at Vitebsk -- The Russians Over-confident -- The Fight at
     Smolensk -- Technical Victory and Real Defeat -- Napoleon's Fatal
     Decision -- The Russians at Borodino -- The Battle Array --
     Napoleon's Victory -- Russian Efforts to Burn Moscow.

When Napoleon left Dresden his force was so disposed that the Russians
could not tell whether he meant to strike from north or south, and
accordingly they divided theirs, Barclay de Tolly, with a hundred and
twenty-seven thousand men, standing before Vilna; Bagration, with
sixty-six thousand, ensconcing himself behind the swamps of the upper
Pripet in Volhynia. Barclay, hoping to strike a sharp, swift blow, and
open the campaign with a moral victory, was soon convinced of the
danger, and called in Bagration, who was to be replaced by an
auxiliary force. But before the long Russian line could be drawn
together Napoleon struck the first decisive blow. Disposing his army
in echelon, with beautiful precision he suddenly turned against the
enemy's right, crossed the Niemen, and seized Vilna. This turned the
Russian flank, and Barclay fell back to the fortified camp which had
been established at Drissa in order to cover St. Petersburg. If, then,
Jerome's division had promptly advanced from Grodno, Bagration would
have been cut off and annihilated. The plan failed, partly because
Napoleon did not superintend its operation in person, partly because
Davout did not coöperate with sufficient alertness, but chiefly
through Jerome's ignorance, slowness, and self-assertion. Bagration
turned back, and, descending the Dnieper, placed himself beyond
pursuit. For a moment Napoleon contemplated a junction of Ney and
Eugène against Barclay, but the former had pushed on to seize
Dünaburg, and was out of reach. This scheme, like the other, came to
naught; Bagration, by a long, painful detour, was able to establish
communication with Drissa, and seemed likely to effect a junction with
Barclay on the road to Smolensk. As in these movements both the
Russian commanders had lost many men, there would be only a hundred
and twenty thousand in their united force, a beggarly showing in view
of the two years' preparation necessary to bring it together.
Consternation reigned in the Russian camp. The Czar could raise no
money, Drissa was painfully inadequate as a bulwark, and the people
grew desperate. The nation attributed its sorry plight to the bad
advice of the Czar's German counselors, and such was the
demoralization at the capital that Alexander was compelled to hasten
thither in order to avert complete disaster. In spite of his personal
unpopularity, he met with considerable success. The nobility and
burghers of both St. Petersburg and Moscow caught the war fever,
opened their coffers, equipped a numerous militia, and by the end of
July all Russia was hopeful and eager for battle.

This, too, was the earnest desire of Napoleon. The advance from the
Vistula to the Niemen and from the Niemen to the Dwina had been
successfully carried forward--but at what a cost! "Since we have
crossed the Niemen," wrote the artist Adam, who was at the viceroy's
headquarters, "the Emperor and his entire army are occupied by a
single thought, a single hope, a single wish--the thought of a great
battle." Men talked of a great battle as of a great festival. If the
Russian army in its own territory shriveled as it did before the
summer heat by sickness and desertion, it may be imagined how that of
the French dwindled. Their terrible sufferings could be ended only by
a battle. Heat, dust, and drought wrought havoc in their columns; the
pitiless northern sun left men and animals with little resisting
power; the flying inhabitants devastated their fields, the horses and
oxen gorged themselves on the half-rotten thatch of the abandoned
huts, and died by the wayside; the gasping soldiery had no food but
flesh. Dysentery raged, and soldiers died like flies. For a time
Saint-Cyr's Bavarian corps lost from eight to nine hundred men a day,
and it was by no means a solitary exception. Such facts account for
the dilatoriness of Napoleon's movements in part; for the rest, his
imperial plans demanded that he should organize all the territories in
his rear, and he gave himself the utmost pains to do so. Besides, he
had never before had a task so heroic in all its dimensions, and every
detail of military and political procedure required time and care in
fullest measure, the more so when preparing for a decisive, uncommon
battle.

