NAPOLEON’S MARSHALS

[i]

[ii]

MARSHAL NEY COVERING THE RETREAT
FROM THE PAINTING BY YVON AT VERSAILLES

[iii]

NAPOLEON’S MARSHALS

[iv]

[v]

CONTENTS

[vii]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[ix]

INTRODUCTION

It is a melancholy but instructive fact to remember
that, in the opinion of him whom nature had
adorned with the greatest intellect that the world
has yet seen, selfishness and self-interest lie at the root of
all human action. “For,” as Napoleon said, “in ambition
is to be found the chief motive force of humanity, and a
man puts forth his best powers in proportion to his hopes
of advancement.” It was on this cynical hypothesis therefore,
with a complete disregard of those higher aspirations
of self-sacrifice and self-control which raise man above the
mere brute, that the Corsican adventurer waded through
seas of blood to the throne of France, and then attempted,
by the destruction of a million human beings, to bind on
his brow the imperial crown of Western Europe. In spite
of loud-sounding phrases and constitutional sleight-of-hand,
none knew better than Napoleon that by the sword alone
he had won his empire and by the sword alone he could
keep it. Keen student of history, it was not in vain that
again and again he had read and re-read the works of
Cæsar, and pondered on the achievements of Charlemagne
and the career of Cromwell. The problem he had to solve
was, how to conceal from his lieutenants that his dynasty
rested purely on their swords, to bind their honours so
closely to his own fortune that they should ever be loyal;
so to distribute his favours that his servants should[x]
never become so great as to threaten his own position. It
was with this object in view that at the time he seized for
himself the imperial crown he re-established the old rôle
of Marshal of France, frankly confessing to Roederer that
his reason for showering rewards on his lieutenants was to
assure to himself his own dignity, since they could not
object to it when they found themselves the recipients of
such lofty titles. But, with the cunning of the serpent,
while he gave with one hand he took away with the
other. He fixed the number of Marshals at sixteen on the
active list and added four others for those too old for active
service. Hence he had it in his power to reward twenty
hungry aspirants, while he robbed the individuals of their
glory, since each Marshal shared his dignity with nineteen
others. Plainly also he told them that, lofty though their
rank might appear to others, to him they were still mere
servants, created by him and dependent for their position
on him alone. “Recollect,” he said, “that you are soldiers
only when with the army. The title of Marshal is merely
a civil distinction which gives you the honourable rank at
my court which is your due, but it carries with it no
authority. On the battlefield you are generals, at court you
are nobles, belonging to the State by the civil position I
created for you when I bestowed your titles on you.” It
was on May 19, 1804, that the Gazette appeared with the first
creation of Marshals. There were fourteen on the active
list and four honorary Marshals in the Senate. Two bâtons
were withheld as a reward for future service. The original
fourteen were Berthier, Murat, Moncey, Jourdan, Masséna,
Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, Brune, Lannes, Mortier, Ney,
Davout and Bessières; while on the retired list were
Kellermann, Lefèbvre, Pérignon, and Serurier. The list
caused much surprise and dissatisfaction. On the one[xi]
hand there were those like Masséna who received their
congratulations with a grunt and “Yes, one of fourteen.”
On the other hand were those like Macdonald, Marmont,
Victor, and many another, who thought they ought to have
been included. An examination of the names soon explains
how the choice was made. Except Jourdan, who was too
great a soldier to be passed over, all those who could not
forget their Republican principles were excluded. Masséna
received his bâton as the greatest soldier of France.
Berthier, Murat, and Lannes had won theirs by their talents,
as much as by their personal devotion. Soult, Ney,
Davout, and Mortier were Napoleon’s choice from among
the coming men, who in the camps of the Army of the
Ocean were fast justifying their selection. Bessières was
included because he would never win it at any later date,
but his doglike devotion made him a priceless subordinate.
Augereau and Bernadotte received their bâtons to keep
them quiet. The names of Moncey, Brune, Kellermann,
Pérignon, and Serurier were intimately connected with
glorious feats of the republican armies, and so, though only
fortunate mediocrities, they were included in the first
creation, while Lefèbvre, the republican of republicans,
now under the glamour of Napoleon’s power, was placed
on the list as a stalking-horse of the extreme members of
his party. At the time of the first creation, of the great
soldiers of the Republic, Moreau was branded as a traitor;
Hoche, Marceau, Kléber, Desaix, and Pichegru were dead;
Carnot, the organiser of victory, was a voluntary exile;
while staunch blades like Leclerc, Richepanse, Lecourbe,
Macdonald, Victor, St. Cyr, and Suchet were all more or
less in disgrace. By the end of the Empire, death and the
necessity of rewarding merit added to the list of Marshals
until in all twenty-six bâtons were granted by the Emperor.[xii]
In 1808 Victor was restored to favour and received his
bâton. After Wagram, Macdonald, Oudinot, and Marmont
received the prize, while the Spanish War brought it to
Suchet, and the Russian campaign to St. Cyr. In 1813 the
Polish prince, Poniatowski, was sent his truncheon on the
field of Leipzig, while last of all, in 1815, Grouchy was
promoted to one of the vacancies caused by the refusal of
many of the Marshals to cast off their allegiance to the
Bourbons.

It was a popular saying in the Napoleonic army that
every private soldier carried in his knapsack a Marshal’s
bâton, and the early history of many of these Marshals
bears out this saying. But while the Revolution carried
away all the barriers and opened the highest ranks to talent,
be it never so humble in its origin, the history of the
Marshals proves that heaven-born soldiers are scarce, and
that the art of war, save in the case of one out of a million,
can only be acquired by years of patient work in a subordinate
position. Of the generals of the revolutionary
armies only four, Moreau, Mortier, Suchet, and Brune, had
no previous military training, and of these four, Moreau and
Suchet alone had claim to greatness. The rough unlettered
generals of the early years of the war soon proved that they
could never rise above the science of the drill-sergeant.
Once discipline and organisation were restored there was
no room for a general like the gallant Macard, who, when
about to charge, used to call out, “Look here, I am going
to dress like a beast,” and thereon divest himself of everything
save his leather breeches and boots, and then,
like some great hairy baboon, with strange oaths and
yells lead his horsemen against the enemy. A higher
type was required than this Macard, who could not understand
that because an officer could sketch mountains[xiii]
he could not necessarily measure a man for a pair of
boots.

Of the twenty-six Marshals, nine had held commissions
ranging from lieutenant-general to lieutenant in the old
royal army, one was a Polish Prince, an ex-Austrian officer,
while one had passed the artillery college but had refused
to accept a commission; eleven had commenced life as
privates in the old service, and of these, nine had risen to
the rank of sergeant; and four had had no previous military
training. It must also be remembered that the standard of
the non-commissioned rank in the royal army just before
the Revolution was extremely high. The reforms of St.
Germain and the popularity of the American War had
enticed into the ranks a high class of recruits, with the
result that the authorities were able to impose tests, and no
private could rise to the rank of corporal, or from corporal
to sergeant, without passing an examination. Further, since
the officers of the ancient régime left the entire organisation,
discipline, and control in the hands of the non-commissioned
officers, and seldom, if ever, visited their companies either
in barracks or on the parade ground, the non-commissioned
officers, in everything save actual title, were really
extremely well-trained officers. It was this class which
really saved France when the old officers emigrated and the
incapable politicians in Paris did their best to ruin the army.
Hence it was that, without prejudice to the service, a sergeant
might one day be found quietly obeying the orders of his
company officer, and the next day with the rank of lieutenant-colonel
commanding his battalion.

The art of war can only be truly learned in the field, and
the officers of the French army had such an experience as
had never fallen to the lot of any other nation since the
days of the Thirty Years’ War. With continuous fighting[xiv]
winter and summer, on every frontier, military knowledge
was easily gained by those who had the ability to acquire
it, and the young generals of brigade, with but three years’
service in commissioned rank, had gone through experiences
which seldom fall to the lot of officers with thirty years’
service. The cycle of war seemed unending. From the
day on which, in 1792, France hurled her declaration of
war on Austria, till the surrender of Paris, in 1814, with the
exception of the year of peace gained at Amiens, war was
continuous. It began with a light-hearted invasion of
France by Austria and Prussia in September, 1792, which
ended in the cannonade of Valmy, when Dumouriez and
Kellermann, with the remnant of the old royal army,
showed such a bold front that the Allies, who had never
expected to fight, lost heart and ran home. The Austro-Prussian
invasion sealed the King’s death-warrant, and
France, in the hands of republican enthusiasts, went forth
with a rabble of old soldiers and volunteers to preach the
doctrine of the Equality of Man and the Brotherhood of
Nations. But the sovereigns of Europe determined to fight
for their crowns, and the licence of the French soldiers and
the selfishness of these prophets of the new doctrine of
Equality soon disgusted the people of the Rhine valley;
so the revolutionary mob armies were driven into France,
and for two years she was busy on every frontier striving to
drive the enemy from her soil. It was during these years
that the new French army arose. The volunteers were
brigaded with the old regular battalions, the ranks were
kept full by calling out all fit to bear arms, and the incompetent
and unfortunate were weeded out by the guillotine.
By 1795 France had freed her own soil and had forged a
weapon whereby she could retaliate on the Powers who had
attempted to annex her territory in the hour of her degradation.[xv]
The Rhine now became her eastern frontier. But
Austria, whose Archduke was Emperor of the Holy Roman
Empire, would not give up the provinces seized from her;
so from 1795 to 1797, on the headwaters of the Danube and
in Italy, the representative of the Feudal Ages fought the
new democracy. It was the appearance of the great military
talent of Bonaparte which decided the day. On the Danube
the Austrians had found that under the excellent leading of
the Archduke Charles they were fit to defeat the best
French troops under capable generals like Jourdan and
Moreau. But the military genius of Bonaparte overbore
all resistance, and when peace came, practically all Italy
had been added to the dominion of France. Unfortunately
for the peace of Europe, the rulers of France had tasted
blood. They found in the captured provinces a means of
making war without feeling the effects, for the rich pillage
of Italy paid the war expenses. But, grateful as the Directors
were to Bonaparte for thus opening to them a means of
enriching themselves at the expense of Europe, they rightly
saw in him a menace to their own power, and gladly allowed
him to depart on the mission to Egypt. From Egypt
Bonaparte returned, seized the reins of government, and
saved France from the imbecility of her rulers, and, by the
battle of Marengo, assured to her all she had lost in his
absence. Unfortunately for France the restless ambition of
her new ruler was not satisfied with re-establishing the
Empire of the West and reviving the glories of Charlemagne,
but hankered after a vast oversea dominion, to
include America and India. Hence it was that he found in
Great Britain an implacable enemy ever stirring up against
him European coalitions. To cover his failure to wrest the
dominion of the sea from its mistress, Napoleon turned his
wrath on Austria, and soon she lay cowed at his feet after[xvi]
the catastrophe at Ulm and the battle of Austerlitz. Austria’s
fall was due to the lethargy and hesitation of the courts of
Berlin and St. Petersburg. But once Austria was disposed
of, Prussia and Russia met their punishment for having
given her secret or open aid. The storm fell first on Prussia.
At one fell swoop on the field of Jena, the famed military
monarchy of the great Frederick fell in pieces like a potter’s
vessel. From Prussia the invincible French legions penetrated
into Poland, and after Eylau and Friedland the forces
of Prussia and Russia could no longer face the enemy in
the field. The Czar, dazzled by Napoleon’s greatness, threw
over his ally Prussia and at Tilsit made friends with the
great conqueror. In June, 1807, it seemed as if Europe lay
at Napoleon’s feet, but already in Portugal the seeds of
his ruin had been sown. The Portuguese monarch, the
ally of Great Britain, fled at the mere approach of a single
Marshal of the Emperor. The apparent lethargy of the
inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula and the unpopularity
of the Spanish Bourbons tempted Napoleon to establish
his brother on the throne of Spain. It was a fatal error, for
though the Spanish people might despise their King, they
were intensely proud of their nationality. For the first time
in his experience the Corsican had to meet the forces of a
nation and not of a government. The chance defeat of a
French army at Baylen was the signal for a general rising
throughout the Peninsula, and not only throughout the
Peninsula, but for the commencement of a national movement
against the French in Austria and Germany. England
gladly seized the opportunity of injuring her enemy and
sent aid to the people of Spain. Austria tried another
fall with her conqueror, but was defeated at Wagram.
Wagram ought to have taught the Emperor that his
troops were no longer invincible as of old, but, blind to[xvii]
this lesson, he still attempted to lord it over Europe and
treated with contumely his only friend, the Czar. Consequently,
in 1812, while still engaged in attempting to
conquer Spain, he found himself forced to fight Russia.
The result was appalling; out of half a million troops who
entered Russia, a bare seventy thousand returned. Prussia
and Austria at once made a bid to recover their independence.
Napoleon, blinded by rage, refused to listen to
reason, and in October, 1813, was defeated by the Allies
at Leipzig. Even then he might have saved his throne, but
he still refused to listen to the Allies, who in 1814 invaded
France, and, after a campaign in which the Emperor showed
an almost superhuman ability, at last by sheer weight of
numbers they captured Paris. Thereon the French troops
refused to fight any longer for the Emperor. Such is a
brief outline of what is called the Revolutionary and
Napoleonic Wars, the finest school the world has yet seen
for an apprenticeship in the trade of arms.

[xviii]

SYNOPSIS OF THE MARSHALS

[xx]

[1]

NAPOLEON’S MARSHALS

I

LOUIS ALEXANDRE BERTHIER, MARSHAL,
PRINCE OF WAGRAM, SOVEREIGN PRINCE
OF NEUCHÂTEL AND VALANGIN

To be content ever to play an inferior part, to see all
honour and renown fall to the share of another,
yet loyally to efface self and work for the glory of
a friend, denotes a sterling character and an inflexibility of
purpose with which few can claim to be endowed. Nobody
doubts that, if it had not been for Napoleon, Berthier, good
business man as he was, could never have risen to the fame
he attained; still it is often forgotten that without this
admirable servant it is more than doubtful if the great
Emperor could have achieved all his most splendid success.
Berthier, controlled by a master mind, was an instrument
beyond price. Versed in the management of an army
almost from his cradle, he had the gift of drafting orders
so clear, so lucid, that no one could possibly mistake their
meaning. His memory was prodigious, and his physical
endurance such that he appeared never to require rest. But
above all he alone seemed to be able to divine the thoughts
of his great master before they were spoken, and this wonderful
intuition taught him how, from a few disjointed utterances,
to unravel Napoleon’s most daring conceptions and[2]
work out the details in ordered perfection. Napoleon called
his faithful Achates a gosling whom he had transformed
into an eagle, but history proclaims that long before the
name of Bonaparte was known beyond the gate of the
military academy at Brienne, Berthier had established a
record as a staff officer of the highest promise; while,
before the young Corsican first met him in Italy, the future
major-general of the Grand Army had evolved that perfect
system of organisation which enabled the conqueror of
Italy to control every movement and vibration in the army,
to be informed of events as soon as they happened, and to
be absolutely sure of the despatch and performance of his
orders.

Alexandre Berthier had seen twenty-three years’ service in
the old royal army before the Revolution broke out in 1789.
Born on November 20, 1753, at the age of thirteen he
received his commission in the engineers owing to his
father’s services in preparing a map of royal hunting forests.
But the boy soon forsook his father’s old regiment, for he
knew well that the highest commands in the army seldom if
ever fell to the scientific corps. When in 1780 the French
Government decided to send out an expeditionary corps to
assist the revolted colonies in their struggle with Great
Britain, Berthier, after serving in the infantry and cavalry,
was employed as a staff captain with the army of Normandy.
Eager to see active service, he at once applied to be attached
to the expedition, and offered, if there was no room for an
extra captain, to resign his rank and serve as sub-lieutenant.
Thanks to powerful family influence and to his record of
service his desire was gratified, and in January, 1781, he
found himself with the French troops in America employed
on the staff of General Count de Rochambeau. Returning
from America in 1783 with a well-earned reputation for
bravery and ability, Captain Berthier was one of the officers
sent to Prussia under the Marquis de Custine to study the
military organisation of the great Frederick. Continuously[3]
employed on the staff, he had the advantage of serving as
brigade major at the great camp of instruction held at Saint
Omer in 1788, and in that year received as a reward for his
services the cross of Saint Louis. The year 1789 saw him
gazetted lieutenant-colonel, and chief of the staff to Baron
de Besenval, commanding the troops round Paris.

When, after the capture of the Bastille, Lafayette undertook
the work of organising the National Guard, he at once
bethought him of his old comrade of American days,
and appointed Berthier assistant quartermaster-general.
Berthier found the post well suited to him; inspired by the
liberal ideas which he had gained in America, he threw himself
heart and soul into the work. Soon his talent as an
organiser became widely recognised; many prominent
officers applied to have him attached to their command, and,
after holding several staff appointments, he was entrusted in
1791 with the organisation and instruction of the thirty battalions
of volunteers cantonned between the Somme and
Meuse. When war broke out in 1792 he was despatched as
major-general and chief of the staff to his old friend Rochambeau,
and when the Count resigned his command Berthier
was specially retained by Rochambeau’s successor, Luckner.
But the Revolution, while giving him his chance, nearly
brought about his fall. His intimate connection with the
nobles of the old royal army, his courage in protecting the
King’s aunts, and his family connections caused him to
become “suspect.” It was in vain that the leaders at the
front complained of the absolute disorder in their forces, of
the necessity of more trained staff officers and of their desire
for the services of the brilliant soldier who had gained his experience
in war time in America and in peace time in Prussia.
In vain Custine wrote to the Minister of War, “In the name
of the Republic send Berthier to me to help me in my difficulties,”
in vain the Commissioners with the army reported
that “Berthier has gained the esteem and confidence of all
good patriots.” Vain also was the valour and ability he[4]
showed in the campaign against the Royalists in La Vendée.
Bouchotte, the incapable, the friend of the brutish, blockheaded
Hébert, the insulter of the Queen, the destroyer of
the army, decreed that his loyalty to the Republic was not
sincere, and by a stroke of the pen dismissed him; thus
during the whole of the year 1793 the French army was
deprived of the service of an officer who, owing to his powers
of organisation, was worth fifty thousand of the butcher
generals.

