SERIES P (continued 2)

The day after to-morrow.—This fête was the distribution of the Legion of Honour at Boulogne and a review of 80,000 men. The decorations were enshrined in the helmet of Bertrand du Guesclin, which in its turn was supported on the shield of the Chevalier Bayard.

Hortense arrived at Boulogne, with her son, and the Prince and Princess Murat, a few days later, and saw the Emperor. Josephine received a letter from Hortense soon after Napoleon joined her (September 2nd), to which she replied on September 8th. "The Emperor has read your letter; he has been rather vexed not to hear from you occasionally. He would not doubt your kind heart if he knew it as well as I, but appearances are against you. Since he can think you are neglecting him, lose no time in repairing the wrongs which are not real," for "Bonaparte loves you like his own child, which adds much to my affection for him."

I am very well satisfied ... with the flotillas.—The descent upon England was to have taken place in September, when the death of Admiral Latouche-Tréville at Toulon, August 19th, altered all Napoleon's plans. Just about this time also Fulton submitted his steamship invention to Bonaparte. The latter, however, had recently been heavily mulcted in other valueless discoveries, and refers Fulton to the savants of the Institute, who report it chimerical and impracticable. The fate of England probably lay in the balance at this moment, more than in 1588 or 1798.

Napoleon and Josephine leave Aix for Cologne on September 12, and it is now the ladies' turn to institute a hunt—the "real chamois hunt"; for each country inn swarms with this pestilence that walketh in darkness, and which, alas! is no respecter of persons.

No. 5.

Two points are noteworthy in this letter—(1) that like No. 1 of this series (see note thereto ) it commences Madame and dear Wife; and (2) it is signed Bonaparte and not Napoleon, which somewhat militates against its authenticity.

Arras, August 29th.—Early on this day he had been at St. Cloud. On the 30th he writes Cambacérès from Arras that he is "satisfied with the spirit of this department." On the same day he writes thence to the King of Prussia and Fouché. To his Minister of Police he writes: "That detestable journal, Le Citoyen français, seems only to wish to wallow in blood. For eight days running we have been entertained with nothing but the Saint Bartholomew. Who on earth is the editor (rédacteur) of this paper? With what gusto this wretch relishes the crimes and misfortunes of our fathers! My intention is that you should put a stop to it. Have the editor (directeur) of this paper changed, or suppress it." On Friday he is at Mons (writing interesting letters respecting the removal of church ruins), and reaches his wife on the Sunday (September 2nd) as his letter foreshadowed.

I am rather impatient to see you.—The past few months had been an anxious time for Josephine. Talleyrand (who, having insulted her in 1799, thought her his enemy) was scheming for her divorce, and wished Napoleon to marry the Princess Wilhelmina of Baden, and thus cement an alliance with Bavaria and Russia (Constant, vol. i. 240). The Bonaparte family were very anxious that Josephine should not be crowned. Napoleon had too great a contempt for the weaknesses of average human nature to expect much honesty from Talleyrand. But he was not as yet case-hardened to ingratitude, and was always highly sensitive to caricature and hostile criticism. Talleyrand had been the main cause of the death of the Duc d'Enghien, and was now trying to show that he had wished to prevent it; but possibly the crowning offence was contained in a lady's diary, that fell into the emperor's hands, where Talleyrand is said to have called his master "a regular little Nero" in his system of espionage. The diary in question is in Constant's "Memoirs," vol. i., and this letter helps to fix the error in the dates, probably caused by confusion between the Revolutionary and Gregorian Calendars.

No. 6.

T.—This may be Talleyrand, whom Mdme. de Remusat in a letter to her husband (September 21st) at Aix, hinted to be on bad terms with the Emperor—a fact confirmed and explained by Méneval. It may also have been Tallien, who returned to France in 1802, where he had been divorced from his unfaithful wife.

B.—Doubtlessly Bourrienne, who was in disgrace with Napoleon, and who was always trying to impose on Josephine's good nature. No sooner had Napoleon left for Boulogne on July 14th than his former secretary inflicts himself on the wife at Malmaison.

Napoleon joins Josephine at St. Cloud on or before October 13th, where preparations are already being made for the Coronation by the Pope—the first ceremony of the kind for eight centuries.

SERIES F

No. 1.

To Josephine.—She was at Plombières from August 2 to September 10, but no letter is available for the period, neither to Hortense nor from Napoleon.

Strasburg.—She is in the former Episcopal Palace, at the foot of the cathedral.

Stuttgard.—He is driven over from Ludwigsburg on October 4th, and hears the German opera of "Don Juan."

I am well placed.—On the same day Napoleon writes his brother Joseph that he has already won two great victories—(1) by having no sick or deserters, but many new conscripts; and (2) because the Badenese army and those of Bavaria and Wurtemberg had joined him, and all Germany well disposed.

No. 2.

Louisburg.—Ludwigsburg.

In a few days.—To Talleyrand he wrote from Strasburg on September 27: "Within a fortnight we shall see several things."

A new bride.—This letter, in the collection of his Correspondence ordered by Napoleon III., concludes at this point.

Electress.—The Princess Charlotte-Auguste-Mathilde (1766-1828), daughter of George III., our Princess Royal, who married Frederick I. Napoleon says she is "not well treated by the Elector, to whom, nevertheless, she seems much attached" (Brotonne, No. 111). She was equally pleased with Napoleon, and wrote home how astonished she was to find him so polite and agreeable a person.

No. 3.

I have assisted at a marriage.—The bride was the Princess of Saxe-Hildburghhausen, who was marrying the second son of the Elector.

No. 5.

Written at Augsburg. On October 15th he reaches the abbey of Elchingen, which is situated on a height, from whence a wide view is obtained, and establishes his headquarters there.

No. 6.

Spent the whole of to-day indoors.—This is also mentioned in his Seventh Bulletin (dated the same day), which adds, "But repose is not compatible with the direction of this immense army."

Vicenza.—Massena did not, however, reach this place till November 3rd. The French editions have Vienna, but Vicenza is evidently meant.

No. 7.

He is still at Elchingen, but at Augsburg the next day. On the 21st he issues a decree to his army that Vendémiaire,[58] of which this was the last day but one, should be counted as a campaign for pensions and military services.

Elchingen.—Méneval speaks of this village "rising in an amphitheatre above the Danube, surrounded by walled gardens, and houses rising one above the other." From it Napoleon saw the city of Ulm below, commanded by his cannon. Marshal Ney won his title of Duke of Elchingen by capturing it on October 14th, and fully deserved it. The Emperor used to leave the abbey every morning to go to the camp before Ulm, where he used to spend the day, and sometimes the night. The rain was so heavy that, until a plank was found, Napoleon sat in a tent with his feet in water (Savary, vol. ii. 196).

Such a catastrophe.—At Ulm General Mack, with eight field-marshals, seven lieutenant-generals, and 33,000 men surrender. Napoleon had despised Mack even in 1800, when he told Bourrienne at Malmaison, "Mack is a man of the lowest mediocrity I ever saw in my life; he is full of self-sufficiency and conceit, and believes himself equal to anything. He has no talent. I should like to see him some day opposed to one of our good generals; we should then see fine work. He is a boaster, and that is all. He is really one of the most silly men existing, and besides all that, he is unlucky" (vol. i. 304). Napoleon stipulated for Mack's life in one of the articles of the Treaty of Presburg.

No. 9.

Munich.—Napoleon arrived here on October 24th.

Lemarois.—A trusty aide-de-camp, who had witnessed Napoleon's civil marriage in March 1796, at 10 P.M.

I was grieved.—They had no news from October 12th to 21st in Paris, where they learnt daily that Strasburg was in the same predicament. Mdme. de Rémusat, at Paris, was equally anxious, and such women, in the Emperor's absence, tended by their presence or even by their correspondence to increase the alarms of Josephine.

Amuse yourself.—M. Masson (Josephine, Impératrice et Reine, p. 424) has an interesting note of how she used to attend lodge at the Orient in Strasburg, to preside at a "loge d'adoption sous la direction de Madame de Dietrich, grand maîtresse titulaire."

Talleyrand has come.—He was urgently needed to help in the correspondence with the King of Prussia (concerning the French violation of his Anspach territory), with whom Napoleon's relations were becoming more strained.

No. 10.

We are always in forests.—Baron Lejeune, with his artist's eye, describes his impressions of the Amstetten forest as he travelled through it with Murat the following morning (November 4th). "Those of us who came from the south of Europe had never before realised how beautiful Nature can be in the winter. In this particular instance everything was robed in the most gleaming attire; the silvery rime softening the rich colours of the decaying oak leaves, and the sombre vegetation of the pines. The frozen drapery, combined with the mist, in which everything was more or less enveloped, gave a soft, mysterious charm to the surrounding objects, producing a most beautiful picture. Lit up by the sunshine, thousands of long icicles, such as those which sometimes droop from our fountains and water-wheels, hung like shining lustres from the trees. Never did ball-room shine with so many diamonds; the long branches of the oaks, pines, and other forest trees were weighed down by the masses of hoar-frost, while the snow converted their summits into rounded roofs, forming beneath them grottoes resembling those of the Pyrenean mountains, with their shining stalactites and graceful columns" (vol. i. 24).

My enemies.—Later in the day Napoleon writes from Lambach to the Emperor of Austria a pacific letter, which contains the paragraph, "My ambition is wholly concentrated on the re-establishment of my commerce and of my marine, and England grievously opposes itself to both."

No. 11.

Written from Lintz, the capital of Upper Austria, where Napoleon was on the 4th.

No. 12.

Napoleon took up his abode at the palace of Schoenbrunn on the 14th, and proves his "two-o'clock-in-the-morning courage" by passing through Vienna at that time the following morning.

No. 13.

They owe everything to you.—Aubenas quotes this, and remarks (vol. ii. 326): "No one had pride in France more than Napoleon, stronger even than his conviction of her superiority in the presence of other contemporary sovereigns and courts. He wishes that in Germany, where she will meet families with all the pride and sometimes all the haughtiness of their ancestry, Josephine will not forget that she is Empress of the French, superior to those who are about to receive her, and who owe full respect and homage to her."

No. 14.