Vitebsk and Smolensk occupy analogous positions on the rivers Dwina
and Dnieper, the former of which is to the westward and flows north;
the latter, farther inland, flows in the opposite direction into the
very heart of Russia. Barclay had planned to await Bagration at
Vitebsk, and Napoleon, arriving on July twenty-seventh, hoped for a
decisive battle there. But Davout's movements drove Bagration farther
eastward, and Barclay, instead of waiting, hurried to Smolensk, where
the junction was effected. This compulsory pursuit had, as
communications then were, thrown the extreme wings of Napoleon's army
virtually out of reach, the Prussians being near Riga, and the
Austrians in Volhynia. The long, thin line of his center must be,
therefore, drawn in for safety; and since the character of the country
had improved, he determined to concentrate near Vitebsk, and
recuperate his troops in the comparatively pleasant land which
environs that city. Both commander and officers were at first so
disheartened that they contemplated remaining for the season, Murat
alone remonstrating; but Napoleon said three years were necessary for
the Russian war. Such counsels did not long prevail; with new strength
came the old daring, and orders were sent both to Macdonald and the
Prussians on the left, and to the Austrians under Schwarzenberg on the
right, which were indicative of a great project. Napoleon's prestige
among the Poles had in fact shrunk along with his army. The latter he
could not recruit, but the former he must repair at any hazard; this
could be done only by what he designated to Jomini as a "good battle."
The success of the minor engagements to right and left, incident to
concentration, was encouraging for such a speedy and overwhelming
triumph.

The Russians at Smolensk were vainglorious at having outwitted
Napoleon, and longed to fight. Barclay alone was uneasy, but, in
deference to the prevalent sentiment, he advanced to offer battle, and
on August ninth there was a skirmish between pickets. Napoleon at
once set his army in motion, but as neither general was really well
informed or prepared, Barclay pushed on to the right, and the two
armies lost touch. Once aroused, the French spirit brooked no further
delay, and it was determined to seek the "good battle" before
Smolensk, which, lying on the right, or north, bank of the Dnieper,
could be reached only by crossing the stream. This manoeuver was
brilliantly executed. Barclay was a day's march distant on the south
bank when Ney and Murat deployed on the other side for action on
August sixteenth. Bagration, nearer at hand, threw one corps across
the river into the town, and then hurried his main force down-stream
to oppose its passage by the French.

Smolensk, called from its site the Key of Russia, and designated, from
its importance as a shrine, "The Sacred," was then a town of about
thirteen thousand inhabitants. Around the inner city was a line of
thick but dilapidated walls, and these were surrounded outside by
densely built faubourgs. The first attempt of Ney to storm the walls
failed, and a bombardment was ordered. By evening of the seventeenth
the French army were all drawn up on the north bank between the city
and the river; the Russians were opposite on the heights. During the
night of the seventeenth the Russian army began to cross the Dnieper
by the permanent bridge, which they held; a fresh garrison was thrown
into Smolensk, and at four in the morning of the eighteenth the van
began to retreat toward Moscow. Napoleon, foiled in his attempt to
carry Smolensk by storm, had hoped that Barclay would offer battle
under the walls of the town. He, therefore, waited until afternoon for
the expected appearance of his foe, but in vain. Puzzled and uneasy,
he then determined to force the fighting by a fresh assault. The
suburbs were captured late in the evening, but the walls were
impregnable. Barclay then set fire to the quarter opposite that
attacked by the French, and in the resulting confusion safely drew out
his garrison; the next morning saw his rear well beyond Napoleon's
reach, with the bridges destroyed behind it. On the twenty-third he
halted and drew up for battle behind the Uscha.

[Illustration: Map of the Russian Campaign 1812.]