In 1795, with the fall of the Jacobins, Berthier was
restored to his rank and sent as chief of the staff to
Kellermann, commanding the Army of the Alps, and before
the end of the year the staff work of Kellermann’s army
became the pattern for all the armies of the Republic.
When in March, 1796, Bonaparte was appointed commander
of the Army of Italy, he at once requisitioned
Berthier as the chief of the staff, and from that day till
April, 1814, Berthier seldom if ever left the future Emperor’s
side, serving him with a patience and cheerfulness which
neither ill-will nor neglect seemed to disturb. Though over
forty-two years of age and sixteen years older than his new
chief, the chief of the staff was still in the prime of his
manhood. Short, thick-set and athletic, his frame proclaimed
his immense physical strength, while his strong alert face
under a mass of thick curly hair foretold at a glance his
mental capacity.

A keen sportsman, in peace he spent all his leisure in the
chase. Hard exercise and feats of physical endurance were
his delight. Fatigue he never knew, and on one occasion
he was said to have spent thirteen days and nights in the
saddle. To strangers and officials he was silent and stern,
but his aloofness of manner hid a warm heart and a natural
sincerity, and many a poor officer or returned émigré
received secret help from his purse. Though naturally of
a strong character, his affection and respect for his great
commander became the dominating note in his career; in[5]
fact, it might almost be said that, in later years, his personality
became merged to such an extent in that of Napoleon
that he was unable to see the actions of the Emperor in
their proper perspective. From their first meeting Bonaparte
correctly guessed the impression he had made on his
new staff officer, and aimed at increasing his influence over
him. Meanwhile he was delighted with him, he wrote
to the Directory, “Berthier has talents, activity, courage,
character—all in his favour.” Berthier on his side was well
satisfied; as he said to a friend who asked him how he could
serve a man with such a temper, “Remember that one day
it will be a fine thing to be second to Bonaparte.” So the
two worked admirably together.

ALEXANDRE BERTHIER, PRINCE OF WAGRAM
FROM AN ENGRAVING AFTER THE PAINTING BY PAJOU FILS

Bonaparte kept in his own hands the movement of
troops, the direction of skirmishes and battles, commissariat,
discipline, and all communications from the Government.
Berthier had a free hand in the organisation and
maintenance of the general staff, the headquarter staff,
and the transmission of orders, subject to inspection by
Bonaparte; he also had to throw into written form all
verbal orders, and he alone was responsible for their
promulgation and execution. It was his ability to work
out in detail and to reduce into clear, lucid orders the
slightest hint of his commander which, as Napoleon said
later, “was the great merit of Berthier, and was of inestimable
importance to me. No other could possibly have
replaced him.” Thanks to Berthier’s admirable system,
Bonaparte was kept in touch with every part of his command.
One of the first principles laid down in the staff
regulations was, “That it was vital to the good of the
service that the correspondence of the army should be
exceedingly swift and regular, that nothing should be
neglected which might contribute to this end.” To ensure
regularity of communication, divisional commanders and
officers detached in command of small columns were ordered
to report at least twice a day to headquarters. With each[6]
division, in addition to the divisional staff, there were
officers detached from the headquarters staff. All important
despatches had to be sent in duplicate; in times of great
danger commanding officers had to send as many as eight
different orderly officers each with a copy of despatches.

But it was not only as an organiser and transmitter of
orders that Berthier proved his usefulness to his chief. At
Lodi he showed his personal courage and bravery among
the band of heroes who forced the bridge, and Bonaparte
paid him a fine tribute when he wrote in his despatches,
“If I were bound to mention all the soldiers who distinguished
themselves on that wonderful day, I should be
obliged to mention all the carabiniers and grenadiers of the
advance guard, and nearly all the officers of the staff; but
I must not forget the courageous Berthier, who on that day
played the part of gunner, trooper, and grenadier.” At
Rivoli, in addition to his staff duties, Berthier commanded
the centre of the army, and fought with a stubbornness
beyond all praise. By the end of the campaign of 1796 he
had proved that he was as great a chief of the staff as
Bonaparte was a great commander. Doubtless it is true
that before the commencement of a campaign an army
possesses in itself the causes of its future victory or defeat,
and the Army of Italy, with its masses of enthusiastic
veterans and the directing genius of Bonaparte, was bound
to defeat the Austrians with their listless men and incompetent
old generals; but, without the zeal, activity, and
devotion which Berthier transfused through the whole of
the general staff, success could not have been so sudden
or so complete.

After Leoben the conqueror of Italy employed his trusty
friend on numerous diplomatic missions in connection
with the annexation of Corfu and the government of the
Cisalpine republic. Meanwhile he was in close communication
with him in regard to the proposed descent
on England and the possible expedition to the East. To[7]
Berthier, if to any one, Bonaparte entrusted his secret
designs, for he knew that he could do so in safety. Accordingly,
in 1798, finding an invasion of England impossible
at the moment, he persuaded the Directory to send
Berthier to Italy as commander-in-chief, his object being
to place him in a position to gather funds for the Egyptian
expedition. From Italy Berthier sent his former commander
the most minute description of everything of
importance, but he found the task difficult and uncongenial,
and prayed him “to recall me promptly. I much prefer
being your aide-de-camp to being commander-in-chief
here.” Still he carried out his orders and marched on
Rome, to place the eight million francs’ worth of diamonds
wrung from the Pope to the credit of the army. From
Rome he returned with coffers well filled for the Egyptian
expedition, but leaving behind him an army half-mutinous
for want of pay; his blind devotion to Bonaparte hid this
incongruity from his eyes.

As in Italy in 1795 so in Egypt, Berthier was Bonaparte’s
right-hand man, methodical, indefatigable, and trustworthy.
But even his iron frame could scarcely withstand the strain
of three years’ continuous active service, the incessant
office work day and night, and the trials of an unaccustomed
climate. After the battle of the Pyramids he
fell sick, and before the Syrian expedition, applied to return
to France. Unkind friends hinted that he longed for his
mistress, Madame Visconti, but Bonaparte, knowing that it
was not this but sheer overstrain which had caused his
breakdown in health, gave him the desired leave and made
all arrangements for his journey home. However, at the
moment of departure Berthier’s love for his chief overcame
his longing for rest, and, in spite of ill-health, he withdrew
his resignation and set out with the army for Syria. As
ever, he found plenty of work, for even in the face of the
ill-success of the expedition, Bonaparte determined to
administer Egypt as if the French occupation was to be[8]
for ever permanent; and Berthier, in addition to his
ordinary work, was ordered to edit a carefully executed
map from the complete survey which was being made of
the country.

It was to Berthier that Bonaparte first divulged his intention
of leaving Egypt and returning to France, and his
determination to upset the Directory. Liberal by nature,
but essentially a man of method and a disciplinarian, the
chief of the staff was quite in accord with his commander’s
ideas on the regeneration of France, and loyally supported
him during the coup d’état of the 18th Brumaire. Thereafter
the First Consul appointed his friend Minister of War,
a position that gave full scope to his talents. All the
administrative services had at once to be reorganised, the
frontier fortresses garrisoned and placed in a state of
defence, and the army covering the frontiers supplied with
food, pay, equipment, and reinforcements, while the formation
of the secret Army of Reserve was a task which alone
would have occupied all the attention of an ordinary man;
in fact, the safety of France hung on this army. Consequently,
since, by the constitution, the First Consul was
unable himself to take command in the field, in April, 1800,
he transferred Berthier from the War Office to the head of
this most important force. It is not generally known that
the idea of the passage of the Alps by the St. Bernard
Pass actually originated with Berthier, and had first been
projected by him as early as 1795. So it was at the execution
of what was really his own idea that for two
months Berthier slaved. At times even his stout heart
quailed, as when he wrote to the First Consul, “It is my
duty to complain of the position of this army on which you
have justly spent so much interest, and which is paralysed
because it can only rely on its bayonets, on account of the
lack of ammunition and means to transport the artillery.”
Incessant work and toil were at last rewarded; but when the
Army of the Reserve debouched on the Austrian lines of[9]
communication, the First Consul appeared in person, and,
though nominally in command, Berthier once again resumed
his position of chief of the staff. Without a murmur
he allowed Bonaparte to reap all the glory of Marengo, for
he knew that without the First Consul, however excellent
his own dispositions were, they would have been lacking in
the driving power which alone teaches men how to seize
on victory. After Marengo, Berthier was despatched as
Ambassador Extraordinary to Madrid, “to exhort Spain by
every possible means to declare war on Portugal, the ally
of England.” The result of this mission was eminently
successful; a special treaty was drawn up and Spain sold
Louisiana to France. By October the ambassador was
once again back in Paris at his old post of Minister of War—a
post which he held continuously during peace and war
till August, 1807. The position was no light one, for even
during the short years of peace it involved the supervision
of the expedition to San Domingo, the defence of Italy, the
reorganisation of the army, and the re-armament of the
artillery, in addition to the ordinary routine of official work.
Moreover, the foundations of the Consulate being based on
the army, it was essential that the army should be efficient
and content, and consequently the French soldier of that
day was not, as in other countries, neglected in peace time.
The officers in command of the troops were constantly
reminded by the War Minister that “the French soldier is
a citizen placed under military law”—not an outcast or
serf, whose well-being and comfort concern no one.

On the establishment of the Empire Berthier, like
many another, received the reward for his faithfulness to
Napoleon. Honours were showered upon him. The
first to receive the Marshal’s bâton, he was in succession
created senator by right as a dignitary of the Empire, grand
officer of the palace and grand huntsman to the crown,
while at the coronation he carried the imperial globe. But
though the Emperor thus honoured, and treated him as his[10]
most trustworthy confidant, the cares of state to some
extent withdrew Napoleon from close intimacy with his old
companion. At the same time the Marshal was insensibly
separated from his former comrades-in-arms by his high
rank and employment, which, while it tended to make him
more the servant than the friend of the Emperor, also
caused him to be regarded as a superior to be obeyed by
those who were formerly his equals. At all times a strict
disciplinarian, and one who never passed over a breach of
orders, the Marshal, as voicing the commands of the
Emperor, gradually began to assume a stern attitude to
all subordinates, and spared neither princes or marshals,
when he considered that the good of the service required
that they should be reprimanded and shown their duty.
So strong was the sense of subordination in the army and
the desire to stand well with Napoleon, that even the fiery
Murat paid attention to orders and reprimands signed by
Berthier in the name of the Emperor.

Meanwhile the work of the War Minister increased day by
day. The organisation and supervision of the Army of the
Ocean added considerably to his work, which was much
interfered with by visits of inspection in company with the
Emperor, or far-distant expeditions to the frontiers and
to Italy for the coronation at Milan.

On August 3rd, 1805, the Emperor created the Marshal
major-general and chief of the staff to the Army of the
Ocean, and himself assumed command of the Army and
held a grand review of one hundred thousand men. Everybody
thought that the moment for the invasion of England
had arrived. Berthier, and perhaps Talleyrand, alone knew
that Austria, not England, was the immediate quarry, and
all through August the major-general was busy working
out the routes for the concentration of the various corps in
the valley of the Danube; whilst at the same time as War
Minister he was responsible for the supervision of all the
troops left in France and in garrison in Italy, Belgium,[11]
Holland, and Hanover. Consequently he had to divide his
staff into two sections, one of which he took with him into
the field, the other remaining in Paris under an assistant
who was capable of managing the ordinary routine, but
who had to forward all difficult problems to the War
Minister in the field. Even during the drive to the frontier
there was no abatement of the strain; during the journey
the Emperor would give orders which had to be expanded
and written out in the short stoppages for food and rest.
By day the major-general travelled in the Emperor’s
carriage; at night he always slept under the same roof
with him, to be ready at any moment, in full uniform, to
receive his commands and expand and dictate them to his
clerks. Everyone knew when the major-general was
worried, for he had a habit of biting his nails when making
a decision or trying to solve a problem, but otherwise he
never showed any sign of feeling, and whether tired or
troubled by the Emperor’s occasional outbursts of temper,
he went on with his work with the methodical precision
of an automaton. To belong to the general staff when
Berthier was major-general was no bed of roses, no place
for gilded youth, for with Napoleon commanding and
Berthier directing, if there was often fighting there was
plenty of writing; if there was galloping on horseback by
day, to make up for it by night there were hours of steady
copying of orders and no chance of laying down the pen
until all business was finished. Thanks to this excellent
staff work, Napoleon’s ambitious plans were faithfully
accomplished, the Austrians were completely taken in by
the demonstration in the Black Forest, the French columns
stepped astride of their communications on the Danube,
and Mack was forced to surrender at Ulm. But Ulm
was only the commencement of the campaign, and even
after Austerlitz Napoleon pursued the enemy with grim
resolution. This was one of the secrets of his success, for,
as Berthier wrote to Soult, “The Emperor’s opinion is[12]
that in war nothing is really achieved as long as there
remains something to achieve; a victory is not complete as
long as greater success can still be gained.”

After the treaty of Pressburg, on December 27, 1805,
Napoleon quitted the army and returned to Paris, leaving
the major-general in command of the Grand Army with
orders to evacuate the conquered territory when the terms
of the treaty had been carried out by the Austrians; but the
Emperor retained the real control, and every day a courier
had to be despatched to Paris with a detailed account of
every event, and every day a courier arrived from Paris
bearing fresh orders and instructions. For Napoleon
refused to allow the slightest deviation from his orders:
“Keep strictly to the orders I give you,” he wrote; “execute
punctually your instructions. I alone know what I want
done.” Meanwhile the major-general was still War Minister
and had to supervise all the more important business of the
War Office; while he also found time to edit an official
history of the campaign of 1805, and to superintend the
execution of a map of most of the Austrian possessions.
The work was immense, but Berthier never flagged, and
the Emperor showed his appreciation of his zeal when
on March 30th, 1806, he conferred on him the principality of
Neuchâtel with the title of Prince and Duke, to hold in
full possession and suzerainty for himself, his heirs and
successors, with one stipulation, that he should marry.
He added that the Prince’s passion for Madame Visconti
had lasted too long, that it was not becoming to a dignitary
of the Empire, and that he was now fifty years old and
ought to think of providing an heir to his honours. The
Prince Marshal never had time to visit personally his
principality, but he sent one of his intimate friends, General
Dutaillis, to provide for the welfare of his new subjects,
and to the best of his ability he saw that they were well
governed, while a battalion of picked troops from Neuchâtel
was added to the Imperial Guard. But, orders or no orders,[13]
the Prince could never break himself free from the trammels
of his mistress, and Napoleon gave him but little leisure in
which to find a congenial partner, so that it was not till
after Tilsit, in the brief pause before the Peninsular War,
that Berthier at last took a wife. His chosen Princess was
Elizabeth, the daughter of William, Duke of Bavaria,
brother of the King. She was married with all due
solemnity in March, 1808, and though the exigencies of
war gave her but little opportunity of seeing much of her
husband, affection existed between them, as also between
Berthier and his father-in-law, the Duke of Bavaria. All
cause of difficulty was smoothed over by the fact that in
time the Princess herself conceived an affection for Madame
Visconti.

By September, 1806, the Grand Army had evacuated
Austria, and the Prince Marshal was hoping to return to
Paris when suddenly he was informed by the Emperor of
the probability of a campaign against Prussia. On the 23rd
definite orders arrived indicating the points of assembly;
by the next day detailed letters of instructions for every
corps had been worked out and despatched by the headquarters
staff. Napoleon himself arrived at Würzburg on
October 2nd, and found his army concentrated, but
deficient of supplies. At first his anger burst out against
the chief of the staff, but a moment’s reflection proved to
him that there was not sufficient transport in Germany to
mass both men and supplies in the time he had given, and
he entirely exonerated Berthier, who by hard work contrived
in three days to collect sufficient supplies to allow
of the opening of the thirty days’ campaign which
commenced with Jena and ended by carrying the French
troops across the Vistula. The fresh campaign in the
spring of 1807 was attended by an additional difficulty,
there existed no maps of the district, and the topographical
department of the staff was worked off its legs in supplying
this deficiency. Meanwhile, during the halt after Pultusk,[14]
the major-general was busy re-clothing and re-equipping
the army and hurrying up reinforcements; while in
addition to the work of the War Office he had to supervise
the French forces in Italy and Naples. After Tilsit, as after
Pressburg, Napoleon hurried back to France and left the
Prince of Neuchâtel to arrange for the withdrawal of the
Grand Army, and it was not till July 27th that Berthier at
last returned to Paris.