Austerlitz.—Never was a victory more needful; but never was the Emperor more confident. Savary says that it would take a volume to contain all that emanated from his mind during that twenty-four hours (December 1-2). Nor was it confined to military considerations. General Ségur describes how he spent his evening meal with his marshals, discussing with Junot the last new tragedy (Les Templiers, by Raynouard), and from it to Racine, Corneille, and the fatalism of our ancestors.

December 2nd was a veritable Black Monday for the Coalition in general, and for Russia in particular, where Monday is always looked upon as an unlucky day. Their forebodings increased when, on the eve of the battle, the Emperor Alexander was thrown from his horse (Czartoriski, vol. ii. 106).

No. 17.

A long time since I had news of you.—Josephine was always a bad correspondent, but at this juncture was reading that stilted but sensational romance—"Caleb Williams;" or hearing the "Achilles" of Paër, or the "Romeo and Juliet" of Zingarelli in the intervals of her imperial progress through Germany. M. Masson, not often too indulgent to Josephine, thinks her conduct excusable at this period—paying and receiving visits, dressing and redressing, always in gala costume, and without a moment's solitude.

No. 19.

I await events.—A phrase usually attributed to Talleyrand in 1815. However, the Treaty of Presburg was soon signed (December 2nd), and the same day Napoleon met the Archduke Charles at Stamersdorf, a meeting arranged from mutual esteem. Napoleon had an unswerving admiration for this past and future foe, and said to Madame d'Abrantès, "That man has a soul, a golden heart."[59] Napoleon, however, did not wish to discuss politics, and only arranged for an interview of two hours, "one of which," he wrote Talleyrand, "will be employed in dining, the other in talking war and in mutual protestations."

I, for my part, am sufficiently busy.—No part of Napoleon's career is more wonderful than the way in which he conducts the affairs of France and of Europe from a hostile capital. This was his first experience of the kind, and perhaps the easiest, although Prussian diplomacy had needed very delicate and astute handling. But when Napoleon determined, without even consulting his wife, to cement political alliances by matrimonial ones with his and her relatives, he was treading on somewhat new and difficult ground. First and foremost, he wanted a princess for his ideal young man, Josephine's son Eugène, and he preferred Auguste, the daughter of the King of Bavaria, to the offered Austrian Archduchess. But the young Hereditary Prince of Baden was in love and accepted by his beautiful cousin Auguste; so, to compensate him for his loss, the handsome and vivacious Stephanie Beauharnais, fresh from Madame Campan's finishing touches, was sent for. For his brother Jerome a bride is found by Napoleon in the daughter of the King of Wurtemberg. Baden, Bavaria, and Wurtemberg were too much indebted to France for the spoils they were getting from Austria to object, provided the ladies and their mammas were agreeable; but the conqueror of Austerlitz found this part the most difficult, and had to be so attentive to the Queen of Bavaria that Josephine was jealous. However, all the matches came off, and still more remarkable, all turned out happily, a fact which certainly redounds to Napoleon's credit as a match-maker.

On December 31st, at 1.45 A.M., he entered Munich by torchlight and under a triumphal arch. His chamberlain, M. de Thiard, assured him that if he left Munich the marriage with Eugène would fall through, and he agrees to stay, although he declared that his absence, which accentuated the Bank crisis, is costing him 1,500,000 francs a day. The marriage took place on January 14th, four days after Eugène arrived at Munich and three days after that young Bayard had been bereft of his cherished moustache. Henceforth the bridegroom is called "Mon fils" in Napoleon's correspondence, and in the contract of marriage Napoleon-Eugène de France. The Emperor and Empress reached the Tuileries on January 27th. The marriage of Stephanie was even more difficult to manage, for, as St. Amand points out, the Prince of Baden had for brothers-in-law the Emperor of Russia, the King of Sweden, and the King of Bavaria—two of whom at least were friends of England. Josephine had once an uncle-in-law, the Count Beauharnais, whose wife Fanny was a well-known literary character of the time, but of whom the poet Lebrun made the epigram—

Stephanie was the grand-daughter of this couple, and as Grand-Duchess of Baden was beloved and respected, and lived on until 1860.

SERIES G

No. 1.

Napoleon left St. Cloud with Josephine on September 25th, and had reached Mayence on the 28th, where his Foot Guard were awaiting him. He left Mayence on October 1st, and reached Würzburg the next day, whence this letter was written, just before starting for Bamberg. Josephine was installed in the Teutonic palace at Mayence.

Princess of Baden, Stephanie Beauharnais. (For her marriage, see note, end of Series F.)

Hortense was by no means happy with her husband at the best of times, and she cordially hated Holland. She was said to be very frightened of Napoleon, but (like most people) could easily influence her mother. Napoleon's letter to her of this date (October 5th) is certainly not a severe one:—"I have received yours of September 14th. I am sending to the Chief Justice in order to accord pardon to the individual in whom you are interested. Your news always gives me pleasure. I trust you will keep well, and never doubt my great friendship for you."

The Grand Duke, i.e. of Würzburg. The castle where Napoleon was staying seemed to him sufficiently strong to be armed and provisioned, and he made a great depôt in the city. "Volumes," says Méneval, "would not suffice to describe the multitude of his military and administrative measures here, and the precautions which he took against even the most improbable hazards of war."

Florence.—Probably September 1796, when Napoleon was hard pressed, and Josephine had to fetch a compass from Verona to regain Milan, and thus evade Wurmser's troops.

No. 2.

Bamberg.—Arriving at Bamberg on the 6th, Napoleon issued a proclamation to his army which concluded—"Let the Prussian army experience the same fate that it experienced fourteen years ago. Let it learn that, if it is easy to acquire increase of territory and power by means of the friendship of the great people, their enmity, which can be provoked only by the abandonment of all spirit of wisdom and sense, is more terrible than the tempests of the ocean."

Eugène.—Napoleon wrote him on the 5th, and twice on the 7th, on which date we have eighteen letters in the Correspondence.

Her husband.—The Hereditary Grand Duke of Baden, to whom Napoleon had written from Mayence on September 30th, accepting his services, and fixing the rendezvous at Bamberg for October 4th or 5th.

On this day Napoleon invaded Prussian territory by entering Bayreuth, having preceded by one day the date of their ultimatum—a rhapsody of twenty pages, which Napoleon in his First Bulletin compares to "one of those which the English Cabinet pay their literary men £500 per annum to write." It is in this Bulletin where he describes the Queen of Prussia (dressed as an Amazon, in the uniform of her regiment of dragoons, and writing twenty letters a day) to be like Armida in her frenzy, setting fire to her own palace.

No. 3.

By this time the Prussian army is already in a tight corner, with its back on the Rhine, which, as Napoleon says in his Third Bulletin written on this day, is "assez bizarre, from which very important events should ensue." On the previous day he concludes a letter to Talleyrand—"One cannot conceive how the Duke of Brunswick, to whom one allows some talent, can direct the operations of this army in so ridiculous a manner."

Erfurt.—Here endless discussions, but, as Napoleon says in his bulletin of this day—"Consternation is at Erfurt, ... but while they deliberate, the French army is marching.... Still the wishes of the King of Prussia have been executed; he wished that by October 8th the French army should have evacuated the territory of the Confederation which has been evacuated, but in place of repassing the Rhine, it has passed the Saal."

If she wants to see a battle.—Queen Louise, great-grandmother of the present Emperor William, and in 1806 aged thirty. St. Amand says that "when she rode on horseback before her troops, with her helmet of polished steel, shaded by a plume, her gleaming golden cuirass, her tunic of cloth of silver, her red buskins with golden spurs," she resembled, as the bulletin said, one of the heroines of Tasso. She hated France, and especially Napoleon, as the child of the French Revolution.

No. 4.

I nearly captured him and the Queen.—They escaped only by an hour, Napoleon writes Berthier. Blucher aided their escape by telling a French General about an imaginary armistice, which the latter was severely reprimanded by Napoleon for believing.

No battle was more beautifully worked out than the battle of Jena—Davoust performing specially well his move in the combinations by which the Prussian army was hopelessly entangled, as Mack at Ulm a year before. Bernadotte alone, and as usual, gave cause for dissatisfaction. He had a personal hatred for his chief, caused by the knowledge that his wife (Désirée Clary) had never ceased to regret that she had missed her opportunity of being the wife of Napoleon. Bernadotte, therefore, was loth to give initial impetus to the victories of the French Emperor, though, when success was no longer doubtful, he would prove that it was not want of capacity but want of will that had kept him back. He was the Talleyrand of the camp, and had an equal aptitude for fishing in troubled waters.

I have bivouacked.—Whether the issue of a battle was decisive, or, as at Eylau, only partially so, Napoleon never shunned the disagreeable part of battle—the tending of the wounded and the burial of the dead. Savary tells us that at Jena, as at Austerlitz, the Emperor rode round the field of battle, alighting from his horse with a little brandy flask (constantly refilled), putting his hand to each unconscious soldier's breast, and when he found unexpected life, giving way to a joy "impossible to describe" (vol. ii. 184). Méneval also speaks of his performing this "pious duty, in the fulfilment of which nothing was allowed to stand in his way."

No. 5.

Fatigues, bivouacs ... have made me fat.—The Austerlitz campaign had the same effect. See a remarkable letter to Count Miot de Melito on January 30th, 1806: "The campaign I have just terminated, the movement, the excitement have made me stout. I believe that if all the kings of Europe were to coalesce against me I should have a ridiculous paunch." And it was so!

The great M. Napoleon, aged four, and the younger, aged two, are with Hortense and their grandmother at Mayence, where a Court had assembled, including most of the wives of Napoleon's generals, burning for news. A look-out had been placed by the Empress some two miles on the main-road beyond Mayence, whence sight of a courier was signalled in advance.

No. 7.

Potsdam.—As a reward for Auerstadt, Napoleon orders Davoust and his famous Third Corps to be the first to enter Berlin the following day.

No. 8.

Written from Berlin, where he is from October 28th to November 25th.

You do nothing but cry.—Josephine spent her evenings gauging futurity with a card-pack, and although it announced Jena and Auerstadt before the messenger, it may possibly, thinks M. Masson, have been less propitious for the future—and behind all was the sinister portion of the spae-wife's prophecy still unfulfilled.

