Front matter (continued 7)

The reply of the governor was firm and noble. Loudon showered bombs and red-hot balls on one side, while attempting an assault on the other.

Prince Henry, one of the most accomplished of the Prussian generals, advanced to its relief by a forced march of one hundred and twenty English miles in five days, resolving to give the Baron battle before the Russians joined him; and on his approach Loudon prudently raised the siege and retired, though he still kept Neiss and Schwiednitz under blockade. The King of Prussia by this time was on his memorable march to prevent the junction of the Russian and Imperial armies in Silesia; and with this intention had encamped at Lignitz, where, while encompassed by three hostile columns, he gave battle to Loudon. Attacking him at three o'clock, A.M., on the 15th August, near Lignitz, he repulsed him with loss before Daun could come to his assistance; and further secured his own rear effectually by a strong corps de reserve and park of artillery posted on the heights of Paffendorf.

Frederick obtained some information as to Loudon's disposition of force from an Austrian officer, an Irishman, who had deserted. "He was so intoxicated," says Frederick, in his own History, "that he could only stammer out he had a secret to reveal. After making him swallow some basins of warm water to relieve his stomach, he affirmed what had been divined, that Daun meant to attack the king that very day." Loudon made incredible efforts, on foot and on horseback, to maintain his ground. After receiving five consecutive charges of five lines of five battalions each, the confusion of the Austrians became general, and they fled towards Binowitz. The battle of Paffendorf cost Loudon ten thousand men; the field, which sloped like a glacis, was occupied by the Prussians, who took two generals, eighty other officers, six thousand soldiers, twenty-three pairs of colours, and eighty-two pieces of cannon!

We next find the indefatigable Loudon in position at Hohenfriedberg, a small Silesian town, which he had to abandon on the night of the 11th September, finding his flank turned by the Prussian vanguard on their gaining the pass of Kauder. On the 18th he occupied the defiles of Giersdorf, and that night, by a cannonade prevented the enemy from advancing to Wahlenburg. He next laid siege to the strong and important fortress of Kosel, seventy-three miles distant from Breslau, and threatened the whole province with subjection.

The Russians and Austrians now effected their junction again, and together made themselves masters of Berlin on the 4th October; after which the affairs of the great Frederick seemed desperate; but he resolved to retrieve them by some decided effort. Crossing the Elbe, he hurried into Saxony, followed by Daun with eighty thousand men, whom he routed at Toorgau on the 23rd November. By this he recovered all that he had previously lost; the Russians retired into Poland, the Austrians evacuated the desolated province of Silesia, and the Swedes took refuge on the shores of the Baltic. By the defeat of Daun, Loudon was compelled abruptly to raise the siege of Kosel and retire out of the province.

In 1760, Bohemia, Silesia, and other parts of Germany presented a lamentable aspect. Cities were empty, villages desolate, and castles in ruins. The fields were ravaged and destroyed, till a famine was at hand; wives and children had perished; husbands and fathers had been driven into the ranks of adverse armies, to fight for bare subsistence rather than their blackened hearths and rifled homes; trade was neglected; the seats of learning abandoned; the land untilled: and all this curse had fallen upon the people by the mad ambition of their kings and princes.

During the winter Loudon's activity prevented Frederick from obtaining recruits, provisions, or forage from the principalities or circles of Neiss, Groskau, Frankestien, Strehlen, Neustadt, and Oppelen.

In January he repaired to Vienna, to assist at the councils of war and arrange the plan of the new campaign.

In this year (1761) he was destined by the Court of Vienna to undertake a war of sieges in Silesia, where he was to be supported by the Russians; and on the 10th of March he resumed the command of his division. In April he wrote to the Empress stating that since the 18th instant he had revoked the truce made with General Goltze, and intended to fix his head-quarters at Caretau, a league from Glatz. In May he patrolled the country about Lignitz and Jauer to levy contributions, and eighty-seven of his men were cut off by General Tatter at Rostock. About the 12th May, on Frederick's approach, he retired into Bohemia, by the way of Gattesberg, before eighty thousand men, and on the 6th of June established his head-quarters at Hauptmonsdorf.

Frederick was resolved to act solely on the defensive, being tired of the war.

On the 21st July he was encamped at Pulzen, when Loudon, who occupied the opposite mountains, descended by the defile of Steinkunzerdorf, feigning to attack the fortress of Neiss. This drew Frederick out; and they engaged on the heights of Munsterberg, where a warm cannonade ensued. On the 23rd Loudon encamped at Ober Pomsdorf; "and either from native restlessness, or a habit of commanding detachments, in eight days he changed his position six times; for which no satisfactory reason could be given." On the 17th July the whole of the Prussian army received the communion, and sixty rounds of ball per man.

Loudon's force, after he was joined by General Brettano from Saxony, amounted to eighty thousand men. He was also joined by a column of Russians under General Czernicheff. He received a letter from Maria Theresa, wherein she somewhat needlessly "gave him full power to give or decline battle as he chose; and this power was to extend to all his military operations in general." In the first days of August he transmitted to her a letter which he had received from Frederick of Prussia, and written by his own hand, in which he offered him great sums "if he would agree to act faintly in this campaign." Loudon at the same time sent the Empress a copy of his answer, importing, "that being accountable to God and to his sovereign for his conduct, all the treasures of the earth should not tempt him from his duty to either; and that he begged his Prussian Majesty would make him no more proposals so repugnant to his duty, and so injurious to his honour."

On the 15th August he detached forty-three squadrons of horse to join a Russian column which had passed the Oder; but Frederick met them on their march near Parchwitz, and defeated them, taking all their colours and cannon. These troops were horse grenadiers—the flower of the Austrian cavalry. The march of Loudon to form a junction "with the Russians," say the London papers for 10th September, 1761, "is alone sufficient to raise his reputation as a general as high as even a victory could have done. He had marched seven hours before the enemy had the least suspicion of his design, and had a conference with Marshal Butterlin near this place (Lignitz); on his return from which he narrowly escaped being taken prisoner by the fleetness of his horse, his escort being attacked smartly by a strong detachment of Prussians." The allies afterwards separated; and the Hamburg journals asserted that it "was owing to a pique and jealously between Laudohn and Butterlin about the command, and the open antipathy of their respective troops to each other."

After a long series of marches, manœuvres, and feigned attacks, in which he had completely the better of the great Frederick, Loudon suddenly appeared before Schwiednitz, the ancient and fortified capital of a principality situated among the hills of Lower Silesia. Its walls were manned by a brave Prussian garrison; but, to cut off all succour, Loudon posted twenty battalions on the heights of Kunzendorf, which are so steep that they cannot be taken from any troops who possess them.

Frederick's army, consisting of sixty-six battalions, one hundred and forty-three squadrons, and four hundred and six pieces of cannon, encamped at Bunzelwitz, in a place surrounded by chevaux-de-frize, abattis, mines, and palisades. Loudon made a partial attack upon this formidable post; but, pushing on, he resolved to take Schwiednitz by surprise. Previous to the advance, says an officer of his army, in one of his letters, "his Excellency our general having assembled upon the Limelberg, the troops destined to scale the walls of Schwiednitz harangued them there, and promised them a reward of one hundred thousand florins if the place was taken without pillage.

"'No, no!' exclaimed the Walloon grenadiers; 'lead us on, and we will follow to glory; but we will take no money from you, our father Loudon!'

"Then the Count de Wallace, colonel of the regiment of Loudon Fusiliers, after being twice repulsed by two battalions of the brave regiment of Treskow, said to his soldiers,—

"'I must carry this fort or die! I have promised it to Loudon; remember that our regiment bears his name—it must conquer or perish!'

"This short speech produced a surprising effect. An entire battalion sprung furiously into the ditch. The officers themselves fixed the scaling-ladders, and were the first that mounted. M. de Wallace had the glory of forcing the most difficult point of attack, and taking prisoners two battalions, who made the most courageous defence."[18]

Twenty battalions had been distributed to the four points of attack. One column advanced to the Breslau gate, a second on the Strigau gate, a third to the fort of Bockendorf, and a fourth on the redoubt of Eau. On the 1st October, at three in the morning, favoured by a dense fog, Loudon and Wallace led their soldiers to the assault; and the escalade was made with such rapidity, that the garrison had only time to fire twelve cannon shot. Lieutenant-General Zastrow, the governor, who had been at a ball, hurried his troops to arms; but the contest was short; a few volleys were exchanged, when a magazine blew up and killed eight hundred Prussians in the fort of Bockendorf. Taking advantage of the confusion, Wallace rushed on, burst open the gates of the town, and with the loss of only six hundred men, Loudon was master of the place before daybreak. Zastrow and three thousand men were taken, with a great store of all the munition of war. This was a severe blow to the pride of Frederick, who was weak enough to attribute the success of Loudon to the treachery of Major Rocca, an Italian prisoner; but an officer named De Beville made a noble defence in the redoubt of Eau.

Loudon garrisoned the town by ten battalions, under General Butler, an Irishman; and after remaining long encamped at Freyburg, in December he sent O'Donnel into Saxony after a body of Prussians, and cantoned his own troops among the mountains, while the Russians wintered in Pomerania.

During the winter of 1761 an epidemic malady made great ravages in the army of Loudon. It was a kind of leprosy, the progress of which was so rapid, that it soon thinned his ranks, and filled the hospitals and cemeteries.

The year 1762 saw a fortunate change in the affairs of Prussia; Peter III., a peaceful prince, succeeded to the Russian throne, and formed an alliance with Frederick, who did not fail to profit by it, and retook Schwiednitz, though garrisoned by 9000 men, in spite of the utmost efforts made by Daun and Loudon to prevent him. After this he concluded with Maria Theresa a cessation of hostilities in Saxony and Silesia; and soon after peace was secured to Germany by the treaty of Hubertsbourg, on the 16th of February, 1763.