The Prince came back more than ever dazzled by the
genius of the Emperor; not even Eylau had taught him
that there were limits to his idol’s powers. But with more
than eight hundred thousand men on a war footing, with
divisions and army corps scattered from the Atlantic to the
Niemen, from Lübeck to Brindisi, it was impossible for one
man to be at once chief of the staff and Minister of War.
Accordingly, on August 9th the Emperor made General
Clarke Minister of War, and, to show that this was no slight
on his old friend, on the same day he created the Prince of
Neuchâtel Vice-constable of France. For the next three
months Berthier was able to enjoy his honours at his home
at Grosbois, or in his honorary capacity at Fontainebleau,
but in November the Emperor carried him off with him to
Italy on a tour of inspection. During the whole of this
holiday in Italy the Prince was busy elaborating the details
of the coming campaign in Spain, and it was the Spanish
trouble which cut short his honeymoon, for on April 2nd
he had to start with the Emperor for Bayonne. From the
outset the Prince warned the Emperor that the question of
supplies lay at the root of all difficulties in Spain; but
Napoleon clung to his idea that war should support war,
and Berthier knew that it was hopeless to attempt to remove
a fixed idea from his head, and, still believing in his omnipotence,
he thought all would be well. Meanwhile, as the
summer went on, it was not only Spain that occupied the
Prince’s attention, for the conquest of Denmark had to be
arranged, and the passes in Silesia and Bohemia carefully[15]
mapped, in view of hostilities with Prussia or Austria. Early
in August Berthier was at Saint Cloud making arrangements
to reinforce Davout in Silesia, owing to the growing
hostility of Austria, when, on the 16th, arrived the news
that Joseph had had to evacuate all the country west of the
Ebro. But Napoleon and Berthier could not go to his help
until after the imperial meeting at Erfurt in September.
However, on reaching Spain, the magic of the Emperor’s
personality soon restored the vigour and prestige of the
French arms. Still the Prince Marshal could not hide from
himself that all was not as it used to be; Napoleon’s temper
was more uncertain, and the Marshals, smarting under
reprimands, were not pulling together. When the Emperor
returned to France, after having missed “the opportunity
of giving the English a good lesson,” he left Berthier
behind for a fortnight “to be sure that King Joseph had a
proper understanding of everything.” But trouble was
bound to come, for the Emperor himself was breaking his
own canon of the importance of “the unity of command”
by nominally leaving Joseph in control of all the troops in
Spain, but at the same time making the Marshals responsible
to himself through the major-general.

In 1809 Napoleon made another grave mistake. He had
calculated that Austria could make no forward movement
before April 15th, and accordingly he sent Berthier early in
March to take temporary command of the Grand Army,
with instructions to order Davout to concentrate at Ratisbon
and Masséna at Augsburg. His idea was that there would
be ample time later to order a concentration on either wing
or on the centre. But the Austrians were ready quite a
fortnight before he had calculated. The major-general kept
him well informed of every movement of the enemy, and
pointed out the dangerous isolation of Davout. Still the
Emperor did not believe the Austrian preparations were so
forward; and a despatch from Paris, written on April 10th,
which arrived at headquarters at Donauwörth on the 11th,[16]
ordered the major-general to retain Davout at Ratisbon and
move his own headquarters there, “and that in spite of
anything that may happen.” Unfortunately, a semaphore
despatch sent a few hours later, when Napoleon had really
grasped the situation, went astray and never reached
Berthier. The Prince of Neuchâtel understood as clearly
as any one the dangerous position of Davout; the Duke
of Eckmühl himself thought that the major-general was
trying to spoil his career by laying him open to certain
defeat; depression spread through all the French corps.
But after years of blind devotion to his great chief Berthier
could not steel himself to break distinct orders, emphasised
as they were by the expression “in spite of whatever may
happen,” and a great catastrophe was only just averted by
the arrival of Napoleon, who at once ordered Davout to
withdraw and Masséna to advance. Berthier himself was
visited by the full fury of the Emperor’s anger. But the
cloud soon passed, for Berthier was as indispensable as
ever, and more so when, after the failure at Aspern-Essling,
immense efforts had to be made to hurry up troops from
every available source. At the end of the campaign the
Emperor justly rewarded his lieutenant by creating him
Prince of Wagram.

Once again Napoleon left Berthier to arrange for the
withdrawal of the army, and it was not till December 1st
that the Prince of Wagram regained Paris and took up the
threads of the Peninsular campaign. His stay there was
short, for by the end of February he was back again in
Vienna, this time not as major-general of a victorious army,
but as Ambassador Extraordinary to claim the hand of the
Archduchess Marie Louise for his master, the Emperor
Napoleon, and to escort her to her new home. For the
next two years the Prince remained at home at Grosbois or
on duty at Fontainebleau, but in spite of great domestic
happiness he was much worried by the terrible Spanish
war. No one saw more clearly that every effort ought to[17]
be made to crush the English, but he was powerless to
persuade the Emperor, and he had to endure to the full
all the difficulties arising from breaking the “unity of
command.” No one understood better what hopeless
difficulties would arise when Napoleon ordered him to
write, “The King will command the army…. The
Guard does not form part of the army.” To add to these
troubles, it became more and more evident that Germany
was riddled with secret societies and that war with Russia
was inevitable. So it was with a sigh of relief that in
January, 1812, he received the order to turn his attention
from Spain and resume his functions as major-general of
the Grand Army. Not that he desired further active
service; like many another of the Emperor’s soldiers, he
mistrusted the distant expedition to Russia, and feared for
the honour and safety of France. Already in his sixtieth
year, there was little he could gain personally from war.
As he said to Napoleon, “What is the good of having given
me an income of sixty thousand pounds a year in order to
inflict on me the tortures of Tantalus? I shall die here
with all this work. The simplest private is happier than I.”
The Emperor, knowing the attitude of many of his Marshals,
and himself feeling the strain of this immense enterprise,
was unusually irritable. Consequently relations at headquarters
were often strained, and the Marshals were angry
at the severe reprimands to which they were subjected. The
controlling leaders being out of gear the machine did not
run smoothly: there was nothing but friction and tension.
The Marshals were inclined to attribute their disgrace to
the ill-will of Berthier and not to the temper of Napoleon.
Particularly was this the case with Davout, who since 1809
had suspected that Berthier desired to ruin his reputation.
Accordingly the Prince of Eckmühl set down the succession
of reprimands which were hurled at his head to the
machinations of the major-general, and not, as was the case,
to Napoleon’s jealousy of him, because people had prophesied[18]
he would become King of Poland. This misunderstanding
was most unfortunate, for it prevented Berthier from effecting
a reconciliation between Davout and the Emperor. Hence
Napoleon was driven more and more to trust to the advice
of the rash, unstable King of Naples. The major-general’s
lot through the campaign was most miserable. Working
day and night to supervise the organisation of the huge
force of six hundred thousand men; mistrusted by his
former comrades; blamed for every mishap by the Emperor,
whatever the fault might be, he had to put up with
the bitterest insults, and while working as no other man
could work, to endure such taunts as, “Not only are you no
good, but you are in the way.” Everything that went wrong
“was the fault of the general staff, which is so organised
that it foresees nothing,” whether it was the shortcomings
of the contractors or the burning of their own magazines
by the Russians. But what most moved Napoleon’s anger
against the chief of the staff was that Berthier, with “the
parade states” before him, emphasising the enormous
wastage of the army, constantly harped on the danger of
pressing on to Moscow. So strained became the relations
between them, that for the last part of the advance they
no longer met at meals. But during the hours of the
retreat the old friendship was resumed. Berthier bore no
malice, and showed his bravery by himself opposing the
enemy with musket and bayonet; and on one occasion,
with Bessières, Murat, and Rapp, he saved the Emperor
from a sotnia of Cossacks.

When Napoleon quitted the army at Vilna he left the
major-general behind to help the King of Naples to withdraw
the remnant of the Grand Army. Marching on foot
through the deep snow, with fingers and nose frostbitten, the
sturdy old veteran of sixty endured the fatigue as well as the
hardiest young men in their prime; and in addition to the
physical fatigue of marching, had to carry out all the
administrative work, and bear the moral responsibility for[19]
what remained of the army; for the King of Naples, thinking
of nothing but how to save his own crown, when difficulties
increased, followed the example of Napoleon and
deserted his post. Thereon the major-general took on himself
to nominate Prince Eugène as Murat’s successor. But
in the end his health gave way, and the Emperor himself
wrote to Prince Eugène telling him to send the old warrior
home.

Berthier reached Paris on February 9th, much broken
down in health; but his wonderful physique soon enabled
him to regain his strength, and by the end of March he
was once again hard at work helping the Emperor to
extemporise an army. With his complete knowledge of this
force, no one was more astonished than Berthier at the
successes of Lützen and Bautzen, and no one more insistent
in his advice to the Emperor to accept the terms of the
Allies during the armistice; but he advised in vain. Then
followed the terrible catastrophe of Leipzig, due undoubtedly
to Berthier’s dread of acting without the express orders of
the Emperor. The engineer officer charged with preparing
the line of retreat reported that the one bridge across the
Elster was not sufficient. The major-general, knowing that
the Emperor desired to hide any signs of retreat from the
Allies, replied that he must await the Emperor’s orders, so,
when, after three days’ fighting, the retreat could no longer
be postponed, a catastrophe was inevitable.

Yet, in spite of everything, the Emperor refused to
acknowledge himself beaten, and by the commencement of
1814 was once again ready to take the field, though by now
the Allies had invaded France. Loyal as ever, Berthier
worked his hardest; but he once again incurred the
Emperor’s anger by entreating him to accept the terms
offered him at Châtillon. Still, when the end came and
Napoleon abdicated, Berthier remained at his side, and it
was only when the Emperor had released his Marshals from
their allegiance that on April 11th he sent in his adhesion[20]
to the new government. When all save Macdonald had
deserted the fallen Emperor, Berthier stayed on at Fontainebleau,
directing the withdrawal of the remnants of the army,
and making arrangements for the guard which was to
accompany Napoleon to Elba. But though he remained
with him until the day before he started for Elba, Berthier
refused to share his exile, and at the time Napoleon was
magnanimous enough to see that, owing to his age and the
care of his children, he could not expect such a sacrifice.

So far, the Prince had done all that honour and affection
could demand of him. But, unfortunately for his fame,
instead of withdrawing into private life, he listened to the
prayers of his wife, who keenly felt the loss of her title of
“Serene Princess.” It was at her desire that he continued
to frequent the Bourbon court and actually accepted the
captaincy of one of the new companies of royal guards.
This and the fact that, as senior of the Marshals, Berthier
had led his fellow Marshals to meet the King at Compiègne,
caused the Prince of Wagram to be regarded as a traitor
by Napoleon and the Imperialists. Moreover, the Prince
Marshal now saw in Napoleon the disturber of the peace of
Europe, so when the Emperor suddenly returned from
Elba he withdrew from France, and retired to Bamberg, in
his father-in-law’s dominions.

It is commonly supposed that Berthier committed suicide,
but the medical evidence shows that his fall was probably
the result of giddiness arising from dyspepsia. It was on
June 1st that the accident happened. He was watching a
division of Russian troops passing through the town, and
was much distressed by the sight, and heard to murmur,
“My poor country!” Ever interested in soldiers, he got on
a chair on the balcony before the nursery windows to get a
better view of the troops, and while doing so lost his balance
and fell to the ground.

For the moment the tragic death of the Marshal was the
talk of Europe, but only for the moment, for the fate of the[21]
world was hanging on the issues of the great battle which
was imminent in Belgium. If the Prince of Wagram had
been there, it is more than conceivable that the scales would
have fallen other than they did; for it was the indifferent
staff work of Soult and the bad drafting of orders which
lost the French the campaign. Of this, Napoleon was so
firmly convinced that he never could efface it from his
memory; again and again he was heard saying, “If
Berthier had been here I should never have met this misfortune.”
The Emperor, in spite of the fact that in 1814 he
had told Macdonald that Berthier could never return, was
convinced that he would, and had told Rapp that he was
certain he would come back to him. It was this failure to
return which so embittered the fallen Emperor against the
Prince of Wagram, and led to those cruel strictures on his
character to which he gave vent at St. Helena. Moreover,
Napoleon, so great in many things, was so jealous of his
own glory that he could be mean beyond words. Even in
the early years when he heard people praising Berthier’s
work in 1796, he told his secretary, Bourrienne, “As for
Berthier, since you have been with me, you see what he is—he
is a blockhead.” At St. Helena, forgetting his old
opinions, “Berthier has his talents, activity, courage,
character—all in his favour.” Forgetting that he himself
had taught Berthier to be imperious, he derided his rather
pompous manner, saying, “Nothing is so imperious as
weakness which feels itself supported by strength. Look at
women.” Berthier, with his admirably lucid mind, great
physique, methodical powers and ambition, would have
made his name in any profession. He undoubtedly chose
to be second to Napoleon; he served him with a fidelity
that Napoleon himself could not understand, and he won
his great commander’s love and esteem in spite of the
selfishness of the Corsican’s nature. “I really cannot
understand,” said Napoleon to Talleyrand, “how a relation
that has the appearance of friendship has established itself[22]
between Berthier and me. I do not indulge in useless
sentiments, and Berthier is so uninteresting that I do not
know why I should care about him at all, and yet when I
think of it I really have some liking for him.” “It is
because he believes in you,” said the former bishop and
reader of men’s souls. It was this belief in Napoleon which
in time obsessed the Prince of Wagram’s mind, which killed
his own initiative and was responsible for his blunders in
1809 and at Leipzig, and turned him into a machine which
merely echoed the Emperor’s commands. “Monsieur le
Maréchal, the Emperor orders.” “Monsieur, it is not me,
it is the Emperor you ought to thank.” These hackneyed
phrases typified more than anything else the bounds of the
career which the Marshal had deliberately marked out for
himself. In Berthier’s eyes it was no reproach, but a testimony
to his own principles, “that he never gave an order,
never wrote a despatch, which did not in some way emanate
from Napoleon.” It was this which, with some appearance
of truth, pointing to his notable failures, allowed Napoleon
to say of him at St. Helena, “His character was undecided,
not strong enough for a commander-in-chief, but he
possessed all the qualities of a good chief of the staff: a
complete mastery of the map, great skill in reconnaissance,
minute care in the despatch of orders, magnificent aptitude
for presenting with the greatest simplicity the most complicated
situation of an army.”

[23]

II

JOACHIM MURAT, MARSHAL, KING OF NAPLES

Stable-boy, seminarist, Marshal, King, Murat
holds the unchallenged position of Prince of
Gascons: petulant, persevering, ambitious and
vain, he surpasses D’Artagnan himself in his overwhelming
conceit. The third son of an innkeeper of La Bastide
Fortunière in upper Quercy, Joachim Murat was born on
March 25, 1767. From his earliest childhood Joachim was
a horse-lover and a frequenter of the stables; but his
parents had higher aims for their bright, smiling, intelligent
darling, and destined him for the priesthood. The
young seminarist was highly thought of by the preceptors
at the College of Saint Michel at Cahors and the Lazarist
Fathers at Toulouse; but neither priest nor mother had
truly grasped his dashing character, and one February
morning in 1787 Joachim slipped quietly out of the seminary
doors and enlisted in the Chasseurs of the Ardennes,
who were at the moment billeted in Toulouse. Two years
later this promising recruit, having fallen foul of the military
authorities, had to leave the service under a cloud. A post
as draper’s assistant was a poor exchange for the young
soldier, who found the cavalry service of the royal army
scarcely dashing enough, but the Revolution gave an outlet
which Murat was quick to seize. For three years the future
King harangued village audiences of Quercy on the iniquities
of caste and the equality of all men; so that when, in[24]
February, 1792, the Assembly called for volunteers for the
“Garde Constitutionnelle” of Louis XVI., what better choice
could the national guard of Montfaucon make than in nominating
Joachim Murat, the handsome ex-sergeant of the
Chasseurs of the Ardennes?

In Paris, Joachim soon found that the royal road to
success lay in denouncing loudly all superior officers of
lack of patriotism. Soon there was no more brazen-voiced
accuser than Murat. In the course of a year he worked his
way out of the “Garde Constitutionnelle,” and by April,
1793, he had attained the rank of captain in the 12th
Chasseurs. Meanwhile, he had been selected as aide-de-camp
by General d’Ure de Molans. Having seen no
service, he owed his appointment largely to his conceit
and good looks. Blue-eyed, with an aquiline nose and
smiling lips; with long chestnut curls falling over his well-poised
head; endowed with great physical strength, shown
in his strong, supple arms and in the long flat-thighed legs
of a horseman, he appeared the most perfect type of the
dare-devil, dashing cavalry soldier. The moderate republican
general, d’Ure de Molans, was useful to him for a time, but
the young Gascon saw that the days of the extremist were
close at hand; accordingly, he allied himself with an adventurer
called Landrieux, who was raising a body of
cut-throats whose object was plunder, not fighting. The
Convention, which had licensed Landrieux to raise this
corps of patriotic defenders of the country, accepted his
nomination of Murat as acting lieutenant-colonel. But
they soon fell out, for Murat had the audacity to try and
make these patriots fight instead of merely seeking plunder.
The consequence of this quarrel was that, early in 1794, he
found himself accused as a ci-devant noble. Imprisoned
at Amiens, and brought before the Committee of Public
Safety, in a fit of republican enthusiasm he changed his
name to Marat. But this did not save him, and he
owed his life to a deputation from his native Quercy,[25]
which proved both his humble birth and his high republicanism.

JOACHIM MURAT, AFTERWARDS KING OF NAPLES
FROM THE PAINTING BY GÉRARD AT VERSAILLES

The 13th Vendémiaire was the turning-point in Murat’s
life, for on that day, for the first time, he came in contact
with his future chief, the young General Bonaparte, and
gained his attention by the masterly way he saved the guns
at Sablons from the hands of the Royalists. The future
Emperor ever knew when to reward merit, and on being
appointed to command the army in Italy he at once selected
him as his aide-de-camp. So far he had seen little or no
war service. But the campaign of 1796 proved that Bonaparte’s
judgment was sound, for by the end of the year
there was no longer any necessity for Murat to blow his
own trumpet. In the short campaign against the Sardinians
he showed his talent as a cavalry leader by his judgment
in charges at Dego and Mondovi. He had no cause to
grumble that he was not appreciated, for his general selected
him to take to Paris the news of this victorious campaign
and of the triumphant negotiations of Cherasco. He returned
from Paris in May as brigadier-general, in time to
take part in the crossing of the Mincio and to rob Kilmaine
of some of his honours. The commander-in-chief still kept
him attached to the headquarter staff, and constantly employed
him on special service. His enterprises were
numerous and varied—one week at Genoa on a special
diplomatic mission, a week or two later leading a forlorn
attack on the great fortress of Mantua, then commanding
the right wing of the army covering the siege, he showed
himself ever resourceful and daring. But during the
autumn of 1796 he fell under the heavy displeasure of
his chief, for at Milan and Montebello Josephine had
shown too great favour to the young cavalry general.
Murat accordingly had no scruples in intriguing with
Barras against his chief. But his glorious conduct at
Rivoli once again brought him back to favour, and Bonaparte
entrusted him with an infantry brigade in the advance[26]
on Vienna, and later with a delicate independent mission
in the Valtelline. But Murat, unlike Lannes, Marmont,
and Duroc, was not yet indispensable to Bonaparte, and
accordingly was left with the Army of Italy when the general
returned in triumph to Paris. It was mainly owing to
Masséna’s enthusiastic report of his service in the Roman
campaign, at the close of 1797, that he was selected as one
of the supernumerary officers in the Egyptian expedition.