No. 9a.

Madame Tallien had been in her time, especially in the years 1795-99, one of the most beautiful and witty women in France. Madame d'Abrantès calls her the Venus of the Capitol; and Lucien Bonaparte speaks of the court of the voluptuous Director, Barras, where the beautiful Tallien was the veritable Calypso. The people, however, could not forget her second husband, Tallien, from whom she was divorced in 1802 (having had three children born while he was in Egypt, 1798-1802); and whilst they called Josephine "Notre Dame des Victoires," they called Madame Tallien "Notre Dame de Septembre."

The latter was, however, celebrated both for her beauty and her intrigues;[60] and when, in 1799, Bonaparte seized supreme power the fair lady[61] invaded Barras in his bath to inform him of it; but found her indolent Ulysses only capable of ejaculating, "What can be done? that man has taken us all in!" Napoleon probably remembered this, and may refer to her rather than to the Queen of Prussia in the next letter, where he makes severe strictures on intriguing women. Moreover, Napoleon in his early campaigns had played a ridiculous part in some of Gillray's most indecent cartoons, where Mmes. Tallien and Josephine took with Barras the leading rôles; and as Madame Tallien was not considered respectable in 1796, she was hardly a fit friend for the Empress of the French ten years later. In the interval this lady, divorced a second time, had married the Prince de Chimay (Caraman). Napoleon knew also that she had been the mistress of Ouvrard, the banker, who in his Spanish speculations a few months earlier had involved the Bank of France to the tune of four millions sterling, and forced Napoleon to make a premature peace after Austerlitz. The Emperor had returned at white heat to Paris, and wished he could build a gallows for Ouvrard high enough for him to be on view throughout France. Madame Tallien's own father, M. de Cabarrus, was a French banker in Spain, and probably in close relation with Ouvrard.

No. 10.

Written from Berlin.

The bad things I say about women.—Napoleon looked upon this as a woman's war, and his temper occasionally gets the mastery of him. No war had ever been so distasteful to him or so personal. Prussia, whose alliance he had been courting for nearly ten years, was now worthless to him, and all because of petticoat government at Berlin. In the Fifteenth Bulletin (dated Wittenburg, October 23rd) he states that the Queen had accused her husband of cowardice in order to bring about the war. But it is doubtless the Sixteenth Bulletin (dated Potsdam, October 25th) to which Josephine refers, and which refers to the oath of alliance of the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia in the death chamber of Frederick the Great. "It is from this moment that the Queen quitted the care of her domestic concerns and the serious occupations of the toilet in order to meddle with the affairs of State." He refers to a Berlin caricature of the scene which was at the time in all the shops, "exciting even the laughter of clodhoppers." The handsome Emperor of Russia was portrayed, by his side the Queen, and on his other side the King of Prussia with his hand raised above the tomb of the Great Frederick; the Queen herself, draped in a shawl nearly as the London engravings represent Lady Hamilton, pressing her hand on her heart, and apparently gazing upon the Emperor of Russia." In the Eighteenth Bulletin (October 26th) it is said the Prussian people did not want war, that a handful of women and young officers had alone made this "tapage," and that the Queen, "formerly a timid and modest woman looking after her domestic concerns," had become turbulent and warlike, and had "conducted the monarchy within a few days to the brink of the precipice."

As the Queen of Prussia was a beautiful woman, she has had nearly as many partisans as Mary Stuart or Marie Antoinette, but with far less cause. Napoleon, who was the incarnation of practical common sense, saw in her the first cause of the war, and considered that so far as verbal flagellation could punish her, she should have it. He had neither time nor sympathy for the "Please you, do not hurt us" attitude of a bellicose new woman, who, as Imogen or Ida, have played with edged tools from the time of Shakespeare to that of Sullivan.

As an antidote, however, to his severe words against women he put, perhaps somewhat ostentatiously, the Princess d'Hatzfeld episode in his Twenty-second Bulletin (Berlin, October 29th). A year later (November 26th, 1807), when his Old Guard return to Paris and free performances are given at all the theatres, there is the "Triumph of Trajan" at the Opera, where Trajan, burning with his own hand the papers enclosing the secrets of a conspiracy, is a somewhat skilful allusion to the present episode.

No. 11.

Magdeburg had surrendered on November 8th, with 20 generals, 800 officers and 22,000 men, 800 pieces of cannon, and immense stores.

Lubeck.—This capitulation was that of Blucher, who had escaped after Jena through a rather dishonourable ruse. It had taken three army corps to hem him in.

No. 13.

Written from Berlin, but not included in the Correspondence.

Madame L——, i.e. Madame de la Rochefoucauld, a third or fourth cousin (by her first marriage) of Josephine, and her chief lady of honour. She was an incorrigible Royalist, and hated Napoleon; but as she had been useful at the Tuileries in establishing the Court, Napoleon, as usual, could not make up his mind to cause her dismissal. In 1806, however, she made Josephine miserable and Mayence unbearable. She foretold that the Prussians would win every battle, and even after Jena she (to use an expression of M. Masson), "continued her music on the sly" (en sourdine). See Letters 19 and 26 of this Series.

No. 17.

December 2, the anniversary of Austerlitz (1805) and of Napoleon's coronation (1804). He now announces to his soldiers the Polish campaign.

No. 18.

Not in the Correspondence.

Jealousy.—If Josephine's letters and conduct had been a little more worthy of her position, she might have saved herself. Madame Walewski, who had not yet appeared on the scene.

No. 19.

Désir de femme est un feu qui dévore.—The quotation is given in Jung's "Memoirs of Lucien" (vol. ii. 62). "Ce qu'une femme desire est un feu qui consume, celui d'une reine un vulcan qui dévore."

No. 23.

I am dependent on events.—He says the same at St. Helena. "Throughout my whole reign I was the keystone of an edifice entirely new, and resting on the most slender foundations. Its duration depended on the issue of my battles. I was never, in truth, master of my own movements; I was never at my own disposal."

No. 26.

The fair ones of Great Poland.—If Berthier and other regular correspondents of Josephine were like Savary in their enthusiasm, no wonder the Mayence coterie began to stir up jealousy. Here is the description of the Duke of Rovigo (vol. ii. 17): "The stay at Warsaw had for us something of witchery; even with regard to amusements it was practically the same life as at Paris: the Emperor had his concert twice a week, at the end of which he held a reception, where many of the leading people met. A great number of ladies from the best families were admired alike for the brilliancy of their beauty, and for their wonderful amiability. One may rightly say that the Polish ladies inspired with jealousy the charming women of every other civilised clime. They united, for the most part, to the manners of good society a fund of information which is not commonly found even among Frenchwomen, and is very far above anything we see in towns, where the custom of meeting in public has become a necessity. It seemed to us that the Polish ladies, compelled to spend the greater part of the year in their country-houses, applied themselves there to reading as well as to the cultivation of their talents, and it was thus that in the chief towns, where they went to pass the winter, they appeared successful over all their rivals." St. Amand says: "In the intoxication of their enthusiasm and admiration, the most beautiful among them—and Poland is the country of beauty—lavished on him, like sirens, their most seducing smiles...." Josephine was right to be jealous, for, as the artist Baron Lejeune adds, "They were, moreover, as graceful as the Creole women so often are."

A wretched barn, reached over still more wretched roads. The Emperor and his horse had nearly been lost in the mud, and Marshal Duroc had a shoulder put out by his carriage being upset.

Such things become common property.—So was another event, much to Josephine's chagrin. On this date Napoleon heard of a son (Léon) born to him by Eléanore, a former schoolfellow of Madame Murat. M. Masson thinks this event epoch-making in the life of Napoleon. "Henceforth the charm is broken, and the Emperor assured of having an heir of his own blood."

No. 27.

Warsaw, January 3.—On his way from Pultusk on January 1, he had received a Polish ovation at Bronie, where he first met Madame Walewski. The whole story is well told by M. Masson in Napoléon et les Femmes; but here we must content ourselves with the mere facts, and first, for the sake of comparison, cite his love-letters to the lady in question:—(1.) "I have seen only you, I have admired only you, I desire only you. A very prompt answer to calm the impatient ardour of N." (2.) "Have I displeased you? I have still the right to hope the contrary. Have I been mistaken? Your eagerness diminishes, while mine augments. You take away my rest! Oh, give a little joy, a little happiness to a poor heart all ready to worship you. Is it so difficult to get a reply? You owe me one.—N." (3.) "There are moments when too high rank is a burden, and that is what I feel. How can I satisfy the needs of a heart hopelessly in love, which would fling itself at your feet, and which finds itself stopped by the weight of lofty considerations paralysing the most lively desires? Oh, if you would! Only you could remove the obstacles that lie between us. My friend Duroc will clear the way. Oh, come! come! All your wishes shall be gratified. Your native land will be dearer to me when you have had pity on my poor heart,—N." (4.) "Marie, my sweet Marie! My first thought is for you, my first desire to see you again. You will come again, will you not? You promised me to do so. If not, the eagle will fly to you. I shall see you at dinner, a friend tells me. Deign, then, to accept this bouquet; let it become a mysterious link which shall establish between us a secret union in the midst of the crowd surrounding us. Exposed to the glances of the crowd, we shall still understand each other. When my hand presses my heart, you will know that it is full of thoughts of you; and in answer you will press closer your bouquet. Love me, my bonny Marie, and never let your hand leave your bouquet.—N." In this letter, in which he has substituted tu for vous, there is more passion than we have seen since 1796. The fair lady now leaves her decrepit old husband, nearly fifty years her senior, and takes up her abode in Finckenstein Castle, for nearly two months of the interval between Eylau and Friedland. "In order," says Pasquier, "that nothing should be lacking to characterise the calm state of his mind and the security of his position, it was soon known that he had seen fit to enjoy a pleasurable relaxation by calling to him a Polish gentlewoman of excellent birth, with whom he had contracted a liaison while passing through Warsaw, and who, as a consequence of this journey, had the honour of bearing him a son." Repudiated by her husband, she came to Paris, where she was very kindly treated by Josephine, who, having once seen her, found in her no rival, but an enthusiastic patriot, "sacrificed to Plutus," as Napoleon told Lucien at Mantua a few months later, adding that "her soul was as beautiful as her face."