Technically Napoleon had won, since an important frontier fortress was
captured; but he had not fought his great battle, nor had he cut off
his enemy's retreat. Ney and Murat were despatched in pursuit, but it
is charged on good authority that they acted recklessly, without
concert, and gave the first exhibition of a demoralization destined
later to be disastrous. In another land and under ordinary
circumstances the fight at Smolensk would have been, if not a decisive
victory, at least an effective one. But while Russia is despotic
politically, socially she is the least centralized of all lands, and a
wound in one portion of her loose organism does not necessarily reach
a vital point nor affect the seat of life and action. This Napoleon
perfectly understood. He could either summon back the patience he had
vaunted first at Dresden, then at Vitebsk, or he could yield to his
impulse for swift action and go on to Moscow in the hope, before
entering the capital, of fighting the "good battle" for which he so
longed. The older officers with long memories compared the Russian
Smolensk with the Syrian Acre. Murat had foreseen that an affair at
Smolensk would amount to nothing, and had begged Napoleon to avoid a
conflict. Rapp came in after the victory, and recalled the scenes of
distress which had marked every step of his long journey from the
Niemen: the numerous victims of dysentery and typhus who lay dying
along the roadsides, the desperate bands of marauders and deserters
who were eking out a doubtful existence by ravaging the villages, the
maddened hordes of peasants and tradespeople who were shooting or
striking down the enfeebled stragglers from the army like bullocks in
the shambles. Recounting all these horrors, he pleaded with the
Emperor to desist. But Napoleon remembered that his transport barges
had been wrecked on the river bars, and that his wagon-trains were
without horses or oxen to draw them. The counterfeit paper money he
had brought from Paris would no longer pass; where was he to find
sustenance for his still numerous force of a hundred and eighty-five
thousand men at least? Only by pressing on to some populous city; and
on the twenty-fourth his army was in motion eastward. If Alexander
could be brought to terms, he would yield more quickly with one of his
capitals in the enemy's grasp. In the attempt to form a calm judgment
concerning this conclusion it must be remembered that the French base
was secure; there were garrisons of about fourteen thousand men each
in Vitebsk, Orscha, and Mohileff; another was left at Smolensk. The
line from the Niemen to Moscow was very long, yet Schwarzenberg was on
the right to prevent Tormassoff from breaking through, and Napoleon
felt sure that Wittgenstein on the left was too weak to be a menace.
If the great captain had halted at Smolensk and strengthened himself
on the double line of the Dwina and Dnieper, as was perhaps possible
in spite of all difficulties, he would have been quite as strong in a
military way as before Austerlitz or Eylau. But had Russia learned
nothing from these two experiences, and would she come on again a
third time as on those two occasions to certain defeat? To have acted
on the affirmative hypothesis would have been to expect much. The Czar
would rather take time to raise the whole nation; if need be, to
organize, discipline, and drill his numerous levies; to wear out the
patience of the invaders and strike when the advantage was his, not
theirs. Making all allowance for troops to be left in garrison,
Napoleon would still have a hundred and fifty-seven thousand men,
hardened veterans who, though murmuring and grumbling after the
soldier's manner, were nevertheless altogether trustworthy, and would
turn sulky if compelled to retreat.

If this were Napoleon's reasoning, it proved to be fallacious, because
the Russians were constantly increasing their strength, while that of
the French, both on the base of operations and on the line of march,
was diminishing. The Austrian troops, moreover, behaved toward Russia
as the Russian soldiers had behaved toward Austria in the last
campaign; that is, as a friendly exploring guard, and not as hostile
invaders. It is now easy to say that to lengthen the French line of
operation was a military blunder. It was certainly wrong. The reasons
are, however, not altogether strategic; they are chiefly moral, and
were not so clearly discernible then. In the face of national feeling,
before the march of national regeneration, a single man,
world-conqueror though he may have been during a period of national
disorganization, is an object of microscopic size. The French emperor
did not know the strength of Russian feeling, the great revolutionist
was ignorant of the Europe he had unconsciously regenerated. If he
blundered as a strategist in not confessing defeat at Smolensk, he
behaved like a tyro in statesmanship when he courted an overthrow at
Moscow.

Barclay was charged by the old Russians with being too German in
feeling, with manoeuvering timidly when he ought to fight,
and--sacrilege of sacrileges!--with leaving the sacred image of the
Virgin at Smolensk to fall into hostile hands. Yielding to the storm
of popular feeling, Alexander appointed in his stead Kutusoff, the
darling of the conservative Slavonic party; but Barclay was persuaded
to remain as adviser, and his policy was sustained. The Russians
withdrew before the French advance, until, on September third, their
van halted on the right bank of the Kalatscha, opposite Borodino, to
strike the decisive blow in defense of Moscow. On the fourth
Napoleon's van attacked and drove before it the Russian rear, which
was just closing in. He had a hundred and twenty-eight thousand men at
hand, and six thousand more within reach. That night he issued a
ringing address: recalling Austerlitz, he summoned the soldiers to
behave so that future generations would say of each, "He was in that
great battle under the walls of Moscow." Next morning a courier
arrived, bringing a portrait of the little King of Rome. The Emperor
hung it before his tent, and invited his officers to admire it. But at
night the sinister news of Marmont's defeat at Salamanca arrived.
Napoleon said nothing, but was heard in self-communing to deplore the
barbarity of war. All night he seemed restless, fearing lest the
Russians should elude him as they had in other crises; but, rising at
five, and discerning their lines, he called aloud: "They are ours at
last! March on; let us open the gates of Moscow."