So far, Murat had not yet been able to distinguish
himself above his comrades-in-arms. Masséna, Augereau,
Serurier, and Laharpe left him far in the rear, but Egypt
was to give him the chance of proving his worth, and
showing that he was not only a dashing officer, but a
cavalry commander of the first rank. He led the cavalry
of the advance guard in the march up the Nile, and was
present at the battle of the Pyramids and the taking of
Cairo. But so far the campaign, instead of bringing him
fresh honours, nearly brought him disgrace; for he joined
the party of grumblers, and was one of those who were
addressed in the famous reprimand, “I know some generals
are mutinous and preach revolt … let them take care. I
am as high above a general as above a drummer, and, if
necessary, I will as soon have the one shot as the other.”

On July 27, 1798, Murat was appointed governor of the
province of Kalioub, which lies north of Cairo; to keep
order among his turbulent subjects his whole force consisted
of a battalion of infantry, twenty-five cavalrymen,
and a three-pounder gun. His governorship was only part
of the work Bonaparte required of him, for he was constantly
away organising and leading light columns by land
or river, harrying the Arabs and disbanded Mamelukes,
sweeping the country, collecting vast depôts of corn and
cattle, remounting the cavalry—proving himself a past
master in irregular warfare. So well did he do his work
that the commander-in-chief selected him to command the
whole of the cavalry in the Syrian expeditionary force.[27]
Thanks to his handling of his horsemen, the march through
Palestine occasioned the French but little loss. During
the siege of Acre he commanded the covering force, and
pushed reconnaissances far and wide. So feared was his
name that the whole Turkish army fled before him on the
banks of the Jordan, and left their camp and immense
booty in the hands of the French. But though he had
thus destroyed the relieving force, Acre, victualled by the
English fleet, still held out, and Bonaparte had to retreat to
Egypt.

It was at Aboukir that Murat consolidated his reputation
as a great commander. The Turkish general had neglected
to rest the right flank of his first line on the sea, and Murat,
seizing his opportunity, fell on the unguarded flank with
the full weight of his cavalry, and rolled the unfortunate
Turks into the water. Thereafter, by the aid of a battery
of artillery, the centre of the second line of the Turkish
army was broken, and the French horse dashing into the
gap, once again made short work of the enemy, and their
leader captured with his own hands the Turkish commander.
Bonaparte, in his despatch, did full justice to
his subordinate. “The victory is mainly due to General
Murat. I ask you to make him general of division: his
brigade of cavalry has achieved the impossible.” Murat
himself was much distressed at being wounded in the
face, as he feared it might destroy his good looks; however,
he soon had the satisfaction of writing to his father:
“The doctors tell me I shall not be in the least disfigured,
so tell all the young ladies that even if Murat has lost some
of his good looks, they won’t find that he has lost any of
his bravery in the war of love.”

His grumbles forgiven, Murat left Egypt among the chosen
band of followers of whose fidelity Napoleon was assured;
his special mission was to gain over the cavalry to the side of
his chief. He it was who, with Leclerc, on the 18th Brumaire,
forced his way into the Orangerie at the head of the[28]
grenadiers and hurled out the deputies. The First Consul
rewarded him amply, appointing him inspector of the
Consular Guard, and, later still, in preference to his rival,
Lannes, gave him in marriage his sister Caroline. Murat
had met Caroline Bonaparte at Montebello during the
Italian campaign of 1796, and had at once been struck
by her beauty. Like many another cavalier, he had a
flame in every country, or rather, in every town which
he visited. But by 1799 the gay Gascon saw that it was
time to finish sowing his wild oats, since destiny was
offering him a chance which falls to the lot of few
mortals. It was by now clear that the First Consul’s
star was in the ascendant. Already his family were reaping
the fruits of his success. Ambition, pride and love were
the cords of the net which drew the willing Murat to
Caroline. As brother-in-law to the First Consul, Joachim
felt secure against his bitter rival, Lannes. To add point
to this success, he knew that the victor of Montebello
was straining every nerve to gain this very prize. Moreover,
Fortune herself favoured his suit. Bonaparte had offered
the hand of Caroline to the great General Moreau, but
the future victor of Hohenlinden refused to join himself
to the Corsican triumph. To cover his confusion the
First Consul was glad to give his sister’s hand to one
of his most gallant officers, especially as by so doing
he once and for all removed the haunting fear of an
intrigue between him and Josephine. Accordingly, on
January 25, 1800, Murat and Caroline were pronounced
man and wife in the temple of the canton of Plailly, by
the president of the canton. Though Caroline only
brought with her a dot of forty thousand francs, she stood
for what was better still, immense possibilities.

Murat’s honeymoon was cut short by the Marengo
campaign. In April he started, as lieutenant-general in
command of the cavalry, to join the Army of the Reserve
at Dijon. Once the corps of Lannes had, by the capture[29]
of Ivrea, secured the opening into Italy, the cavalry
were able to take up their rôle, and with irresistible weight
they swept down the plains of Lombardy, forced the river
crossings, and on June 2nd entered Milan. Thence the
First Consul despatched his horsemen to seize Piacenza, the
important bridge across the Po, the key of the Austrian
lines of communication. Murat, with a few troops, crossed
the river in some twenty small rowing-boats, and, dashing
forward, captured the bridge head on the southern bank,
and thus secured not only the peaceful crossing of his
force, but the capture of the town and the immense
Austrian depôts. At Marengo the cavalry acted in separate
brigades, and the decisive stroke of the battle fell to the
lot of the younger Kellermann, whose brilliant charge
decided the day in favour of the French. The despatches
only mentioned that “General Murat’s clothes were riddled
by bullets.”

So far Murat had always held subordinate commands;
his great ambition was to become the commander-in-chief
of an independent army. His wife, Caroline, and his
sister-in-law, Josephine, were constant in their endeavours
to gain this distinction for him from the First Consul. But
it was not till the end of 1800 that they succeeded; and
then only partially, for in December the lieutenant-general
was appointed commander of a corps of observation, whose
headquarters were at Milan, and whose duty was to
overawe Tuscany and the Papal States. His campaign
in central Italy is more noticeable for his endeavours to
shake himself free from the control of General Brune, the
commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy, than for any very
brilliant manœuvres. Tuscany and the Papal States were
easily conquered, and the King of Naples was only too glad
to buy peace at Foligno. Italy lay at the feet of the French
general, but what was most gratifying of all, after his
successful negotiation with the King of Naples, the First
Consul tacitly accepted the title which his brother-in-law[30]
had assumed of commander-in-chief of the Army of Naples.
Murat had the satisfaction of having under his orders
Lieutenant-General Soult, three generals of division and four
generals of brigade. For the moment his Gascon vanity
was satiated, while his Gascon greed was appeased by
substantial bribes from all the conquered countries of the
Peninsula. The “commander-in-chief” was joined at Florence
in May, 1801, by his wife, Caroline, and his young son,
Achille, born in January, whom he found “charming,
already possessed of two teeth.” In the capital of Tuscany
Murat gravely delivered to the inhabitants a historical
lecture on their science, their civilisation, and the splendour
of their state under the Medici. He spent the summer
in visiting the watering-places of Italy. In August the
First Consul raised him to the command of the troops of
the Cisalpine Republic, and he retained this post for the
next two years, and had his headquarters in Milan, making
occasional expeditions to Paris and Rome, and on the
whole content with his position, save for occasional
quarrels with Melzi, the president of the Italian Republic.
Their jurisdictions overlapped and the Gascon would play
second fiddle to no one save to his great brother-in-law.

In January, 1804, the First Consul recalled Murat to Paris,
nominating him commandant of the troops of the first
military division and of the National Guard, and Governor
of the city. Bonaparte’s object was not so much to
please his brother-in-law as to strengthen himself. He
was concentrating his own family, clan, and all his most
faithful followers in readiness for the great event, the
proclamation of the Empire. Men like Lannes, whose
views were republican, were discreetly kept out of the way
on foreign missions; but Murat, as Bonaparte knew, was a
pliant tool. As early as 1802 he had hotly favoured the
Concordat, and had had his marriage recelebrated by
Cardinal Consalvi; and both Caroline and Joachim infinitely
preferred being members of the imperial family[31]
of the Emperor of the French to being merely relations
of the successful general and First Consul of the French
Republic. They were willing also to obey the future
Emperor’s commands, and to aid him socially by entertaining
on a lavish scale, and their residence in Paris,
the Hotel Thélusson, became the centre of gorgeous
entertainments. While Murat strutted about in sky-blue
overalls, covered with gold spangles, invented new uniforms,
and bought expensive aigrettes for his busby, his
wife showed her rococo taste by furnishing her drawing-room
in red satin and gold, and her bedroom in
rose-coloured satin and old point lace. They had their
reward. Five days after the proclamation of the Empire,
after a furious scene, Napoleon conceded the title of
Imperial Highness to his sister with the bitter words:
“To listen to you, people would think that I had robbed
you of the heritage of the late King, our father.”
Meanwhile the Governor of Paris had received his
Marshal’s bâton, and in the following February was
created senator, prince, and Grand Admiral of France.

The rupture of the peace of Amiens did not affect
the life of the Governor of Paris; for two years he enjoyed
this office, with all its opportunities of ostentation and
display. But in August, 1805, the approaching war with
Austria caused the Emperor to summon his most brilliant
cavalry leader to his side. In that month he despatched
him, travelling incognito as Colonel Beaumont, to survey
the military roads into Germany, and especially to study
the converging roads round Würzburg, and the suitability
of that town as an advance depôt for an army operating
on the Danube. From Würzburg Murat travelled hurriedly
through Nuremberg, Ratisbon, and Passau, as far as the
river Inn, returning viâ Munich, Ulm, the Black Forest,
and Strassburg. Immediately on his return the Emperor
appointed him “Lieutenant of the Empire, and commandant
in his absence” of all the troops cantonned along the[32]
Rhine, and of such corps of the Grand Army as reached
that river before himself. When war actually broke out
Murat’s duty was to mask, with his cavalry in the Black
Forest, the turning movement of the other corps of the
Grand Army which were striking at the Austrian rear.
Once the turning movement was completed the Prince
was entrusted with the command of the left wing of
the army, which included his own cavalry division and
the corps of Lannes and Ney. Excellent as he was as
cavalry commander in the field, Murat had no head for
great combinations. Instead of profiting by the advice
of those able soldiers, Lannes and Ney, he spent his time
quarrelling with them. He accordingly kept his troops
on the wrong side of the Danube, with the result that
in spite of Ney’s brilliant action at Elchingen, two divisions
of the Austrians under the Archduke Ferdinand escaped
from Ulm. Prince Murat, however, retrieved his error
by his brilliant pursuit of the escaped Austrians, and by
hard riding and fighting captured quite half of the Archduke’s
command.

Impetuosity, perseverance, and dash are undoubtedly
useful traits in the character of a cavalry commander, and
of these he had his fair share. But his jealousy and vanity
often led him astray. During the advance down the Danube,
in his desire to gain the credit of capturing Vienna, he lost
touch completely with the Russians and Austrians, who had
retreated across the Danube at Krems, and he involved the
Emperor in a dangerous position by leaving the unbeaten
Russians on the flank of his line of communications. But
the Prince quickly made amends for his rashness. The ruse
by which he and Lannes captured the bridge below Vienna
was discreditable no doubt from the point of view of
morality. It was a direct lie to tell the Austrian commander
that an armistice had been arranged and the bridge ceded
to the French. But the fact remains that Murat saved the
Emperor and the French army from the difficult and costly[33]
operation of crossing the broad Danube in the face of the
Allies. A few days later the Prince’s vanity postponed for
some time the culminating blow, for although he had so
successfully bluffed the enemy, he could not realise that
they could deceive him, and believing their tales of an
armistice, he allowed the Allies to escape from Napoleon’s
clutches at Hollabrünn. At Austerlitz the Prince Marshal
covered himself with glory. In command of the left wing,
ably backed by Lannes, he threw the whole weight of his
cavalry on the Russians, demonstrating to the full the
efficacy of a well-timed succession of charges on broken
infantry, and giving a masterly lesson in the art of re-forming
disorganised horsemen, by the use he made of the
solid ranks of Lannes’ infantry, from behind which he
issued again and again in restored order, to fall on the
shaken ranks of the enemy. At Austerlitz he was at his
best. His old quarrel with Lannes was for the moment
forgotten; his lieutenants, Nansouty, d’Hautpoul, and
Sébastiani, were too far below him to cause him any
jealousy. The action on the left was mainly one of
cavalry, in which quickness of eye and decision were everything,
where a fault could be retrieved by charging in
person at the head of the staff, or by a few fierce words
to a regiment slightly demoralised. Rapidity of action and
a self-confidence which on the battlefield never felt itself
beaten were the cause of Murat’s success.

It was the fixed policy of Napoleon to secure the Rhine
valley, so that never again would it be possible for the
Austrians to threaten France. To gain this end he originated
the Confederation of the Rhine, grouping all the small Rhineland
states in a confederation of which he himself was the
Protector, and binding the rulers of the individual states to
his dynasty, either by marriage or by rewards. As part of
this scheme the Emperor allotted to Murat and Caroline the
duchies of Cleves and Berg, welding them into one province
under the title of the Grand Duchy of Berg. Thus the[34]
Gascon innkeeper’s son became in 1806 Joachim, Prince
and Grand Admiral of France, and Grand Duke of Berg.
He gained this honour not as Murat, the brilliant cavalry
general, but as Prince Joachim, the brother-in-law of the
Emperor Napoleon. The Grand Duke and the Grand
Duchess did not, however, reside long in their capital,
Düsseldorf; they infinitely preferred Paris. In their eyes
Berg was but a stepping-stone to higher things, a source
of profit and a pretext for exalting themselves at the
expense of their neighbours. The Grand Duke entrusted
the interior management of the Duchy to his old friend
Agar, who had served him well in Italy, and who later
became Count of Mosburg. Any prosperity which the
Grand Duke enjoyed was entirely due to the financial
ability of Agar. Murat, however, kept foreign affairs in his
own hands. As Foreign Minister, by simply taking what
he wanted, he added considerably to the extent of his
duchy. But, like all Napoleon’s satellites, he constantly
found his position humiliating, for in spite of his tears and
prayers, he had continually to see his duchy sacrificed to
France. It was no use to complain that Napoleon had
taken away the fortress of Wesel, which had been handed
over to the Grand Duchy by special treaty by the King of
Prussia, for, as Queen Hortense wisely asked him, “Who
had really made that treaty? Who had given him the
duchy, the fortress, and everything?”

In September, 1806, Murat’s second and last visit to
Düsseldorf was brought to an abrupt close by the opening
of the Prussian campaign. On the eve of the battle of Jena
his cavalry covered forty miles and arrived in time to give
the enemy the coup-de-grâce on the following day, driving
them in flight into Weimar. Then followed the famous
pursuit across Prussia, in which Murat captured first-class
fortresses with cavalry regiments, and divisions of infantry
with squadrons of horse, and ended by seizing Blücher and
the whole of the Prussian artillery on the shore of the[35]
Baltic at Lübeck. But though his cavalry had thus wiped
the Prussian army out of existence, the war dragged on,
for, as in 1805, the Russians had entered the field. In
November the Emperor despatched his brother-in-law to
command the French corps which were massing round
Warsaw. The Grand Duke read into this order the idea
that he was destined to become the King of a revived
Poland; accordingly he made a triumphant entry into
Warsaw in a fantastic uniform, red leather boots, tunic of
cloth of gold, sword-belt glittering with diamonds, and
a huge busby of rich fur bedecked with costly plumes.
The Poles greeted him with enthusiasm, and Murat
hastened to write to the Emperor that “the Poles desired
to become a nation under a foreign King, given them by
your Majesty.” While the Grand Duke dreamed of his
Polish crown, the climate defeated the French troops, and
when the Emperor arrived at the front the Prince had to
lay aside his royal aspirations. But in spite of his disappointment
he was still too much of a Frenchman and
a soldier to allow his personal resentment to overcome his
duty to his Emperor, and he continued to hope that by his
daring and success he might still win his Polish crown. At
Eylau he showed his customary bravery and his magnificent
talent as a cavalry leader, when he saved the shattered corps
of Augereau by a successful charge of over twelve thousand
sabres. At the battle of Heilsberg the celebrated light
cavalryman, Lasalle, saved his life, but a few minutes later
the Grand Duke was able to cry quits by himself rescuing
Lasalle from the midst of a Russian charge. Unfortunately
for Murat, the prospective alliance with Russia once and for
all compelled Napoleon to lay aside all thought of reviving
the kingdom of Poland, and when the would-be King
arrived with a Polish guard of honour and his fantastic
uniform, he was met by the biting words of the Emperor:
“Go and put on your proper uniform; you look like a clown.”

