John Gibson Lockhart - The History of Napoleon Buonaparte

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Two of his own squadrons, meantime, had, in pursuance of the great
scheme traced for the ruin of England, escaped early in this year out of
Rochefort and Toulon. The former, passing into the West Indies, effected
some trivial services, and returned in safety to their original port.
The latter, under Villeneuve, had like fortune; and, venturing on a
second sortie, joined the great Spanish fleet under Gravina at Cadiz.
The combined fleets then crossed the Atlantic, where they captured an
insignificant island, and once more returned towards Europe. Nelson had
spent the summer in chasing these squadrons across the seas--and on this
occasion they once more eluded his grasp: but on approaching Cape
Finisterre (22nd July), another English squadron of fifteen sail of the
line and two frigates, under Sir Robert Calder, came in view: and the
allied admirals, having twenty sail of the line, three fifty-gun ships,
and four frigates, did not avoid the encounter. They were worsted,
notwithstanding their superiority of strength, and Calder captured two
of their best ships. But that they escaped from an English fleet,
howsoever inferior in numbers, without sustaining severer loss than
this, was considered as a disgrace by the British public.--Calder, being
tried by a court-martial, was actually censured for not having improved
his success more signally; a striking example of the height to which
confidence in the naval superiority of the English had been raised, at
the very time when no arm appeared capable of thwarting the career of
French victory by land.

Villeneuve and Gravina now made their way to Vigo, and thence finally to
Cadiz: while Nelson, having at length received accurate intelligence of
their motions, took the command in the Mediterranean, and lay watching
for the moment in which they should be tempted to hazard another egress.
The coasts of Spain being strictly blockaded, some difficulty began to
be felt about providing necessaries for the numerous crews of the allied
fleets; but the circumstance which had most influence in leading them to
quit, once more, their place of safety, was, according to general
admission, the impatience of Villeneuve under some unmerited reproaches
with which Napoleon visited the results of the battle off Cape
Finisterre. Villeneuve, a man of dauntless gallantry and the highest
spirit, smarting under this injury, was anxious to take the noble
revenge of victory. And, in truth, had numbers been to decide the
adventure, he ran little risk: for Nelson commanded only twenty-seven
sail of the line, and three frigates, manned in the ordinary manner;
whereas the fleet in Cadiz mustered thirty-three ships of the line, and
seven frigates; and, besides the usual crews, carried 4000 troops,
chiefly rifle-men. The result was the most glorious day in the proud
annals of the English Marine. The combined fleets sailed from Cadiz on
the 19th of October, and on the morning of the 21st--the very day after
Mack surrendered at Ulm--they came in sight of the English Admiral, off
Cape Trafalgar.

The reader is referred to the historian of Lord Nelson for the
particulars of this great action. The French and Spaniards awaited the
attack in a double line. Nelson hoisted the famous signal--"England
expects every man to do his duty"; charged in two columns, and broke
their array at the first onset. The battle, nevertheless, was sternly
contested. In the end nineteen ships of the line were taken; and of
those Spanish vessels which escaped into Cadiz, seven had been rendered
wholly unserviceable. Four French ships of the line, under Commodore
Dumanoir, made way for the Straits, and were captured a few days after
by Sir Richard Strachan, commander of the English squadron off
Rochefort. The fleets of France and Spain were annihilated: yet, great
as was the triumph, glorious and unrivalled, it was dearly
purchased--for Nelson fell, mortally wounded, early in the action. The
hero lived just long enough to hear the cheer of consummated victory;
and then breathed out his noble spirit, in words worthy of his life,
"Thank God! I have done my duty."[51]