In the seven campaigns of the Seven Years' War seventeen pitched battles had been fought; three sieges had been undertaken and five sustained by Prussia, with innumerable skirmishes. Austria took 40,000 Prussian prisoners, and Prussia took the same number of Austrians. The hospitals were full of maimed and suffering soldiers. In each regiment, on an average, only eight officers, and less than 100 men, were alive who had witnessed the commencement of the war. Loudon was the only officer, not born a prince or of an illustrious family, who had risen to such high rank during that sanguinary struggle. He was, moreover, a stranger, a foreigner, and a soldier of fortune. At the peace the Empress presented him with the lordship of Klien Betchwar, not far from Kolin. On this he built a strong and beautiful castle, with the revenues which he derived from a barony in Bohemia; and there he retired to enjoy a few years of repose and peace, and to overlook the cultivation and improvement of his estate.

In 1766 the grateful Empress made him Aulic Councillor of War; in 1767 the highest nobles of the Empire received him as one of their members; and in 1769 he was appointed Commandant-General in Moravia.

In 1770 he was present at the interview between the Emperor Joseph and his old antagonist Frederick the Great of Prussia. Dissembling that ungenerous animosity which he had imbibed against the fortunate Loudon, Frederick always addressed him as "M. Velt-Maréschal," though he had not attained that rank in full; and when Loudon, with his natural reserve, was about to seat himself at the foot of the royal table,—

"Sit next to me, M. de Loudon," said his Prussian Majesty; "for, be assured, I love better to see you by my side than opposite to me."

At his departure he presented the baron with two horses, the finest of his stud.

In 1778 Loudon was gazetted to the rank of Field-Marshal, and was placed at the head of an army 50,000 strong, to defend the interests of Austria in the new war which broke out between the great powers of Germany, on the death of Maximilian Joseph, the Elector of Bavaria.

He posted the army of the Emperor behind the Elbe, in strongly fortified positions; and distributed his own corps among the secure posts of the Riechenberg (on the same ground where the Austrians were defeated by the Duke of Brunswick in 1757); of Gabelona, a fortified town which occupies an important pass; of Schlukenau, thirty miles from Dresden, and towards Lusatia; but the main body of his troops he skilfully distributed between Leutmeritz, a well-fortified town; Lowositz, in the same circle, but four miles distant from it; Dux and Töplitz. The King of Prussia took the field with all his force, to prevent the Emperor from co-operating with Loudon, to whom he opposed the column of Prince Henry: and now ensued a campaign full of interest only to those who study brilliant manœuvres and subtle tactics.

Loudon's posts at Schlukenau, Rumberg, and Gabelona were taken by the prince, who forced him to abandon Aussig and Dux, with the fortifications and magazine at Leutmeritz, and, indeed, all the left bank of the Elbe; but falling back on the Iser, he skilfully secured its passages by strong detachments. In short, so equal was the distribution of strength, numbers, skill, and discipline, that the war was a mere succession of able movements, but barren of striking events; and after a year of marches and skirmishes, the Emperor relinquished Lower Bavaria, on which he had seized unjustly, and a peace was concluded on the 13th May, 1779, the birthday of the Empress-Queen.

After this Loudon returned to his sequestered castle; and once more, for eight years, resumed the peace and pleasure of a country life.

In 1787, when in his seventy-first year, he was again summoned to the field by the Emperor, to lead the Austrian armies against the Turks; and a series of brilliant captures and encounters realized all that had been hoped from his old valour and experience.

He poured his hosts along the Croatian and the Bosnian frontiers; and in August, 1788, after two fruitless assaults, in one of which 430 of his men were killed and wounded, he received by capitulation the fortress of Dubitzar, on the right bank of the Unna. On the 20th the Turks had attacked his camp, but were repulsed; after which he again ordered an immediate assault; but, as it failed, he ordered the town to be fired, and it burned till the morning of the 24th. He then opened several mines, and by the 25th his sappers were within ten feet of the walls. The Turks then "capitulated to Marshal Loudon, whose principal terms were:—

"That the officers might march out with swords, but their troops were to lay down all arms and surrender as prisoners of war.

"That the women and children might go to Roczaracz, attended by five Turkish soldiers, for whose return the commandant should be answerable."

Novi-bazar, a Bosnian Sanjak, the capital of a province, with its castle, next fell into his possession; then Gradiska, a strong Turkish fortress which had been erected fifteen years before by French engineers, at the junction of the Virbas with the Saave; then Belgrade, the most important town and fortress on the Austrian frontier of the Turkish empire. Its citadel occupies a commanding position on the summit of a precipitous rock which rises in the centre of the streets and is surrounded by a lofty wall, a triple fosse with flanking towers, and an esplanade 400 paces broad. These works were principally constructed by Benjamin Swinburne, a native of Staffordshire, who had embraced Islamism, adopted the name of Mustapha, and risen to high rank in the Turkish artillery. Led on by Loudon, the Austrians overcame every obstacle, and captured this famous Belgrade.

In that town he found a fine funeral monument of white marble, covered with Turkish inscriptions, arabesqued ornaments, and sculptured garlands of flowers. He had this great sarcophagus carefully taken to pieces and sent to his estate of Hadersdorf, to form a tomb for himself.

In this war of carnage, as it was justly named, for no quarter was given on either side, the Imperialists numbered at first 218,000 bayonets and sabres; but they were soon reduced to half that number by the resistance of the Turks.

Neu-Orchova, a small town and fortress of Wallachia situated on an island on the Danube, was his last capture after he had defeated the Bashaw of Travernick and was repulsed in turn from two practicable breaches; but he reduced it by a regular siege; and with this ended the Turkish war, which he had conducted with glory to Austria and ended with honour to himself.

In 1790 he returned to the army in Moravia.

He was now seventy-four years of age, and his health was failing fast. During the latter part of his life he had been much afflicted with rheumatism, gout, and colic, the fruit of military toil and hardship. All these attacked him regularly every spring and autumn.

On the 26th of June he dined with Prince Lichnowski, at Böhmisch Gratzen, and was seized on that night by a fever, from which he predicted he would never recover, and about the 6th of July he was in a dying state. Observing around his bed many of his old brother officers in tears, he endeavoured to console and reassure them by the calmness of his own demeanour.

"I implore you," said he, "to unite true religion to that high courage which I know you to possess, and to defend your minds from the approaches of atheism. All the success I have had in this world I owe to my confidence in God, as well as the glorious consolation which I now experience, in this awful time, when I am so soon to appear before Him." On the 10th, he requested the sacrament, and begged the Marshals Colloredo and Botta to be present at the reading of his will, and to bear his dying blessing and remembrances to the old officers and soldiers who had served under him. Then perceiving his favourite nephew, Alexander Loudon, weeping at his bedside, he said,—

"Arise—be a man and a Christian—love God and your fellow-creatures."

He lingered on until the 14th of July, when he expired in great agony.

Thus died, in the year 1790, Field-Marshal Baron Loudon, one of the greatest generals of the eighteenth century. "It was but seldom that a smile was seen to unwrinkle his lofty forehead," says a writer of his own time. "He was as little acquainted with the real laugh as Cato. As to his character, he knew how to diversify it wonderfully. Loudon on horseback and at the head of an army appeared to be quite another man, and was indeed a complete contrast to Loudon in the country or the town. His conduct agreed perfectly with what his cold and reserved physiognomy announced, for he spoke but little, and slowly. From his early youth he constantly avoided the society of women; he was uncommonly timid in their company, and was a very good husband. Accustomed to find himself punctually obeyed by thousands in the field, at the least sign indicated by him, he required the same docility of his vassals and servants, and he acted with severity to them—perhaps more than ought to have been used to men who were unaccustomed to military discipline."

As a souvenir of the many perils he had passed through, he carefully preserved at Hadersdorf a musket-ball which had been cut in two on the pommel of his saddle, and also his Croatian sabre, which had been struck from his hand by a bomb, and bent so that no armourer could ever straighten it.

His remains were enclosed in a double coffin, adorned by gorgeous mountings and handles, and were solemnly borne from Böhmisch Gratzen to his estate of Hadersdorf, a small town of Lower Austria, near the Klein-Kamp, and five miles west of Vienna.

In the park he had once selected a spot shaded by many fine trees, under which he had expressed a wish to be buried; but, on his return from the Turkish campaign, he selected another place, and planted it with shrubs and flowers in imitation of a Moslem sepulchre; and this he was wont to term his Turkish Garden, for therein he had reconstructed the marble sarcophagus which had been conveyed from Belgrade.

There he now lies in peace, shaded by some stately old trees and in the centre of a green meadow. His funeral monument, which is one of great magnificence, is securely walled round; and among the sculpture with which the Austrian Government adorned it, there may still be traced the shield argent, charged with three escutcheons sable; the old heraldic cognizance which the Loudons of that ilk carried on their pennons in the wars of the Scottish kings.

FOOTNOTES:

Count O'Reilly,

CHAMBERLAIN OF THE EMPIRE.

Were we to choose a hero for a military romance, he would be Andrew O'Reilly, who bore the high reputation of being the first cavalry officer in the Austrian service.

This distinguished Irish soldier of fortune, the last of the éleves of the Lacys and others whose achievements in the third Silesian war and the Turkish campaign have already been recorded, obtained the rank of General in the Austrian army, Chamberlain, and Commander of the Imperial and Military Order of Maria Theresa, with the rank of Colonel Proprietaire of the 3rd Regiment of Light Horse.

He was born in 1740, and was the second son of James O'Reilly, of Ballincough, in the county of Westmeath, and of Barbara, daughter of Thomas Nugent, Esquire, of Dysart (grand-daughter of Thomas, fourth Earl of Westmeath). His brother Hugh was created a Baronet by George III., and subsequently assumed the name of Nugent. His only sister married Lord Talbot de Malahide.