After Tilsit the disappointed Grand Duke returned to[36]
Paris, where his equally ambitious wife had been intriguing
with Josephine, Talleyrand and Fouché to get her husband
nominated Napoleon’s successor, in case the accidents of
the campaign should remove the Emperor. But Napoleon
had no intention of dying without issue. Thanks to his
brother-in-law’s generosity, Murat was able to neglect his
half-million subjects in Berg and spend his revenues right
royally in Paris. But early in 1808 his ambition was once
again inflamed by the hope of a crown—not a revived kingship
in Poland, but the ancient sceptre of Spain. Napoleon
had decided that the Pyrenees should no longer exist, and
that Portugal and Spain should become French provinces
ruled by puppets of his own. Junot already held Portugal;
it seemed as if it needed but a vigorous movement to oust
the Bourbons from Madrid. Family quarrels had already
caused a revolution in Spain. Charles had fled the kingdom,
leaving the throne to his son Ferdinand. Both had
appealed to Napoleon; consequently there was a decent
pretext for sending a French army into Spain. On February
25th Murat was despatched at a few hours’ notice, with
orders to take over the supreme command of all the French
corps which were concentrating in Spain, to seize the
fortresses of Pampeluna and St. Sebastian, and to advance
with all speed on Madrid, but he was given no clue as to
what the Emperor’s ulterior object might be. He was
ordered, however, to keep the Emperor daily informed of
the state of public opinion in Spain. Prince Joachim very
soon perceived that King Charles was rejected by everybody,
that the Prime Minister, the Prince of Peace, was
extremely unpopular, and that Ferdinand was weak and
irresolute: it seemed as if he would follow the example of
the King of Portugal, and would flee to the colonies when
the French army approached his capital. The only disquieting
feature of the situation was the constant annihilation
of small parties of French soldiers and the brutal
murder of all stragglers. On March 23rd the French army[37]
entered Madrid. All was tranquil. Meanwhile the ex-King
Charles had retired to Bayonne, and, by the orders of the
Emperor, the Prince of Peace was sent there also, whereupon
King Ferdinand, fearing that Napoleon might take
his father’s part, hurried off to France. At Bayonne both
the claimants to the Spanish throne surrendered their rights
to the Emperor, while at Madrid, Murat, hoping against
hope, played the royal part and kept the inhabitants quiet
with bull-fights and magnificent fêtes. So far the Spaniards,
though restless, were waiting to see whether the French
were friends, as they protested, or in reality stealthy foes.
The crisis came on May 2nd, when the French troops were
compelled to evacuate Madrid on account of the fury of
the populace at the attempted abduction of the little Prince,
Don Francisco. Murat showed to the full his indomitable
courage, fighting fiercely, not only for his Emperor, but
for the crown which he thought was his. Bitter indeed
were his feelings when he received a letter dated that fatal
day, May 2nd, informing him that Joseph was to be King
of Spain, and that he might choose either Portugal or
Naples as his kingdom. In floods of tears he accepted
Naples, but so cruel was the blow that his health gave way,
and instead of hurrying off to his new kingdom he had to
spend the summer drinking the waters at Barèges; his
sensitive Gascon feelings had completely broken down
under the disappointment, and, for the time being, he was
physically and morally a wreck.

Murat was in no hurry to commence his reign, and his
subjects showed no great anxiety to see their new ruler.
But when King Joachim Napoleon, to give him his new
title, arrived at Naples he was received with unexpected
warmth. The new monarch, with his striking personality
and good looks, at once captivated the hearts of his fickle
Southern subjects. Joseph had been prudent and cold,
Joachim was ostentatious and fiery. The Neapolitans had
never really cared for their Bourbon sovereigns. Some[38]
of the noblesse had from interest clung to the old dynasty,
but the greater part of the nobility cared little who ruled
them so long as their privileges were not interfered with.
Among the middle class there was a strong party which
had accepted the doctrines of the French Revolution. The
lower class were idle and lazy, and willing to serve any
sovereign who appealed to them by ostentation. The
people who really held the key of the hearts of the mass
of the population were the clergy. Joseph, with his liberal
ideas, had attempted to free the people from clerical
thraldom. Joachim, however, with his Southern instincts,
refused to deny himself the use of such a powerful lever,
and quickly ingratiated himself with his new subjects.
From the moment that he arrived at Naples the new King
determined, if not to rule Naples for the Neapolitans, at
least, by pretending to do so, to rule Naples for himself and
not for Napoleon. It is not, therefore, surprising that
before the close of the year 1808 friction arose, which
was further increased by the intrigues of Talleyrand and
Fouché. These ministers, firmly convinced that Napoleon
would never return from the Spanish war, had decided that
in the event of his death they would declare Murat his
successor rather than establish a regency for the young son
of Louis Napoleon, the King of Holland.

In pursuance of the plan of winning his subjects’
affections Joachim had at once called to his aid Agar,
who had so successfully managed the finances of the Grand
Duchy of Berg. The difficulties of finance in Naples were
very great, and with Agar the King had to associate the
subtle Corsican, Salicetti, who had so powerfully contributed
to the rise of Napoleon. Taxation in Naples
was heavy, for the Neapolitans had to find the money for
the war with their old dynasty, which was threatening them
from Sicily, aided by the English fleet. To secure the
kingdom against the Sicilians and English, a large
Neapolitan army of thirty thousand troops had to be[39]
maintained along with an auxiliary force of ten thousand
French. Moreover, the Neapolitans had to pay for having
a King like Joachim and a Queen Consort like Caroline.
The royal household alone required 1,395,000 ducats per
annum. To meet this heavy expense the ministers had
to devise all sorts of expedients to raise money. Regular
taxation, monopolies, mortgages, and loans barely sufficed
to provide for the budget. Still the King managed to retain
his popularity, and in his own way attempted to ameliorate
the lot of his subjects. He introduced the Code Napoleon.
He founded a military college, an artillery and engineer
college, a naval college, a civil engineer college and a
polytechnic school. He also instituted primary schools
in every commune, and started an École Normale for
the training of teachers. He expanded the staff of the
University and established an Observatory and Botanical
Garden at Naples. He attempted to conciliate the Neapolitan
noblesse by gradually dismissing his French ministers
and officers and appointing Neapolitan nobles in their place.
At the same time he abolished feudal dues and customs.
He also attempted to develop industries by giving them
protection. Above all, by the strict measures of his
minister Manhes he established peace in the interior by
breaking down the organised system of the freebooters
and robbers. As time went on he found that the clergy
and monks were too heavy a burden for his kingdom
to bear, and, at the expense of his popularity, he had to cut
down the numbers of the dioceses and parishes and abolish
the religious orders.

From the first the new King grasped the fact that his
kingdom would always be heavily taxed, and his throne
insecure as long as the Bourbons, backed by the English,
held Sicily. His plan of campaign, therefore, was to drive
his enemy out of the smaller islands, and thereafter to
demand the aid of French troops and make a determined
effort against Sicily. In October, 1808, by a well-planned[40]
expedition, he captured the island of Capri, and caused the
English commander, Sir Hudson Lowe, to capitulate. It
was not till the autumn of 1810, however, that he was ready
for the great expedition. Relying on the traditional hatred
of the people of Messina for the Bourbons, he collected
a strong force on the Straits, and waited till the moment
when, after a gale, the English fleet had not yet arrived from
the roads of Messina. On the evening of September 17th
he sent away his advance guard of two thousand men in
eighty small boats. Cavaignac, the commander of this
force, secured the important villages of Santo Stefano and
Santo Paolo. But at the critical moment the commander
of the French division, acting according to the Emperor’s
orders, refused to allow his troops to cross. Before fresh
arrangements could be made the English fleet reappeared
on the scene, and Cavaignac and his force were thus
sacrificed for no purpose. Joachim, as time showed, never
forgave the Emperor for the failure of his cherished
plan.

By the commencement of 1812, the coming Russian
campaign overshadowed all other questions. Murat, who
had earnestly begged to be allowed to share the Austrian
campaign of 1809, was delighted to serve in person. But
as King of Naples he refused to send a division of ten
thousand men to reinforce the Grand Army, “as a Frenchman
and a soldier he declared himself to the core a subject
of the Emperor, but as King of Naples he aspired to
perfect independence.” It was this double attitude which,
from the moment Murat became King, clouded the relations
between him and Napoleon. But nevertheless, once
he rejoined the Emperor at Dantzig, he laid aside all
his royal aspirations and became the faithful dashing leader
of cavalry.

During the advance on Moscow the cavalry suffered
terribly from the difficulties of constant reconnaissances and
want of supplies, but in spite of this Murat urged the[41]
Emperor not to halt at Smolensk, but to push on, as he
believed the Russians were becoming demoralised. Scarce
a day passed without some engagement in which the King
of Naples showed his audacity and his talent as a leader.
Notwithstanding, Napoleon, angry at the constant escape
of the Russians, declared that if Murat had only pursued
Bagration in Lithuania he would not have escaped. This
reproach spurred on the King of Naples to even greater
deeds of bravery, and so well was his figure known to the
enemy that the Cossacks constantly greeted him with cries
of “Hurrah, hurrah, Murat!” At the battle of Moskowa
he and Ney completely overthrew the Russians, and if
Napoleon had flung the Guard into the action, the Russian
army would have been annihilated. In spite of the losses
during the campaign, when the French evacuated Moscow
Murat had still ten thousand mounted troops, but by
the time the army had reached the Beresina there remained
only eighteen hundred troopers with horses. When the
Emperor deserted the Grand Army, he left the King of
Naples in command, with orders to rally the army at Vilna.
But Murat saw that it was impossible to re-form the army
there, and accordingly ordered a retirement across the
Niemen, a line which he soon found it was impossible to
hold. On January 10, 1813, came the news that the
Prussians had actually gone over to the enemy. It seemed
as if Napoleon was lost, and Murat thereupon at once
deserted the army, and set out in all haste for Italy,
thinking only of how to save his crown.

The King arrived in Naples bent on maintaining his
crown and on allowing no interference from the Emperor.
But in spite of this he could not decide on any definite line
of action. He was afraid the English and Russians would
invade his country, but on the other hand his old affection
for Napoleon, and a sort of sneaking belief in his ultimate
success, prevented him from listening to the insidious
advice of the Austrian envoy, whom the far-seeing[42]
Metternich had at once sent to Naples. If Napoleon had
not in his despatch glorified Prince Eugène’s conduct to
the disparagement of the King of Naples, if he had only
vouchsafed some reply to the King’s persistent letters of
inquiry whether he still trusted his old comrade and
lieutenant, Murat would have thrown himself heart and soul
into the mêlée on the side of his old friend. But in April
Napoleon quitted Paris for the army in Germany without
sending one line in reply to these imploring letters. Meanwhile
on April 23rd came a letter from Colonel Coffin
suggesting the possibility of effecting an entente between the
English and Neapolitan Governments, or at any rate a commercial
convention. Thereupon Murat sent officers to
enter into negotiations with Lord William Bentinck, who
represented the English Government in Sicily. All through
the summer the negotiations were continued, but Murat, in
spite of the guarantee of the throne of Naples which the
English offered, could not break entirely with his Emperor
and benefactor. Still Napoleon, in his blindness, instead of
attempting to conciliate his brother-in-law, allowed articles to
his disparagement to appear in the Moniteur. Nevertheless
Murat at bottom was Napoleon’s man. Elated by the
Emperor’s success at Lützen and Bautzen, although he
refused to allow the Neapolitan troops to join the Army
of Italy under Prince Eugène, he hurried off in August to
join the French army at Dresden. There a reconciliation
took place between the brothers-in-law. But after the defeat
at Leipzig King Joachim asked and obtained leave to
return to his own dominions.

His presence was needed at home, for in Italy also the
war had gone against the French. Prince Eugène had had
to fall back on the line of the Adda, and the defection of the
Tyrol had opened to the Allies the passes into the Peninsula.
Murat, in his hurry, had to leave his coach snowed up in the
Simplon Pass and proceed on horseback to Milan, where
he halted but a few hours to write a despatch to the Emperor,[43]
which practically foretold his desertion. He declared
that if he, instead of Eugène, was entrusted with the defence
of Italy, he would at once march north from Naples with
forty thousand men. He had indeed never forgotten the
slight put upon him by the article in the Moniteur, after the
Russian campaign, and he was ready to sacrifice even his
kingdom if only he could revenge himself on his enemy,
Eugène. As Napoleon would not grant him this request,
he determined to humiliate Eugène, and, at the same time,
to save his crown by negotiating with the enemy. On
reaching Naples, he found that his wife, who hitherto had
been an unbending partisan of the French, had entirely
changed her politics and was now pledged to an Austrian
alliance. The King was ever unstable, vanity always
governed his conduct: the Queen was always determined,
governed solely by a cold, calculating ambition. Negotiations
were at once opened with the Austrians. The King
protested “that he desired nothing in the world so much
as to make common cause with the allied Powers.” He
promised that he would join them with thirty thousand
troops, on condition that he was guaranteed the throne of
Naples, and that he should have the Roman States in exchange
for Sicily. Meanwhile he addressed an order of the
day to his army, stating that the Neapolitan troops should
only be employed in Italy. This of course did not commit
him either to Napoleon or the Austrian alliance. Meanwhile
the Emperor had despatched Fouché to try to bind
his brother-in-law to France, but that distinguished double-dealer
merely advised the Neapolitan King to move northwards
to the valley of the Po with all his troops, and there
to wait and see whether it would be best to help the French,
or to enter France with the Allies, and perhaps the Tuileries
as Emperor.

Joachim Napoleon quietly occupied Rome and pushed
forward his troops towards the Po, using the French magazines
and depôts, but still negotiating with the Austrians,[44]
and, at the same time, holding out hopes to the purely
Italian party. For the national party of the Risorgimento
were striving hard to seize this opportunity to unite Italy
and drive out the foreigner, and no one seemed more
capable of carrying out their policy than the popular King of
Naples. The Austrians flattered the hopes of “young Italy”
by declaring in their proclamation that they had only
entered Italy to free her from the yoke of the stranger, and
to aid the King of Naples by creating an independent kingdom
of Italy. Still Murat hesitated on the brink. As late
as the 27th of December he wrote to the Emperor proposing
that Italy should be formed into two kingdoms, that he
should govern all the peninsula south of the Po, and that
the rest of the country should be left to Eugène. Three
days later the Austrian envoy arrived with the proposals of
the Allies. But he could not yet make up his mind, and,
moreover, the English had not yet guaranteed him Naples.
In January, however, these guarantees were given, and
against his will he had to sign a treaty. Scarcely was the
writing dry when he began to negotiate with Prince Eugène.
He used every artifice to prevent a collision between the
French and Neapolitan troops. When the campaign opened
his troops abandoned their position at the first shot, while
he himself took good care not to reach the front until the
news of Napoleon’s abdication arrived.

But Murat’s conduct had alienated everybody. The
French loathed him for his duplicity; the Allies suspected
him of treachery, and the party of the Risorgimento looked
on him as the cause of their subjection to the foreigner;
for the Austrian victory had not brought Italy unity and
independence, but had merely established the fetters of the
old régime. During the remainder of 1814 the lot of the
King of Naples was most unenviable. The restored Bourbons
of France and Spain regarded him as the despoiler of
the Bourbon house of Sicily. Russia had been no party to
the guarantee of his kingdom. England desired nothing so[45]
much as his expulsion. Austria alone upheld him, for she
had been the chief party to the treaty; but Metternich was
waiting for him to make some slip which might serve as a
pretext for tearing up that treaty. Even the Pope refused
the bribe which the King offered him when he proposed
to restore the Marches in return for receiving the papal
investiture. In despair Murat once again entered into
negotiations with the Italian party. A general rising was
planned in Lombardy, but failed, as the Austrians received
news of the proposed cession of Milan. With cruel cunning
they spread the report that the King of Naples had sold
the secret. Henceforward Murat had no further hope.
Foreigners, Italians, priests, carbonari and freemasons, all
had turned against him.

Such was the situation when on March 8, 1815, the
King heard that Napoleon had left Elba. As usual he dealt
double. He at once sent a message to England that he
would be faithful, while at the same time he sent agents to
Sicily to try to stir up a revolt against the Bourbons. As
soon as the news of Napoleon’s reception in France arrived,
he set out at the head of forty thousand troops, thinking
that all Italy would rise for him. But the Italians mistrusted
the fickle King; the Austrian troops were already
mobilised, and accordingly, early in May, the Neapolitan
army fled homewards before its enemies. King Joachim’s
popularity was gone. A grant of a constitution roused no
enthusiasm among the people. City after city opened its
gates to the enemy. Resistance was hopeless, so on the night
of May 19th the King of Naples, with a few hundred thousand
francs and his diamonds, accompanied by a handful of
personal friends, fled by sea to Cannes. But the Emperor
refused to receive the turncoat, though at St. Helena he
bitterly repented this action, lamenting “that at Waterloo
Murat might have given us the victory. For what did we
need? To break three or four English squares. Murat was
just the man for the job.” After Waterloo the poor King[46]
fled before the White Terror, and for some time lay hid in
Corsica. There he was given a safe conduct by the Allies
and permission to settle in Austria. But the deposed
monarch could not overcome his vanity. He still believed
himself indispensable to Naples. Some four hundred Corsicans
promised to follow him thither. The filibustering
expedition set out in three small ships on the 28th of September.
A storm arose and scattered the armada, but in
spite of this, on October 7th, the ex-King decided to land at
Pizzo. Dressed in full uniform, amid cries of “Long live
our King Joachim,” the unfortunate man landed with
twenty-six followers. He was at once arrested, and on
October 13th tried by court martial, condemned to death,
and executed a few hours later.

Joachim Murat met his death like a soldier. As he wrote
to his wife, his only regret was that he died far off, without
seeing his children. Death was what he courted when
landing at Pizzo, for he must have known how impossible it
was for him to conquer a kingdom with twenty-six men.
Still, he preferred to die in the attempt to regain his crown
rather than to spend an ignoble old age, a pensioner on the
bounty of his enemies. Murat died as he had lived, brave
but vain, with his last words calling out, “Soldiers, do your
duty: fire at my heart, but spare my face.”