The Russians, roused by religious fervor, and elevated by a fatalistic
premonition of success, had thrown up trenches and redoubts at
advantageous points on their chosen battle-fields. In their first
onset they advanced like devotees, with the cry, "God have mercy upon
us!" and, as each forward rank went down before the relentless
invaders, those behind pressed onward over the bodies of their
comrades. But it was all in vain; throughout the fourth and fifth of
September one outpost after another was taken, until at ten in the
evening of the latter day the whole Russian force was thrown back on
its main position, stretching from the bank of the Moskwa on the
north, behind the Kalatscha, as far as Utizy on the south, such
portions as were not naturally sheltered being protected by strong
redoubts. There were a hundred and twenty thousand in all, of which
about seventeen thousand were ununiformed peasantry. Opposite stood
the French, Poniatowski on the right, Davout, with the guard, in the
rear, then Eugène; behind Davout, to the left, Ney; and farther
behind, in the same line, Junot. The orders were for an opening
cannonade, Poniatowski to surround the Russian left, Eugène to cross
the Kalatscha by three bridges thrown over during the night, and
attack the Russian right, while Morand and Gérard, his auxiliaries,
should move on the center, and storm the defenses erected there.

The battle was conducted almost to the letter of these orders, but
such was Russian valor that, instead of being a brilliant manoeuver,
it developed into a bloody face-to-face conflict, determined by sheer
force. At six in the morning the artillery opened. Poniatowski
advanced, was checked, but, supported by Ney, stood firm until Junot
came in; they two then stood together, while Ney and Davout dashed at
the enemy's center. Eugène having acted in perfect concert,
Poniatowski then advanced alone, and his task was completed by nine.
But he was so weakened by his terrific exertions that he could only
hold what he had gained. At ten Ney and Davout, reinforced by Friant,
seized the central redoubts; but they, too, were exhausted, and could
only hold the Russian line, which bent inward and stood without
breaking. Eugène then massed his whole division, and charged. The
resistance was stubborn, and the fighting terrific, but by three his
opponents yielded, his artillery opened, and he held his gains. About
the same time Junot reached Poniatowski, and their combined efforts
finally overpowered the Russian left. So superhuman had been the
exertions of both armies that they rested on their arms in these
relative positions all night, the Russians too exhausted to flee, the
French too weary to pursue. But early on the seventh the flight of
Kutusoff began, and the French started in pursuit.

Between the generals of the Russian rear and those of Napoleon's van
an agreement was made that if the former were left to pass through
Moscow unmolested, the latter should gain the city without a blow. The
contracting parties kept their pact; but the governor of Moscow
rendered the agreement void. Great crowds of the inhabitants joined
the Russian columns as, six days later, they marched between the rows
of inflammable wooden houses of which the suburbs were composed; and,
while they tramped sullenly onward, thin pillars of ascending smoke
began to appear here and there on the outer lines. But when, two hours
after the last Russian soldier had disappeared, the cavalry of Murat
clattered through the streets, the fires attracted little attention,
nor at the moment was Napoleon's contentment diminished by them, as,
from the "mount of salutation," whence pious pilgrims were wont to
greet the holy city, he ordered his guard to advance and occupy the
Kremlin, that fortress which enshrines all that is holiest in Russian
faith. Kutusoff, boasting that he had held his ground overnight, had
persuaded the inhabitants of Moscow, and even the Czar, that he had
been the victor, and that he was withdrawing merely to await the
arrival of the victorious and veteran legions from the Danube, when he
would choose his field and annihilate the invaders.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE EVACUATION OF MOSCOW[43]

         [Footnote 43: References: Marguerou: Campagne de Russie,
         specially part III. Bertin: La campagne de 1812 d'après des
         témoins oculaires. Mosbach: Der Übergang über die Beresina
         aus ungedruckten Denkw. d. polnischen Obersten Bialkowski,
         Streffleur's "Österr. militär. Zeitschrift," 1875.
         Clausewitz: "Über die Schlacht a.d. Beresina," letter to
         Stein, published in the "Hist. Zeitschrift" for 1888. George:
         Napoleon's Invasion of Russia. Fabry: Campagne de
         Russie,1812, Opérations Militaires.]