Entering the Imperial service early in life, O'Reilly filled in succession all the military grades save that of Field-Marshal; but of those events in his stirring life which led to his elevation to a coronet, we barely afford a summary. One of the most important incidents in his early career is connected with his marriage; and while it illustrates the manners of the last century, is worthy of notice, for the remnant of old romance and chivalry it displays. He and a brother officer, Count Klebelsberg, uncle of Francis Count de Klebelsberg, who, in 1831, was President of the Government of Lower Austria, were rivals for the hand of the Countess Wuyrlena, a rich and beautiful Bohemian heiress; and aware that both could not succeed, they determined to solve the difficulty of selection by a combat à l'outrance. The intended duel was, however, reported to the authorities, and both O'Reilly and Klebelsberg were placed under close arrest by the Director General of the High Police; but, resolved to achieve their purpose, they secretly left Vienna, and travelled post together to Poland, and meeting in the neutral territory of Cracow, fought their remarkable combat. The duel lasted long, for both were perfect swordsmen, active, skilful, and wary; but at length O'Reilly ran Klebelsberg through the body, after receiving many dangerous wounds in his own person.

The affections of the countess, with her hand and fortune, were the immediate reward of the soldier of fortune.

Rejoining the army, he served with great brilliance in the war between France and Austria. The forces of the latter were commanded by the Archduke Charles.

On the 14th June, 1800, he fought under General Melas, at the battle of Marengo. "Melas," says M. Thiers, in his History of the Consulate and Empire, "placed General O'Reilly on the left, and Generals Kaim and Haddick on the right, to gain the road to Piacenza, the object of so many efforts and the salvation of the Austrian army."

On the 2nd December, 1805, that great day when "the sun of Austerlitz arose," and eighty thousand Frenchmen, flushed by rapid conquests, by the capitulation of Ulm, and the recent capture of Vienna, met the Austro-Russian army in one of the bloodiest battles on record—a battle, which, as General Rapp has it, "was a veritable butchery, where we fought man to man, and so mingled together, that the infantry on either side dared not fire lest they should kill their own men"—the star of Napoleon bore all before it; and the French, though losing thirteen thousand men, totally routed their allied enemies, with the loss of thrice that number, taking all their colours, baggage, ammunition, and one hundred and twenty pieces of cannon. On that terrible day, the political result of which was an almost immediate cessation of hostilities between France and Austria, it was universally admitted that a succession of daring and brilliant charges made by the Light Dragoons of O'Reilly, "alone saved the Austrian army from total annihilation."

The Emperor Alexander declined the overtures of Bonaparte, and renewed the war next year. The field of Eylau gave his Russians a partial revenge; and ere long they reaped the fulness of it amid the flames of Moscow and the slaughter of Smolensko.

On the 12th of May, 1809, O'Reilly, for his services at Austerlitz and elsewhere, was appointed Governor of Vienna, with a powerful garrison; and in a few days after, the Eagles of Napoleon were at its gates. Shut up in the city with the troops, the Archduke Ferdinand resolved to defend it, though the French had already stormed and carried all the suburbs. In vain were flags of truce sent in; the bearers were not only refused admittance, but, despite the orders of O'Reilly, were even maltreated, and in some instances massacred by the people. The bombardment followed, and soon Vienna was wrapped in flames; but the Emperor Napoleon, being informed by O'Reilly that one of the archduchesses had remained in Vienna detained by illness, gave orders to cease firing.

"Strange destiny of Napoleon!" exclaims old General Bourrienne; "this archduchess was Maria Louisa!"—the future Empress of France.

On O'Reilly devolved the difficult and trying task of obtaining honourable terms for the capital of the Empire, from an enemy flushed by victory and the pride of a hundred hard-fought fields. He accordingly deputed the Prince of Dietrechstien, the Burgomaster, and the chief citizens to Napoleon, who inveighed bitterly against the obstinacy of the gallant Archduke Ferdinand, but lauded the coolness, bravery, and great presence of mind of the governor, whom he emphatically terms "le respectable General O'Reilly," and accepted all the terms proposed by him; but in the fourteenth clause stipulated that O'Reilly should be the bearer of the treaty to his master, to the end that he should honestly and faithfully lay before him the true position of the now half-conquered Austrian Empire—and this duty O'Reilly ably performed.

He served in the great battle fought near Aspern on the Marchfeld, during the 21st and 22nd of May, between the French under Napoleon, and the Austrians under the Archduke Charles.

In the prince's plan of the attack "to be made upon the hostile army, on its march between Essling and Aspern," it was ordered "that the cavalry brigade under the command of Veesy will be attached to the second column, and the Regiment O'Reilly to the third." This regiment consisted of eight squadrons of Light Dragoons, and the column to which it was attached comprised twenty-two battalions.

O'Reilly, with his cavalry, followed the column which marched from Seiring, by the road of Sussenbrunn and Breitenbe. Here O'Reilly, with several troops of Light Horse and Chasseurs formed the advanced guard, which met the enemy's cavalry at three o'clock in the afternoon, near Hirschstettin, while the other columns of the Austrian army drew the French back upon their position between Esslingen and Aspern, and while Lieutenant-General Hohenzollern ordered up his batteries, and the battle became general on all sides.

In close column of battalions, the line of the third column was advancing with great bravery, when the French cavalry fell upon them, sabre in hand, with such fury, that they were repulsed, and nearly lost their cannon. At this moment the regiments of Zach, Colloredo, Zetwitz, and the second battalion of the legion of the Archduke Charles, led by Lieutenant-General Brady, an Irish officer, "demonstrated with unparalleled fortitude what the fixed determination to conquer or die is capable of effecting against the most impetuous attacks."

The splendid cavalry of France turned both flanks of Brady's column, and penetrating between them, repulsed the Light Horse of O'Reilly, who came up at full speed to succour the soldiers of his countryman. Surrounded, the Regiment O'Reilly were summoned to lay down their arms; but a destructive fire of carbines was the answer to this degrading proposition, and the French cavalry gave way.

The Regiment O'Reilly passed the night on the field of battle, which was lost by the Austrians. The market town of Aspern, on the north side of the Danube, was destroyed, and the loss of the Imperialists was frightful.

After a two days' conflict, there lay on that field the flower of the Austrian army; 87 field-officers, 4199 subalterns and privates, 12 generals (including the Prince de Rohan), 663 officers, and 15,651 soldiers were wounded; of these, Field-Marshal Webber, with 8 officers, and 329 men were taken prisoners, with 3 pieces of cannon, 7 powder waggons, 17,000 muskets, and 3000 corslets. The loss of the French was terrible! 7000 men and an immense number of horses were buried on the field; 29,773 wounded men strewed the streets and suburbs of Vienna; hundreds of corpses, gashed and shattered, floated down the rapid Danube and were flung upon its shores, where they lay unburied and decaying, filling the air with pestilence and the place with horror.

In October peace was signed at the camp of Schoenbrunn, and, divorcing the woman who had loved him when he had only his sword and his epaulettes, Napoleon espoused Maria Louisa of Austria; and Prince Charles, who by his accumulated blunders at the battle of Aspern, had thrown away the fortunes of Continental Europe, received from his Imperial conqueror the Grand Riband of the Legion of Honour. O'Reilly came in for a full share of the honours and decorations which were showered upon the Austrian army.

At the general peace of 1814 the Empire, exhausted by a war of five-and-twenty years, reduced her vast military establishments to 58 regiments of the line, 12 battalions of chasseurs, and 5 garrison battalions—in all, 1044 companies of fusiliers, and 116 of grenadiers. The cavalry were reduced to 36 regiments of cuirassiers, light dragoons, uhlans and hussars. Of the third regiment of light horse O'Reilly was colonel and proprietor. He was also High Chamberlain of the Empire.

At this time Louis Count Taaffe, a noble of Irish parentage, was Second President of the Austrian High Court of Justice, and General Count O'Donnel was Military Governor of Austrian Lombardy. One of the Emperor's most distinguished officers was General Count Nugent, who in the war of 1847-8 led 30,000 Austrian infantry to succour Marshal Radetzki, who was then opposed to the troops of Charles Albert.[19] Count Taaffe was a member of the new ministry formed on the 21st of March, in the year of the Austrian revolution: but he retired from office shortly before the appearance of the chartered constitution on the 19th of April.

O'Reilly lived to see Austria affected by the commotions which pervaded Europe after the French Revolution of 1830, when the Duke of Modena and the Archduke of Parma were obliged to quit these states, and a formidable insurrection broke out in the Patrimony of St. Peter—an insurrection to quell which 18,000 Austrian troops were marched towards the frontier; but O'Reilly was too far advanced in years to draw his sword again in the service of the House of Hapsburg. He died in October, 1833, at Vienna, after attaining the patriarchal age of ninety-two. He had long survived his countess, and died childless.

FOOTNOTES:

Count O'Connell,

KNIGHT OF ST. LOUIS, AND COLONEL OF THE IRISH BRIGADE.

The life of this military wanderer presents, in his chequered career, the curious anomaly of a general and his soldiers being received into the service of their native country and native monarch, against whom they had previously fought with a bravery that too often gave the laurels of victory to his enemies.

Count Daniel O'Connell was of the same family as the famous political agitator who bore his name, and he sprang from an old Milesian race who held the rank of Toparchs in their own province. He was the son of Daniel O'Connell of Derrynane, and of Mary, daughter of Duffe O'Donoghue, of Anwys in the county Kerry, Ireland, and was born at Derrynane Abbey, in 1742. At the early age of fifteen, like others whose fortunes I have recorded, he left his native country to seek foreign military service, and in 1757 was appointed a Sub-Lieutenant of the Irish Brigade in the French service, in the battalion known as the Infantry regiment of O'Brien, or Lord Clare, and which bore the title of Clare until its dissolution, thirty-five years after.

In the preceding year war had been declared between France and Britain respecting their mutual territorial claims in North America. The former prepared a vast military armament to carry on the strife; and in the army formed on the 12th July, 1759, to be led by the Maréchal Princes of Condé and Soubise, were the Irish and Scottish Brigades; and in the former was the Regiment of Clare, with which young O'Connell was serving as a subaltern. From this period, for some time, little is known of him, save that he served throughout the Seven Years' War, and at its close, for his good conduct, was promoted into a new corps which had recently been embodied.