The King of Naples owed his elevation entirely to his
fortunate marriage with the Emperor’s sister; otherwise it
is certain he would never have reached such exalted rank,
for Napoleon really did not like him or trust him, and had
a true knowledge of his ability. “He was a Paladin,” said
the Emperor at St. Helena, “in the field, but in the
Cabinet destitute of either decision or judgment. He loved,
I may rather say, adored me; he was my right arm; but
without me he was nothing. In battle he was perhaps the
bravest man in the world; left to himself, he was an imbecile
without judgment.” Murat was a cavalry leader pure and
simple. His love of horses, his intuitive knowledge of[47]
exactly how much he could ask from his horsemen, his
reckless bravery, his fine swordsmanship, his dashing
manners, captivated the French cavalry and enabled him
to “achieve the impossible.” Contrary to accepted opinion
Napoleon believed “that cavalry, if led by equally brave and
resolute men, must always break infantry.” Consequently
we find that at Austerlitz, Jena, and Eylau, the decisive
stroke of the day was in each case given by immense bodies
of some twenty thousand men under the command of
Murat, whose genius lay in his ability to manœuvre these
huge bodies of cavalry on the field of battle, and in the
tenacity with which he clung to and pursued a beaten
enemy. But this was the sum total of his military ability.
He had no conception of the use of the other arms
of the service, and never gained even the most elementary
knowledge of strategy. When trusted with anything like
the command of a mixed body of troops he proved an utter
failure. Before Ulm he nearly ruined Napoleon’s combination
by failing to get in contact with the enemy. In the
later half of the campaign of 1806 he hopelessly failed to
make any headway against the Russians east of the Vistula.
In the retreat across the Niemen he proved himself absolutely
incapable of reorganising a beaten force. As a king,
Murat was full of good intentions towards his people, but
his extravagance, his vanity, his indecision cost him his
crown. As a man he was generous and extraordinarily
brave. In the Russian campaign he used to challenge
the Cossacks to single combat, and when he had beaten
them he sent them away with some medal or souvenir of
himself. He was a good husband, and lived at peace and
amity with his wife, and was exceedingly fond of his
children. His faults were numerous; he was by nature
intensely jealous, especially of those who came between
him and Napoleon, and he stooped to anything whereby he
might injure his rivals, Lannes and Prince Eugène. His
hot Southern blood led him into numerous quarrels.[48]
Although extremely arrogant, at bottom he was a moral
coward, and before the Emperor’s reproaches he scarcely
dared to open his mouth. But his great fault, through
which he gained and lost his crown, was his vanity.
Vanity, working on ambition and an unstable character,
is the key to all his career. His blatant Jacobinism, his
intrigue with Josephine, his overtures to the Directors,
his underhand treatment of his fellow Marshals, his discontent
with his Grand Duchy, his subtle dealings in
Spain, his system of government in Naples, his opposition
to Napoleon’s schemes, his dissimulation and desertion,
his almost theatrical bravery, and his very death were due
to nothing save extravagant vanity.

[49]

III

ANDRÉ MASSÉNA, MARSHAL, DUKE OF RIVOLI,
PRINCE OF ESSLING

André Masséna, “the wiliest of Italians,” was
born at Nice on May 6, 1758, where his father
and mother carried on a considerable business as
tanners and soap manufacturers. On his father’s death,
when André was still but a small boy, his mother at once
married again. Thereon André and two of his sisters were
adopted by their uncle Augustine, who proposed to give his
nephew a place in his business. But André’s restless,
fiery nature could not brook the idea of a perpetual
monotonous existence in the tanyard and soap factory,
so at the age of thirteen he ran away from home and
shipped as a cabin boy; as such he made several voyages
in the Mediterranean, and on one occasion crossed the
Atlantic to Cayenne. But, in spite of his love of adventure,
the life of a sailor soon began to pall, and on
August 18, 1775, at the age of seventeen, he enlisted in
the Royal Italian regiment in the French service. There
he came under the influence of his uncle Marcel, who
was sergeant-major of the regiment; thanks to his advice
and care he made rapid strides in his profession, and
received a fair education in the regimental school. In
later years the Marshal used to say that no step cost him
so much trouble or gave him such pleasure as his promotion
to corporal; be that as it may, promotion came[50]
rapidly, and with less than two years’ service he became
sergeant on April 15, 1777. For fourteen years Masséna
served in the Royal Italians, but at last he retired in
disgust. Under the regulations a commission was unattainable
for those who were not of noble birth, and
the officers of the regiment had taken a strong dislike
to the sergeant, whom the colonel constantly held up as
an example, telling them, “Your ignorance of drill is
shameful; your inferiors, Masséna, for example, can
manœuvre the battalion far better than any of you.”
On his retirement Masséna lived at Nice. To occupy
his time and earn a living he joined his cousin Bavastro,
and carried on a large smuggling business both by sea
and land; he thus gained that intimate knowledge of the
defiles and passes of the Maritime Alps which stood him
in such good stead in the numerous campaigns of the
revolutionary wars, while the necessity for keeping a watch
on the preventive men and thus concealing his own movements
developed to a great extent his activity, resource,
and daring. So successful were his operations that he soon
found himself in the position to demand the hand of
Mademoiselle Lamarre, daughter of a surgeon, possessed
of a considerable dowry. When the revolutionary wars
broke out the Massénas were established at Antibes, where
they did a fair trade in olive oil and dried fruits; but a
respectable humdrum existence could not satisfy the restless
nature of the ex-sergeant, and in 1791 he applied for a sub-lieutenancy
in the gendarmerie, and it is to be presumed
that, on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief,
he would have made an excellent policeman. It was at
this moment that the invasion of France by the monarchs
of Europe caused all patriotic Frenchmen to obey the
summons to arms. Masséna gladly left his shop to serve
as adjutant of the volunteers of the Var. His military
knowledge, his erect and proud bearing, his keen incisive
speech, and absolute self-confidence in all difficulties soon[51]
dominated his comrades, and it was as lieutenant-colonel
commanding the second battalion that he marched to the
frontier to meet the enemy. Lean and spare, below middle
height, with a highly expressive Italian face, a good mouth,
an aquiline nose, and black sparkling eyes, from the very
first Masséna inspired confidence in all who met him; but
it was not till he was seen in action that the greatness
of his qualities could best be appreciated. As Napoleon
said of him at St. Helena, “Masséna was at his best
and most brilliant in the middle of the fire and disorder
of battle; the roar of the cannon used to clear his ideas,
give him insight, penetration, and gaiety…. In the
middle of the dead and dying, among the hail of bullets
which swept down all around him, Masséna was always
himself giving his orders and making his dispositions with
the greatest calmness and good judgment. There you see
the true nobility of blood.” In the saddle from morning
till night, absolutely insensible to fatigue, ready at any
moment to take the responsibility of his actions, he returned
from the first campaign in the Riviera as major-general.
During the siege of Toulon he commanded the “Camp
de milles fourches,” which included the company of artillery
commanded by Bonaparte, and distinguished himself by
taking the forts of Lartigues and St. Catharine, thus earning
his step as lieutenant-general while his future commander
was still a major in the artillery. In the campaign of 1794
it was Masséna who conceived and carried out the turning
movement which drove the Sardinians from the Col de
Tenda, while Bonaparte’s share in the action merely consisted
of commanding the artillery. As the trusted counsellor
of Dumerbion, Kellermann, and Schérer, for the next
two years, the lieutenant-general was the inspirer of the
successive commanders of the Army of Italy. He it was
who, amid the snow and storms, planned and carried out
the combinations which gained for Schérer the great winter
victory at Loano, and thus first taught the French the[52]
secret, which the English had grasped on the sea and
Napoleon was to perfect on land, of breaking the enemy’s
centre and falling on one wing with overwhelming force.
The campaign of 1796 for the time being altered the current
of Masséna’s military life. Before the young Corsican’s
eagle gaze even the impetuous Italian quailed, and from
being the brain of the officer commanding the army he
had to revert to the position of the right arm and faithful
interpreter of orders. Two things, however, compensated
Masséna for the change of rôle, for Bonaparte gave his
subordinate fighting and glory with a lavish hand, and
above all winked at, nay, rather encouraged, the amassing
of booty; and wealth more even than glory was the desire
of Masséna’s soul.

ANDRÉ MASSÉNA, PRINCE OF ESSLING

At the very commencement of the campaign Masséna
committed a fault which almost ruined his career. After
defeating the enemy’s advance guard near Cairo, hearing by
chance that the Austrian officers had left an excellent dinner
in a neighbouring inn, he and some of his staff left his
division on the top of a high hill and set off to enjoy the
good things prepared for the enemy. At daybreak the
enemy attempted a surprise on the French position on
the hill, and the troops, without their general and staff,
were in great danger. Fortunately, Masséna had time to
make his way through the Austrian skirmishers and resume
his command. He was greeted by hoots and jeers, but
with absolute imperturbability he reorganised his forces
and checked the enemy. But one battalion was isolated on
a spur, from which there seemed no way of escape save
under a scorching flank fire. Masséna made his way alone
to this detached post, scrambling up the steep slope on his
hands and knees, and, when he at last reached the troops,
remembering his old smuggling expedients, he showed
them how to glissade down the steep part of the hill, and
brought them all safely back without a single casualty.
This escapade came to Bonaparte’s ears, and it was only[53]
Masséna’s great share in the victory of Montenotte which
saved him from a court-martial.

Bonaparte, at the commencement of the campaign, had
ended a letter of instructions to his lieutenant with the
words “Watchfulness and bluff, that is the card,” and well
Masséna learned his lesson. Montenotte, the bridge of
Lodi, the long struggle at Castiglione, the two fights at
Rivoli and the marshes of Arcola proved beyond doubt that
of all the young conqueror of Italy’s lieutenants, none had
the insight, activity, and endurance of Masséna. But empty
flattery did not satisfy him, for as early as Lonato, greedy
for renown, he considered his success had not been fully
recognised. In bitter anger he wrote to Bonaparte: “I
complain of your reports of Lonato and Roveredo, in which
you do not render me the justice that I merit. This forgetfulness
tears my heart and throws discouragement on my
soul. I will recall the fact under compulsion that the
victory of Saintes Georges was due to my dispositions, to
my activity, to my sangfroid, and to my prevision.” This
frank republican letter greatly displeased Bonaparte, who,
since Lodi, had cherished visions of a crown, and to realise
this desire had begun to issue his praise and rewards
irrespective of merit, and to appeal to the private soldier
while visiting his displeasure on the officers. But Masséna’s
brilliant conduct at the second battle of Rivoli, for the
moment, blotted out all rancour, for it was Masséna who
had saved the day, who had rushed up to the commander
of the shaken regiment, bitterly upbraiding him and his
officers, showering blows on them with the flat of his
sword, and had then galloped off and brought up two tried
regiments of his own invincible division and driven back
the assailants; from that moment Bonaparte confirmed him
in the title of “the spoilt child of victory.” In 1797
Bonaparte gave his lieutenant a more substantial reward
when he chose him to carry the despatches to Paris which
reported the preliminary treaty of Leoben; thus it was as[54]
the right-hand man of the most distinguished general in
Europe that the Italian saw for the first time the capital of
his adopted country.

In choosing Masséna to carry to Paris the tidings of
peace, it was not only his prestige and renown which
influenced Bonaparte. For Paris was in a state of half
suppressed excitement, and signs were only too evident that
the Directory was unstable; accordingly the wily Corsican,
while despatching secret agents to advance his cause, was
careful to send as the bearer of the good news a man who
was well known to care for no political rewards, and who
would be sure to turn a deaf ear to the insidious schemes of
those who were plotting to restore the monarchy, or to set
up a dictatorship, and were searching for a sovereign or a
Cæsar as their political views suggested. It was for these
reasons and because he was tired of Masséna’s greed and
avarice that Bonaparte refused to admit him among those
chosen to accompany him to Egypt. Masséna saw clearly
all the secret intrigue of the capital, and found little
pleasure in his newly gained dignity of a seat among the
Ancients, for he was extremely afraid of a royalist restoration,
in which case he feared “our honourable wounds
will become the titles for our proscription.”

Tired of Paris, in 1798, he was glad to accept the command
of the French corps occupying Rome when its
former commander, Berthier, was called away to join the
Egyptian expedition. On his arrival at Rome, to take over
his new command, he found himself face to face with a
mutiny. The troops were in rags and badly fed, their pay
was months in arrear, and meanwhile the civil servants of the
Directory were amassing fortunes at the expense of the Pope,
the Cardinals, and the Princes of Rome. Discontent was so
widespread that the new general at once ordered all troops,
save some three thousand, to leave the capital. Unfortunately
Masséna’s record was not such as to inspire confidence
in the purity of his intentions. Instead of obeying,[55]
the officers and men held a mass meeting to draft their
remonstrance to the Directory. In this document they
accused, first of all, the agents who had disgraced the name
of France, and ended by saying, “The final cause of all the
discontent is the arrival of General Masséna. The soldiers
have not forgotten the extortions and robberies he has
committed wherever he has been invested with the command.
The Venetian territory, and above all Padua, is a
district teeming with proofs of his immorality.” In the
face of such public feeling Masséna found nothing for it
but to demand a successor and throw up his command.

But with Bonaparte in Egypt and a ring of enemies
threatening France from all sides, the Directors, whose
hands were as soiled as Masséna’s, could ill spare the
“spoilt child of victory.” Accordingly, early in 1799 the
general found himself invested with the important command
of the Army of Switzerland. This was a task worthy of his
genius and he eagerly accepted the post, but refused to
abide by the stipulations the Directors desired to enforce
on him, as, according to their plan, the Army of Switzerland
was to form part of the Army of the Rhine commanded by
Joubert. Masséna had obeyed Bonaparte, but he had no
intention of playing second fiddle to any other commander,
and, after some stormy interviews and letters, he at last had
his way. As the year advanced it became more and more
evident that on the Army of Switzerland would fall the full
brunt of the attack of the coalition, for Joubert was defeated
by the Archduke Charles at Stockach and thrown back on
the Rhine, Schérer was defeated in Italy at Magnano, and
by June the Russians and Austrians had begun to close in
on Switzerland. It was clear that, if the French army were
driven out of Switzerland, both the Rhine and the Maritime
Alps would be turned, and the enemy would be in a strong
position from which to invade France. On Masséna, therefore,
hung all the hopes of the Directory. Fortunately for
France, the general was admirably versed in mountain warfare.[56]
Well aware of the difficulty of keeping up communication
between the different parts of his line of
defence, Masséna skilfully withdrew his outposts, as the
enemy pressed on, with the intention of concentrating his
troops round Zurich, thereby covering all the possible lines
of advance. But early in the summer his difficulties were
further increased by the rising of the Swiss peasantry;
luckily, however, the Archduke Charles advanced most
cautiously, while the Aulic Council at Vienna, unable to
grasp the vital point of the problem, stupidly sent its reserve
army to Italy to reinforce the Russians under Suvaroff. By
June 5th the Archduke had driven in all the outlying
French columns, and was in a position to attack the lines
of Zurich with his entire force. Thanks, however, to
Masséna’s courage and presence of mind, the attack was
driven off, but so overwhelming were the numbers of the
enemy that during the night the French army evacuated
Zurich, though only to fall back on a strong position on
Mount Albis, a rocky ridge at the north end of the lake,
covered on one flank by the lake and on the other by the
river Aar. The two armies for the time being lay opposite
to each other, too exhausted after the struggle to recommence
operations. The Archduke Charles awaited the
arrival from Italy of Suvaroff, who was to debouch on the
French right by the St. Gothard Pass. But fortune, or
rather the Aulic Council at Vienna, once again intervened
and saved France. The Archduke Charles was ordered to
leave fifty-five thousand Russians under Korsakoff before
Zurich and to march northwards and across the Rhine.
Protests were useless; the Court of Vienna merely ordered
the Archduke to “perform the immediate execution of its
will without further objections.” But even yet disaster
threatened the French, for Suvaroff was commencing his
advance by the St. Gothard. But Masséna at once
grasped the opportunity fortune had placed in his power
by opposing him to a commander like Korsakoff, who was[57]
so impressed by his own pride that he considered a Russian
company equal to an Austrian battalion. On September
26th, by a masterly series of manœuvres, the main French
force surprised Korsakoff and drove him in rout out of
Zurich. Suvaroff arrived just in time to find Masséna in
victorious array thrust in between himself and his countrymen,
and was forced to save himself by a hurried retreat
through the most difficult passes of the Alps.

The campaign of Zurich will always be studied as a
masterpiece in defensive warfare. The skilful use the
French general made of the mountain passes, the methods
he employed to check the Archduke’s advance on Zurich,
the care with which he kept up communications between
his different columns, the skilful choice of the positions of
Zurich and Mount Albis, his return to the initiative on
every opportunity, and his masterly interposition between
Korsakoff and Suvaroff, alone entitle him to a high place
among the great commanders of history, and Masséna was
rightly thanked by the legislature and hailed as the saviour
of the country.