     The Reasons for Napoleon's Advance -- The Importance of Moscow --
     The Burning of the City -- The French Occupation -- The Military
     Situation -- Alexander's Steadfastness -- Napoleon's Impatience
     -- The Strategic Problem -- The Exaggeration of the Factors --
     The Plan of Retreat -- Malojaroslavetz -- Napoleon's Vacillation.

Some insight into the state of Napoleon's mind may be secured by
contemplating his conduct during and after the battle of Borodino.
That conflict was, on the whole, the bloodiest and most fiercely
contested of all so far fought by him. The French losses were computed
by the Emperor at twenty thousand men, those of the Russians were not
less than double the number. Yet the day was not decisive. Napoleon,
suffering from a severe cold and loss of voice, displayed an unwonted
lassitude. Setting a high value on his personal safety, he did not
intervene at crucial moments, as he was wont to do and as he asserted
was essential in the new science of war, for the purpose of
electrifying officers and men. His scheme of rolling up Kutusoff's
line by a double attack on left and center consequently failed, in
the opinion of the greatest experts, because he did not throw in the
guard on the center at the decisive moment. This failure was due to a
disregard of his own maxim that "generals who save troops for the next
day are always beaten"; not divining a complete cessation of
hostilities by Kutusoff, he thought his reserve might be required on
the morrow. It seems, too, as if he were gradually becoming aware of
the dangers attendant on the prolongation of his base to Moscow. At
Mozhaisk he halted three days, doubtless with the hope that Alexander
would open negotiations to prevent the sack of his sacred capital.
During this pause careful orders were issued for the concentration of
a strong French reserve at Smolensk. Victor was summoned to bring in
his thirty thousand men from the Niemen so as to be ready in an
emergency to advance even as far as Moscow. It seems like a case of
wilful self-deception that on the tenth Napoleon wrote to Maret as if
convinced that the exposure of his flanks would escape Kutusoff's
notice, saying that the enemy struck in the heart was occupied only
with the heart, and not with the extremities. This would have been a
justifiable confidence had Borodino been decisive. But it was not
decisive, since the Russian army, far from being annihilated, drew off
with its files, companies, and regiments so far intact as to be easily
available for the quick incorporation of new recruits. This it was
which gave verisimilitude to Kutusoff's boast and made the French
occupation of Moscow a matter of doubtful expediency.

Yet the temptation was irresistible. Mother Moscow, as runs the
caressing Russian phrase, is indeed the source of all Muscovite
inspiration. Watered by the winding stream of the same name, its heart
is the Kremlin, its citadel of Russian architecture, Russian
orthodoxy, Russian authority, and Russian learning. From its
churches are promulgated the authoritative utterances of the Greek
Metropolitan, within its triangular walls is found the most
characteristic Muscovite architecture, behind its portals stand the
largest bell ever cast and the largest cannon ever founded until the
most recent times; statues of Russian heroes adorn its open spaces,
the splendors of its palaces are lavished with Muscovite profuseness,
the edicts of the White Czar thunder over his many million subjects
from its walls. Clustered about the Kremlin are the various quarters
of the town, which cover a space equal to the area of Paris, and
contain about one fourth as many inhabitants. The epithet of "holy
city" is amply justified by the sanctuary-citadel, but its aptness is
further sustained by the three hundred and sixty churches, each with
its tower and onion-shaped cupola, which are scattered through all the
districts. In the beginning of this century Moscow from within
appeared like a congeries of villages surrounded with groves and
gardens, each with its manor-house and parochial church. Around the
whole was a girdle of country-seats, and the beauty of the scene as
viewed by the approaching traveler was such as to kindle enthusiasm in
the coldest breast. The inhabitants had hoped that the "victory" of
Borodino would spare their home the shame of foreign occupation. When
the governor announced that in a council of war it had been decided to
abandon the city, there was first dismay, then fury, then despair. The
long trains of departing citizens wailed their church hymns with
sullen mien and joyless voices.