The French and Spaniards had fought together against Nelson; but not in
the same spirit. The former were determined and malignant enemies; the
latter generous friends, hurried, by the excitement of temporary and
pardonable passion, into hostilities against the only power which could
afford their country any chance of avoiding that political slavery,
under which it was now the settled purpose of Napoleon's ambition to
crush every nation of Europe. But the unprincipled conduct of Dumanoir,
who escaped from Nelson to be captured shortly after, as has been
mentioned, by Strachan, at once brought out the different feelings
under which the two allied fleets had been acting. This French officer,
retreating with his four ships, which had had no part in the battle,
discharged his broadsides, as he passed, into English vessels no longer
capable of pursuit,--conduct which, as the victory was complete, could
have no object but that of carnage. Nay, such was the ruffian nature of
this man's soul, he fired into the Spanish ships which had yielded to
the English, thus, for the sake of trivially injuring his enemy,
sacrificing without scruple the blood of his own unfortunate friends.
The Spanish prisoners, in their indignation at this brutality, asked
their English captors to permit them to man their guns against the
retreating French; and such was the earnestness of their entreaty, and
the confidence of Englishmen in the honour of Spaniards, that these men
actually were permitted to do as they had requested. A mutual
interchange of good offices ensued. In the evening after the battle a
gale sprung up, and some of the captured vessels drifting on shore, a
number of British seamen fell into the hands of the garrison of Cadiz.
They were received as friends: for the accommodation of their wounded
the Spanish soldiers gave up their own beds. Collingwood, who succeeded
to Nelson's command, sent all the wounded Spaniards on shore to be cured
in their own country, merely taking their parole that they would not
serve again during the war: and the governor of Cadiz, with still more
romantic generosity, offered his hospitals for the use of Collingwood's
wounded seamen, pledging the honour of the Spanish name that they should
be cared for like his own men, and sent back to their admiral whenever
they had recovered. It will appear, hereafter, what illustrious
consequences the kindly feelings thus manifested were destined to
produce.

Buonaparte, when he heard of this mighty discomfiture, which for ever
put an end to all his visions of invading England, is said to have lost
that possession of himself, which he certainly maintained when the
catastrophe of Aboukir was announced to him at Cairo. Yet arrogance
mingled strangely in his expressions of sorrow.--"I cannot be
everywhere," said he to the messenger of the evil tidings--as if
Napoleon could have had any more chance of producing victory by his
presence at Trafalgar, than Nelson would have dreamed of having by
appearing on horseback at Marengo. In his newspapers, and even in his
formal messages to the senate at Paris, Buonaparte always persisted in
denying that there had been a great defeat at Trafalgar, or even a great
battle. But how well he appreciated the facts of the case was well known
to the unfortunate Admiral Villeneuve. That brave officer, after
spending a short time in England, was permitted to return to France on
his parole. He died almost immediately afterwards at Rennes: whether by
his own hand, in the agony of despair, as the French _Gazette_ asserted,
or assassinated, as was commonly believed at the time, by some of the
blood-hardened minions of Fouche's police, is a mystery not yet cleared
up; and, perhaps, never destined to be so until the day comes in which
nothing shall be hid.

The tidings of Trafalgar, after the first moment, served but as a new
stimulus to the fire of Napoleon's energy. He quitted Vienna, and put
himself at the head of his columns, which, passing the Danube into
Moravia, soon found themselves within reach of the forces of Russia and
Austria, at length combined, and prepared for action, under the eyes of
their respective emperors. These princes, on the approach of the French,
drew back as far as Olmutz, in order that a reserve of Russians, under
Bexhowden, might join them before the decisive struggle took place.
Napoleon fixed his headquarters at _Brunn_, and, riding over the plain
between Brunn and Austerlitz (a village about two miles from that town),
said to his generals, "study this field--we shall, ere long, have to
contest it."

Buonaparte has been much criticised by strategists for the rashness of
thus passing the Danube into Moravia, while the Archduke Ferdinand was
organising the Bohemians on his left, the Archdukes Charles and John in
Hungary, with still formidable and daily increasing forces on his right,
the population of Vienna and the surrounding territories ready to rise,
in case of any disaster, in his rear; and Prussia as decidedly hostile
in heart as she was wavering in policy. The French leader did not
disguise from himself the risk of his adventure; but he considered it
better to run all that risk, than to linger in Vienna until the armies
in Hungary and Bohemia should have had time to reinforce the two
emperors.

Napoleon's preparations were as follows:--his left, under Larmes, lay
at Santon, a strongly fortified position: Soult commanded the right
wing: the centre, under Bernadotte, had with them Murat and all the
cavalry. Behind the line lay the reserve, consisting of 20,000, 10,000
of whom were of the Imperial guard, under Oudinot: and here Napoleon
himself took his station. But besides these open demonstrations,
Davoust, with a division of horse and another of foot, lay behind the
convent of Raygern, considerably in the rear of the French right--being
there placed by the Emperor, in consequence of a false movement, into
which he, with a seer-like sagacity, foresaw the enemy might, in all
likelihood, he tempted; and to which he lured them on accordingly by
every engine of his craft.

