CHAPTER III. III. 1808. Letter to Las Casas. THE French emperor, although surprised and cha- CHAP. grined at the disgrace which, for the first time, his armies had sustained, was nothing dismayed by a resistance which he had early contemplated as not Murat. improbable. With a piercing glance he had observed the efforts of Spain, and calculated the power of foreign influence in keeping alive the spirit of resistance. Assigning a just value to the succours which England could afford, he foresaw the danger which might accrue, if he suffered an insurrection of peasants, that had already dishonoured the glory of his arms, to attain the consistency of regular government, to league with powerful nations, and to become disciplined troops. To defeat the raw levies which the Spaniards had hitherto opposed to his soldiers, was an easy matter, but it was necessary to crush them to atoms, that a dread of his invincible power might still pervade the world, and the secret influence of his genius remain unabated. The constitution of Bayonne would, he was aware, weigh heavy in the scale against those chaotic governments, neither monarchical, nor popular, nor aristocratic, nor federal, which the Spanish revolution was throwing up; but before the benefit of that could be felt by the many, before he could draw any advantages from his moral resources, it was necessary to develope all his military strength. The moment was critical and dangerous. He was surrounded by enemies whose pride he had wounded, III. 1808. BOOK but whose means of offence he had not destroyed. If he bent his forces against the Peninsula, England might again excite the continent to arms, and Russia and Austria once more banding together, might raise Prussia and renew the eternal coalitions. The designs of Austria, although covered by the usual artifices of that cunning rapacious court, were not so hidden but that, earlier or later, a war from that quarter was to be expected as a certain event. Baron 1813. The inhabitants of Prussia, subdued and oppressed, could not be supposed tranquil: the secret societies, that, under the name of Tugenbunde, Gymnasiasts, and other denominations, have since been persecuted by those who were then glad to avail themselves of such assistance, were just beginning to disclose their force and plans. A baron de Nostiz, Stein, the Campaign. Prussian counsellor of state, generals Sharnhost and Gneizenau, and colonel Schill, appear to have been the principal contrivers and patrons of these societies, so characteristic of Germans, who, regular and plodding, even to a proverb in their actions, possess the most extravagant imaginations of any people on the face of the earth. Whatever the ulterior views of these associations may have been, at this period they were universally inimical to the French, their intent was to drive the latter over the Rhine, and they were a source of peril to the emperor, the more to be feared, as the extent of their influence could not be immediately ascertained. Russia also, little injured by her losses, was more powerful perhaps from her defeats, because more enlightened as to the cause of them: Napoleon felt, that the hostility of such a great empire would require all his means to repel, and that, consequently, his Spanish operations must be confined in a manner unsuitable III. 1808. to the fame of his arms. Of a long-sighted policy he CHAP. had, however, prepared the means of obviating this danger, by drawing the emperor of Russia into a conference at Erfurth, whither the French monarch repaired, confident in the resources of his genius for securing the friendship of the czar. At this period, it may be truly said, that Napoleon supported the weight of the world; every movement of his produced a political convulsion; yet so sure, so confident was he, of his intellectual superiority, that he sought but to gain one step, and doubted not to overcome all resistance, and preserve his ascendancy. Time was to him victory; if he gained the one, the other followed. Sudden and prompt in execution, he prepared for one of those gigantic efforts which have stamped this age with the greatness of antiquity. His armies were scattered over Europe. In Italy, in Dalmatia, on the Rhine, the Danube, the Elbe; in Prussia, Denmark, Poland, his legions were to be found. Over that vast extent, above five hundred thousand disciplined men maintained the supremacy of France. From those bands he drew the imperial guards, the select soldiers of the warlike nation he governed, and the terror of the other continental troops. The veterans of Jena, of Austerlitz, of Friedland, reduced in number, but of confirmed hardihood, were collected into one corps, and marched towards Spain. A host of cavalry, unequalled for enterprise and knowledge of war, were also directed against that devoted land, and a long train of gallant soldiers followed, until two hundred thousand men, accustomed to battle, had penetrated the gloomy fastnesses of the western Pyrenees. Forty thousand men of inferior reputation, drawn from the interior of France, from BOOK Naples, from Tuscany, and from Piedmont, were assembled at Perpignan. III. 1808. The march of this multitude was incessant, and as they passed the capital, Napoleon, neglectful of nothing which could excite their courage and swell their military pride, addressed to them one of those nervous orations that shoot like fire to the heart of a real soldier. In the tranquillity of peace it may seem inflated, but on the eve of battle it is thus a general should speak. "Soldiers! after triumphing on the banks of the Vistula and the Danube, with rapid steps you have passed through Germany. This day, without a moment of repose, I command you to traverse France. Soldiers! I have need of you! The hideous presence of the leopard contaminates the peninsula of Spain and Portugal. In terror he must fly before you. Let us bear our triumphal eagles to the pillars of Hercules, there also we have injuries to avenge! Soldiers! you have surpassed the renown of modern armies, but have you yet equalled the glory of those Romans who, in one and the same campaign, were victorious upon the Rhine and the Euphrates, in Illyria and upon the Tagus! A long peace, a lasting prosperity, shall be the reward of your labours. A real Frenchman could not, ought not, to rest until the seas are free and open to all. Soldiers! all that you have done, all that you will do, for the happiness of the French people and for my glory, shall be eternal in my heart!" Thus saying, he caused his troops to proceed towards the frontiers of Spain, and himself hastened to meet the emperor Alexander at Erfurth. Their conference, conducted upon the footing of intimate friendship, produced a treaty of alliance offensive and defensive, and the fate of Spain was, by the one, with calm indifference, abandoned to the injustice of the other. The accession of strength which this treaty, and the manifest personal partiality of Alexander, gave to the French emperor, inspired him perhaps with the idea, that the English cabinet would, if a fair occasion offered, gladly enter into negotiations for a general peace. The two emperors wrote a joint letter to the king of England. "The circumstances of Europe had," they said, " brought them together; their first thought was to yield to the wish and the wants of every people, and to seek, in a speedy pacification, the most efficacious remedy for the miseries which oppressed all nations. The long and bloody war which had torn the continent was at an end, without the possibility of being renewed. Many changes had taken place in Europe, many states had been overthrown; the cause was to be found in the state of agitation and misery in which the stagnation of maritime commerce had placed the greatest nations: still greater changes might yet take place, and all of them contrary to the policy of the English nation. Peace, then, was, at once, the interest of the people of the continent, as it was the interest of the people of Great Britain. We entreat your majesty," they concluded, “ we unite to entreat your majesty to listen to the voice of humanity, to silence that of the passions; to seek, with the intention of arriving at that object, to conciliate all interests, and thus preserve all powers which exist, ensure the happiness of Europe and of this generation, at the head of which Providence has placed us." To this joint letter Mr. Canning replied by two letters to the French and Russian ministers, accompanied by an official note. In that addressed |