The surrender was marked by barbarous conduct on the part of the civil
authorities. It has been recounted that by a military convention the
Russian rear-guard had been permitted to withdraw unmolested after
Borodino, in return for a promise not to destroy Moscow. Yet on
September fourteenth, the day of the French occupation, as has also
been told, fires had been kindled in the suburbs, whether by accident
or design cannot be determined. Besides this, on receipt of the notice
to evacuate, such stores as in the short interval could be reached
were destroyed; the prison doors were opened, and a horde of maddened
criminals was set free in the streets. Nevertheless, there was fair
order throughout the fifteenth. Next day a raging conflagration burst
forth. At the time, and long afterwards, this was attributed as a deed
of dastardly incendiarism to the invaders; with the growth of modern
ideas about ruthlessness in warfare, Russian historians have begun to
attribute it to the inhabitants as a heroic measure. It is now
asserted that the governor cast the first brand into his own
country-seat. More probably, the fanaticism of the populace,
heightened by the criminal rage of the escaped prisoners, led to the
almost simultaneous firing of many buildings in various quarters. A
possibility of method in the destruction of the city begins to dawn,
however, when it is remembered that the devastation of the surrounding
country by the fleeing Russians was equally thorough, and was carried
out according to a carefully devised plan.

The entry of the French into Moscow has been compared to the
appearance of great actors before an empty house. When the
conflagration broke out, every effort was made to stop it, and eight
hundred fire fiends were summarily punished. But as the burning walls
of the storehouses fell, the rabble seized the barrels of spirits thus
revealed, and drank themselves into blind fury; the French soldiery
pillaged with little restraint, not sparing even the Kremlin. Finally,
the flames were checked and order was restored, but not until three
quarters of the city proper were destroyed; the Kremlin and the
remaining fourth were saved. On the evening of the fourth day the
French army was disposed in rude comfort within or about the site of
Moscow, and Murat's riders began to bring in reports concerning
Kutusoff's army. To soothe the peasantry of the neighboring districts,
one of the old insidious proclamations was issued, appealing to their
manhood against the tyranny of their rulers. "Die for your faith and
the Czar!" was the answering cry, as they seized the French
stragglers, surprised the garrison of Wereja, and beset the Smolensk
road. Day by day the people labored, the townsfolk helping to gather
the peasants' goods, both classes waylaying the French supply-trains,
and hiding every article of use in vast underground chambers
constructed for the purpose. Consternation filled the invaders, and
their plight became desperate when they learned of the Russian
military dispositions, and understood how Kutusoff already menaced
their safety.

Instigated by Castlereagh, Bernadotte had released the Russian corps
placed at his disposal for conquering Norway, and Wittgenstein, on the
Russian right, thus suddenly acquired a force of forty thousand
wherewith to menace Napoleon's outlying left on the north. By English
mediation, also, a peace was arranged between Turkey and Russia, thus
releasing Tchitchagoff, who promptly joined Tormassoff, and opposed
Schwarzenberg on the extreme French right with nearly two to one.
Meanwhile Kutusoff had taken a position at Tarutino, where he
commanded the left flank of the main French army, and daily received
new recruits, who flocked to fill his depleted ranks. Napoleon had,
since Borodino, been in daily expectation of some communication from
the Czar. His critical situation made him impatient, and on the
twentieth he wrote, informing his strangely silent foe that Moscow was
burned, a misfortune which might have been averted had negotiations
been opened after Borodino. There was no response. On October fifth
Lauriston was despatched to Kutusoff's camp, nominally to secure an
exchange of prisoners. The latter said that the affair must be
referred to St. Petersburg; but the French general learned that the
Russians had extended their line south toward Kaluga to secure the
fertile base behind, and further threaten the long, weak French flank.

Alexander's silent steadfastness was, indeed, remarkable. Hitherto in
every crisis--as, for example, after Austerlitz and Friedland--he had
yielded. Why was he now so firm? Stein, the Prussian patriot, was at
his side; but so was the trusted Rumianzoff, leader of the French
party, which was for peace. The Old Russian party, demoralized by
Napoleon's advance to the heart of the empire, was also clamorous for
peace negotiations. An English embassy, composed of Lord Cathcart and
the body of English officers under Sir Robert Wilson sent to
reorganize the Russian army, had so far been able to accomplish
little, for by all accounts their influence was slight. The improved
military situation no doubt accounts for much, but the best
information goes to show that Alexander moved and talked like one
dazed, feeling himself to be a storm-tossed child of fate. Destitute
of self-reliance, he appears to have been drawn toward Galitzin, whose
piety was eminent, and verged upon mysticism. It is certain that in
those days the Czar for the first time became an ardent Bible reader,
and frequently exclaimed, "The hand of God hath done this!" On leaving
St. Petersburg at last for the seat of war, his parting act was to
found the Russian Bible Society. It was with but small reliance on the
military situation, and with a feeling of providential guidance, that
he determined to renew the conflict.