Six weeks after the victory of Zurich came the 18th
Brumaire, and Napoleon’s accession to the consulate.
Masséna, a staunch republican, was conscious of the defects
of the Directory, but could not give his hearty consent to
the coup d’état, for he feared for the liberty of his country.
Still, he said, if France desired to entrust her independence
and glory to one man she could choose none better than
Bonaparte. The latter, on his side, was anxious to retain
Masséna’s affections, and at once offered him the command
of the Army of Italy. But the conqueror of Zurich foresaw
that everything was to be sacrificed to the glory of the First
Consul, and it was only after great persuasion, profuse
promises, and appeals to his patriotism that he undertook
the command, with the stipulation that “I will not take
command of an army condemned to rest on the defensive.
My former services and successes do not permit me to[58]
change the rôle that I have heretofore played in the wars
of the Republic.” The First Consul replied by giving
Masséna carte blanche to requisition whatever he wanted,
and promised him that the Army of Italy should be his first
care. But when Masséna arrived at Genoa he discovered,
as he had suspected, that Bonaparte’s promises were only
made to be broken; for he found the troops entrusted to
his care the mere shadow of an army, the hospitals full,
bands of soldiers, even whole battalions, quitting their posts
and trying to escape into France, and the officers and
generals absolutely unable to contend with the mass of
misery and want. In spite of his able lieutenants, Soult
and Suchet, he could make no head against the Austrians
in the field, and after some gallant engagements was driven
back into Genoa, where, for two months, he held out against
famine and the assaults of the enemy. While the wretched
inhabitants starved, the troops were fed on “a miserable
ration of a quarter of a pound of horse-flesh and a quarter
of a pound of what was called bread—a horrible compound
of damaged flour, sawdust, starch, hair-powder, oatmeal,
linseed, rancid nuts, and other nasty substances, to which
a little solidity was given by the admixture of a small
portion of cocoa. Each loaf, moreover, was held together
by little bits of wood, without which it would have fallen to
powder.” A revolt, threatened by the inhabitants, was
checked by Masséna’s order that an assemblage of over
five persons should be fired on, and the approaches to the
principal streets were commanded by guns. Still he
refused to surrender, as every day he expected to hear
the cannon of the First Consul’s army thundering on the
Austrian rear. One day the hopes of all were aroused by a
distant roar in the mountains, only to be dashed by finding
it to be thunder. It was simply the ascendancy of Masséna’s
personality which prolonged the agony and upheld his
authority, and in bitter earnestness the soldiers used to say,
“He will make us eat his boots before he will surrender.”[59]
At last the accumulated horrors shook even his firm spirit,
and on June 4th a capitulation was agreed on. The terms
were most favourable to the French; but, as Lord Keith,
the English admiral, said, “General, your defence has been
so heroic that we can refuse you nothing.” However, the
sufferings of Genoa were not in vain, for Masséna had
played his part and held the main Austrian force in check
for ten days longer than had been demanded of him; thus
the First Consul had time to fall on the enemies’ line of
communication, and it may be truly said that without the
siege of Genoa there could have been no Marengo.
Masséna had once again demonstrated the importance of
the individual in war; as Bonaparte wrote to him during the
siege, “In such a situation as you are, a man like you
is worth twenty thousand men.” In spite of this, at St.
Helena, the Emperor, ever jealous of his own glory, affected
to despise Masséna’s generalship and endurance at Genoa,
and blamed him for not taking the offensive in the field,
forgetting the state of his army and the paucity of his
troops. But at the moment he showed his appreciation
of his services by giving him the command of the army
when he himself retired to Paris after the victory of
Marengo. Unfortunately Masséna’s avarice and greed were
unable to withstand the temptations of the position, and the
First Consul had very soon to recall him from Italy and
mark his displeasure by placing him on half-pay.

For two years the disgraced general brooded over his
wrongs in retirement, and showed his attitude of mind
by voting against the Consulate for life and the establishment
of the Empire. The gift of a Marshal’s bâton did
little to reconcile him to the Emperor, for, as he scoffingly
replied to Thiebault’s congratulations, “Oh, there are fourteen
of us.” So uncertain was the Emperor of his Marshal’s
disposition that, on the outbreak of the war with Austria,
Masséna alone of all the greater Marshals held no command.
But with the prospect of heavy fighting in Italy the Emperor[60]
could not afford to entrust the Italian divisions to a
blunderer, and he once again posted Masséna to his old
command. The Austrians had occupied the strong position
of Caldiero, near the marshes of Arcola, and the French in
vain attempted to force them from it, but the success of the
Emperor on the Danube at last compelled the Archduke
John to fall back on Austria. The Marshal at once commenced
a spirited pursuit, and ultimately joined hands with
the Grand Army, south of the Danube.

After the treaty of Pressburg Napoleon despatched
Masséna to conquer Naples, which he had given as a
kingdom to his brother Joseph. With fifty thousand men
the Marshal swept through Italy. In vain the gallant Queen
Caroline armed the lazzaroni; Capua opened its gates,
Gaeta fell after twelve days’ bombardment, and Joseph
entered Naples in triumph. Calabria alone offered a stern
resistance, and this resistance the French brought upon
themselves by their cruelty to the peasantry, whom they
treated as brigands. Unfortunately his success in Naples
was once again tarnished by his greed, for the Marshal,
by selling licences to merchants and conniving at their
escape from the custom-house dues, amassed, within a few
months of his entering Naples, a sum of three million
francs. Napoleon heard of this from his spies, and, writing
to him, demanded a loan of a million francs. The Duke of
Rivoli replied that he was the poorest of the Marshals, and
had a numerous family to maintain and was heavily in debt,
so he regretted that he could send him nothing. Unfortunately,
the Emperor knew where he banked in Leghorn,
and as he refused to disgorge a third of his illicit profits, the
Emperor sent the inspector of the French Treasury and
a police commissary to the bank, and demanded that the
three millions, which lay at his account there, should be
handed over. The seizure was made in legal form; the
banker, who lost nothing, was bound to comply with it.
Masséna, on hearing of this misfortune, was so furious that[61]
he fell ill, but he did not dare to remonstrate, knowing that
he was in the wrong, but he never forgave the Emperor:
his titles and a pension never consoled him for what he lost
at Leghorn, and, in spite of his cautious habits, he was
sometimes heard to say, “I was fighting in his service and
he was cruel enough to take away my little savings which I
had invested at Leghorn.”

From what he called a military promenade in Italy the
Marshal was summoned early in 1807 to the Grand Army in
Poland, and was present in command of one of the army
corps at Pultusk, Ostralenka, and Friedland. In 1808 he
received his title of Duke of Rivoli and a pension of three
hundred thousand francs per annum, but in spite of this he
absented himself from the court. When Joseph was given
the crown of Spain he requested his brother to send
Masséna to aid him in his new sphere, but the Emperor,
full of mistrust, refused, while the Marshal himself had no
great desire to serve in Spain. When it was clear that
Austria was going to seize the occasion of the Spanish War
once again to fight France, Napoleon hastened to send the
veteran Duke of Rivoli to the army on the Danube. At
Abensberg and Eckmühl, for the first time since 1797, he
fought under the eye of Napoleon himself. “Activité,
activité, vitesse,” wrote the Emperor, and well his lieutenant
carried out his orders. Following up the Five Days’
Fighting, Masséna led the advance guard to Vienna, and
commanded the left wing at Aspern-Essling. Standing
in the churchyard at Aspern, with the boughs swept down
by grapeshot crashing round him, he was in his element;
never had his tenacity, his resource, and skill been seen to
such advantage. But in spite of his skill and the courage
of his troops, at the end of the first day’s fighting his
shattered forces were driven out of the heap of smoking
ruins which marked all that remained of Aspern. On the
morning of the second day he had regained half of the
village when news came that the bridge was broken, and[62]
that he was to hold off the Austrians while communication
with the Isle of Lobau was being established. The enemy,
invigorated by the news of the success of their plan for
breaking the bridges, strained every nerve to annihilate the
French force on the left bank of the river, but Masséna,
Lannes, and Napoleon worked marvels with their exhausted
troops. The Duke of Rivoli seemed ubiquitous: at one
moment on horseback and at another on foot with drawn
sword, wherever the enemy pressed he was there animating
his troops, directing their fire, hurrying up supports; thus,
thanks to his exertions, the Austrians were held off, the
cavalry and the artillery safely crossed the bridge, and the
veteran Marshal at midnight brought the last of the rear-guard
safely to the Isle of Lobau, where, exhausted by
fatigue, the troops fell asleep in their ranks.

The death of Lannes threw Napoleon back on the Duke
of Rivoli, who for the time became his confidant and right-hand
man. It was Masséna who commanded at Lobau
and made all the arrangements for the crossing before
Wagram. The Emperor and his lieutenant were indefatigable
in the care with which they made their preparations.
On one occasion, wishing to inspect the
Austrian position, dressed in sergeants’ greatcoats, attended
by a single aide-de-camp in the kit of a private,
they went alone up the north bank of the island and took
their coats off as if they wanted to bathe. The Austrian
sentinels, seeing, as they thought, two French soldiers
enjoying a wash, took no notice of them, and thus the
Emperor and the Marshal were able to determine the
exact spot for launching the bridges. On another occasion,
while they were riding round the island, the Marshal’s
horse put its foot into a hole and fell, and injured the
rider’s leg so that he could not mount again. This unfortunate
accident happened a few days before the battle of
Wagram, so the Duke of Rivoli went into battle lying in a
light calèche, drawn by four white horses, with his doctor[63]
beside him changing the compresses on his injured leg
every two hours. During the battle Masséna’s corps
formed the left of the line. While Davout was carrying
out his great turning movement, it was the Duke of Rivoli
who had to endure the full fury of the Austrians’ attack.
In the pursuit after the battle he pressed the enemy with
his wonted activity. At the last encounter at Znaim he
had a narrow escape, for hardly had he got out of his
carriage when a cannon-ball struck it, and a moment later
another shot killed one of the horses.

After the treaty of Vienna the Marshal, newly created
Prince of Essling, retired to rest at his country house at
Rueil, but the Emperor could not spare him long. In
April, 1810, within eight months, he was once again
hurried off on active service, this time to Spain, where
Soult had been driven out of Portugal by Sir Arthur
Wellesley, and Jourdan and Joseph defeated at Talavera.
The Emperor promised the Prince of Essling ninety
thousand troops for the invasion of Portugal, and placed
under his command Junot and Ney. The Marshal did his
best to refuse the post; he knew the difficult character of
Ney and the jealousy of Junot, and he pointed out that it
would be better to reorganise the army of Portugal under
generals appointed by himself. Berthier replied that “the
orders of the Emperor were positive, and left no point
in dispute. When the Emperor delegated his authority
obedience became a duty; however great might be the
pride of the Dukes of Elchingen and Abrantès, they had
enough justice to understand that their swords were not
in the same line as the sword of the conqueror of Zurich.”
Still, the Prince foresaw the future, and appealed to the
Emperor himself, but the Emperor was obdurate. “You
are out of humour to-day, my dear Masséna. You see
everything black, yourself and your surroundings. To
listen to you one would think you were half dead. Your
age? A good reason! How much older are you now[64]
than at Essling? Your health? Does not imagination
play a great part in your weakness? Are you worse
than at Wagram? It is rheumatism that is troubling
you. The climate of Portugal is as warm and healthy as
Italy, and will put you on your legs…. Set out then with
confidence. Be prudent and firm, and the obstacles you
fear will fade away; you have surmounted many worse.”
Unfortunately for the Marshal, his forebodings were truer
than the Emperor’s optimism. On arriving at Salamanca
his troubles began. Delays were inevitable before he could
bring into order his unruly team. Junot and Ney were
openly contemptuous, Regnier hung back, and was three
weeks late in his arrangements. Meanwhile, all that
Masséna saw of the enemy, whom the Emperor had in
past years stigmatised as the “slow and clumsy English,”
confirmed him in his opinion that the campaign was going
to prove the most arduous he had ever undertaken.

In spite of everything, operations opened brilliantly for
the French. Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida fell without the
English commander making any apparent effort to relieve
them. On September 16th the invasion of Portugal commenced.
But losses, disease, and garrison duty had
already reduced his troops to some seventy thousand
men, and the French found “an enemy behind every
stone”; while, as the Prince of Essling wrote, “We are
marching across a desert; women, children, and old men
have all fled; in fact, no guide is to be found anywhere.”
Still the English fell back before him, and he was under the
impression that they were going to evacuate Portugal without
a blow, although he grasped the fact that it was the
immense superiority of the French cavalry which had prevented
the “sepoy general” making any effort to relieve
the fortresses. But on September 26th Masséna found
that the English had stayed their retreat, and were waiting
to fight him on the rocky ridge of Busaco. Unfortunately
for his reputation, he made no reconnaissance of[65]
the position, and, trusting entirely to the reports of Ney,
Regnier, and Junot, who asserted the position was much
less formidable than it looked, sustained a heavy reverse.
After the battle his lieutenants urged him to abandon the
invasion of Portugal; but the veteran refused such
timorous advice, and, rousing himself, soon showed the
energy which had made his name so famous at Zurich
and Rivoli. Turning the position, the French swept
down on Portugal, while the English hurriedly fell back
before them. What caused Masséna most anxiety was
the ominous desertion of the countryside. He was well
aware of the bitter hatred of the Portuguese, and knew
that his soldiers tortured and hung the wretched inhabitants
to force them to reveal hidden stores of provisions,
but it was not until October 10th, when the French had
arrived within a few miles of the lines of Torres Vedras,
that he learned of the vast entrenched camp which the
English commander had so secretly prepared for his army
and the inhabitants of Portugal. Masséna was furious, and
covered with accusations the Portuguese officers on his
staff. “Que diable,” he cried, “Wellington n’a pas construit
des montagnes.” But there had been no treachery,
only so well had the secret been kept that hardly even an
officer in the English army knew of the existence of the
work, and as Wellington wrote to the minister at Lisbon
on October 6th, “I believe that you and the Government do
not know where the lines are.” For six weeks the indomitable
Marshal lay in front of the position, hoping
to tempt the English to attack his army, now reduced to
sixty thousand men. But Wellington, who had planned
this victorious reply to the axiom that war ought to feed
war, grimly sat behind his lines, while the English army,
well fed from the sea, watched the French writhe in the
toils of hunger. Masséna was now roused, and as his
opponent wrote, “It is certainly astonishing that the
enemy have been able to remain in this country so[66]
long…. It is an extraordinary instance of what a
French army can do.” At last even Masséna had to
confess himself beaten and fall back on Santarem. The
winter passed in a fruitless endeavour on the part of the
Emperor and the Marshal to force Soult, d’Erlon, and
Regnier to co-operate for an advance on Lisbon by the
left bank of the Tagus. Meanwhile, in spite of every
effort, the French army dwindled owing to disease, desertion,
and unending fatigue. So dangerous was the country
that a despatch could not be sent along the lines of communication
without an escort of three hundred men. The
whole countryside had been so swept bare of provisions
that a Portuguese spy wrote to Wellington saying, “Heaven
forgive me if I wrong them in believing they have eaten
my cat.”

By March, 1811, it became clear that the French could
no longer maintain themselves at Santarem; but so skilful
were Masséna’s dispositions that it was three days before
Wellington realised that at last the enemy had commenced
their retreat. Never had the genius of the Marshal stood
higher than in this difficult retirement from Portugal.
With his army decimated by hunger and disease, with
the victorious enemy always hanging on his heels, with
his subordinates in open revolt, and a Marshal of France
refusing to obey orders in the face of the enemy, he lost
not a single gun, baggage-wagon or invalid. Still, the
morale of his army was greatly shaken; as he himself
wrote, “It is sufficient for the enemy to show the heads
of a few columns in order to intimidate the officers and
make them loudly declare that the whole of Wellington’s
army is in sight.” When the Marshal at last placed his
wearied troops behind the fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo
and Almeida, he found his difficulties by no means at
an end. The Emperor, who “judged men only by results,”
wrote him a letter full of thinly-veiled criticism of his
operations, while he found that the country round the[67]
fortresses was now included in the command of the
northern army under Bessières. Accordingly he had to
apply to that Marshal for leave to revictual and equip
his troops. Meanwhile Wellington proceeded to besiege
Almeida.

By the end of April, after a vigorous correspondence
with Bessières, Masséna had at last reorganised his army
and was once again ready to take the field against the
English. Reinforced by fifteen hundred cavalry of the
Guard under Bessières, at Fuentes d’Onoro he surprised
the English forces covering the siege of Almeida; after
a careful reconnaissance at dawn on May 5th he attacked
and defeated the English right, and had it not been for
the action of Bessières, who spoiled his combination by
refusing to allow the Guard to charge save by his orders,
the English would have been totally defeated. Masséna
wished at all hazards to continue the fight on the morrow,
but his principal officers were strongly opposed to it.
Overborne by their counsels, after lying in front of the
position for three days he withdrew to Ciudad Rodrigo.
It was through no fault of his that he was beaten at
Fuentes d’Onoro; Wellington himself confessed how
closely he had been pressed when he wrote: “Lord Liverpool
was quite right not to move thanks for the battle
of Fuentes, though it was the most difficult I was ever
concerned in and against the greatest odds. We had
nearly three to one against us engaged: above four to
one of cavalry: and moreover our cavalry had not a
gallop in them, while some of that of the enemy were
quite fresh and in excellent order. If Bony had been
there we should have been beaten.”

Soon after the battle Masséna was superseded by
Marmont, and retired to Paris. The meeting with the
Emperor was stormy. “Well, Prince of Essling,” said
Napoleon, “are you no longer Masséna?” Explanations
followed, and the Emperor at last promised that once[68]
again he should have an opportunity of regaining his
glory in Spain. But Fate willed otherwise. After Salamanca,
when Marmont was recalled, Masséna set out
again for Spain, only to fall ill at Bayonne and to
return home and try to restore his shattered health at
Nice. In 1813 and 1814 he commanded the eighth military
district, composed of the Rhône Valley, but he was getting
too old to take strenuous measures and was glad to make
submission to the Bourbons.

Very cruelly the new Government placed an affront
on the Marshal by refusing to create him a peer of
France under the plea that he was an Italian and a
foreigner, but in spite of this the Prince remained faithful
during the first part of the Hundred Days, and only went
over to Napoleon when he found that the capital and
army had recognised the Emperor. At Paris the Emperor
greeted him with “Well, Masséna, did you wish to serve
as lieutenant to the Duke of Angoulême and fight me …
would you have hurled me back into the sea if I had given
you time to assemble your forces?” The old warrior
replied: “Yes, Sire, inasmuch as I believed that you were
not recalled by the majority of Frenchmen.” Ill-health
prevented the Marshal from actively serving the Emperor.
But during the interval between Napoleon’s abdication and
the second restoration it fell to the Marshal’s lot to keep
order in Paris as Governor and Commander of the National
Guard. The new Government, to punish him for the aid he
had given to the Emperor, nominated him one of the judges
of Marshal Ney. This was the last occasion the Prince of
Essling appeared in public. Suspected as a traitor by the
authorities, weighed down by the horror of Ney’s death
and the assassination of his old friend Brune, and racked
by disease, after a lingering painful illness the conqueror of
Zurich breathed his last at the age of fifty-nine on April 4,
1817. Even then the ultra royalists could not conceal their
hatred of him. The War Minister, Clarke, Duke of Feltre,[69]
his old comrade, now turned furious legitimist, had hitherto
withheld the Marshal’s new bâton, and it was only the threat
of Masséna’s son-in-law, Reille, to place on the coffin the
bâton the Marshal had received from the Emperor which
at last forced the Government to send the emblem.