In 1779, when France espoused the cause of America, and sought to harass the mother country in Europe, O'Connell was engaged in the expedition against Portmahon, which is the principal town in Minorca, situated on a rocky promontory, difficult of access from the landward, and defended by Fort San Philipo, in which there was a resolute garrison. O'Connell, with his new regiment, served under the Duc de Crillon at the siege, and conducted himself with such honour as to be specially noticed. The operations were severe and protracted, but in three years the Spaniards and their allies recaptured the whole island of Minorca, which at the peace of 1763 had been formally ceded to Britain.

In 1782, O'Connell served with the combined French and Spanish armament which blockaded Gibraltar, during that memorable siege which had commenced on the 12th of January in the preceding year. Having shown considerable skill as an engineer at Minorca, he was one of the council-of-war appointed to assist the Chevalier d'Arcon in conducting the grand attempt in which France and Spain had resolved to try their full strength for the capture of that celebrated rock, the key of the Mediterranean; and for this purpose, as already related in the memoir of the Lacys, 40,000 soldiers, with 200 pieces of cannon and 80 mortars, pressed the attack by land, while 47 sail of the line, 10 battering ships, and a multitude of frigates, mounting 1000 guns and having 12,000 chosen soldiers added to their crews, lay before the fortress by sea—and in that fortress, to meet all this warlike preparation, were only 7000 British soldiers!

The French army was commanded by Louis Duc de Crillon-Mahon, the representative of an ancient noble family in the Vaucluse, who had commenced his military career in the Grey musketeers, and served under Marshal Villars in Italy. He had direction of the whole attack; his engineers were the most expert in Europe, and brave volunteers came from all quarters to take part in a siege which attracted the attention and raised the expectation of all Continental Europe.

As a member of the council-of-war, O'Connell repeatedly opposed the plans of the Duc de Crillon and of the Chevalier d'Arcon, and declared their system of attack "worthless;" and the sequel, in the triumph of General Elliot, proved that his observations were correct.

In the grand attack he accepted command of one of the floating batteries.

Ten of these, mounting from ten to twenty-eight guns, had been built under the orders of M. d'Arcon. Their bottoms were of solid timber, their sides were sheathed with wetted cork, and filled with damp sand between the timbers. They had sloping roofs of raw hides and net—work to receive the bombs, which thus exploded harmlessly over the heads of the besiegers. These floating batteries were exposed during the whole time to that terrible fire of red-hot shot—a suggestion of General Boyd—which ultimately, by firing the great ship of Buenaventura de Moreno, struck the Spaniards with confusion and dismay.

O'Connell had one of his ears torn off by a cannon-ball; and by the explosion of a shell, which by its weight penetrated the roof of skins, he was covered with wounds and bruises of minor importance.

His services, during this futile and disastrous siege, were considered so valuable by the King of France, that, on the recommendation of the Duc de Crillon, he was rewarded with the colonelcy of the Regiment de Salm-Salm; a German corps raised in the principality of that name; but this post he held for a short period, being removed to the regiment of Royal Swedish Infantry.

After this, in 1787, the government of France having resolved that the military economy of their army should undergo a complete revision and remodelling, appointed a military board, consisting of four generals and one colonel to prepare reports and recommend alterations where necessary. The colonel chosen was O'Connell, who drew up a system of regimental economy, and a code of tactics, which were afterwards used with brilliant success against himself and his loyal comrades during the first campaigns of the revolution. When the labours of the board ceased, he was appointed to the onerous situation of Inspector-General of Infantry, with the duty of regulating the new uniforms and equipment of the Line, when many alterations and improvements were adopted in 1791.

He was succeeded as colonel of the Swedish regiment by Count Pherson, afterwards one of the principal agents in the escape of Louis XVI. from Paris.

O'Connell now enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most distinguished officers in France.

Besides his very extensive knowledge of mathematics and military strategy, says a French writer, he was well versed in the study of languages; and although Latin and Greek were to him alike familiar, he spoke with equal fluency French, English, Italian, and German. He had conceived a great predilection for the Erse (gallique) of the mountains of Kerry, and he was never more happy than when he could converse in this dear old idiom, of which he could so well appreciate the beauties.[20]

Now came the fatal, the culminating, point of the once splendid monarchy of France—the dark days of the Revolution; of the captivity and death of the weak, but unhappy Louis; of the flight or destruction of his nobles. Before the final catastrophe of the royal execution, a proposal was made by the National Assembly, which deeply interested Count O'Connell and others who had made France the land of their adoption. This was the intended expulsion from her soil of all foreign officers and soldiers who had served King Louis, including Irish, Scots, and Switzers. While this ungenerous measure was being debated, the gallant Duke of Fitzjames, in February, 1791, addressed to Louis XVI. a letter on behalf of the exiles; and this document is so remarkable in its tenor, that I may be pardoned in quoting from it one or two paragraphs. After briefly and modestly stating the services rendered by his father and grandfather to the line of St. Louis, he thus advanced the claims of the Irish in France:—

"Sire, my grandfather came not alone into France! His brave companions are now mine, and the dearest friends of my heart! He was accompanied by Thirty Thousand Irishmen, who abandoned home, fortune, and honour to follow their unfortunate king. For the descendants of those brave men, whom your ancestors deemed so worthy of protection because they had been faithful to their sovereign, I now entreat the same bounty from the great-grandson of Louis XIV. It is reported that the National Assembly propose disbanding the Irish regiments as foreign troops. The blood they have shed in the cause of France ought to have procured them the right of being denizens of that kingdom, even though their capitulation had not entitled them to that privilege.

"Sire, permit me to lay at your Majesty's feet the ardent wish of the Irish regiments, who are as much attached to France by gratitude as formerly they were to the House of Stuart by love and duty. If the Assembly now reject their services, they implore your Majesty's recommendation to the prince of your family now reigning in Spain, presuming to assure you that the present will be worthy of being made by a King of France, and of being favourably received by a prince of your royal race.

"Fidelity and valour are their titles to recommendation! Of the former they expect an authentic testimonial from the French nation, as they have never ONCE failed in their duty during a century, and wherever they have fought their valour has been conspicuous in battle.

"Sire, I entreat you to listen to their request; for myself I ask no compensation—for me there is none! The honour of commanding them cannot be repaid. It secures my glory, as to lead them against a foe ensures immediate victory!"

But this spirited and touching letter failed to stay the popular clamour against these military strangers in the sequel.

In July the Assembly decreed that the standards of the Irish, German, and Liegoise infantry should be the tri-colour, inscribed "Discipline and obedience to the law;" but when the princes, Monsieur of France (or Comte de Provence) and Charles Philippe, the Count d'Artois, fled to Coblentz, the formal defection of several Irish officers hastened the destruction of the old brigade of immortal memory; and with it, after the 10th of August, disappeared the ancient Swiss, German, Italian, Scottish, and Catalonian regiments of the monarchy.

During the crumbling of that monarchy, O'Connell, though in secret communication with the princes at Coblentz, lingered in Paris until the close of 1791, when that strange convention was held at Pilnitz between the Emperor Leopold and the Prussian king, who formed a league to invade France and remodel its government. In a letter from Pavia, dated 6th July, the Emperor had already openly avowed his intentions in this new war, and invited all European powers to co-operate with him. At this crisis the French government proposed to place O'Connell at the head of one of their many armies levied to meet this European combination; but the count, despite the earnest recommendations of Carnot and of his friend the celebrated General Dumouriez, declined; and then, unable to withstand the issue of the suspicions which this refusal excited in Paris after the terrible 10th of August, 1792, when the attack of the Tuileries and massacre of the Swiss took place, he secretly left the city, and repairing to the princes, offered to them his sword and fealty at Coblentz; which, being within the Prussian frontier, became the head-quarters of all those emigrants and Prussian troops destined to form the army of the Prince of Conti, who vainly hoped to restore the line of St. Louis to the throne of his forefathers. His chief aid-de-camp was the Comte de Macarthy, an emigrant officer of distinction, a marshal-de-camp of horse in 1791.

O'Connell, relinquishing his higher claims among the crowd of noble applicants for service, accepted the command of a regiment as colonel, and left nothing undone to improve its discipline and efficiency, for his whole energies and enthusiasm were devoted to the reconstitution of the French monarchy.

The first of the French troops to proffer their loyalty, on this occasion, were the Scottish and Irish soldiers of the old Regiment de Berwick. The depôt of this corps was then quartered at the strong town of Givet, on the frontiers of France, under the command of Sir Charles MacCarthy-Lyragh, who immediately marched his men to Coblentz, and joined the battalion. Sir Charles afterwards passed into the British service, when he was made a Colonel and Governor of Senegal, where in 1824 he fought a battle with the Ashantees, by whom he was slain and beheaded. The loyalty of the Irish brigade met with a warm response from the fugitive princes. "This offer," replied Monsieur to the deputation who came to proffer fealty, "will mitigate the sufferings of the king, who will receive from you with pleasure the same mark of fidelity which James II. received from your ancestors. This double epoch ought for ever to furnish a device for the Regiment de Berwick! It will henceforth be seen upon your colours; every faithful subject will there read his duty, and behold the model he ought to imitate."

"The colours of Berwick," added Charles Philippe the Comte d'Artois, "are, and always will be, in the path to honour, and we will march at their head!"[21]

The king perished, and then followed the campaign of 1793, a period most disastrous to the emigrants; but amid all the slaughter and merciless butchery, with which the republicans inspired the war—a war, to maintain which, the fiery zeal of Carnot enrolled no less than fourteen armies, mustering 1,400,000 men—O'Connell led his battalion with honour to himself and to the cause he served, till all hope was lost, and then with others he fled to England in the beginning of 1794.