Thus passed five weeks. Interminable they seemed to the anxious
conqueror at Moscow, who yawned even at the theater; who forgot the
stern abstemiousness of his table habits, and, like a gourmet, spent
hours at his meals merely to kill time; who threw himself into vicious
ways, and contracted a loathsome disease; who lost all interest even
in his troops, and finally, unkempt, preoccupied, and feverish, seemed
indifferent to everything. The crown, scepter, and robe wherewith he
had hoped to be invested as Emperor of the West were not unpacked from
the camp chests. The pompous ceremonies of military occupation were
scrupulously performed; drills, parades, and concerts followed in due
succession; but the Emperor's interest was languid. At last the dreary
waiting became intolerable, the season, although neither early nor
severe, was rapidly advancing, the predatory excursions of the
soldiers into the surrounding country were growing longer, more
difficult, and less fruitful of results with every day. The elements
of danger were hourly increasing in an appalling ratio. Daru advised
turning Moscow into an armed camp and wintering there. "A lion's
advice," said Napoleon, but he put it aside. The question of retreat
would soon be imperative, and that he sometimes discussed, but only
languidly, until, on October eighteenth, without warning, a truce made
by Murat was broken, and his command driven in. Then at last the
captain in Napoleon awakened, the emperor vanished, the retreat was
ordered, and universal empire, a dependent Czar, the march from Tiflis
to the Ganges, England humiliated, and the ocean liberated--all were
forgotten in the presence of reality. Robe, scepter, and crown were
never seen again.

Political considerations prompted a movement of withdrawal toward the
northwest, as if against St. Petersburg, but military considerations
prevailed, and between the two alternatives--a direct retreat to
Smolensk through a devastated land, or a circuit south-westward,
through fertile districts, toward Kaluga, as if to attack
Kutusoff--the choice fell on the latter. The reason is clear. The seat
of war was within a triangle marked by Riga, Brest-Litovski, and
Moscow; from Riga to Moscow, the left flank, is five hundred and fifty
miles; from Riga to Brest, the base, is three hundred and seventy-five
miles; from Brest to Moscow, the right flank, is six hundred and fifty
miles; the perpendicular from Moscow to the base, which was the
shortest line of retreat, is therefore about five hundred and
seventy-five miles. These distances are all enormous; on the left were
only forty-two thousand men, on the right, about thirty-four thousand;
along the line, forty-two thousand. The diagram, if drawn, will
display all the peculiarities of Napoleonic formation in mass,
abstractly considered, but it will likewise display the fact that with
the highest and most perfect army organization then known, it would
have been well-nigh impossible to work the combination. Neither of the
monstrous flanks could be held by the comparatively scanty forces
available; the line of operation was equally weak. What safety was
there for the army in retreat? None.

There will never be complete agreement as to the causes of Napoleon's
disaster in Russia. A comparison of the relative values of
mass-formation, tactics, and organization in modern warfare, which
uses railroads and telegraphs, with the distances practicable in
present-day operations, must nevertheless reveal the chief cause--that
the Napoleonic organization had not kept pace with the development of
Napoleonic strategy. The emperor had overweighted the general, the
former having soared into an ether which would not sustain the
pinions of the latter. The well-used plea of an "act of God" will not
stand. The autumn of 1812 was mild, the winter late in opening.
Neither cheerless steppes, nor phenomenal cold, nor unheard-of snows,
nor any reversal of nature's laws,--not even the motley nationalities
of the grand army, or an unhistoric migration from south to
north,--none of these was the chief cause of failure, which is to be
found in the attempt monstrously to exaggerate the factors of a
strategic system evolved for national, but not for continental,
proportions.

The first and natural thought of a direct retreat to Smolensk was
momentarily entertained; but it had to be abandoned because, with weak
flanks and a bare country, the distance was too far. The same was true
in regard to the move toward St. Petersburg--the distance was too
great for the conditions. The circuit toward Kaluga was first
considered as a feint to throw the Russians off the scent; it became a
necessity when they assumed the offensive in the unforeseen and
unexpected attack on Murat. The Emperor did not dare to expose his
flank and rear to an advancing foe, and accordingly his army was
assembled on the road toward Kaluga. Should he advance or await a
further movement of the enemy? Evidently the former, otherwise the
entire moral effect of the first offensive would be lost. A long march
had to be extended still farther, partly for strategic reasons, but
chiefly in order to secure an additional advantage of the first
importance; to wit, sustenance from the country when the distances
were too great for the workings of any feasible commissariat
department. If the Russians should even momentarily be deceived into
believing that the French had resumed the offensive, a line from
Kaluga direct to Smolensk would still be open for retreat while the
enemy was preparing for action.