No. 28.

Be cheerful—gai.—This adjective is a favourite one in letters to his wife, and dates from 1796.

No. 29.

Roads unsafe and detestable.—The French troops used to say that the four following words constituted the whole language of the Poles: Kleba? Niema. Vota? Sara. ("Some bread? There is none. Some water? We will go and fetch it.") Napoleon one day passed by a column of infantry suffering the greatest privations on account of the mud, which prevented the arrival of provisions. "Papa, kleba?" exclaimed a soldier. "Niema," replied the Emperor. The whole column burst into a fit of laughter; they asked for nothing more. Baron Lejeune, Constant, and Méneval have variants of the same story.

No. 35.

Written from Warsaw, and omitted from the Correspondence.

I hope that you are at Paris.—Madame Junot hints that her husband, as Governor of Paris, was being sounded by Bonaparte's sister, Murat's wife (with whom Junot was in love), if he would make Murat Napoleon's successor, in lieu of Eugène, if the Emperor were killed. If Napoleon had an inkling of this, he would wish Josephine to be on the spot.

T.—Is probably Tallien, who had misconducted himself in Egypt. Madame Junot met him at Madrid, but she and others had not forgotten the September massacres. "The wretch! how did he drag on his loathsome existence?" she exclaims.

No. 36.

Paris.—Josephine arrived here January 31st; Queen Hortense going to the Hague and the Princess Stephanie to Mannheim.

No. 38.

Probably written from Arensdorf, on the eve of the battle of Eylau (February 9th), on which day a great ball took place in Paris, given by the Minister of Marine.

No. 39.

Eylau.—The battle of Preussich-Eylau was splendidly fought on both sides, but the Russian general, Beningsen, had all the luck. (1) His Cossacks capture Napoleon's letter to Bernadotte, which enables him to escape all Napoleon's plans, which otherwise would have destroyed half the Russian army. (2) A snowstorm in the middle of the day in the faces of the French ruins Augereau's corps and saves the Russians from a total rout. (3) The arrival of a Prussian army corps, under General Lestocq, robbed Davoust of his glorious victory on the right, and much of the ground gained—including the village of Kuschnitten. (4) The night came on just in time to save the rest of the Russian army, and to prevent Ney taking any decisive part in the battle. Bernadotte, as usual, failed to march to the sound of the guns, but, as Napoleon's orders to do so were captured by Cossacks, he might have had an excuse rather better than usual, had not General Hautpoult,[62] in touch both with him and Napoleon, advised him of his own orders and an imminent battle. Under such circumstances, no general save the Prince of Ponte-Corvo, says Bignon, would have remained inactive, "but it was the destiny of this marshal to have a rôle apart in all the great battles fought by the Emperor. His conduct was at least strange at Jena, it will not be less so, in 1809, at Wagram." The forces, according to Matthieu Dumas (Précis des Evénements Militaires, volume 18), were approximately 65,000 French against 80,000 allies[63]—the latter in a strong chosen position. Napoleon saved 1500, the wreckage of Augereau's[64] corps, that went astray in the blizzard (costing the French more than half their loss in the two days' fight), by a charge of his Horse Guard, but his Foot Guard never fired a shot. The allies lost 5000 to 6000 dead and 20,000 wounded. Napoleon told Montholon that his loss at Eylau was 18,000, which probably included 2000 dead, and 15,000 to 16,000 wounded and prisoners. As the French remained masters of the field of battle, the slightly wounded were evidently not counted by Napoleon, who in his bulletin gives 1900 dead and 5700 wounded. The list of wounded inmates of the hospital a month later, March 8th, totalled only 4600, which astonished Napoleon, who sent back for a recount. On receipt of this he wrote Daru (March 15): "From your advices to hand, I see we are not far out of count. There were at the battle of Eylau 4000 or 5000 wounded, and 1000 in the combats preceding the battle."

No. 40.

Corbineau.—Mlle. d'Avrillon (vol. ii. 101) tells how, in haste to join his regiment at Paris, Corbineau had asked for a seat in her carriage from St. Cloud. She was delighted, as he was a charming man, "with no side on like Lauriston and Lemarois." He had just been made general, and said, "Either I will get killed or deserve the favour which the Emperor has granted me. M'selle, you shall hear me spoken of; if I am not killed I will perform some startling deed."

Dahlmann.—General Nicholas Dahlmann, commanding the chasseurs of the guard, was killed in the charge on the Russian infantry which saved the battle. On April 22nd Napoleon wrote Vice-Admiral Decrés to have three frigates put on the stocks to be called Dahlmann, Corbineau, and Hautpoul, and in each captain's cabin a marble inscription recounting their brave deeds.

No. 41.

Young Tascher.—The third of Josephine's cousins-germain of that name. He was afterwards aide-de-camp of Prince Eugène, and later major-domo of the Empress Eugénie.

No. 42.

After this letter St. Amand declares that Napoleon's letters to his wife become "cold, short, banal, absolutely insignificant." "They consisted of a few remarks about the rain or the fine weather, and always the same refrain—the invitation to be cheerful.... Napoleon, occupied elsewhere, wrote no longer to his legitimate wife, but as a duty, as paying a debt of conscience." He was occupied, indeed, but barely as the author supposes. It is Bingham (vol. ii. 281) who reminds us that in the first three months of 1807 we have 1715 letters and despatches preserved of his work during that period, while he often rode forty leagues a day, and had instructed his librarian to send him by each morning's courier two or three new books from Paris. Aubenas is more just than St. Amand. "If his style is no longer that of the First Consul, still less of the General of Italy, he was solicitous, punctilious, attentive, affectionate even although laconic, in that correspondence (with Josephine) which, in the midst of his much greater preoccupations, seems for him as much a pleasure as a duty."

No. 43.

I am still at Eylau.—It took Napoleon and his army eight days to bury the dead and remove the wounded. Lejeune says, "His whole time was given up now to seeing that the wounded received proper care, and he insisted on the Russians being as well treated as the French" (vol. i. 48). The Emperor wrote Daru that if more surgeons had been on the spot he could have saved at least 200 lives; although, to look at the surgical instruments used on these fields, and now preserved in the museum of Les Invalides, it is wonderful that the men survived operations with such ghastly implements of torture. A few days later Napoleon tells Daru on no account to begrudge money for medicines, and especially for quinine.

This country is covered with dead and wounded.—"Napoleon," says Dumas (vol. i. 18, 41), "having given order that the succour to the wounded on both sides might be multiplied, rode over the field of battle, which all eye-witnesses agree to have been the most horrible field of carnage which war has ever offered. In a space of less than a square league, the ground covered with snow, and the frozen lakes, were heaped up with 10,000 dead, and 3000 to 4000 dead horses, débris of artillery, arms of all kinds, cannon-balls, and shells. Six thousand Russians, expiring of their wounds, and of hunger and thirst, were left abandoned to the generosity of the conqueror."

No. 50.

Osterode.—"A wretched village, where I shall pass a considerable time." Owing to the messenger to Bernadotte being captured by Cossacks, the Emperor, if not surprised at Eylau on the second day, found at least all his own intentions anticipated. He could not risk the same misfortune again, and at Osterode all his army were within easy hailing distance, "within two marches at most" (Dumas). Savary speaks of him there, "working, eating, giving audience, and sleeping—all in the same room," alone keeping head against the storm of his marshals, who wished him to retire across the Vistula. He remained over five weeks at Osterode, and more than two months at Finckenstein Castle, interesting himself in the affairs of Teheran and Monte Video, offering prizes for discoveries in electricity and medicine, giving advice as to the most scientific modes of teaching history and geography, while objecting to the creation of poet-laureates or Cæsarians whose exaggerated praises would be sure to awaken the ridicule of the French people, even if it attained its object of finding a place of emolument for poets. Bignon says (vol. vi. 227): "From Osterode or from Finckenstein he supervised, as from Paris or St. Cloud, the needs of France; he sought means to alleviate the hindrances to commerce, discussed the best ways to encourage literature and art, corresponded with all his ministers, and while awaiting the renewal of the fray, having a war of figures with his Chancellor of Exchequer."

It is not as good as the great city.—The day before he had written his brother Joseph that neither his officers nor his staff had taken their clothes off for two months; that he had not taken his boots off for a fortnight; that the wounded had to be moved 120 miles in sledges, in the open air; that bread was unprocurable; that the Emperor had been living for weeks upon potatoes, and the officers upon mere meat. "After having destroyed the Prussian monarchy, we are fighting against the remnant of the Prussians, against Russians, Cossacks, and Kalmucks, those roving tribes of the north, who formerly invaded the Roman Empire."

I have ordered what you wish for Malmaison.—About this time he also gave orders for what afterwards became the Bourse and the Madeleine, and gave hints for a new journal (March 7th), whose "criticism should be enlightened, well-intentioned, impartial, and robbed of that noxious brutality which characterises the discussions of existing journals, and which is so at variance with the true sentiments of the nation."

No. 54.

Minerva.—In a letter of March 7th Josephine writes to Hortense: "A few days ago I saw a frightful accident at the Opera. The actress who represented Minerva in the ballet of 'Ulysses' fell twenty feet and broke her arm. As she is poor, and has a family to support, I have sent her fifty louis." This was probably the ballet, "The Return of Ulysses," a subject given by Napoleon to Fouché as a suitable subject for representation. In the same letter Josephine writes: "All the private letters I have received agree in saying that the Emperor was very much exposed at the battle of Eylau. I get news of him very often, sometimes two letters a day, but that does not replace him." This special danger at Eylau is told by Las Cases, who heard it from Bertrand. Napoleon was on foot, with only a few officers of his staff; a column of four to five thousand Russians came almost in contact with him. Berthier instantly ordered up the horses. The Emperor gave him a reproachful look; then sent orders to a battalion of his guard to advance, which was a good way behind, and standing still. As the Russians advanced he repeated several times, "What audacity, what audacity!" At the sight of his Grenadiers of the Guard the Russians stopped short. It was high time for them to do so, as Bertrand said. The Emperor had never stirred; all who surrounded him had been much alarmed.

No. 55.

