John Gibson Lockhart - The History of Napoleon Buonaparte

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"France and England, abusing their strength, may long defer the
period of its utter exhaustion; but I will venture to say, that the
fate of all civilised nations is concerned in the termination of a
war, the flames of which are raging throughout the whole world. I
have the honour to be, &c. &c.

"BUONAPARTE."

It is manifest that the Chief Consul was wonderfully ignorant of the
English constitution, if he really believed that the King (whose public
acts must all be done by the hands of responsible ministers) could
answer his letter personally. The reply was an official note from Lord
Grenville, then secretary of state for the department of foreign
affairs, to Talleyrand. It stated "that the King of England had no
object in the war but the security of his own dominions, his allies, and
Europe in general; he would seize the first favourable opportunity to
make peace--at present he could see none. The same general assertions of
pacific intentions had proceeded, successively, from all the
revolutionary governments of France; and they had all persisted in
conduct directly and notoriously the opposite of their language.
Switzerland, Italy, Holland, Germany, Egypt,--what country had been safe
from French aggression? The war must continue until the causes which
gave it birth ceased to exist. The restoration of the exiled royal
family would be the easiest means of giving confidence to the other
powers of Europe. The King of England by no means pretended to dictate
anything as to the internal polity of France; but he was compelled to
say, that he saw nothing in the circumstances under which the new
government had been set up, or the principles it professed to act upon,
which could tend to make foreign powers regard it as either more stable
or more trustworthy than the transitory forms it had supplanted."

Such was the tenor of Lord Grenville's famous note. It gave rise to an
animated discussion in both Houses immediately on the meeting of the
British Parliament; and, in both, the conduct of the ministry was
approved by very great majorities. When, however, the financial
preparations were brought forward, and it turned out that Russia was no
longer to be subsidised--or, in other words, had abandoned the league
against France--the prospects of the war were generally considered as
much less favourable than they had been during this discussion. In the
meantime the French government put forth, by way of commentary on Lord
Grenville's state paper, a pretended letter from the unfortunate heir of
the House of Stuart to George III., demanding from him the throne of
England, which, now that the principle of legitimacy seemed to be
recognised at St. James's, there could (said the pasquinade) be no fair
pretext for refusing. Some other trifles of the same character might be
noticed; but the true answer to Mr. Pitt was the campaign of Marengo.

Buonaparte rejoiced cordially in the result of his informal negotiation.
It was his policy, even more clearly than it had been that of his
predecessors, to buy security at home by battle and victory abroad. The
national pride had been deeply wounded during his absence; and something
must be done in Europe, worthy of the days of Lodi, and Rivoli, and
Tagliamento, ere he could hope to be seated firmly on his _throne_. On
receiving the answer of the British minister, he said to Talleyrand
(rubbing his hands, as was his custom when much pleased), "it could not
have been more favourable." On the same day, the 7th of January (just
three days after the date of Lord Grenville's note), the First Consul
issued his edict for the formation of an army of reserve, consisting of
all the veterans who had ever served, and a new levy of 30,000
conscripts.

At this time France had four armies on her frontiers: that of the North,
under Brune, watched the partisans of the House of Orange in Holland,
and guarded those coasts against any new invasion from England; the
defeat of the Duke of York had enabled the government to reduce its
strength considerably. The second was the army of the Danube, under
Jourdan, which, after the defeat at Stockach, had been obliged to repass
the Rhine. The third, under Massena, styled the army of Helvetia, had
been compelled in the preceding campaign to evacuate great part of
Switzerland; but, gaining the battle of Zurich against the Russians, now
re-occupied the whole of that republic. The fourth was that broken
remnant which still called itself the "army of Italy." After the
disastrous conflict of Genola it had rallied in disorder on the Apennine
and the heights of Genoa, where the spirit of the troops was already so
much injured, that whole battalions deserted _en masse_, and retired
behind the Var. Their distress, in truth, was extreme; for they had lost
all means of communication with the valley of the Po, and the English
fleet effectually blockaded the whole coasts both of Provence and
Liguria; so that, pent up among barren rocks, they suffered the
hardships and privations of a beleaguered garrison.