Buonaparte, on learning that the Emperor Alexander was personally in the
hostile camp, sent Savary to present his compliments to that sovereign;
but really, as we may suppose, to observe as much as he could of the
numbers and condition of the troops. Savary, on his return, informed his
master that the Russian prince was surrounded by a set of young
coxcombs, whose every look and gesture expressed overweening confidence
in themselves and contempt for their opponents. All the reverses of the
previous campaign were, as they took care to signify, the result of
unpardonable cowardice among the Austrians, whose spirit had been quite
broken by the wars in Italy: but they were the countrymen of the same
Suwarrow who had beaten the French out of all Buonaparte's Lombard
conquests, and the first general battle would show what sort of enemies
the Russians were. How much of this statement is true we know not: it
was openly made at the time in one of Buonaparte's bulletins--and, what
is of more moment, he appears to have acted on the belief that Savary
told the truth. Having, ere he received it, advanced several leagues
beyond the chosen field of battle, near Austerlitz, he forthwith
retreated on that position, with a studied semblance of confusion. The
Czar sent a young aide-de-camp to return the compliment carried by
Savary; and this messenger found the French soldiery actively engaged in
fortifying their position--the very position which their Emperor had all
along determined to occupy. The account of what the young Russian saw in
the French lines gave, as Napoleon wished, a new stimulus to the
presumption of his enemy; and, having made the preparations above
described, he calmly expected the consequences of their rashness and
inexperience.

On the 1st of December he beheld the commencement of those false
movements which he had desired and anticipated. On seeing the Russians
begin to descend from the heights, on which they might have lain in
safety until the Archdukes could come to swell their array with the
forces in Bohemia and Hungary, Napoleon did not repress his rapturous
joy: "In twenty-four hours," said he, "that army is mine."

Shortly afterwards there arrived Count Haugwitz, an envoy from the King
of Prussia, who being introduced into the Emperor's presence, signified
that he was the bearer of an important communication. "Count," said
Napoleon, "you may see that the outposts of the armies are almost
meeting--there will be a battle to-morrow--return to Vienna, and deliver
your message when it is over." The envoy did not require two biddings.
Napoleon had all this year been protracting the indecision of the
Prussian counsels by holding out the delusive hope, that, were Austria
effectually humbled, the imperial crown of Germany might be transferred
to the house of Brandenburg. The old jealousies, thus artfully awakened,
had been sufficient to prevent a declaration of war from immediately
following on the violation of the territory of Anspach and Bareuth. The
intervention of the Czar had, it is not to be doubted, at length
determined the Court of Berlin to close their unworthy neutrality:--but
Haugwitz had no Prussian army in his train; and, seeing what was before
him, he certainly did prudently to defer that which had been so unwisely
as well as ungenerously put off from month to month, for one day more.

At one o'clock in the morning of the 2nd of December, Napoleon, having
slept for an hour by a watch-fire, got on horseback, and proceeded to
reconnoitre the front of his position. He wished to do so without being
recognised, but the soldiery penetrated the secret, and, lighting great
fires of straw all along the line, received him from post to post with
shouts of enthusiasm. They reminded him that this was the anniversary of
his coronation, and assured him they would celebrate the day in a manner
worthy of its glory. "Only promise us," cried an old grenadier, "that
you will keep yourself out of the fire." "I will do so," answered
Napoleon, "I shall be with the reserve _until you need us._" This
pledge, which so completely ascertains the mutual confidence of the
leader and his soldiers, he repeated in a proclamation issued at
daybreak. The sun rose with uncommon brilliancy: on many an after-day
the French soldiery hailed a similar dawn with exultation as the sure
omen of victory, and "the Sun of Austerlitz" has passed into a proverb.

The Russian General-in-Chief, Kutusoff, fell into the snare laid for
him, and sent a large division of his army to turn the right of the
French. The troops detached for this purpose met with unexpected
resistance from Davoust, and were held in check at Raygern. Napoleon
immediately seized the opportunity. They had left a deep gap in the
line, and upon that space Soult forthwith poured a force, which entirely
destroyed the communication between the Russian centre and left. The
Czar perceived the fatal consequences of this movement, and his guards
rushed to beat back Soult. It was on an eminence, called the hill of
Pratzen, that the encounter took place. The Russians drove the French
infantry before them: Napoleon ordered Bessieres to hurry with the
imperial guard to their rescue. The Russians were in some disorder from
the impatience of victory. They resisted sternly, but were finally
broken, and fled. The Grand Duke Constantine, who had led them
gallantly, escaped by the fleetness of his horse.