"It is the first and only time," says Aubenas, "that, in these two volumes of letters (Collection Didot), Napoleon says vous to his wife. But his vexation does not last more than a few lines, and this short letter ends, 'Tout à toi.' Not content with this softening, and convinced how grieved Josephine will be at this language of cold etiquette, he writes to her the same day, at ten o'clock at night, before going to bed, a second letter in his old style, which ends, 'Mille et mille amitiés.'" It is a later letter (March 25th) which ends as described, but No. 56 is, nevertheless, a kind letter.

No. 56.

Dupuis.—Former principal of the Brienne Military School. Napoleon, always solicitous for the happiness of those whom he had known in his youth, had made Dupuis his own librarian at Malmaison. His brother, who died in 1809, was the learned Egyptologist.

No. 58.

M. de T——, i.e. M. de Thiard. In Lettres Inedites de Napoleon I. (Brotonne), No. 176, to Talleyrand, March 22nd, the Emperor writes: "I have had M. de Thiard effaced from the list of officers. I have sent him away, after having testified all my displeasure, and told him to stay on his estate. He is a man without military honour and civic fidelity.... My intention is that he shall also be struck off from the number of my chamberlains. I have been poignantly grieved at such black ingratitude, but I think myself fortunate to have found out such a wicked man in time." De Thiard seems to have been corresponding with the enemy from Warsaw.

No. 60.

Marshal Bessières.—His château of Grignon, now destroyed, was one of the most beautiful of Provence. Madame de Sevigné lived and was buried in the town of Grignon.

No. 63.

This was printed April 24th in the French editions, but April 14th is evidently the correct date.

No. 67.

"Sweet, pouting, and capricious."—Aubenas speaks of these lines "in the style of the Italian period, which seemed in fact to calm the fears of the Empress."

No. 68.

Madame ——. His own sister, Madame Murat, afterwards Queen of Naples. See note to Letter 35 for her influence over Junot. The latter was severely reprimanded by Napoleon on his return and banished from Paris. "Why, for example, does the Grand Duchess occupy your boxes at the theatres? Why does she go thither in your carriage? Hey! M. Junot! you are surprised that I am so well acquainted with your affairs and those of that little fool, Madame Murat?" ("Memoirs of the Duchess d'Abrantès," vol. iii. 328.)

Measles.—As the poor child was ill four days, it was probably laryngitis from which he died—an ailment hardly distinguishable from croup, and one of the commonest sequelæ of measles. He died on May 5th.

The best account is the Memoirs of Stanislaus Giraudin. They had applied leeches to the child's chest, and had finally recourse to some English powders of unknown composition, which caused a rally, followed by the final collapse. King Louis said the child's death was caused by the Dutch damp climate, which was bad for his own health. Josephine hastens to join her daughter, but breaks down at Lacken, where Hortense, more dead than alive, joins her, and returns to Paris with her.

No. 69.

I trust I may hear you have been rational in your sorrow.—As a matter of fact he had heard the opposite, for the following day (May 15th) he writes to his brother Jerome: "Napoleon died in three days at the Hague; I know not if the King has advised you of it. This event gives me the more pain insomuch as his father and mother are not rational, and are giving themselves up to all the transports of their grief." To Fouché he writes three days later: "I have been very much afflicted by the misfortune which has befallen me. I had hoped for a more brilliant destiny for that poor child;" and on May 20th, "I have felt the loss of the little Napoleon very acutely. I would have wished that his father and mother should have received from their temperament as much courage as I for knowing how to bear all the ills of life. But they are younger, and have reflected less on the frailty of our worldly possessions." It is typical of Napoleon that the only man to whom, as far as we know, he unbosomed his sorrow should be one of his early friends, even though that friend should be the false and faithless Fouché, who requited his confidence later by vile and baseless allegations respecting the parentage of this very child. In one respect only did Napoleon resemble David in his supposititious sin, which was, that when the child was dead, he had neither time nor temperament to waste in futile regrets. As he said on another occasion, if his wife had died during the Austerlitz Campaign it would not have delayed his operations a quarter of an hour. But he considers practical succour to the living as the most fitting memorial to the dead, and writes on June 4th to De Champagny: "Twenty years ago a malady called croup showed itself in the north of Europe. Some years ago it spread into France. I require you to offer a prize of £500 (12,000 francs), to be given to the doctor who writes the best essay on this malady and its mode of treatment." Commenting on this letter Bignon (vol. vi. p. 262) adds, "It is, however, fortunate when, on the eve of battles, warlike princes are pondering over ways of preserving the population of their states."

No. 71.

May 20th.—On this date he writes Hortense: "My daughter, all the news I get from the Hague tells me that you are not rational. However legitimate your grief, it must have limits: never impair your health; seek distractions, and know that life is strewn with so many rocks, and may be the source of so many miseries, that death is not the greatest of all.—Your affectionate father, Napoleon."

No. 74.

I am vexed with Hortense.—The same day he encloses with this a letter to Hortense. "My daughter, you have not written me a line during your great and righteous grief. You have forgotten everything, as if you had nothing more to lose. They say you care no longer for any one, that you are callous about everything; I note the truth of it by your silence. This is not well, Hortense, it is not what you promised me. Your son was everything for you. Are your mother and myself nothing? Had I been at Malmaison I should have shared your grief, but I should have wished you at the same time to turn to your best friends. Good-bye, my daughter, be cheerful; it is necessary to be resigned; keep well, in order to fulfil all your duties. My wife is utterly miserable about your condition; do not increase her sorrow.—Your affectionate father, Napoleon."

Hortense had been on such bad terms with her husband for several months past that Napoleon evidently thinks it wiser not to allude to him, although he had written Louis a very strong letter on his treatment of his wife two months earlier (see letter 12,294 of the Correspondence, April 4th). There is, however, a temporary reunion between husband and wife in their common sorrow.

No. 78.

Friedland.—On this day he wrote a further letter to the Queen of Holland (No. 12,761 of the Correspondence): "My daughter, I have your letter dated Orleans. Your grief pains me, but I should like you to possess more courage; to live is to suffer, and the true man is always fighting for mastery over himself. I do not like to see you unjust towards the little Napoleon Louis, and towards all your friends. Your mother and I had hoped to be more to you than we are." She had been sent to take the waters of Cauterets, and had left her child Napoleon Louis (who died at Forli, 1831) with Josephine, who writes to her daughter (June 11th): "He amuses me much; he is so gentle. I find he has all the ways of that poor child that we mourn." And a few days later: "There remains to you a husband, an interesting child, and a mother whose love you know." Josephine had with women the same tact that her husband had with men, but the Bonaparte family, with all its good qualities, strained the tact and tempers of both to the utmost.

No. 79.

Tilsit.—Referring to Napoleon and Alexander at Tilsit, Michaud says: "Both full of wiles and devices, they affected nevertheless the most perfect sentiments of generosity, which at the bottom they scarcely dreamed of practising. Reunited, they were the masters of the world, but such a union seemed impossible; they would rather share it among themselves. Allies and rivals, friends and enemies, all were sacrificed; henceforth there were to be only two powers, that of the East and that of the West. Bonaparte at this time actually ruled from the Niemen to the Straits of Gibraltar, from the North Sea to the base of the Italian Peninsula."

SERIES H

No. 1.

Milan.—Magnificent public works were set on foot by Napoleon at Milan, and the Cathedral daily adorned with fresh marvels of sculpture. Arriving here on the morning of the 22nd, Napoleon goes first to hear the Te Deum at the Cathedral, then to see Eugène's wife at the Monza Palace; in the evening to the La Scala Theatre, and finishes the day (to use an Irishism) by working most of the night.

Mont Cenis.—"The roads of the Simplon and Mont Cenis were kept in the finest order, and daily attracted fresh crowds of strangers to the Italian plains." So says Alison, but on the present occasion Napoleon was overtaken by a storm which put his life in danger. He was fortunate enough to reach a cave in which he took refuge. This cave appeared to him, as he afterwards said, "a cave of diamonds" (Méneval).

Eugène.—The writer in Biog. Univ. (art. Josephine) says: "During a journey that Napoleon made in Italy (November 1807) he wished, while loading Eugène with favours, to prepare his mind for his mother's divorce. The Decree of Milan, by which, in default of male and legitimate children[65] of the direct

line, he adopted Eugène for his son and his successor to the throne of Italy, gave to those who knew how to read the secret thoughts of the Emperor in his patent acts the proof that he had excluded him from all inheritance in the Imperial Crown of France, and that he dreamed seriously of a new alliance himself."

No. 2.

Venice.—The Venetians gave Napoleon a wonderful ovation—many nobles spending a year's income on the fêtes. "Innumerable gondolas glittering with a thousand colours and resounding with the harmony of instruments, escorted the barges which bore, together with the master of the world, the Viceroy and the Vice-Queen of Italy, the King and Queen of Bavaria, the Princess of Lucca, the King of Naples (Joseph, who stayed six days with his brother), the Grand Duke of Berg, the Prince of Neufchâtel, and the greater part of the generals of the old army of Italy" (Thiers). While at Venice Napoleon was in easy touch with the Porte, of which he doubtless made full use, while, per contra, he was expected to give Greece her independence.

November 30th.—Leaving Milan, Napoleon came straight through Brescia to Verona, where he supped with the King and Queen of Bavaria. The next morning he started for Vicenza through avenues of vine-encircled poplars and broad yellow wheat-fields which "lay all golden in the sunlight and the breeze" (Constant). The Emperor went to the theatre at Vicenza, and left again at 2 A.M. Spending the night at Stra, he met the Venetian authorities early the next morning at Fusina.

No. 3.