The Chief Consul sent Massena to assume the command of the "army of
Italy"; and issued, on that occasion, a general order, which had a
magical effect on the minds of the soldiery, Massena was highly esteemed
among them; and after his arrival at Genoa, the deserters flocked back
rapidly to their standards. At the same time Buonaparte ordered Moreau
to assume the command of the two corps of the Danube and Helvetia, and
consolidate them into one great "army of the Rhine." Lastly, the
rendezvous of the "army of reserve" was appointed for Dijon: a central
position from which either Messena or Moreau might, as circumstances
demanded, be supported and reinforced; but which Napoleon really
designed to serve for a cloak to his main purpose. For he had already,
in concert with Carnot, sketched the plan of that which is generally
considered as at once the most daring and the most masterly of all the
campaigns of the war; and which, in so far as the execution depended on
himself, turned out also the most dazzlingly successful.

In placing Moreau at the head of the army of the Rhine, full 150,000
strong, and out of all comparison the best disciplined as well as
largest force of the Republic, Buonaparte exhibited a noble superiority
to all feelings of personal jealousy. That general's reputation
approached the most nearly to his own, but his talents justified this
reputation, and the Chief Consul thought of nothing but the best means
of accomplishing the purposes of the joint campaign. Moreau, in the
sequel, was severely censured by his master for the manner in which he
executed the charge entrusted to him. His orders were to march at once
upon Ulm, at the risk of placing the great Austrian army under Kray
between him and France; but he was also commanded to detach 15,000 of
his troops for the separate service of passing into Italy by the defiles
of St. Gothard; and given to understand that it must be his business to
prevent Kray, at all hazards, from opening a communication with Italy by
way of the Tyrol. Under such circumstances, it is not wonderful that a
general, who had a master, should have proceeded more cautiously than
suited the gigantic aspirations of the unfettered Napoleon. Moreau,
however, it must be admitted, had always the reputation of a prudent
rather than a daring commander. The details of his campaign against Kray
must be sought elsewhere. A variety of engagements took place with a
variety of fortune. Moreau, his enemies allow, commenced his operations
by crossing the Rhine in the end of April; and, on the 15th of July, had
his headquarters at Augsburg, and was in condition either to reinforce
the French in Italy, or to march into the heart of the Austrian states,
when the success of Buonaparte's own expedition rendered either movement
unnecessary.

The Chief Consul had resolved upon conducting, in person, one of the
most adventurous enterprises recorded in the history of war. The
formation of the army of reserve at Dijon was a mere deceit. A numerous
staff, indeed, assembled in that town; and the preparation of the
munitions of war proceeded there as elsewhere with the utmost energy:
but the troops collected at Dijon were few; and--it being universally
circulated and believed, that they were the force meant to re-establish
the once glorious army of Italy, by marching to the headquarters of
Massena at Genoa,--the Austrians received the accounts of their numbers
and appearance, not only with indifference but with derision.
Buonaparte, meanwhile, had spent three months in recruiting his armies
throughout the interior of France; and the troops, by means of which it
was his purpose to change the face of affairs beyond the Alps, were
already marching by different routes, each detachment in total ignorance
of the other's destination, upon the territory of Switzerland. To that
quarter Buonaparte had already sent forward Berthier, the most
confidential of his military friends, and other officers of the highest
skill, with orders to reconnoitre the various passes in the great Alpine
chain, and make every other preparation for the movement, of which they
alone were, as yet, in the secret.

The statesmen who ventured, even after Brumaire, to oppose the
investiture of Buonaparte with the whole power of the state, had, at
first (as we have seen) attempted to confine him to the military
department; or so arrange it that his orders, as to civil affairs,
should, at least, not be absolute. Failing in this, they then proposed
that the Chief Consul should be incapable of heading an army in the
field, without abdicating previously his magistracy; and to their
surprise, Napoleon at once acceded to a proposition which, it had been
expected, would rouse his indignation. It now turned out how much the
saving clause in question was worth. The Chief Consul could not, indeed,
be general-in-chief of an army; but he could appoint whom he pleased to
that post; and there was no law against his being present, in his own
person, as a spectator of the campaign. It signified little that a
Berthier should write himself commander, when a Napoleon was known to be
in the camp.