Among those condemned by Robespierre's tribunal in that year, were two distinguished officers of the Irish brigade—General O'Moran, who defended Dunkirk against the Duke of York; and John O'Donoghue, General de Brigade in the Army of the Rhine.

At the same time were condemned, M. Murdoch, a Scotsman in the service of the Comte de Montmorin; and W. Newton, an English colonel of the Dragoon Regiment de Liberté, and formerly an officer in the Russian service.

In reduced circumstances O'Connell reached London, where he resided for a time in comparative obscurity; and where, for many reasons, his residence was far from being a pleasant one. Still, undiscouraged by the aspect of affairs in France, and by the numerous bloody defeats and massacres sustained by the emigrant troops and other supporters of the Bourbons, he took a warm interest in the attempts meditated in 1794; but fresh conflicts seemed only to fire the zeal of the republicans anew, till the French armies, following their victories, drove their enemies across the Meuse and then beyond the Rhine; after which they penetrated into Holland, revolutionized it, and succeeded in detaching Prussia from its alliance with Britain.

At this epoch O'Connell laid before William Pitt the plan of a new campaign, which so pleased that minister, that he made the count, then in his fifty-second year, an offer of military service under the British government. This he at once accepted, and proposed to form a new brigade to be named the Irish, and to be raised principally from remnants of the regiments of Clare, Lally, Dillon, Berwick, &c., emigrant officers, and men who represented the old brigade of King James; but here O'Connell's religion, which was strictly Catholic, prevented him, in those days of intolerance, prior to the Emancipation Act, attaining in the British service a higher rank than Colonel; and this rank he held till the day of his death.

The brigade consisted of six battalions, each of the strength usual on a war establishment; but O'Connell had the mortification to find himself gazetted by the Horse Guards Colonel of the fourth regiment instead of the first, to which he was justly entitled, by his previous position and general military character.

His commission was dated 1st October, 1794.[22]

The list of colonels was as follows:—

1st Regiment—the Duke of Fitzjames.

2nd Regiment—Anthony, Count Walsh de Serrant.

3rd Regiment—Honourable Henry Dillon.

4th Regiment—Count Daniel O'Connell.

5th Regiment—Charles, Viscount Walsh de Serrant,

6th Regiment—James Henry, Count Conway.[23]

Several of his old friends were appointed to the corps; among these were Bartholomew, Count O'Mahoney, Colonel, 1st January, 1801; John O'Toole, Colonel, 1805; and Colonel James O'Moore, who was appointed Major-General in 1801.

This brigade, which was embodied under circumstances so singular, instead of being sent to fight upon the continent of Europe, as O'Connell and his brother emigrants had fondly anticipated, after many changes in its constitution and organization, was ordered to Nova Scotia, to Cape Breton, and to the then pestilential West India Isles. The snows of America and the burning sun of the tropics soon had a fatal effect upon these unfortunate wanderers, and they were nearly all swept away by disease and death.

Of the six regiments, only thirty-four officers of all ranks were alive in 1818, on the Irish half-pay.

On the 25th December, 1797, O'Connell, weary of a service so heartless, and so little conducive to the welfare of the cause he loved so much, retired upon the full-pay of colonel unattached, and returned home.[24]

In 1802 he profited by the Treaty of Amiens, when peace was negotiated between Great Britain and France, to return to the latter; but the frail bond of unity was soon broken, and he was comprehended in the harsh decree which seized, as prisoners of war, all British subjects remaining in France.

At the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814 he regained his liberty, and Louis XVIII. restored to him his rank of General, and with it the Colonelcy of a regiment and the pension and Grand Cross of St. Louis, which he enjoyed with his retired full pay as a British Colonel. This was after the decree of the 16th July, by which the whole of the old army was disbanded, and the command conferred upon Marshal Macdonald, who remodelled a new army from the wreck of Napoleon's veterans.

O'Connell lived in tranquillity and honour, a remnant of other days and of old romantic sympathies, until 1830, when he was again deprived of his French emoluments for his unwavering fidelity to Charles X. and the elder branch of the Bourbons. After this he retired to his château at Meudon, near Blois, where he died, on the 9th of July, 1833, in the ninety-first year of his age, the oldest Colonel of the British army, and the senior general of the French.

Such was the chequered career of one of the last of the brave old Irish Brigade.

FOOTNOTES:

Marshal Macdonald.

Stephen James Joseph Macdonald, Marshal of France and Duke of Tarentum, was the son of Neil MacEachin Macdonald (a gentleman sprung from the branch of the Clanranald in Uist), who served in France as a lieutenant in the Scottish Regiment of Ogilvie, to which he had been appointed by the recommendation of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, whom he had served bravely and loyally even after the close of his disastrous campaign in Scotland, and whom he had followed into exile after materially contributing to that deliverance which was effected by the celebrated Flora Macdonald. He was one of the hundred and thirty Highlanders who gathered on the shore of Loch nan Uamh after the horrors of Culloden, and embarked with Prince Charles for France.

Neil MacEachin (i.e., the son of Hugh) had been a preceptor in the family of his chief, Clanranald, and being originally designed for the Catholic Church, had been educated at the Scottish College in Paris. He spoke French with great fluency, and to the exiled prince proved a faithful adherent, friend, and solace, in all his wanderings; and when Charles was so ungenerously committed to a dungeon at Vincennes by order of the French government, his captivity was shared alone by the brave islesman from Uist. According to Mr. Chambers, there is every reason to believe that he was the author of a little work entitled Alexis, in which he preserved a minute record of the prince's wanderings and dangers in the Western Isles of Scotland.

His son, the future Marshal of the Empire, was born on the 17th of November, 1765, in the old fortified town of Sedan, in the departement of the Ardennes.

Destining him for the profession of arms, he had him educated with the greatest care, and in his nineteenth year enrolled him as a cadet in the Legion of Maillebois, which was to enter Holland, and second a revolution there—a movement neutralized by the influence of Prussia.

In 1784 young Macdonald was appointed a Sub-lieutenant in Dillon's Regiment, a battalion of the Irish Brigade, which now included in its rank many Scottish emigrants and their descendants; and in this corps he remained a subaltern until the Revolution in 1792, when his colonel, the brave, loyal, and unfortunate Dillon, was murdered at Lisle, where his body was literally torn to pieces by the revolted soldiers and infuriated mob.

Although, like the 4th Hussars and the Regiment of Berwick, Dillon's battalion emigrated entire and joined the fugitive French princes, Macdonald remained in France; not because he did not share the loyal sentiments of his comrades, but because he loved the beautiful Mademoiselle Jacob, whose father had joined the popular party against the monarchy. This lady he afterwards married; and the influence of her family led him to embrace, or at least to adopt, the principles of the revolutionists, while he avoided their crimes and excesses.

The new government soon discovered that Macdonald was a bold, active, and intelligent officer, and at once gave him employment. He made the first campaign of the revolutionary war as Staff-major, under de Bournonville, and served afterwards in the same capacity with General Dumourier, acquitting himself so much to the satisfaction of these distinguished leaders, that, on the 1st of March, 1793, he was appointed Colonel of the Regiment de Picardie, the second regiment of the old French line, which was then in garrison at Thionville; and this ancient corps (which was originally raised by Charles IX. in 1562) he commanded in the first campaign in Belgium.

He was sincerely attached to Dumourier; but, on the defection of that general from the Republic, after his fruitless attempts on behalf of the king, his retreat to the camp at Maulde, and the attempt to assassinate him on the 5th April, Macdonald did not accompany him in his flight to the Austrians, but remained with the army, in which he was soon after named a General of Brigade. Under the celebrated Pichegreu he served with this rank in the Army of the North against the combined forces of Britain and Austria, and particularly signalized himself at Werwick and Comines.

The column of Pichegreu consisted of fifty thousand men. It penetrated to Courtrai, which was surrendered by a garrison that found it indefensible. Macdonald was next at the investment of Menin on the Lys, where a formidable resistance was made. The battle before this place lasted from eight a.m., until four in the afternoon, when the Germans, who had advanced to the relief, retired, and left Menin to its fate. A few months after saw all the Austrian Netherlands overrun by the victorious French, and the allies who had come to protect the province retiring in disorder beyond the Meuse. On this retreat the British and Hanoverians were particularly pressed by Macdonald, who followed them into Holland.

At the passage of the Meuse a Scottish officer named Macdonald came to Pichegreu's army with a flag of truce, and during the parley—

"You have," said he, "among you a general of my name; we wish much to take him prisoner."

"Have a care, monsieur," replied a French officer, "that he does not take you."

And next day this officer, with a party, was nearly captured by the column of Macdonald.[25]

The passage of the Waal on the ice, under the heavy batteries of Nimeguen, when leading the right wing of the Army of the North, was one of Macdonald's most brilliant achievements.

After many desultory movements, the discomfited allies had taken up a position beyond this river, which is a branch of the Rhine, and contested the passage with the French during the severe winter of 1794. The stream was a mass of ice, as the frost was unusually intense; thus the sufferings of the soldiers were great.

Resolved to avail themselves of the advantage which these sufferings gave them, the French had made repeated attempts to force the passage of the river. On the night of the 26th December, when an unusual gloom had settled over the frozen stream and snow-clad scenery, Pichegreu, with all his forces, advanced towards the boundary with such rapidity that he lost several cannon and soldiers. Next day he ventured on the ice and the swamps that bordered it, making a general assault upon the posts of the allies. Macdonald, with the right wing, pushed boldly between Fort St. Andre and the walls and batteries of the ancient town of Nimeguen, in which there lay a strong garrison. His orders were "to act as an army of observation, and prevent the British and Germans from supporting the Dutch, as the main attacks were to be made by the left and centre."

The latter, numbering 16,000 bayonets, crossed the Meuse in three columns, near the village of Driel, and invested Fort St. Andre and the fortifications in the Isle of Bommel; while Macdonald achieved with signal success the passage elsewhere, and formed his battalions in position beyond the frozen stream. Taken by surprise, the inert Dutch soldiers in the Bommeler-waard made but a show of resistance. They were driven out by the charged bayonet, and 600 of them were captured.