Udine.—He is here on the 12th, and then hastens to meet his brother Lucien at Mantua—the main but secret object of his journey to Italy. It is most difficult to gauge the details—was it a political or a conjugal question that made the interview a failure? Madame D'Abrantès, voicing the rumours of the day, thinks the former; Lucien, writing Memoirs for his wife and children, declares it to be the latter. Napoleon was prepared to legalise the children of his first wife, and marry the eldest to Prince Ferdinand, the heir to the Spanish crown; but Lucien considers the Bourbons to be enemies of France and of the Bonapartes. These Memoirs of Lucien are not perhaps very trustworthy, especially where his prejudices overlap his memory or his judgment, but always instructive and very readable. When the account of this interview was written (early in 1812), Lucien was an English prisoner, furious that his brother has just refused to exchange him for "some English Lords." Speaking of Josephine, the Emperor tells him that in spite of her reputation for good-nature, she is more malicious than generally supposed, although for her husband "she has no nails"; but he adds that rumours of impending divorce have made life between them very constrained. "Only imagine," continued the Emperor, "that wife of mine weeps every time she has indigestion, because she says she thinks herself poisoned by those who wish me to marry some one else. It is perfectly hateful." He said that Joseph also thought of a divorce, as his wife gave him only daughters, and that the three brothers might be remarried on the same day. The Emperor regretted not having taken the Princess Augusta, daughter of his "best friend, the King of Bavaria," for himself, instead of for Eugène, who did not know how to appreciate her and was unfaithful. He was convinced that Russia by invading India would overthrow England, and that his own soldiers were ready to follow him to the antipodes. He ends by offering Lucien his choice of thrones—Naples, Italy, "the brightest jewel of my Imperial crown," or Spain[66] (Madame D'Abrantès adds Prussia), if he will give way about Madame Jouberthon and her children. "Tout pour Lucien divorcé, rien pour Lucien sans divorce." When Napoleon finds his brother obdurate he makes Eugène Prince of Venice, and his eldest daughter Princess of Bologna, with a large appanage. Lucien is in fresh disgrace within less than three months of the Mantuan interview, for on March 11, 1808, Napoleon writes brother Joseph, "Lucien is misconducting himself at Rome ... and is more Roman than the Pope himself. His conduct has been scandalous; he is my open enemy, and that of France.... I will not permit a Frenchman, and one of my own brothers, to be the first to conspire and act against me, with a rabble of priests."

I may soon be in Paris.—After leaving Milan he visits the fortifications at Alessandria, and is met by a torchlight procession at Marengo. Letters for two days (December 27-28th) are dated Turin, although Constant says he did not stop there. Crossing Mont Cenis on December 30th he reaches the Tuileries on the evening of New Year's Day (1808).

SERIES I

No. 1.

Bayonne is half-way between Paris and Madrid, nearly 600 miles from each. Napoleon arrived here April 15th, and left July 21st, returning with Josephine viâ Pau, Tarbes, Auch, Montauban, Agen, Bordeaux, Rochefort, Nantes. Everywhere he received a hearty welcome, even, and especially, in La Vendée. He arrives at Paris August 14th, hearing on August 3rd at Bordeaux of (what he calls) the "horrible catastrophe" of General Dupont at Baylen.

No. 2.

A country-house.—The Château of Marrac. Marbot had stayed there in 1803 with Augereau. Bausset informs us that this château had been built either for the Infanta Marie Victoire engaged to Louis XV., or for the Dowager Queen of Charles II., "the bewitched," when she was packed off from Madrid to Bayonne (see Hume's Spain, 1479-1788).

Everything is still most primitive.—Nevertheless he enjoyed the pamperruque which was danced before the château by seven men and ten maidens, gaily dressed—the women armed with tambourines and the men with castanets. Saint-Amand speaks of thirteen performers (seven men and six maidens) chosen from the leading families of the town, to render what for time immemorial had been considered fit homage for the most illustrious persons.

No. 3.

Prince of the Asturias.—The Emperor had received him at the château of Marrac, paid him all the honours due to royalty, while evading the word "Majesty," and insisting the same day on his giving up all claim to the Crown of Spain. Constant says he was heavy of gait, and rarely spoke.

The Queen.—A woman of violent passions. The Prince of the Asturias had designs on his mother's life, while the Queen openly begged Napoleon to put the Prince to death. On May 9th Napoleon writes Talleyrand to prepare to take charge of Ferdinand at Valençay, adding that if the latter were "to become attached to some pretty woman, whom we are sure of, it would be no disadvantage." A new experience for a Montmorency to become the keeper of a Bourbon, rather than his Constable. Pasquier, with his usual Malvolian decorum, gives fuller details. Napoleon, he says, "enumerates with care (to Talleyrand) all the precautions that are to be taken to prevent his escape, and even goes so far as to busy himself with the distractions which may be permitted him. And, be it noted, the principal one thrown in his way was given him by a young person who lived at the time under M. De Talleyrand's roof. This liaison, of which Ferdinand soon became distrustful, did not last as long as it was desired to."

No. 4.

A son has been born.—By a plebiscite of the year XII. (1804-5), the children of Louis and Hortense were to be the heirs of Napoleon, and in conformity with this the child born on April 20th at 17 Rue Lafitte (now the residence of the Turkish Ambassador), was inscribed on the register of the Civil List destined for princes of the blood. His two elder brothers had not been so honoured, but in due course the King of Rome was entered thereon. Had Louis accepted the Crown of Spain which Napoleon had in vain offered to him, and of which Hortense would have made an ideal Queen, the chances are that Napoleon would never have divorced Josephine. St. Amand shows at length that the future Napoleon III. is truly the child of Louis, and neither of Admiral Verhuell nor of the Duke Decazes. Louis and Hortense in the present case are sufficiently agreed to insist that the father's name be preserved by the child, who is called Charles Louis Napoleon, and not Charles Napoleon, which was the Emperor's first choice. In either case the name of the croup-stricken firstborn had been preserved. On April 23rd Josephine had already two letters from Cambacérès respecting mother and child, and on this day the Empress writes her daughter: "I know that Napoleon is consoled for not having a sister."

Arrive on the 27th.—Josephine, always wishful to humour her husband's love of punctuality, duly arrived on the day fixed, and took up her abode with her husband in the château of Marrac. Ferdinand wrote to his uncle in Madrid to beware of the cursed Frenchmen, telling him also that Josephine had been badly received at Bayonne. The letter was intercepted, and Napoleon wrote Murat that the writer was a liar, a fool, and a hypocrite. The Emperor, in fact, never trusted the Prince henceforward. Bausset, who translated the letter, tells how the Emperor could scarcely believe that the Prince would use so strong an adjective, but was convinced on seeing the word maldittos, which he remarked was almost the Italian—maledetto.

SERIES J

Leaving St. Cloud September 22nd, Napoleon is at Metz on the 23rd, at Kaiserlautern on the 24th, where he sends a message to the Empress in a letter to Cambacérès, and on the 27th is at Erfurt. On the 28th the Emperors of France and Russia sign a Convention of Alliance. Napoleon leaves Erfurt October 14th (the anniversary of Jena), travels incognito, and arrives St. Cloud October 18th.

No. 1.

I have rather a cold.—Napoleon had insisted on going to explore a new road he had ordered between Metz and Mayence, and which no one had ventured to say was not complete. The road was so bad that the carriage of the maître des requêtes, who had been summoned to account for the faulty work, was precipitated a hundred feet down a ravine near Kaiserlautern.

I am pleased with the Emperor and every one here.—Which included what he had promised Talma for his audience—a parterre of kings. Besides the two Emperors, the King of Prussia was represented by his brother Prince William, Austria by General Vincent, and there were also the Kings of Saxony, Bavaria, Würtemberg, Westphalia, and Naples, the Prince Primate, the Princes of Anhalt, Coburg, Saxe-Weimar, Darmstadt, Baden, and Nassau. Talleyrand, Champagny, Maret, Duroc, Berthier, and Caulaincourt, with Generals Oudinot, Soult, and Lauriston accompanied Napoleon. Literature was represented by Goethe, Wieland, Müller; and feminine attractions by the Duchess of Saxe-Weimar and the wily Princess of Tour and Taxis, sister of the Queen of Prussia. Pasquier and others have proved that at Erfurt Talleyrand did far more harm than good to his master's cause, and in fact intended to do so. On his arrival he spent his first evening with the Princess of Tour and Taxis, in order to meet the Emperor Alexander, and said: "Sire ... It is for you to save Europe, and the only way of attaining this object is by resisting Napoleon. The French people are civilised, their Emperor is not: the sovereign of Russia is civilised, his people are not. It is therefore for the sovereign of Russia to be the ally of the French people,"—of whom Talleyrand declared himself to be the representative. By squaring Alexander this transcendental (unfrocked) Vicar of Bray, "with an oar in every boat," is once more hedging, or, to use his own phrase, guaranteeing the future, and at the same time securing the daughter of the Duchess of Courland for his nephew, Edmond de Périgord. "The Arch-apostate" carried his treason so far as to advise Alexander of Napoleon's ulterior views, and thus enabled the former to forestall them—no easy matter in conversations with Napoleon "lasting whole days" (see Letter No. 3, this Series). Talleyrand had also a grievance. He had been replaced as Foreign Minister by Champagny. He had accepted the surrender of his portfolio gladly, as now, becoming Vice-Grand Elector, he ranked with Cambacérès and Maret. But when he found that Napoleon, who liked to have credit for his own diplomacy, seldom consulted him, or allowed Champagny to do so, jealousy and ill-will naturally resulted.

No. 2.

Shooting over the battlefield of Jena.—The presence of the Emperor Alexander on this occasion was considered a great affront to his recent ally, the King of Prussia, and is severely commented on by Von Moltke in one of his Essays. In fairness to Alexander, we must remember that their host, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, had married his sister. Von Moltke, by the way, speaks of hares forming the sport in question, but Savary of a second battle of Jena fought against the partridges. The fact seems to be that all kinds of game, including stags and deer, were driven by the beaters to the royal sportsmen in their huts, and the Emperor Alexander, albeit short-sighted, succeeded in killing a stag, at eight feet distance, at the first shot.

The Weimar ball.—This followed the Jena shoot, and the dancing lasted all night. The Russian courtiers were scandalised at their Emperor dancing, but while he was present the dancing was conventional enough, consisting of promenading two and two to the strains of a Polish march. "Imperial Waltz, imported from the Rhine," was already the rage in Germany, and Napoleon, in order to be more worthy of his Austrian princess, tried next year to master this new science of tactics, but after a trial with the Princess Stephanie, the lady declared that her pupil should always give lessons, and never receive them. He was rather more successful at billiards, pursued under the same praiseworthy incentive.