It was now time that the great project should be realised. The situation
of the "army of Italy" was become most critical. After a variety of
petty engagements, its general saw his left wing (under Suchet) wholly
cut off from his main body; and, while Suchet was forced to retire
behind the Var, where his troops had the utmost difficulty in presenting
any serious opposition to the Austrians, Massena had been compelled to
throw himself with the remainder into Genoa. In that city he was
speedily blockaded by the Austrian general Ott; while the imperial
commander-in-chief, Melas, advanced with 30,000 upon Nice--of which
place he took possession on the 11th of May. The Austrians, having shut
up Massena, and well knowing the feebleness of Suchet's division, were
in a delirium of joy. The gates of France appeared, at length, to be
open before them; and it was not such an army of reserve as had excited
the merriment of their spies at Dijon that could hope to withstand them
in their long-meditated march on Provence--where Pichegru, as they
supposed, was prepared to assume the command of a numerous body of
royalist insurgents, as soon as he should receive intelligence of their
entrance into France. But they were soon to hear news of another
complexion from whence they least expected it--from behind them.

The Chief Consul remained in Paris until he received Berthier's decisive
despatch from Geneva--it was in these words: "I wish to see you here.
There are orders to be given by which three armies may act in concert,
and you alone can give them in the lines. Measures decided on in Paris
are too late." He instantly quitted the capital; and, on the 7th of May
appeared at Dijon, where he reviewed, in great form, some 7000 or 8000
raw and half-clad troops, and committed them to the care of Brune. The
spies of Austria reaped new satisfaction from this consular review:
meanwhile Napoleon had halted but two hours at Dijon; and, travelling
all night, arrived the next day, at Geneva. Here he was met by Marescot,
who had been employed in exploring the wild passes of the Great St.
Bernard, and received from him an appalling picture of the difficulties
of marching an army by that route into Italy. "Is it possible to pass?"
said Napoleon, cutting the engineer's narrative short. "The thing is
barely possible," answered Marescot. "Very well," said the Chief Consul,
"_en avant_--let us proceed."

While the Austrians were thinking only of the frontier where Suchet
commanded an enfeebled and dispirited division,--destined, as they
doubted not, to be reinforced by the army, such as it was, of
Dijon,--the Chief Consul had resolved to penetrate into Italy, as
Hannibal had done of old, through all the dangers and difficulties of
the great Alps themselves. The march on the Var and Genoa might have
been executed with comparative ease, and might, in all likelihood, have
led to victory; but mere victory would not suffice. It was urgently
necessary that the name of Buonaparte should be surrounded with some
blaze of almost supernatural renown; and his plan for purchasing this
splendour was to rush down from the Alps, at whatever hazard, upon the
rear of Melas, cut off all his communications with Austria, and then
force him to a conflict, in which, Massena and Suchet being on the other
side of him, reverse must needs be ruin.

For the treble purpose of more easily collecting a sufficient stock of
provisions for the march, of making its accomplishment more rapid, and
of perplexing the enemy on its termination, Napoleon determined that his
army should pass in four divisions, by as many separate routes. The left
wing, under Moncey, consisting of 15,000 detached from the army of
Moreau, was ordered to debouch by the way of St. Gothard. The corps of
Thureau, 5000 strong, took the direction of Mount Cenis: that of
Chabran, of similar strength, moved by the Little St. Bernard. Of the
main body, consisting of 35,000, the Chief Consul himself took care;
and he reserved for them the gigantic task of surmounting, with the
artillery, the huge barriers of the Great St. Bernard. Thus along the
Alpine Chain--from the sources of the Rhine and the Rhone to Isere and
Durance--about 60,000 men, in all, prepared for the adventure. It must
be added, if we would form a fair conception of the enterprise, that
Napoleon well knew not one-third of these men had ever seen a shot fired
in earnest.

The difficulties encountered by Moncey, Thureau, and Chabran will be
sufficiently understood from the narrative of Buonaparte's own march.
From the 15th to the 18th of May all his columns were put in motion;
Lannes, with the advanced guard, clearing the way before them; the
general, Berthier, and the Chief Consul himself superintending the rear
guard, which, as having with it the artillery, was the object of highest
importance. At St. Pierre all semblance of a road disappeared.
Thenceforth an army, horse and foot, laden with all the munitions of a
campaign, a park of forty field-pieces included, were to be urged up and
along airy ridges of rock and eternal snow, where the goatherd, the
hunter of the chamois, and the outlaw-smuggler are alone accustomed to
venture; amidst precipices where to slip a foot is death; beneath
glaciers from which the percussion of a musket-shot is often sufficient
to hurl an avalanche; across bottomless chasms caked over with frost or
snow-drift; and breathing