The French centre now advanced, and the charges of its cavalry under
Murat were decisive. The Emperors of Russia and Germany beheld from the
heights of Austerlitz the total ruin of their centre, as they had
already of their left. Their right wing had hitherto contested well
against all the impetuosity of Lannes: but Napoleon could now gather
round them on all sides, and, his artillery plunging incessant fire on
them from the heights, they at length found it impossible to hold their
ground. They were forced down into a hollow, where some small frozen
lakes offered the only means of escape from the closing cannonade. The
French broke the ice about them by a storm of shot, and nearly 20,000
men died on the spot, some swept away by the artillery, the greater part
drowned. Buonaparte, in his bulletin, compares the horrid spectacle of
this ruin to the catastrophe of the Turks at Aboukir, when "the sea was
covered with turbans." It was with great difficulty that the two
emperors rallied some fragments of their armies around them, and
effected their retreat. Twenty thousand prisoners, forty pieces of
artillery, and all the standards of the imperial guard of Russia,
remained with the conqueror. Such was the battle of Austerlitz;--or, as
the French soldiery delighted to call it, "the battle of the emperors."

The Prussian envoy now returned, and presented to Napoleon his master's
congratulations on the victory thus achieved. The Emperor whispered to
Haugwitz, "Here is a message, of which circumstances have altered the
address." Frederick-William, however, had 150,000 men under arms, and it
by no means suited Napoleon's views to provoke him to extremities at
this moment. He entered into a treaty with Haugwitz; and Prussia was
bribed to remain quiescent, by a temptation which she wanted virtue to
resist. The French Emperor offered her Hanover, provided she would
oppose no obstacle to any other arrangements which he might find it
necessary to form: and the house of Brandenburg did not blush to accept
at his hands the paternal inheritance of the royal family of England.

The Austrian, understanding how Prussia was disposed of, perceived too
clearly that further resistance was hopeless; and negotiations
immediately begun.

The haughty Emperor of Germany repaired to the French headquarters. He
was received at the door of a miserable hut. "Such," said Buonaparte,
"are the palaces you have compelled me to occupy for these two months."
"You have made such use of them," answered Francis, "that you ought not
to complain of their accommodation."

The humiliated sovereign, having ere this obtained an armistice for
himself, demanded of Napoleon that the Czar might be permitted to
withdraw in safety to his own states. To this the conqueror assented:
and on the 6th of December the Russians commenced their retreat.

The definitive treaty with Francis was signed at Presburg on the 15th of
December, another with Prussia on the 26th, at Vienna:--and the terms of
both arranged, on Napoleon's side, by Talleyrand, corresponded with the
signal and decisive events of the campaign.

Austria yielded the Venetian territories to the kingdom of Italy: her
ancient possessions of the Tyrol and Voralberg were transferred to
Bavaria, to remunerate that elector for the part he had taken in the
war; Wirtemberg, having also adopted the French side, received
recompense of the same kind at the expense of the same power, and both
of these electors were advanced to the dignity of kings. Bavaria
received Anspach and Bareuth from Prussia, and, in return, ceded Berg,
which was erected into a grand duchy, and conferred, in sovereignty, on
Napoleon's brother-in-law, Murat. Finally, Prussia added Hanover to her
dominions, in return for the cession of Anspach and Bareuth, and
acquiescence in the other arrangements above-mentioned.

Eugene Beauharnois, son of Josephine, and Viceroy of Italy, received in
marriage the eldest daughter of the new king of Bavaria: this being the
first occasion on which Napoleon manifested openly his desire to connect
his family with the old sovereign houses of Europe. It was announced at
the same time, that in case the Emperor should die without male issue,
the crown of Italy would descend to Eugene.