A few trifling ailments.—Mainly a fearful nightmare; a new experience, in which he imagines his vitals torn out by a bear. "Significant of much!" As when also the Russian Emperor finds himself without a sword and accepts that of Napoleon as a gift: and when, on the last night, the latter orders his comedians to play "Bajazet,"—little thinking the appointed Tamerlane was by his side.

No. 3.

I am pleased with Alexander.—For the time being Josephine had most reason to be pleased with Alexander, who failed to secure his sister's hand for Napoleon.

He ought to be with me.—He might have been, had not Napoleon purposely evaded the Eastern Question. On this subject Savary writes (vol. ii. 297):—"Since Tilsit, Napoleon had sounded the personal views of his ambassador at Constantinople, General Sebastiani, as to this proposition of the Emperor of Russia (i.e. the partition of Turkey). This ambassador was utterly opposed to this project, and in a long report that he sent to the Emperor on his return from Constantinople, he demonstrated to him that it was absolutely necessary for France never to consent to the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire; the Emperor Napoleon adopted his views." And these Talleyrand knew. The whirligig of time brings about its revenges, and in less than fifty years Lord Palmerston had to seek an alliance with France and the house of Napoleon in order to maintain the fixed policy that sent Napoleon I. to Moscow and to St. Helena. "Alexander, with justice," says Alison, "looked upon Constantinople as the back-door of his empire, and was earnest that its key should be placed in his hands." "Alexander," Napoleon told O'Meara, "wanted to get Constantinople, which I would not allow, as it would have destroyed the equilibrium of power in Europe. I reflected that France would gain Egypt, Syria, and the islands, which would have been nothing in comparison with what Russia would have obtained. I considered that the barbarians of the north were already too powerful, and probably in the course of time would overwhelm all Europe, as I now think they will. Austria already trembles: Russia and Prussia united, Austria falls, and England cannot prevent it."

Erfurt is the meridian of Napoleon's first thirteen years (1796-1808)—each more glorious; henceforward (1809-1821) ever faster he "rolls, darkling, down the torrent of his fate."

SERIES K

No. 5.

Written from Aranda.

No. 6.

Written from the Imperial Camp outside Madrid. Neither Napoleon[67] nor Joseph entered the capital, but King Joseph took up his abode at the Prado, the castle of the Kings of Spain, two miles away; while the Emperor was generally at Chamartin, some five miles distant. He had arrived on the heights surrounding Madrid on his Coronation Day (December 2nd), and does not fail to remind his soldiers and his people of this auspicious coincidence. The bulletin concludes with a tirade against England, whose conduct is "shameful," but her troops "well disciplined and superb." It declares that Spain has been treated by them as they have treated Holland, Sardinia, Austria, Russia, and Sweden. "They foment war everywhere; they distribute weapons like poison; but they shed their blood only for their direct and personal interests."

Parisian weather of the last fortnight in May.—In his bulletin of the 13th, he says: "Never has such a month of December been known in this country; one would think it the beginning of spring." But ten days later all was changed, and the storm of Guadarrama undoubtedly saved Moore and the English army. "Was it then decreed," groans Thiers, "that we, who were always successful against combined Europe, should on no single occasion prevail against those implacable foes?"

No. 8.

Other letters of this date are headed Madrid.

Kourakin.—Alexander Kourakin was the new Russian Ambassador at Paris, removed thence from Vienna to please Napoleon, and to replace Tolstoi, who, according to Savary, was always quarrelling with French officers on military points, but who could hardly be so narrow-minded a novice on these points as his namesake of to-day. This matter had been arranged at Erfurt.

No. 9.

The English appear to have received reinforcements.—Imagine a Transvaal with a population of ten millions, and one has a fair idea of the French difficulties in Spain, even without Portugal. The Spaniards could not fight a scientific battle like Jena or Friedland, but they were incomparable at guerilla warfare. The Memoirs of Barons Marbot and Lejeune have well demonstrated this. The latter, an accomplished linguist, sent to locate Moore's army, found that to pass as an Englishman the magic words "Damn it," won him complete success.

No. 10.

Benavente.—Here they found 600 horses, which had been hamstrung by the English.

The English flee panic-stricken.—The next day Napoleon writes Fouché to have songs written, and caricatures made of them, which are also to be translated into German and Italian, and circulated in Germany and Italy.

The weather is very bad.—Including 18 degrees of frost. Savary says they had never felt the cold so severe in Poland—and that they ran a risk of being buried in the snow. The Emperor had to march on foot and was very much tired. "On these occasions," adds Savary, "the Emperor was not selfish, as people would have us believe ... he shared his supper[68] and his fire with all who accompanied him: he went so far as to make those eat whom he saw in need of it." Napier gives other details: "Napoleon, on December 22nd, has 50,000 men at the foot of the Guadarrama. A deep snow choked the passes of the Sierra, and after twelve hours' toil the advanced guards were still on the wrong side: the general commanding reported the road impracticable, but Napoleon, dismounting, placed himself at the head of the column, and amidst storms of hail and driving snow, led his soldiers over the mountain." At the passage of the Esla Moore escapes Napoleon by twelve hours. Marbot, as usual, gives picturesque details. Officers and men marched with locked arms, the Emperor between Lannes and Duroc. Half-way up, the marshals and generals, who wore jack-boots, could go no further. Napoleon, however, got hoisted on to a gun, and bestrode it: the marshals and generals did the same, and in this grotesque order they reached, after four hours' toil, the convent at the summit.

Lefebvre.—As they neared Benavente the slush became frightful, and the artillery could not keep pace. General Lefebvre-Desnouette went forward, with the horse regiment of the Guard, forded the Esla with four squadrons, was outnumbered by the English (3000 to 300), but he and sixty (Lejeune, who escaped, says a hundred) of his chasseurs were captured. He was brought in great triumph to Sir John Moore. "That general," says Thiers, "possessed the courtesy characteristic of all great nations; he received with the greatest respect the brilliant general who commanded Napoleon's light cavalry, seated him at his table, and presented him with a magnificent Indian sabre."

No. 11.

Probably written from Astorga, where he arrived on January 1st, having brought 50,000 men two hundred miles in ten days.

Your letters.—These probably, and others received by a courier, decided him to let Soult follow the English to Corunna—especially as he knew that transports were awaiting the enemy there. He himself prepares to return, for Fouché and Talleyrand are in league, the slim and slippery Metternich is ambassador at Paris, Austria is arming, and the whole political horizon, apparently bright at Erfurt, completely overcast. Murat, balked of the Crown of Spain, is now hoping for that of France if Napoleon is killed or assassinated. It is Talleyrand and Fouché who have decided on Murat, and on the ultimate overthrow of the Beauharnais. Unfortunately for their plans Eugène is apprised by Lavalette, and an incriminating letter to Murat captured and sent post-haste to Napoleon. This, says Pasquier, undoubtedly hastened the Emperor's return. Ignoring the complicity of Fouché, the whole weight of his anger falls on Talleyrand, who loses the post of High Chamberlain, which he had enjoyed since 1804. For half-an-hour this "arch-apostate," as Lord Rosebery calls him, receives a torrent of invectives. "You are a thief, a coward, a man without honour; you do not believe in God; you have all your life been a traitor to your duties; you have deceived and betrayed everybody: nothing is sacred to you; you would sell your own father. I have loaded you down with gifts, and there is nothing that you would not undertake against me. Thus, for the past ten months, you have been shameless enough, because you supposed, rightly or wrongly, that my affairs in Spain were going astray, to say to all who would listen to you that you always blamed my undertaking there, whereas it was yourself who first put it into my head, and who persistently urged it. And that man, that unfortunate (he was thus designating the Duc d'Enghien), by whom was I advised of the place of his residence? Who drove me to deal cruelly with him? What then are you aiming at? What do you wish for? What do you hope? Do you dare to say? You deserve that I should smash you like a wine-glass. I can do it, but I despise you too much to take the trouble." This we are assured by the impartial Pasquier, who heard it from an ear-witness, and second-hand from Talleyrand, is an abstract of what Napoleon said, and to which the ex-Bishop made no reply.

No. 12.

The English are in utter rout.—Still little but dead men and horses fell into his hands. Savary adds the interesting fact that all the (800) dead cavalry horses had a foot missing, which the English had to show their officers to prove that they had not sold their horses. Scott, on barely sufficient evidence perhaps, states, "The very treasure-chests of the army were thrown away and abandoned. There was never so complete an example of a disastrous retreat." The fact seems to have been that the soldiership was bad, but Moore's generalship excellent. Napier writes, "No wild horde of Tartars ever fell with more license upon their rich effeminate neighbours than did the English troops upon the Spanish towns taken by storm." What could be expected of such men in retreat, when even Lord Melville had just said in extenuation of our army that the worst men make the best soldiers?

Nos. 13 and 14.

Written at Valladolid. Here he received a deputation asking that his brother may reside in Madrid, to which he agrees, and awaits its arrangement before setting out for Paris.

At Valladolid he met De Pradt, whom he mistrusted; but who, like Talleyrand, always amused him. In the present case the Abbé told him that "the Spaniards would never thank him for interfering in their behalf, and that they were like Sganarelle in the farce, who quarrelled with a stranger for interfering with her husband when he was beating her" (Scott's "Napoleon").

He leaves Valladolid January 17th, and is in Paris on January 24th. He rode the first seventy miles, to Burgos, in five and a half hours, stopping only to change horses.[69] Well might Savary say, "Never had a sovereign ridden at such a speed."

Eugène has a daughter.—The Princess Eugénie-Hortense, born December 23rd at Milan; married the hereditary Prince of Hohenzollern Hechingen.

They are foolish in Paris—if not worse. Talleyrand, Fouché, and others were forming what amounted to a conspiracy, and the Empress herself, wittingly or unwittingly, had served as their tool. For the first time she answers a deputation of the Corps Législatif, who come to congratulate her on her husband's victories, and says that doubtless his Majesty would be very sensible of the homage of an assembly which represents the nation. Napoleon sees in this remark a germ of aggression on behalf of his House of Commons, more especially when emphasised by 125 blackballs against a Government Bill. He takes the effective but somewhat severe step of contradicting his wife in the Moniteur, or rather declaring that the Empress knew the laws too well not to know that the Emperor was the chief representative of the People, then the Senate, and last the Corps Législatif.