"The difficult air of the iced mountain top,
Where the birds dare not build, nor insect's wing
Flit o'er the herbless granite."[34]

The transport of the artillery and ammunition was the most difficult
point; and to this, accordingly, the Chief Consul gave his personal
superintendence. The guns were dismounted, grooved into the trunks of
trees hollowed out so as to suit each calibre, and then dragged on by
sheer strength of muscle--not less than an hundred soldiers being
sometimes harnessed to a single cannon. The carriages and wheels, being
taken to pieces, were slung on poles, and borne on men's shoulders. The
powder and shot, packed into boxes of fir-wood, formed the lading of all
the mules that could be collected over a wide range of the Alpine
country. These preparations had been made during the week that elapsed
between Buonaparte's arrival at Geneva and the commencement of Lannes's
march. He himself travelled sometimes on a mule, but mostly on foot,
cheering on the soldiers who had the burden of the great guns. The
fatigue undergone is not to be described. The men in front durst not
halt to breathe, because the least stoppage there might have thrown the
column behind into confusion, on the brink of deadly precipices; and
those in the rear had to flounder knee deep, through snow and ice
trampled into sludge by the feet and hoofs of the preceding divisions.
Happily the march of Napoleon was not harassed, like that of Hannibal,
by the assaults of living enemies. The mountaineers, on the contrary,
flocked in to reap the liberal rewards which he offered to all who were
willing to lighten the drudgery of his troops.

On the 16th of May Napoleon slept at the convent of St. Maurice; and, in
the course of the four following days, the whole army passed the Great
St. Bernard. It was on the 20th that Buonaparte himself halted an hour
at the convent of the Hospitallers, which stands on the summit of this
mighty mountain. The good fathers of the monastery had been warned
beforehand of the march, and they had furnished every soldier as he
passed with a luncheon of bread and cheese and a glass of wine; for
which seasonable kindness, they now received the warm acknowledgments of
the chief.[35] It was here that he took his leave of a peasant youth,
who had walked by him, as his guide, all the way from the convent of St.
Maurice. Napoleon conversed freely with the young man, and was much
interested with his simplicity. At parting, he asked the guide some
particulars about his personal situation; and, having heard his reply,
gave him money and a billet to the head of the monastery of St. Maurice.
The peasant delivered it accordingly, and was surprised to find that,
in consequence of a scrap of writing which he could not read, his
worldly comforts were to be permanently increased. The object of his
generosity remembered, nevertheless, but little of his conversation with
the Consul. He described Napoleon as being "a very dark man" (this was
the effect of the Syrian sun), and having an eye that, notwithstanding
his affability, he could not encounter without a sense of fear. The only
saying of the hero which he treasured in his memory was, "I have spoiled
a hat among your mountains: well, I shall find a new one on the other
side."--Thus spoke Napoleon, wringing the rain from his covering as he
approached the hospice of St. Bernard.--The guide described, however,
very strikingly, the effects of Buonaparte's appearance and voice, when
any obstacle checked the advance of his soldiery along that fearful
wilderness which is called emphatically, "The Valley of Desolation." A
single look or word was commonly sufficient to set all in motion again.
But if the way presented some new and apparently insuperable difficulty,
the Consul bade the drums beat and the trumpets sound, as if for the
charge; and this never failed. Of such gallant temper were the spirits
which Napoleon had at command, and with such admirable skill did he
wield them!

On the 16th the vanguard, under Lannes, reached the beautiful vale of
Aosta, and the other divisions descended rapidly on their footsteps.
This part of the progress was not less difficult than the ascent before.
The horses, mules, and guns, were to be led down one slippery steep
after another--and we may judge with what anxious care, since Napoleon
himself was once contented to slide nearly a hundred yards together,
_seated_.

