much the same reflections; even in his proudest day he acknowledged the necessity of having one great and cordial ally. Alexander had not proved such. He had played the lukewarm, temporizing friend; and Napoleon recoiled from his alliance. The apparently indomitable power of Russia it was, that gave Austria confidence. To make himself master of Europe, Napoleon saw now that Russia must be humbled. What alliance and cajolery could not effect victory should. Such were Napoleon's views at Schoenbrunn; and, with these, to join with Austria, and make her rather than Russia his intimate, became his policy. It was requisite not to betray it; therefore, chaffering and bargaining were continued, and negotiations were drawn out. The apparent articles of the final treaty were the cession of Saltzburg and other territories of the Rhenish confederation, that of Trieste and some adjacent lands to France. Cracow and part of the Austrian spoil of Poland were given to the duchy of Warsaw; another small portion of it to Russia: adroit conditions, calculated to set Austria more at variance with the latter country. Napoleon affected to grant these moderate terms to the conquered, out of deference to Russia; on the contrary, they sprang out of pure enmity.

The memoir writers of the day imagine that an attempt or plan made to assassinate the French emperor had the effect of inclining him to peace. A young German named Staps, the son of a Protestant clergyman, was seized in the attempt to approach him. A large knife was found in his breast; he avowed and gloried in the purpose. Bonaparte offered him pardon if he would profess contrition. The stubborn enthusiast scorned even these terms, and perished. Napoleon, it is said, immediately after this event, relaxed in the severity of his conditions, and peace was concluded; but it is more than probable that he wished to keep secret, from even his own negotiators, his new views respecting Russia, and that he seized on a pretext to fulfil a previous determination.

Napoleon had tried every means hitherto, except that of Justice and forbearance, to attach to his alliance one of the great powers of Europe. Prussia, Austria, Russia, all had proved insincere, naturally enough, because ill-treated. But Bonaparte, with the self-partiality of his country, did not see the outrageousness and injustice of his own ambition: nevertheless, as this alliance was necessary, he resolved to recur to the old cement of European monarchies, viz. marriage. A wish to have heirs, perhaps the pride of allying with ancient royalty, gave additional strength to his purpose; and, for a long time, a divorce with Josephine had been meditated: she herself had foreseen it, and her voice had from the first dis

1810. BONAPARTE'S MARRIAGE WITH MARIA LOUISA.

241 suaded her husband from assuming the crown. He had sought to show to the French public the inconvenience of there being no heir to the empire. He had adopted prince Eugene as his successor in Italy, the son of Hortense and Louis as his successor in France. The infant died. After this event, which took place in 1807, whispers of an imperial divorce were circulated at court. At Tilsit perhaps, certainly at Erfurt, there was question of a marriage between Napoleon and a Russian princess,-an alliance which perfectly suited his views at that time. The idea was not relished at St. Petersburgh, where the voice of the court and queen-mother was against France. The coldness on this point was one proof of the insincerity of the Russian alliance. At Schoenbrunn, now, the same idea was suggested with respect to Austria; and the emperor Francis, despite his pride, appreciated all the advantage of the offer: it was accepted, and, to cover the agreement, peace was made, apparently severe, really moderate.*

The difficulty, to a man of any feeling, was to break it to the unfortunate Josephine. She had been fond and faithful; dignified in her new rank, as amiable in her old. But she was to be divorced, sacrificed to his ambition: or, as he termed it," to the welfare of France." She used all a woman's entreaties, endured the anguish of wounded love and mortified pride. He was inexorable, and she obeyed; professed her willingness, with tears indeed, to consent to a divorce, and took all the steps necessary to obtain it. Nay, even after her doom was sealed, she consented still to act the empress of the pageant. She attended a solemn ceremonial, the thanksgiving service for a peace, to which she alone was sacrificed; and at length retired to Malmaison with the state and title of empress. This took place in the last days of 1809. Ambassadors were then dispatched to Vienna, to demand, as had been agreed on, the hand of the archduchess Maria Louisa. The suit was granted; and the marriage by proxy was per formed in March, 1810. Napoleon went to meet his new empress at Soissons. The ceremony of her reception and entry was modelled after those of her aunt, the unfortunate Marie Antoinette. What comparisons did not the relationship and similarity of each situation suggest! At a ball given by prince Schwartzenberg, the Austrian ambassador, in honor of the imperial nuptials, a fire broke out, and many people per

* Whilst Metternich and Champagny were arranging the overt articles of peace at Altenberg, prince John of Lichtenstein passed frequently be tween the two emperors. and set iled the private terms.-See the Memoirs of De Bausset

ished; the prince's sister amongst the rest. In recounting this accident, the Parisians remembered that of the Place Louis Quinze, when at the rejoicing for Marie Antoinette's marriage, so many hundreds had been crushed to death.

CHAP. X. 1810-1812.

FROM NAPOLEON'S MARRIAGE WITH THE ARCHDUCHESS TO HIS FLIGHT FROM RUSSIA.