The French left wing advanced towards Breda with equal success, and stormed the lines between that city and Gertrudenberg in Northern Brabant; forced the entrenchments at Capellan in Gueldreland, and stormed Waspick. In this series of reverses the allied British, Dutch, and Austrians lost one hundred pieces of cannon, and had more than a thousand prisoners taken; while the French securely established themselves far beyond the contested river. Ere long all resistance to their progress ceased; every fortress, city, and castle submitted to them in succession, till the desperation of his affairs compelled the Stadtholder to seek refuge in Britain, while his allies retreated by the way of Amersfort to cross the Issel, abandoning Holland to its fate, and to the armies of Pichegreu and Macdonald.

For his services in this campaign the latter was now made a General of Division. Every officer under whom he served mentioned him with honour in their reports to the Directory; but while, with that openness which is characteristic of soldiers, his comrades thus rendered every justice and tribute to his worth and bravery, the suspicious representatives of the people, who followed the Army of the North, and thrust their officious counsels upon its generals, occasioned him constant anxiety. Their dislike of his Scottish name was never concealed, and his natural frankness unfortunately laid him but too open to their insidious attacks; till ultimately their animosity was gratified by the Directory depriving him of his command. Of this injustice Pichegreu complained bitterly, and said, "My army will soon become disorganized, if thus wantonly deprived of its best officer."

"We have dismissed Macdonald," was the coarse reply of the Deputy St. Just, "because neither his face nor his name are republican; but we will restore him, Pichegreu, to thee, and with thy head shalt thou answer for him."

This opinion of the Committee of Public Safety so far influenced the Directory, that, until he replaced Championnet in Italy, Macdonald was never entrusted with an independent command. Soon after this mortification in Holland, the convention for a peace between France and Austria was held at Leoben, and on its conclusion he repaired to Cologne, and, quitting the army of the Rhine, joined that of Italy, where the bright star of Napoleon was now in the ascendant. By the nature of his frontier service Macdonald had hitherto little or no correspondence with the future Emperor, who having also imbibed the suspicions of the Directory, was long in discovering the worth or relying on the fidelity of the only Scottish soldier in his service. Macdonald appeared in Italy too late to bear any part in the first events of the campaign of 1797, when the armies of the aggressive republic marched to spread their new political principles throughout the Italian peninsula; but in the following year he was at the invasion of the Papal States, with the terrible Massena and with Berthier, who proclaimed the republic at Rome, on which the Pope fled to Florence. One of the early measures of the French generals was the suppression of the English, Scottish, and Irish colleges, all the effects in which were seized and the students dispersed.

To the Pope they sent a tricoloured cockade and the offer of a pension, to which he made the following reply:—

"I acknowledge no uniform save that with which the Church has adorned me. My life is at your disposal, but my soul is beyond your power. I cannot be ignorant of the hand whence the scourge proceeds which chastises the sheep and afflicts the pastor for the errors of his flock; but I submit to the Divine will. Your pension I need not. A staff and scrip are sufficient for an old man who must pass the remainder of his days in sackcloth and ashes. Rob, pillage, burn as you please, and destroy the monuments of antiquity, but religion you cannot destroy: it will, in defiance of your efforts, exist to the end of time!"

Macdonald's Scottish surname was a puzzle to the Italians, who styled him Maldonaldo, Mardona, and every possible variety of the original. After occupying the States of the Church, and leaving Macdonald with his corps to overawe them, the French armies, whose line of march was everywhere marked by flames, plunder, and barbarity, advanced into Naples to expel the old Bourbon king, and erect an affiliated republic on the ruins of his throne. On this service our hero commanded under Championnet. Prior to this he had been charged with the duty of repressing the insurrections which broke out among the Romans, who massacred or assassinated the French soldiers whenever an opportunity of doing so occurred. The most serious of these risings was at Froisinone, a village in the valley of the Apennines. This he suppressed with great severity, and, to strike terror into the peasantry, shot all prisoners taken in arms. The barbarities of the French, during their brief ascendency, are still remembered with horror in Italy. They and their partisans hunted and destroyed the Neapolitan royalists like wild beasts, and made a desert of all Apulia. It was in this province that Ettore Caraffa, Conti di Ruvo, and heir of the Duke of Andria, joined the invaders of his native country, and, after storming and reducing to ashes Andria, a prosperous and populous city in the province of Bari, he was so extolled by the Directory for his generous republicanism, that "when General Broussier carried the town of Trani by storm, Caraffa recommended that it should be burned also—and burned it was, with nearly all that were in it—the wounded and the dead, with those that were living and unhurt. They made, in fact, a hell of all that smiling Adriatic coast long before Cardinal Ruffo had passed the first defile in the Calabrias."

At Froisinone the Roman insurgents murdered the son of the Consul Mathei merely because his father was at the head of the new government. Macdonald offered from fifty to five hundred piastres for the chiefs of the insurrection, dead or alive. He issued a proclamation to the Romans inviting them to obedience and respect for the new authorities put over them, as being the only means of raising the Roman Republic to the rank she should occupy; and he concludes thus: "The great nation wills it so, and its will must be executed.—Macdonald."

Towards the end of 1798, as Commander-in-chief of the Roman territory, he ordained the Consulate to raise two regiments of horse and a battalion of infantry in each department.

The Court of Naples had now been subverted; under the protection of a British fleet and army, the king retired to Sicily, and a republic was supposed to be quietly established at the extremity of the peninsula, when the brave Calabrese, a race of hardy mountaineers, who were living in wild places in all the simple civilization of three centuries ago, rose in arms, and, uniting with the Apulians from the plains, poured against the French in tumultuary hordes—half robbers and wholly patriots. Then began a war of torture and extermination. These new insurgents demanded a general from their foolish and feeble king; but, instead of a soldier, he sent them a priest—a man of peace to oppose armies led by such men as Championnet, Macdonald, Berthier, and Massena!

This was the celebrated Cardinal Ruffo, a descendant of the ancient princes of Ruffo-Scilla, whose now ruined castle crowns that rock so famed in ancient story, and opposite to the fabled whirlpool upon the Sicilian shore. In a remote corner of Calabria he unfurled the banner of Bourbon, with the cry of "Viva Ferdinand and our Holy Faith!"

This brought to the muster-place thousands, who swore upon their knives, daggers, crosses, and relics, to clear their native land of those lawless Jacobins and infidel republicans who were violating and desecrating everything, whether sacred or profane. The mountain robbers, who knew well the secret passes of that romantic and beautiful country—men who under their own government had subsisted by rapine and slaughter, led the van of the new movement. The cardinal cared little for the morals of his followers. Provided they were stanch, brave, good marksmen, and well armed, he received them all with an apostolical benediction, and left the rest to Providence and gunpowder. He marched at their head direct for Naples, where the French army under Championnet was cantoned; and, as he advanced, his wild and tumultuary army was increased, in every town and valley through which he marched, by sturdy peasants armed with muskets, daggers, and weapons of every description.

The fury with which these irregular hordes, clad in their picturesque costume, their Italian hats, and shaggy zammaras, assailed Championnet at Naples, with the advance of another column under General Mack from another point, forced Macdonald to march with his division, four thousand strong, from Rome, and retire to Ottricoli, a small town on a hill near the Tiber, about thirty-six miles distant. He left a garrison in the Castle of St. Angelo, which was summoned by Mack to surrender. He sent a copy of this document, which was imperious in its tenor, to General Championnet, who empowered Macdonald to reply, which he did in the following terms:—

Head-quarters, Monterozi, 29th November, 1798.

"The Commander-in-chief, sir, has sufficient confidence in me to recognise as his own the reply which I make to your letter of the 28th November. I well know that he has not given any answer to your letters concerning the evacuation of the forts and strong places; and one of these, we consider the Castle of St. Angelo. The silence of contempt alone was due to your insolent menaces on this subject, and this was the only answer that could be expected consistently with the dignity of the French name. You mention a regard for treaties, and yet you invade the territory of a Republic in alliance with France, and do so without provocation, and without its having given you the least reason for such conduct.

"You have attacked the French troops, who trusted in the most sacred defences—the law of nations and the security of treaties.

"You have shot at our flags of truce which were proceeding from Tivoli to Vicavero, and you have made the French garrison at Rieti prisoners of war.

"You have attacked our troops on the heights of Terni, and yet you do not call that a declaration of war!

"Force alone, sir, constrained us to retire from Rome (and you, sir, know better than any one the truth of what I say), that the conquerors of Europe will avenge such proceedings! At present, I confine myself merely to stating our injuries; the French army will do the rest. I declare to you, sir, that I place our sick, Valville the commissary of war, and the other Frenchmen who have remained at Rome, under the care of all the soldiers whom you command. If a hair of their heads be touched, it shall be a signal for the death of the whole Neapolitan army! The French Republican soldiers are not assassins; but the Neapolitan generals, the officers and soldiers who were taken prisoners of war, on the day before yesterday, on the heights of Terni, shall answer with their heads for the safety of my wounded. Your summons to the commander of Fort St. Angelo is of such a nature, that I have made it public, in order to add to the indignation and to the horror which your threats inspire, and which we despise as much as we think there is little to be dreaded from them.

"Macdonald."

In his position at Civita Castellana, near Ottricoli, he was attacked by Mack with great determination. Championnet, in his despatch, states that the enemy were forty thousand strong, and advanced in five columns. "General Macdonald, surrounded on all sides, gave proof of his great talents. He received the attack with that courage which distinguishes the man of firm character, and by his able dispositions entirely disconcerted the enemy." His advanced guard, under Kellerman, consisted only of three squadrons of the 19th chasseurs à cheval, the first battalion of the 11th regiment, and two pieces of flying artillery. This handful of brave fellows routed Mack's first column, slew four hundred, and took fifteen pieces of cannon, fifty caissons, and two thousand prisoners, while they had but thirty killed.