On the 17th Lannes arrived at Chatillon, where he attacked and defeated
a corps of 5000 Austrians--who received the onset of a French division
in that quarter, with about as much surprise as if an enemy had dropped
on them from the clouds. Every difficulty now seemed to be surmounted,
and corps after corps came down into the plentiful and verdant valley,
full of joy. But suddenly the march of the vanguard was arrested by an
obstacle unforeseen, or, at least, grievously under-estimated. Midway
between Aosta and Ivrea the Dora flows through a defile, not more than
fifty yards in width: the heights on either hand rise precipitous; and
in the midst an abrupt conical rock, crowned with the fortress of St.
Bard, entirely commands the river, and a small walled town, through the
heart of which lies the only passage. Lannes having vainly attempted to
force the place by a _coup de main_, a panic arose, and this spreading
to the rear, orders were given for stopping the descent of the
artillery. The Consul had come as far as the town of Aosta when this
intelligence reached him. He immediately hastened to St. Bard, where he
found the troops in much confusion.

On occasions like this Napoleon rarely failed to vindicate the
_prestige_ of his reputation. After hastily surveying the localities, he
climbed the height of the Albaredo, which rises on the one side above
the fort, and satisfied himself that, though the path had hitherto been
trodden only by solitary huntsmen, the army who had crossed the St.
Bernard might, by similar efforts, find or make their way here also. A
single cannon being, with the last difficulty, hoisted to the summit, he
planted it so as to play full on the chief bastion of St. Bard. The
moment this was arranged the troops began their painful march; and they
accomplished it without considerable loss; for the Consul's gun was so
excellently placed that the main battery of the subjacent castle, was,
ere long, silenced. The men crept along the brow of the Albaredo in
single file, each pausing (says an eye-witness) to gaze for a moment on
Napoleon, who, overcome with his exertions, had lain down and fallen
fast asleep upon the summit of the rock. Thus passed the main body,
slowly, but surely. Meantime Colonel Dufour had been ordered to scale
the wall of the town at nightfall; and his regiment (the 58th) performed
this service so impetuously, that the Austrian troops took refuge in the
castle, and the French made good their lodgment in the houses below. For
some hours the garrison poured down grape-shot at half-musket distance
upon the French, but at last out of compassion for the inhabitants, the
fire slackened, and ere day broke Buonaparte had effected his main
purpose. The streets of the town having been strewn with litter to
deafen sound, the guns, covered with straw and branches of trees, were
dragged through it under the very guns of St. Bard, and without exciting
the least suspicion in its garrison. Next morning the Austrian sent on
a messenger to Melas, with tidings that a large division of the French
had indeed passed by the goat-tracks of Albaredo, but that most
certainly not one great gun was with them. Buonaparte, meantime, was
hurrying forwards with horse, foot, and artillery too, upon Ivrea.

The march of the Consul received no new check until he reached the town
of Ivrea, where, after two days' hard fighting, Lannes at length forced
an entrance, and the garrison, with severe loss, withdrew. Buonaparte
then took the road to Turin, and the vanguard had another severe piece
of service at the bridge of Chiusilla, where 10,000 Austrians had been
very strongly posted. Lannes broke them, and pursuing as far as Orca,
cut them off from their magazines at Chevagno, and seized a vast
quantity of stores which had been embarked on the Po. The advance was
now within one march of Turin, while Murat occupied Vercelli, and the
other divisions (those of Moncey, Chabran, and Thureau), having
accomplished their several Alpine journeys, were pouring down upon the
low country, and gradually converging towards the appointed rendezvous
on the Ticino. Buonaparte had thus overcome the great difficulties of
his preparation, and was ready with his whole army to open the campaign
in good earnest against Melas.

The blockade of Genoa had been kept up all this time; while Suchet
resolutely maintained the last line of defence on the old frontier of
France. On the 22nd of May Melas made a desperate effort to force the
passage of the Var, but failed; and immediately afterwards received his
first intelligence of the movements of Buonaparte, and the defeat of his
own detachment at the bridge of Chiusilla. He perceived that it was high
time to leave Suchet to inferior hands, and set off to oppose in person
"the army of reserve." Suchet, on his part, was not slow to profit by
the departure of the Austrian Commander-in-chief: he, being informed of
Buonaparte's descent, forthwith resumed the offensive, re-crossed the
Var, and carried Vintimiglia at the point of the bayonet. Pursuing his
advantage, Suchet obtained the mastery, first of the defile of Braus,
and then of that of Tende, and at length re-occupied his old position at
Melagno, whence his advanced guard pushed on as far as Savona.