BONAPARTE was now in the zenith of his glory as emperor; but his power, as the chief of a nation and of a band of warriors, had been for some time declining. The means by which his first successes were wrought, consisted, in a great degree, in the enthusiasm and ardor which the revolution had breathed into the French soldier; the sense of freedom lately won, the absence of restraint and discipline, together with the privations under which he labored, combining to develop and call into play all his faculties. Of such men were composed the army which conquered Italy, and which foundered in Egypt. Such, but not equal to them, were the forces that conquered at Marengo: they were inferior to their great predecessors, because the enthusiasm of liberty had cooled, and was supplied by the weaker sentiment excited by past glory and the name of Bonaparte. Peace followed. The several bands from Egypt, from the Rhine, from Italy, were amalgamated. A portion of the old leaven, as of the old corps, still remained; but the camp of Boulogne altogether changed its spirit. There an emperor was raised on the military shield; and freedom, as a source of courage, was dried up. The habits of victory, and enthusiasm for Bonaparte, filled the void. But he, their leader, no longer trusted to that free impulse which had won the fields of Italy. He now subjected his bands to far more rigid discipline, and supplied individual energy by closeness of order and precision of manœuvre. In short, his tactics coincided with his policy, and the national warrior became, in a certain degree, the drilled, the mercenary, the imperial soldier. Such were the victors of Ulm and Austerlitz; veteran bands that, could they have lasted, might have defied the world. An unlucky day for Napoleon tempted him to acts which led to the spending and the spilling of this precious blood in Spain. The Austrian war again broke out: the emperor called new levies; he gave them the same standards as the old, but the same spirit he could not bestow. Of revolutionary enthusiasm not a spark remained; nor to the army

1810.

DETERIORATION OF THE FRENCH ARMY.

243

that advanced to Wagram was the same discipline which had supplied this lack at Austerlitz communicated. The consequence was seen at Essling and Wagram; victories, for any other general than Napoleon, but very synonymous with defeat to him. The Austrian marriage, indeed, saved him; but another war, intrusted to another race of conscripts, wa likely to betray still more the deterioration of the French army. Bonaparte felt this as he made his preparations agains Russia, and he in consequence endeavored to supply quality by quantity-the veterans of the revolution by the conscripts of the empire. This is to borne in mind during the final wars upon which we now enter; without it, all the snows of Russia might have fallen in vain.

To describe the simultaneous decline of Napoleon's power and popularity as a sovereign by the apparent extravagance of nis ambition, his improvident waste of the national resources and population, his repression of every thing partaking of liberty, is needless. These start to the apprehensions of all; and yet, with moderation in his policy, his empire might have endured for his life at least. He might have reigned by the mere terror of his past victories, and bequeathed to his lieutenants or his heir the task of encountering that reaction of Europe which his precipitate rashness drew down upon him self.

Previous to entering on the decisive Russian struggle, we have still the years 1810 and 1811 to traverse; an interval not uncheckered by events. Immediately after his marriage, Napoleon, accompanied by his new empress, undertook a journey through his northern dominions of Belgium. His attention was particularly turned to Antwerp, where immense preparations were made for forming future fleets. In the mean time he was rigorous in carrying on war against English commerce. Whilst at Antwerp, information could not fail to reach him as to the enormous extent to which colonial produce was introduced into his dominions through Holland. He blamed his brother Louis, king of that country, and strong altercations were the consequence between them. As Holland has ever existed by commerce, it was a matter not only of interest but existence to the Dutch, that they should trade. Louis on the spot, a witness of the state of things, could not act the rigid impoverisher of his own subjects; besides that he scorned to be a crowned chief of the custom-house. Napoleon answered his expostulation by curtailing the most important part of his kingdom, uniting to France those provinces which commanded the mouths of the Rhine and Scheldt. Soon after, this was found insufficient; when an army was sent into Holland to enfo.ce the counter blockade against the III.-16

English. Louis, on suffering this indignity, resigned his crown and retired to a private station in Germany; when Holland was divided into departments, and solemnly incorporated with the French empire.

A more important change took place in Sweden. The impolitic king of that country had been dethroned by his subjects, for compromising the integrity of the state, and sacrificing it to his enmity against France. His uncle was chosen monarch in his place. He had a son, who unfortunately died soon after; and the influential men of Sweden were compelled to look abroad to find the stock of another royal race. Divers princes aspired to bear away the prize; but the Swedes looked to the great king-maker of the day, and preferred to choose one of his generals, in order to acquire the favor of France, and to be secure from the encroachments of Russia. Singular enough, their choice fell upon the only marshal between whom and the emperor there was a secret enmity. Bernadotte had commanded at Hamburgh, and had displayed there his lenience and sense of justice. In the campaign of Prussia he had captured a Swedish division, treated and dismissed it with kindness. He was accordingly preferred, and prayed to accept the Swedish throne. The elevation of a lieutenant, who had at times the arrogance to affect rivalry with him, was not pleasing to Napoleon; to whom, moreover, it was of the first importance to have a staunch, not a half-frien.l, upon the throne of Sweden. He covertly opposed the election; and when Bernadotte was chosen, delayed his assent, or wished to delay it, by provisoes restrictive of the independence of the future sovereign. Bernadotte, however, played his part at once with firmness and sagacity. He was elected crown prince of Sweden, accepted the bright offer, and, wresting Napoleon's assent, departed to enter upon his rule; for, although but the next heir to the crown, he was already called to exercise the functions of government.

In Spain, after the retreat of Wellington, subsequent to the battle of Talavera, the French succeeded in defeating the regular forces of their adversaries. The south at length owned the rule of Joseph, who, in the beginning of 1810, entered Seville; Soult advancing to form the siege of Cadiz. This town was now the last refuge of the independent cause. Even Andalusia, so fatal to the army of Dupont, and considered as the most impregnable of the Spanish provinces, submitted to the victors; and, except within the walls of Cadiz, naught but guerillas and detached bands of partisans still held up the standard of Ferdinand. This momentary triumph of the French was productive of one important effect, the independence of the Spanish South American colonies,, asserted