The report was spread in Moscow that Napoleon was going out to
overwhelm Kutusoff and then return. Mortier, with eight thousand of
the young guard, remained behind, his orders being to blow up the
Kremlin before leaving. The main army advanced across the river Pachra
and moved toward the Lusha. There was as yet no word of the enemy;
possibly he had been misled and was advancing directly on Moscow.
Napoleon, therefore, turned westward in the hope that he might reach
Kaluga without opposition. On the twenty-fourth the Russian van
appeared. Had Kutusoff acted on his correct information and thrown
forward his whole army, a decisive battle might have ended the
invasion. As it was, Eugène, after a bloody conflict at
Malojaroslavetz, remained master of the field, and the timid Kutusoff
drew back his force. Meantime the truth leaked out in Moscow.
Suspicion was excited, as the resident French observed not merely the
immense booty packed in the officers' baggage, but also the loads of
Muscovite art treasures under which the government wagons groaned.
They were quick to act, and soon, accompanied by women and children,
they joined the march with all the paraphernalia of their household
goods. From the first this throng, uniting with the usual horde of
stragglers and camp-followers, prevented all rapid movements by the
army; in fact, but for them the half-senile Kutusoff would not have
been able to show even his van to the French line. Mortier's effort to
destroy the Kremlin failed, and served no purpose except to exhibit
the thirst for revenge of a savage nature brought to bay.

In short, every plan of Napoleon's seemed ineffectual, and indecision
marked his every act. Eugène's terrible struggle had resulted in a
list of wounded numbering four thousand. The old Napoleon would have
abandoned them and then have attacked Kutusoff even in the forest
defiles where he was ensconced; or else he would have pressed on past
Kaluga, or would have swiftly wheeled to regain the northern road
toward Smolensk. The harried, sick, exhausted man of 1812 did none of
these things, but called a council of war, and weighed the arguments
there presented for nearly a week, when, finally, he decided, and with
forced marches drove his columns toward the northern road to Smolensk.
He wrote to Junot that his motive for delay was to provide for the
suffering from his depot at Mozhaisk, but, in fact, he had not waited
long enough materially to assist the wounded, and had secured no
advantage from the bloody battle. In the absence of trustworthy
information he took (when once he did move) a long, circuitous road.
As yet there was no cold except the usual sharpness of autumn nights;
but the summer uniforms of the troops were tattered and their shoes
worn. Germans, Italians, and Illyrians began to straggle, and the
horrors of the approaching cold, as depicted by Russian prisoners,
sank deep into the minds of the dispirited French, so far away from
their pleasant homes.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE RETREAT FROM RUSSIA[44]

         [Footnote 44: References as in the preceding chapter. Also:
         Cathcart: Commentaries on the War in Russia and Germany, 1812
         to 1813. Clausewitz: Der Feldzug von 1812 in Russland, der
         Feldzug von 1813 bis zum Waffenstillstand und der Feldzug von
         1814 in Frankreich. Combe: Mémoires sur les campagnes de
         Russie 1812, de Saxe 1813, de France 1814 et 1815. Jomini:
         Précis politique et militaire des campagnes de 1812 à 1814.
         Labaume: Relation circonstanciée de la campagne de Russie.
         Gentz: Österreichs Theilnahme an den Befreiungskriegen. Ein
         Beitrag zur Geschichte der Jahre 1813-1815, nach
         Aufzeichnungen von F. von Gentz, nebst einem Anhang:
         "Briefwechsel zwischen dem Fürsten Schwarzenberg und
         Metternich." Porter: A Narrative of the Campaign in Russia in
         1812. Ségur: Histoire de Napoléon et de la grande armée
         pendant l'année 1812. Gourgaud: Napoléon et la grande armée
         en Russie, ou examen critique de l'ouvrage de M. le C^te Ph.
         de Ségur. Vandal: Napoléon et Alexandre Ier. Wilson: Private
         diary of travels, personal services and public events during