The Italians of De Mert retired to the heights of Calvi, a steep mountain range, where, after a midnight march, during a severe December storm, Macdonald surrounded and attacked them a few days after, and by a flag of truce summoned them to capitulate. To this they made some ridiculous propositions, but he sent the following ultimatum:—

"The column shall surrender prisoners at discretion, or be put to the sword!"

On this they surrendered at once to the number of five thousand, with all their arms, fifteen standards, eight guns, and three hundred horses. Among the prisoners were the Marshal De Mert and Don Carello. After this, he returned to Rome, re-established the Republic, and then taking the route to Capua, followed Mack's Neapolitans, who fled before him. Mack was an Austrian general who had entered the service of Ferdinand of Naples to organize the patriots. For this purpose he had brought with him from Vienna fourteen experienced officers.

On the march to Capua Macdonald's soldiers suffered greatly from the constant rain and storms of snow, by the overflow of the mountain torrents, the destruction of all the bridges, and by the rifles of the armed peasantry, who mercilessly slew every straggler. The bravest men in the Neapolitan army were the mountain banditti; and many of these romantic desperadoes, who led armed bands, received the commission of colonel, and were decorated with knightly orders.

Fra Diavolo, a brigand by profession, was a colonel in the infantry, and cavaliere of San Constantino; the Abate Proni, a ferocious monk of the Abruzzi; Gaetano Mammone, a miller from Sora; and Benedetto Mangone—three outlaws and brigands, covered themselves with distinction in this horrible war against the French; but Benedetto was a veritable monster. "He never spared the life of a Frenchman who fell into his power; and it is said that he butchered with his own hand four hundred Frenchmen and Neapolitan republicans; and that it was his custom to have a human head placed upon the table when he dined, as other people would have a vase of flowers."

In March, 1799, a picquet of sixty Polish soldiers was captured between Capua and Fondi by the Calabrese, who put every one of them to death. In the Campagna Frenchmen were roasted alive by the peasantry, or tied naked to trees and left to be devoured by dogs and wolves. Stragglers were destroyed by every means barbarity could devise.

The King of Naples, who had come from Sicily, fled again; and General Mack, before he was blocked up in Capua, wrote in these terms:—

"Sire, of forty thousand men with whom I entered the Roman territory, only twelve thousand remain; and, of these, many are going over daily to the French."

Macdonald, with Championnet, laid siege to Capua, where Mack made a vigorous resistance and repulsed them; but the attack was renewed with fresh fury; the city was won by assault, and the remains of the Neapolitan army, who had gathered courage from despair, and whom shame for past defeats inspired with a glow of double vengeance, perished under the bayonets of the French. Their bodies choked the bed of the Volturno; and for six leagues from thence the road to Naples was strewed with their dead and dying, till even the conquerors grew tired of slaughter. When Mack yielded himself a prisoner of war to the General of Division, he proffered his sword, a handsome weapon, which had been presented to him by the King of Great Britain in 1795.

Championnet laughed, and returned it to him, saying—

"Keep your sword, M. le General, the laws of the Republic prohibit the use of British manufactures."

At this time the rage of the French army against their peculating commissaries was great, for they had suffered severely by the scarcity of provisions; but Championnet and Macdonald skilfully turned this discontent against the enemy.

"Soldiers," they exclaimed, after the fall of Capua, "your magazines are at Naples!"

"Let us march, then—to Naples lead us!" was the reply, and to the capital the fugitives of Mack's army were pursued. A dreadful slaughter was made among the Lazzaroni, for a fresh struggle ensued at Naples, and every house from which the troops were fired on was burned to the ground, and its inmates bayoneted.

Macdonald had distinguished himself in every engagement with the unfortunate Mack; but now a series of disputes ensued between him and Championnet, who had many troubles to contend with. Irritated by the devastations committed by the Sieur Faitpoult, Commissary of the Directory, the general commanding ordered him to quit Naples, with his horde of plunderers, within twenty-four hours. Faitpoult, instead of obeying, raised the standard of mutiny against Championnet, but was forced to retire.

The coarse reproaches of the Deputy St. Just still rankled in the memory of Macdonald, who left nothing undone to gain the confidence of the Directory, and persuade the members of it that he respected their authority, while it is but too probable that he despised them in his heart. The Sieur Faitpoult had friends in the Directory; thus the firmness of Championnet in expelling him from Naples was styled mutiny to the Republic, and he was ordered to quit the peninsula, and resign his command to General Macdonald. Poor Championnet was placed under arrest; and, relinquishing his bâton to his more fortunate second in command, had to appear before a court-martial at Turin.

With confidence Macdonald accepted this new position, which was one of great difficulty; for the revolted state of Naples, and, above all, the turbulence and ferocity of the Lazzaroni, were sources of incessant alarm. To travel, or pass from town to town, without an armed escort, was at that time impossible; fighting, skirmishing, solitary assassinations, and wholesale massacres, were of daily occurrence, particularly in the province of Otranto, where the embers of revolt were still fanned by the presence of the brave old Cardinal Ruffo, who appeared at the head of his followers, clad in full pontificals, wearing his scarlet hat, and carrying his pastoral staff surmounted by a cross; and thus attired, in a sacred costume so well calculated to rouse the enthusiasm of Italians to frenzy, he led them to battle. Thus he gave them his benediction before it, and thus he said mass for the souls of those dead braves who died for "Ferdinand and the Holy Faith;" thus attired, at many a siege, he sprinkled the battering guns, like his drums and banners, with holy water, mingling, as it were, the smoke of the censer with the smoke of battle. Though the fiery spirit thus roused was restless and abroad, Macdonald ultimately forced the whole kingdom to submit, and completely mastered the capital, which he governed with firmness and moderation.

His order of the day, issued on the 4th March, 1799, amply details the many dangers which surrounded him, and the wise measures he took to guard against them. He threatened to make the clergy responsible for the violence of the populace; but concluded by declaring his reverence for, and attachment to, religion, and his determination to protect all pastors and magistrates who conformed to the laws of the new republic. Five days after this, being informed that King Ferdinand had an intention of landing again, he published a proclamation, in which he somewhat oddly invited the people of Naples to rise against their native prince, and unite with France. Acting in concert with the Commissioner Abrial, he lowered the taxes levied on the people; and, filled by a just admiration for the memory of Tasso, he saved from destruction the poet's native town, Sorrento, on the southern side of the Gulf of Naples, where an insurrection had taken place. After this, the provisional government made him a rash and pompous offer of forty thousand auxiliaries.

In April, he generously released and sent to Captain Trowbridge, a British officer and eleven seamen, who had been cast ashore at Castellamare, during a tempest. He had treated them with every kindness as his countrymen. They were the crew of a prize, the Championnet, privateer.

The entire command of the army in Italy was now bestowed upon General Sherer; and when that officer was defeated between the Lake of Garda and the Adige, on the 26th of March, he sent a despatch to Macdonald, desiring him to form a junction with his troops in northern Italy by forced marches. On hearing of the battle near the Adige, the Neapolitans again rose in arms; and the massacres of the French by wandering bands were again of daily occurrence; but, in spite of every natural and human obstacle, Macdonald effected the junction according to his orders. As his retreat from Naples would have been dangerous without an attempt to overawe the armed masses who hovered on the mountains, he attacked and took Lacava, Castella, and the gloomy little town of Avellino, before his departure. On the 26th May, he was in Tuscany, and united with the divisions detached by General Moreau. There were not wanting those who blamed him for losing time in combining his force with that of Moreau; but those who did so were ignorant of the nature of the country he had to traverse with his trains of artillery and baggage.

"General Macdonald has been here since the 5th instant," says a French letter from Florence. "We deem him the saviour of the French in Italy, and our confidence in him will not be disappointed. His army, which has advanced by forced marches, assembled here yesterday. It is full of ardour, and its zeal, which a few reverses have only fired anew, is a happy presage in our favour."

On the 13th June, he attacked Modena, and in less than two hours dispersed the Austrian division of Count Hohenzollern, which was in position upon the glacis of the place; and two thousand prisoners were taken by his French grenadiers. In an account of this affair, General Sarrazen, who led these grenadiers, mentions that when Macdonald was pressing on with the infantry of the line against the cavalry, he said to him—

"Macdonald, I shall remain with my grenadiers, and think you had better do the same."

"Do you not see, M. Sarrazen, that I have them all, as if caught in a mousetrap," replied the commander, joyously; and, when within a hundred paces of the Austrian horse, he required them to surrender.

"We yield," replied an officer, sheathing his sabre and riding confidently forward. Macdonald continued to approach until within pistol-shot of their line, when the treacherous German suddenly exclaimed, while unsheathing his weapon,—

"Draw sabres—charge!"

He threw himself at full speed upon Macdonald, who was far from anticipating a movement so sudden, and, after receiving three sword-cuts on the head, was thrown from his horse covered with blood. This was all done in a moment, and the German officer mingled with his squadron, which instantly took to flight. They were, however, overtaken and captured, and their leader, a youth of eighteen, was slain. Macdonald was at first supposed to be dead, for he lay stunned on the ground, having three deep wounds, with a contusion by the fall from his horse; yet he was in his saddle, and at the head of his column on the 17th, when the advanced guard of the Russians, under Suwarrow, forced the French into position on the right bank of the Trebia, so celebrated for the victory of Hannibal over the forces of the consul Sempronius; and there, on this classic ground, ensued one of the bloodiest battles of the Italian campaign.

Macdonald had advanced by Reggio and Modena, to effect a junction with the army of Moreau, or to relieve Mantua; but being without pontoons, he found the passage of the Po impossible, as that river was swollen by recent rains, and, moreover, was defended by General Kray, with 10,000 irregulars, and twice that number of armed peasantry. On the 17th, his advanced guard was at Placentia; next day, he attacked and repulsed General Ott, near San Giovanni; but the advance of the Russians, under Suwarrow, changed the fortune of the field.