Other events of the same character now crowded on the scene. The king,
or rather the queen of Naples, had not failed, during the recent
campaign, to manifest the old aversion to the French cause. St. Cyr's
army, which on the first rupture of the peace of Amiens had occupied the
seaports of that kingdom, being called into the north of Italy to
reinforce Massena against the Archduke Charles, an Anglo-Russian
expedition soon landed in Naples, and were welcomed cordially by the
court. Napoleon, immediately after the battle of Austerlitz, issued a
proclamation, declaring that "the royal house of Naples had ceased to
reign for _ever_." On hearing of the decisive battle, and the retreat of
the Czar, the English and Russians evacuated the Neapolitan territories
on the mainland of Italy. Joseph Buonaparte conducted a French army
towards the frontier; the court passed over into Sicily; and Joseph was
proclaimed King of Naples.

The King of Sweden, rushing as hastily and inconsiderately as he of
Naples into the war of 1805, landed with a small army in Germany, and
besieged Hamelen, a fortress of Hanover, where Bernadotte had left a
strong garrison. This movement, had Prussia broken her neutrality, might
have been of high importance to the general cause; as events turned out,
it was fruitless. The Swedes raised their siege in confusion, on
receiving the news of Austerlitz; and Napoleon from that hour meditated
the dethronement of the dynasty of Gustavus--but this object was not yet
within reach.

The Principalities of Lucca, Massa-Carrara, and Garfagnana, were now
conferred on Napoleon's sister, Eliza (Madame Bacciochi): on Pauline,
the younger sister, who, after the death of General Leclerc, had married
the Prince Borghese, the sovereignty of Guastalla was in like manner
bestowed.

The Batavian republic had for years been in effect enslaved by France.
On pretence that her leading men, however, still yearned after the
alliance of England, and thwarted him in his designs on the commerce of
that great enemy, Napoleon now resolved to take away even the shadow of
Dutch independence. The Batavian Senate were commanded to ask Louis
Buonaparte for their king; and these republicans submitted with the
better grace, because the personal character of Louis was amiable, and
since Holland must be an appendage to France, it seemed probable that
the connection might be rendered the less galling in many circumstances,
were a prince of Napoleon's own blood constituted her natural guardian.
Louis had married the beautiful Hortense-Fanny de Beauharnois, daughter
of Josephine--so that, by this act, two members of the imperial house
were at once elevated to royalty.--They began their reign at the Hague
in May, 1806.

Another great consequence of Austerlitz remains to be mentioned. The
Kings of Wirtemberg and Bavaria, the Grand Duke of Berg, and other
sovereigns of the West of Germany, were now associated together in a
close alliance under the style of the _Confederation of the Rhine_:
Napoleon added to his other titles that of _Protector_ of this
confederacy; and the princes of the league were bound to place 60,000
soldiers at his command.

Finally, it was on his return from the triumph of Austerlitz, that
Napoleon trampled down the last traces of the revolutionary organisation
in France, by creating a new order of nobility. Talleyrand became Prince
of Benevento, Bernadotte, of Ponte Corvo, Berthier, of Neufchatel; the
most distinguished of the Marshals received the title of Duke, and a
long array of Counts of the Empire filled the lower steps of the throne.

These princedoms and dukedoms were accompanied with grants of extensive
estates in the countries which the French arms had conquered; and the
great feudatories of the new empire accordingly bore titles not
domestic, but foreign. In everything it was the plan of Napoleon to sink
the memory of the Bourbon Monarchy, and revive the image of Charlemagne,
Emperor of the West.

[Footnote 51:

"Lamented hero! when to Britain's shore
Exulting Fame those awful tidings bore,
Joy's bursting shout in whelming grief was drowned
And Victory's self unwilling audience found;
On every brow the cloud of sadness hung;
The sounds of triumph died on every tongue.
Yet not the vows thy weeping country pays;
Not that high meed, thy mourning sovereign's praise,
Not that the great, the beauteous, and the brave
Bend in mute reverence o'er thy closing grave;
That with such grief as bathes a kindred bier
Collective nations mourn a death so dear;
Not these alone shall soothe thy sainted shade,
And consecrate the spot where thou art laid--
Not these alone!--but bursting thro' the gloom,
With radiant glory from thy trophied tomb,
The sacred splendour of thy deathless name
Shall grace and guard thy country's martial fame;
Far seen shall blaze the unextinguished ray,
A mighty beacon lighting glory's way--
With living lustre this proud land adorn,
And shine, and save, thro' ages yet unborn."[52]
]

[Footnote 52: "Ulm and Trafalgar," a poem, by the Rt. Honourable George
Canning.]