"It would be a wild and even criminal assertion to try to represent the nation before the Emperor."

All through the first half of 1809 another dangerous plot, of which the centre was the Princess of Tour and Taxis, had its threads far and wide. Many of Soult's generals were implicated, and in communication with the English, preventing their commander getting news of Wellesley's movements (Napier). When they find Soult cannot be traduced, they lend a willing ear to stirring up strife between the Emperor and Soult, by suggesting that the latter should be made King of Portugal. Madame d'Abrantès, who heard in 1814 that the idea had found favour with English statesmen, thinks such a step would have seriously injured Napoleon (vol. iv. 53).

SERIES L

1809.

The dangers surrounding Napoleon were immense. The Austrian army, 320,000 strong (with her Landwehr, 544,000 men) and 800 cannon, had never been so great, never so fitted for war. Prussia was already seething with secret societies, of which as yet the only formidable one was the Tugendbund, whose headquarters were Konigsburg, and whose chief members were Stein, Stadion, Blucher, Jahn. Perhaps their most sensible scheme was to form a united German empire, with the Archduke Charles[70] as its head. The Archduke Ferdinand invaded the Duchy of Warsaw, and had he taken Thorn with its park of 100 cannon, Prussia was to join Austria. In Italy the Carbonari and Adelphes[71] only waited for the French troops to go north to meet the Austrians to spread revolt in Italy. Of the former the head lodge was at Capua and its constitutions written in English, since England was aiding this chouanerie religieuse as a lever against Napoleon. England had an army of 40,000 men ready to embark in any direction—to Holland, Belgium, Naples, or Biscay, while the French troops in Portugal were being tampered with to receive Moreau as their leader, and to march with Spaniards and English for the Pyrenees. At Paris Talleyrand was in partial disgrace, but he and Fouché were still plotting—the latter, says Pelet, forwarding daily a copy of the private bulletin (prepared for Napoleon's eye alone) to the Bourbons. After Essling and the breaking of the Danube bridge, he hesitated between seizing supreme power himself or offering it to Bernadotte.

Up to the last—up to March 27th—the Correspondence proves that Napoleon had hoped that war would be averted through the influence of Russia. "All initiative," he declared, "rested on the heads of the court of Austria." "Menaced on all sides; warned of the intentions of his enemies by their movements and by their intercepted correspondence; seeing from that moment hostilities imminent, he wishes to prove to France and Europe that all the wrongs are on their side, and awaits in his capital the news of an aggression that nothing justifies, nothing warrants. Vain prudence! Europe will accuse him of having been the instigator on every occasion, even in this."[72] On April 8th the Austrians violated Bavarian territory, and during his supreme command for the next five days Berthier endangered the safety of the French empire in spite of the most elaborate and lucid instructions from Napoleon, which he failed to comprehend. "Never," says Pelet, "was so much written, never so little done. Each of his letters (Berthier's) attests the great difference which existed between his own correspondence and that which was dictated to him." An ideal chief of staff, he utterly lacked the decision necessary for a commander-in-chief. The arrival of Napoleon changed in a moment the position of affairs. "The sudden apparition of the Emperor produced the effect of the head of Medusa, and paralysed the enemy."[73] Within five days the Austrians were four times defeated, and Ratisbon, the passe-partout of Southern Germany and half-way house between Strasburg and Vienna, is once more in the hands of France and her allies. Pelet considers these operations as the finest which have been executed either in ancient or modern times, at any rate those of which the projects are authentically proved. He foretells that military men from every country of Europe, but specially young Frenchmen, will religiously visit the fields of the Laber. They will visit, with Napoleon's Correspondence in their hands, "much more precious than every other commentary, the hills of Pfaffenhofen, the bridge of Landshut, and that of Eckmühl, the mill of Stangl, and the woods of Roking." A few days later the Archduke Charles writes a letter to Napoleon, which is a fair type of those charming yet stately manners which made him at that moment the most popular man in Europe. "Sire," he writes, "your Majesty's arrival was announced to me by the thunder of artillery, without giving me time to compliment you thereon. Scarcely advised of your presence, I was made sensible of it by the losses which you have caused me. You have taken many of my men, Sire; my troops also have made some thousands of prisoners in places where you did not direct the operations. I propose to your Majesty to exchange them man for man, grade for grade, and if that offer is agreeable to you, please let me know your intentions for the place destined for the exchange. I feel flattered, sire, in fighting against the greatest captain of the age. I should be more happy if destiny had chosen me to procure for my country the benefit of a lasting peace. Whichsoever they be, the events of war or the approach of peace, I beg your Majesty to believe that my desires always carry me to meet you, and that I hold myself equally honoured in finding the sword, or the olive branch, in the hand of your Majesty."

No. 1.

Donauwerth.—On the same day Napoleon writes almost an identical letter to Cambacérès, adding, however, the news that the Tyrolese are in full revolt.

On April 20th he placed himself at the head of the Wurtembergers and Bavarians at Abensberg. He made a stirring speech (No. 15,099 of Correspondence), and Lejeune tells us that the Prince Royal of Bavaria translated into German one sentence after another as the Emperor spoke, and officers repeated the translations throughout the ranks.

On April 24th is issued from Ratisbon his proclamation to the army:—"Soldiers, you have justified my expectations. You have made up for your number by your bravery. You have gloriously marked the difference between the soldiers of Cæsar and the armed cohorts of Xerxes. In a few days we have triumphed in the pitched battles of Thann, Abensberg, and Eckmühl, and in the combats of Peising, Landshut, and Ratisbon. A hundred cannon, forty flags, fifty thousand prisoners.... Before a month we shall be at Vienna." It was within three weeks! He was specially proud of Eckmühl, and we are probably indebted to a remark of Pasquier for his chief but never divulged reason. "A noteworthy fact in connection with this battle was that the triumphant army was composed principally of Bavarians and Wurtembergers. Under his direction, these allies were as greatly to be feared as the French themselves." At St. Helena was written: "The battle of Abensberg, the manœuvres of Landshut, and the battle of Eckmühl were the most brilliant and the most skilful manœuvres of Napoleon." Eckmühl ended with a fine exhibition of a "white arm" mêlée by moonlight, in which the French proved the superiority of their double cuirasses over the breastplates of the Austrians. Pelet gives this useful abstract of the Campaign of Five Days:—

April 19th.—Union of the French army whilst fighting the Archduke, whose base is already menaced.

April 20th.—Napoleon, at Abensberg and on the banks of the Laber, breaks the Austrian line, totally separating the centre from the left, which he causes to be turned by Massena.

April 21st.—He destroys their left wing at Landshut, and captures the magazines, artillery, and train, as well as the communications of the enemy's grand army, fixing definitely his own line of operations, which he already directs on Vienna.

April 22nd.—He descends the Laber to Eckmühl, gives the last blow to the Archduke's army, of which the remnant takes refuge in Ratisbon.

April 23rd.—He takes that strong place, and forces the Archduke to take refuge in the mountains of Bohemia.

No. 2.

May 6th.—On May 1st Napoleon was still at Braunau, waiting for news from Davoust. Travelling by night at his usual speed he reached Lambach at noon on May 2nd, and Wels on the 3rd. The next morning he heard Massena's cannon at Ebersberg, but reaches the field at the fall of night—too late to save the heavy cost of Massena's frontal attack. The French lost at least 1500 killed and wounded; the Austrians (under Hiller) the same number killed and 7000 prisoners. Pelet defends Massena, and quotes the bulletin of May 4th (omitted from the Correspondence): "It is one of the finest feats of arms of which history can preserve the memory! The traveller will stop and say, 'It is here, it is here, in these superb positions, that an army of 35,000 Austrians was routed by two French divisions'" (Pelet, ii. 225). Lejeune, and most writers, blame Massena, referring to the Emperor's letter of May 1st in Pelet's Appendix (vol. ii.), but not in the Correspondence.

Between April 17th and May 6th there is no letter to Josephine preserved, but plenty to Eugène, and all severe—not so much for incapacity as for not keeping the Emperor advised of what was really happening. On May 6th he had received no news for over a week.

The ball that touched me—i.e. at Ratisbon. This was the second time Napoleon had been wounded in battle—the first time by an English bayonet at Toulon. On the present occasion (April 23rd) Méneval seems to be the best authority: "Napoleon was seated on a spot from which he could see the attack on the town of Ratisbon. He was beating the ground with his riding-whip,[74] when a bullet, supposed to have been fired from a Tyrolean carbine, struck him on the big toe (Marbot says 'right ankle,' which is correct). The news of his wound spread rapidly[75] from file to file, and he was forced to mount on horseback to show himself to his troops. Although his boot had not been cut the contusion was a very painful one," and in the first house he went to for a moment's rest, he fainted. The next day, however, he saw the wounded and reviewed his troops as usual, and Lejeune has preserved a highly characteristic story, somewhat similar to an experience of the Great Frederick's: "When he had reached the seventh or eighth sergeant the Emperor noticed a handsome young fellow with fine but stern-looking eyes and of resolute and martial bearing, who made his musket ring again as he presented arms. 'How many wounds?' inquired the Emperor. 'Thirty,' replied the sergeant. 'I am not asking you your age,' said the Emperor graciously; 'I am asking how many wounds you have received.' Raising his voice, the sergeant again replied with the one word, 'Thirty.' Annoyed at this reply, the Emperor turned to the colonel and said, 'The man does not understand; he thinks I am asking about his age.' 'He understands well enough, sire,' was the reply; 'he has been wounded thirty times.' 'What!' exclaimed the Emperor, 'you have been wounded so often and have not got the cross!' The sergeant looked down at his chest, and seeing that the strap of his cartridge-pouch hid his decoration, he raised it so as to show the cross. He said to the Emperor, with great earnestness, 'Yes, I've got one; but I've merited a dozen!' The Emperor, who was always pleased to meet spirited fellows such as this, pronounced the sacramental words, 'I make you an officer!' 'That's right, Emperor,' said the new sub-lieutenant as he proudly drew himself up; 'you couldn't have done better!'"