General Sarrazen states Macdonald's force at 40,000 strong; M. de Segur gives it at 28,000. On the bank of that stream, the most rapid and impetuous in Cisalpine Gaul, the contest was fierce and desperate; but the daring attempts of Macdonald to cross, at the head of his troops, were repulsed.

"On the 18th and 19th," says a journal of the time, "the battles were very murderous. The French formed a square four men deep and fought desperately, till a column of Russians passed the river up to their necks in the water, broke through with the bayonet, and made a dreadful carnage among them. On the whole, the French are supposed to have lost, since the 11th instant, 15,000 men in killed, wounded, and prisoners. Macdonald himself has received two sabre-wounds from a Hungarian hussar. Among the prisoners taken are 4 generals and 700 officers. Our loss consists of 4000 men killed and wounded, and 400 prisoners; but the latter were rescued in the pursuit, and 40 waggons with French wounded were taken at the same time."

The fury of the Russian advance threw Macdonald's centre into confusion. Sabre in hand, he strove to enforce order under a heavy fire of cannon and musketry; but was swept away with the panic-stricken mass of the 5th regiment of light infantry, among whom he became entangled, and who were flying in disorder, abandoning their muskets, knapsacks, canteens, and blankets in their eagerness to escape. By them he was hurried into the current of the Trebia, and narrowly escaped being drowned. This confusion was caused by a brilliant charge of 500 Cossacks, who rushed with their lances in the rest through a cloud of dust. A terrified French chasseur exclaimed,—

"The whole Russian cavalry are upon us—fly!"

Then it was that the 5th gave way, and the centre was broken, but still the flanks fought desperately; and had the division of Moreau been in the field, it must have been won for France; but on that day he was attempting to raise the siege of Tortosa. Three standards were laid at the feet of Suwarrow.

At Trebia, according to M. de Segur, who once served on Macdonald's staff, "during three days of a battle, the most desperate in our annals, twenty-eight thousand French withstood fifty thousand Russians, held the fortunes of the day in balance, and gave vainly to Moreau the time to strike a blow for France. The victory remained finally with Suwarrow; but, in his astonishment, the rude Muscovite exclaimed,—

"One more such success, and we shall lose the Peninsula!"

Meanwhile, Macdonald had been deceived in his expectations; his army was exhausted; he was severely wounded, and when it was necessary that he should retire, a torrent of foes behind opposed his retreat. Beyond this torrent, other foes awaited him. The courage of his soldiers failed; but he, calm and serene, encouraged them, saying,—

"Be of good cheer, for nothing is impossible to the brave!"

With the remains of his shattered army he retired towards Tuscany and Bologna; and at Piacenza a great quantity of his ammunition and baggage fell into the hands of his pursuers. In the Directory there were men who now reproached him with having wished to gain a battle alone, or at least without the participation of Moreau; but it was by the express command of that general, on whose part he fully expected assistance, that he attempted to force the passage of the Trebia, and break the left wing of the Austro-Russian army. Notwithstanding the desperation of his circumstances, he was not without hopes of making another stand; but, on being deserted by General Lahoz, a Cisalpiner, and his corps, which united with twenty thousand insurgents to gall his flight, Macdonald relinquished all idea of again giving battle, and continued his retreat towards the mountains of Genoa, followed by the troops of Generals Ott, Klenau, Lahoz, and Count Hohenzollern, and by hordes of brigands and guerillas, who murdered his men on all hands, and massacred them in the mountain passes.

With a flag of truce, he sent an officer to the Austrian general Melas, praying that he would treat with mercy the wounded Frenchmen whom he had been compelled to abandon in Piacenza.

"The request is needless," replied Melas; "Austrian soldiers know too well the duties of humanity to require such advice."

Wounds and fatigue had so severely impaired Macdonald's health, that he was fain to ask Suwarrow's permission to visit the baths of Pisa. This, the Russian with chivalry and courtesy granted at once; but, instead of visiting the celebrated Bagni di Pisa, the general returned to France, relinquishing the command of his column, after uniting it to the army of Moreau; and immediately on his arrival in Paris he was entrusted by Napoleon with the command at Versailles.

By this time the French had abandoned the whole coast of the Adriatic, and lost their conquests in Naples, where nothing remained of them but the graves of the slain.

During the past hostilities the domestic relations of the Republic had not improved in character or in spirit; and the feeble condition of the Directory afforded an admirable path by which the ambition of Napoleon might lead to a newer and firmer form of government. Returning hastily from his unsuccessful Egyptian campaign, he had reached Paris; and entering at once into the schemes of Talleyrand and his friend Sieyes, a military conspiracy was formed to remodel the Republic as a Consulate, of which he should be the head. Whatever may have been the motives, or secret ambitions, which led the military chiefs to revolutionize France again, it cannot be denied that she benefited thereby; and the energy with which the essay was made, and the success it had, were a sure guarantee for the decision of future affairs.

Macdonald was in command at Versailles while these plans were maturing, and when Napoleon arrived at the Palace of St. Cloud. Though not actually in the conspiracy, he was in the secret, and knew that opposition to Napoleon would neither be for the interests of France, the army, or himself; thus he took the lead in the matter, and by suddenly closing or dispersing the political club at Versailles, made the inhabitants aware that he, at least, deemed the time had come, "when a just administration should obliterate the horrors of the last few years, and the fatal vacillation of the weak Directory."

On the 18th Brumaire, the attempt was to be made; and Napoleon, accompanied by Macdonald, De Bournouville, and Moreau, inspected in the gardens of the Tuileries ten thousand chosen soldiers on whose faith they could depend, and there Augereau, the future Duke of Castiglione, joined them.

"M. le Général," said he, embracing Napoleon, "you have not called for me, but I have come to join you."

"You are welcome," replied Napoleon.

It was a perilous task they had undertaken, to overthrow the political incubus that had pressed so long upon France; and while the startled Directory, who had already discovered the designs of those without, were debating about their own safety, and while Moulins urged that a battalion should be sent to seize Napoleon, the latter suddenly appeared, sword in hand, at the door of the hall, and entered with his grenadiers, three deep, at a time when the projected Consulate was being discussed by some of the Directory with very little chance of success. He decided the matter at once, by ordering his drummers to beat a pas de charge, and by dismissing the judges with a promptitude worthy of Cromwell, and with a courage which evinced that, on his part, nothing would be wanting to retain the power he had won.

When an army was formed for the re-conquest of Naples, in 1800, Napoleon offered Macdonald the command of the corps de reserve. He did this to testify his pleasure for his adherence to the revolution of the 18th Brumaire; but the general, who felt piqued by the offer of a command so subordinate, in a country where he had before led an army, urged illness and wounds as a reason for remaining in France. The penetration of Napoleon, was too keen for the true sentiments of Macdonald to escape him; thus on the 24th of August, in the same year, he was appointed to command the army of Switzerland, which was destined to penetrate into the Tyrol, to second the operations of the army of Italy and favour the columns of Moreau (who was then warring in Germany) by compelling the Austrians to employ at least thirty thousand of their best men among the Tyrolean mountains—the bulwark of the German empire.

Macdonald marched from Bearn in September, with forty thousand men,[26] towards Helvetia, accompanied by General Matthew Dumas, chief of the staff, a soldier who used his pen better than his sword. His first desire was that a corps of Helvetians should be formed to co-operate with the French against the Austrians; but this request the Swiss government declined; and he soon found his campaign to consist of a series of arduous marches among the mountains, where, as the season advanced and the winter drew on, his soldiers endured every misery that, toil, hunger, and cold could inflict.

In the passage of the Alps, when one of his columns, composed of the 80th Regiment, with some cavalry, artillery, sappers, and guides, under Laboissière, attempted to cross the Splugen, in the country of the Grisons, a dreadful avalanche suddenly came thundering down from the mountains to bar their march, and swept forty-two of the 10th Dragoons, with their horses, over a precipice. His other columns met with equal difficulties. A letter in the Paris papers, dated "Head-quarters, Chicavenna, 7th December, 1800," relates:—

"It was necessary to traverse the Splugen and Mount Carduiet. These mountains, even in July, present all the horrors of winter; judge what they are in December! Threatening and inaccessible rocks, seas of snow on all sides, torrents of avalanches falling with a noise equally terrible. Since our first march, two hundred men, with their horses, have been swallowed up. After unheard-of labour, we succeeded in disengaging all of them except three. There was not the least trace of a road; but by labour and constancy we opened a narrow path, bordered by precipices which the eye could not fathom nor the foot always avoid."

Two-thirds of the pass, which leads towards Como had been traversed, the troops in front, with muskets slung, digging a path for their comrades in the rear, till the column, exhausted by cold and fatigue, began to retire without orders, though the dangers behind—snow, hunger, and avalanches—were the same as those in front. Macdonald galloped towards his sinking soldiers, and his presence had an immediate effect on them. They halted; he entreated and threatened; but they listened in sullen silence.

Then he dismounted, seized a shovel, and proceeded to dig the snow, exclaiming—

"My comrades, I would rather perish in the abyss than stoop to turn my steps on perils such as these!"

"Vive M. le Général!" cried the soldiers of the 80th. Confidence was inspired anew; again the muskets were slung, the shovels resumed, and after three days of labour, danger, and toil, the passage was achieved, and the troops of Macdonald debouched from that terrible gorge, where the frozen precipices seemed to hang from heaven, and where whirlwinds of hail, tempests of snow, with death in its most frightful form, had been encountered.

The resistance he experienced from the Austrian troops was trivial; and on the 7th of January, 1801, he made himself master of the circle and city of Trent; but the armistice concluded at Treviso on the 16th of the same month put an end to the war. After this he remained for some time at Isola, suffering from an illness caused by the fatigues he had undergone at Splugen, and Delmas commanded in the interim.