Great soldier as he was, Masséna’s escutcheon was
stained by many a blot. His avarice was disgusting
beyond words, and with avarice went a tendency to
underhand dealing, harshness, and malice. During the
Wagram campaign the Marshal’s coachman and footman
drove him day by day in a carriage through all the heat
of the fighting. The Emperor complimented these brave
men and said that of all the hundred and thirty thousand
men engaged they were the bravest. Masséna, after this,
felt bound to give them some reward, and said to one of
his staff that he was going to give them each four hundred
francs. The staff officer replied that a pension of four
hundred francs would save them from want in their old
age. The Marshal, in a fury, turned on his aide-de-camp,
exclaiming, “Wretch, do you want to ruin me? What, an
annuity of four hundred francs! No, no, no, four hundred
francs once and for all”; adding to his staff, “I would
sooner see you all shot and get a bullet through my arm
than bind myself to give an annuity of four hundred francs
to any one.” The Marshal never forgave the aide-de-camp
who had thus urged him to spend his money. His harshness
was also well known, and the excesses of the French
troops in Switzerland, Naples, and Portugal were greatly
owing to his callousness; in the campaign in Portugal he
actually allowed detachments of soldiers to set out with the
express intention of capturing all girls between twelve and
twenty for the use of his men. But while oblivious to the
sufferings of others, as a father he was affectionate and
indulgent. As he said after Wagram of his son Prosper,
“That young scamp has given me more trouble than a whole
army corps;” so careful was he of his safety that he refused[70]
during the second day of the battle to allow him to take his
turn among the other aides-de-camp; but the young
Masséna was too spirited to endure this, and Napoleon,
hearing of the occurrence, severely reprimanded the
Marshal. Staunch republican by profession, blustering
and outspoken at times, he was at bottom a true Italian,
and knew well how to use the delicate art of flattery.
Writing in 1805 to the Minister of War, he thus ends a
despatch: “I made my first campaign with His Majesty,
and it was under his orders that I learned what I know of
the trade of arms. We were together in the Army of Italy.”
Again, when at Fontainebleau he had the misfortune to
lose an eye when out pheasant shooting, he attacked Berthier
as the culprit, although he knew full well that the Emperor
was the only person who had fired a shot.

But in spite of all this meanness and his many defects, he
must always be remembered as one of the great soldiers
of France, a name at all times to conjure with. Both
Napoleon and Wellington have paid their tribute to his
talents. At St. Helena the fallen Emperor said that of all
his generals the Prince of Essling “was the first,” and the
Duke, speaking to Lord Ros of the French commanders,
said, “Masséna gave me more trouble than any of them,
because when I expected to find him weak, he generally
contrived somehow that I should find him strong.” The
Marshal was a born soldier. War was with him an inspiration;
being all but illiterate, he never studied it theoretically,
but, as one of his detractors admits, “He was a
born general: his courage and tenacity did the rest. In
the best days of his military career he saw accurately,
decided promptly, and never let himself be cast down by
reverses.” It was owing to this obstinacy combined with
clear vision that his great successes were gained, and the
dogged determination he showed at Zurich, Loano, Rivoli
and Genoa was no whit impaired by success or by old
age, as he proved at Essling, Wagram, and before the lines[71]
of Torres Vedras. Like his great commander, none knew
better than the Prince of Essling that fortune must be
wooed, and, as Napoleon wrote to him, “It is not to you,
my dear general, that I need to recommend the employment
of audacity.” In spite of his ill success in his last
campaign, to the end the Prince of Essling worthily
upheld his title of “The spoilt child of victory.”

[72]

IV

JEAN BAPTISTE JULES BERNADOTTE, MARSHAL,
PRINCE OF PONTE CORVO, KING OF SWEDEN

Gascony has ever been the mother of ambitious
men, and many a ruler has she supplied to
France. But in 1789 few Gascons even would
have believed that ere twenty years had passed one Gascon
would be sitting on the Bourbon throne of Naples and
a second would be Crown Prince of Sweden, the adopted
son of the House of Vasa.

Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, the son of a petty lawyer, was
born at Pau on January 26, 1763. At the age of seventeen
he enlisted in the Royal Marine regiment and passed the
next nine years of his life in garrison towns in Corsica,
Dauphiné and Provence. His first notable exploit occurred
in 1788, when, as sergeant, he commanded a section of the
Marines whose duty it was to maintain order at Grenoble
during the troubles which preceded the outbreak of the
Revolution. The story goes that Bernadotte was responsible
for the first shedding of blood. One day, when the
mob was threatening to get out of hand, a woman rushed
out of the crowd and caught the sergeant a cuff on the
face, whereon the fiery Gascon ordered his men to open
fire. In a moment the answer came in a shower of
bricks. Blood had been shed, and from that moment
the people of France declared war to the death on the
old régime. Impetuous, generous, warm-hearted and ambitious,[73]
for the next three years Jean Baptiste pursued a
policy which is typical of his whole career. Ready when
at white heat of passion to take the most extreme measures,
even to fire on the crowd, in calmer moments full of
enthusiasm for the Rights of Man and the well-being of
his fellows; spending long hours haranguing his comrades
on the iniquity of kingship and the necessity of taking up
arms against all of noble birth, yet standing firm by his
colonel, because in former days he had done him a kindness,
and saving his officers from the mutineers who were
threatening to hang them; watching every opportunity to
push his own fortunes, Bernadotte pursued his way towards
success. Promotion came rapidly: colonel in 1792, the
next year general of brigade, and a few months later
general of division, he owed his advancement to the way
in which he handled his men. Naturally great neither as
tactician or as strategist, he could carry out the orders
of others and above all impart his fiery nature to his
troops; his success on the battlefield was due to his
personal magnetism, whereby he inspired others with his
own self-confidence. But with all this self-confidence there
was blended in his character a curious strain of hesitation.
Again and again during his career he let “I dare not”
wait upon “I would.” Gascon to the backbone, full of
craft and wile, with an eye ever on the future, at times
he allowed his restless imagination to conjure up dangers
instead of forcing it to show him the means to gain his end.
When offered the post of general of brigade, and again
when appointed general of division, he refused the step
because he had divined that Jacobin would persecute Girondist,
that ultra-Jacobin would overthrow Jacobin, and
that a reaction would sweep away the Revolutionists, and
he feared that the generals of the army might share the fate
of those who appointed them. After his magnificent attack
at Fleurus, he was at last compelled to accept promotion by
Kléber, who rode up to him and cried out, “You must[74]
accept the grade of general of brigade here on the field
of battle, where you have so truly earned it. If you refuse
you are no friend of mine.” Thereon Bernadotte accepted
the post, considering that he could, if necessary, prove that
he had not received it as a political favour. The years
1794-6 saw Bernadotte on continuous active service with
the Army of the Sambre and Meuse, now in the Rhine
valley, now in the valley of the Danube. Every engagement
from Fleurus to Altenkirchen added more and more
to his reputation with the authorities and to his hold on
the affection of his men. “He is the God of armies,” cried
his soldiers, as they followed him into the fire-swept zone.
His courage, personality and physical beauty captivated all
who approached him. Tall, erect, with masses of coal black
hair, the great hooked nose of a falcon, and dark flashing
eyes indicating Moorish blood in his veins, he could crush
the soul out of an incipient revolt with a torrent of cutting
words, and in a moment turn the mutineers into the most
loyal and devoted of soldiers. During the long revolutionary
wars he always kept before him the necessity of
preparing for peace, and found time to educate himself in
history and political science. It was with the reputation of
being one of the best divisional officers of the Army of
the Sambre and Meuse, and a political power of no small
importance, that, at the end of 1796, Bernadotte was transferred
with his division to the Army of Italy, commanded by
Bonaparte. From their very first meeting friction arose.
They were like Cæsar and Pompey, “the one would have
no superior, the other would endure no equal.” Bonaparte
already foresaw the day when France should lie at his
feet; he instinctively divined in Bernadotte a possible rival.
Bernadotte, accustomed to the adulation of all with whom
he came in contact, felt the loss of it in his new command,
where soldiers and officers alike could think and
speak of nobody save the conqueror of Italy. Yet neither
could afford to break with the other, neither could as yet[75]
foretell what the future would bring forth, so amid an occasional
flourish of compliments, a secret and vindictive
war was waged between the two. As commander-in-chief,
Bonaparte, for the time being, held the whip hand and
could show his dislike by severe reprimands. “Wherever
your division goes, there is nothing but complaints of its
want of discipline.” Bernadotte, on his side, anxious to win
renown, would appeal to the “esprit” of his soldiers of the
Sambre and Meuse, and would spoil Bonaparte’s careful
combinations by attempting a frontal attack before the
turning movement was effected by the Italian divisions.
By the end of the campaign it was clear to everybody
that there was no love lost between the two. After Leoben
Bonaparte was for the moment the supreme figure in
France. As plenipotentiary at Leoben and commander-in-chief
of “the Army of England” he could impose his will
on the Directory. Bernadotte, in disgust at seeing the success
of his rival, for some time seriously considered withdrawing
from public life, or at any rate from France, where
his reputation was thus overshadowed. Among various
posts, the Directory offered him the command of the Army
of Italy, but he refused them all, till at last he consented to
accept that of ambassador at Vienna. Vienna was for the
time being the pole round which the whole of European
politics revolved, and accordingly there was great possibility
there of achieving diplomatic renown. But scarcely had
the new ambassador arrived at his destination when he
heard of Bonaparte’s projected expedition to Egypt. He
at once determined to return to France. He felt that his
return ought to be marked by something which might
appeal to the populace. Accordingly he adopted a device
at once simple and effective.

JEAN BAPTISTE BERNADOTTE, KING OF SWEDEN
FROM AN ENGRAVING AFTER THE PAINTING BY HILAIRE LE DRU

Jacobin at heart when his interest did not clash with his
principles, he had from his arrival at Vienna determined
to show the princes and dignitaries of an effete civilisation
that Frenchmen were proud of their Revolution and believed[76]
in nothing but the equality of all men; he refused to conform
to court regulations and turned his house into a club
for the German revolutionists. His attitude was of course
resented, and there was considerable feeling in Vienna
against the French Embassy. It only required, therefore,
a little more bravado and a display of the tricolour on the
balcony of the Embassy to induce the mob to attack the
house. Immediately this occurred Bernadotte lodged a
complaint, threw up his appointment, and withdrew to
France as a protest against this “scoundrelly” attack on
the honour of his country and the doctrine of the equality
of men.

On his arrival at Paris he found the Directory shaken to
its foundation. Sièyes, the inveterate constitution-monger,
who saw the necessity of “a man with a head and a
sword,” greeted him joyfully; the banishment of Pichegru,
the death of Hoche, the disgrace of Moreau, and the absence
of Bonaparte had left Bernadotte for the moment the most
important of the political soldiers of the Revolution. Acting
on Sièyes’s advice, Bernadotte refused all posts offered him
either in the army or in the Government and awaited developments.
Meanwhile he became very intimate with
Joseph Bonaparte, who introduced him to his sister-in-law,
Désiré Clary. The Clarys were merchants of Marseilles,
and Désiré had for some time been engaged to Napoleon
Bonaparte, who had jilted her on meeting Josephine.
Désiré, very bitter at this treatment, accepted Bernadotte,
as she said in later life, “because I was told that he was
a man who could hold his own against Napoleon.” This
marriage was a master-stroke of policy; it at once gave
Bernadotte the support of the Bonaparte family, for Bonaparte
in his way was still fond of Désiré, and at the same
time it gave Bernadotte a partner who at bottom hated
Napoleon with a rancour equal to his own. After the
disasters in Italy and on the Danube, on July 2, 1799,
Bernadotte, thinking the time was come, accepted the post[77]
of Minister of War. He speedily put in the field a new
army of one hundred thousand men, and by his admirable
measures for the instruction of conscripts and for the
collection of war material he was in no small way responsible,
not only for Masséna’s victory of Zurich, but, as
Napoleon himself confessed, for the triumph of Marengo.

His term of office, however, was short, for his colleagues
intrigued against him. Sièyes desired a man who would
overthrow the Directory and establish a dictatorship:
Barras was coquetting with the Bourbons. Bernadotte
himself talked loudly of the safety of the Republic, but
had not the courage to jump with Sièyes or to crouch with
Barras. Oppressed by doubt, his imagination paralysed his
action, and his personality, which only blazed when in
movement, became dull. Still trusting his reputation and
thinking that he was indispensable to the Directory, he
tendered his resignation, hoping thus to check the intrigues
of Sièyes and Barras. To his surprise it was at once
accepted, and he found himself a mere nonentity.

On September 14th Bernadotte resigned, on October 9th
Napoleon landed at Fréjus. During the Revolution of the
18th Brumaire Bernadotte remained in the background.
Desiring the safety of France by the reorganisation of
the Directory, hating the idea of a dictatorship, jealous
of the success of his rival, he refused to join the stream
of generals which hurried to the feet of the conqueror
of Italy and Egypt. Bonaparte, who could read his soul
like a book, attempted to draw his rival into his net,
but, as ever, the Gascon could not make up his mind.
At first he was inclined to join in the conspiracy, but at last
he refused, and told Bonaparte that, if the Directory commanded
him, he would take up arms against those who
plotted against the Republic. Still, even on the eventful
day he hesitated, and appeared in the morning among the
other conspirators at Bonaparte’s house, but not in uniform,
thinking thus to serve both parties.[78]

During the years which succeeded the establishment of
the Consulate, Bernadotte waged an unending subterranean
war against Napoleon. Scarcely a year passed in which his
name was not connected with some conspiracy to overthrow
the First Consul. Of these Napoleon was well advised, but
Bernadotte was too cunning to allow himself to be compromised
absolutely. However much he might sympathise
with the conspirators and lend them what aid he could, he
always refused to sign his name to any document. Accordingly,
although on one occasion a bundle of seditious
proclamations was found in the boot of his aide-de-camp’s
carriage, the charge could not be brought home. On
another occasion, when it was proved that he had advanced
twelve thousand francs to the conspirator Cerrachi, he
could prove that it was the price he had paid the artist for
a bust. In spite of the fact that no definite proof could be
brought against him, the First Consul could easily, if he
chose, have produced fraudulent witnesses or have had
him disposed of by a court-martial, as he got rid of the
Duc d’Enghien. Napoleon waited his time. He was afraid
of a Jacobin outbreak if he made a direct attack against
him. Further, Bernadotte had a zealous friend and ally in
Joseph Bonaparte. So when pressed to take stern measures
against his enemy, Napoleon always refused to do so, partly
from policy, partly because of his former love for Désiré,
and partly from the horror of a scandal in his family, which
might weaken his position when he seized the imperial
throne. Accordingly he attempted in every way to conciliate
his rebellious subject, and at the same time to place
him in positions where he could do no political harm.
Together with Brune and Marmont, he made him a
Senator. He offered him the command of the Army of
Italy, and, when Bernadotte refused and demanded employment
at home, he posted him to the command of the
division in Brittany, with headquarters at Rennes. But the
First Consul found that Rennes, far off as it was, was too[79]
close to Paris; accordingly he tried to tempt his Jacobin
general by important posts abroad. He proposed in succession
the embassy at Constantinople, the captain-generalcy
at Guadaloupe, and the governorship of Louisiana, but
Bernadotte refused to leave France. At last, early in 1803
Napoleon nominated him minister to the United States.
Three times the squadron of frigates got ready to accompany
the new minister, but each time the minister postponed
his departure. Meanwhile war broke out with
England, and Bernadotte was retained in France as
general on the unattached list, owing to the efforts of
Joseph.

On the establishment of the Empire Napoleon included
Bernadotte’s name among the number of the Marshals,
partly to please his brother Joseph and to maintain the
prestige of his family and partly, as in the case of Augereau,
Masséna and Jourdan, to win over the staunch republicans
and Jacobins to the imperial régime. For the moment the
Emperor achieved his object. The ex-Jacobin, proud of
his new title and luxuriating in his lately acquired estate
of Grosbois, was actually grateful; but still, Gascon-like,
he wanted more and complained he had not enough to
maintain his proper state. Napoleon, hearing of this from
Fouché, exclaimed: “Take from the public treasury
enough to put this right. I want Bernadotte to be content.
He is just beginning to say he is full of attachment for my
person; this may attach him more.” But a few days later
the Marshal revealed his true feelings when, talking of
Napoleon to Lucien, he said, “There will be no more glory
save in his presence and by his side and through his means,
and unfortunately all for him.”

Though the Emperor had promoted him to honour, it
was no part of his scheme to allow to remain in Paris a
man who, as Talleyrand said, “was capable of securing
four cut-throats and making away with Napoleon himself
if necessary, a furious beast, a grenadier capable of all and[80]
everything, a man to be kept at a distance at all cost.”
Accordingly the Marshal very soon found himself sent to
replace Mortier in command of the “Army of Hanover.”

For fifteen months Bernadotte administered Hanover,
and the subtle courtesy he showed to friend and foe alike
made him as usual the adored of all with whom he came in
contact. But whatever he did, the Emperor still suspected
him, and gave the cue to all, that Bernadotte was not to be
trusted and was no soldier. Napoleon always took care that
Bernadotte should never have under his command French
soldiers. His troops in 1805 were Bavarians; in 1807, Poles;
in 1808, a mixture of Dutch and Spaniards; and in 1809, of
Poles and Saxons. Berthier, working out the Emperor’s
ideas, and himself also hating Bernadotte, took care that in
the allotment of duties the disagreeable and unimportant
tasks should fall to the Marshal. In spite of the inferiority
of his troops, Bernadotte as usual distinguished himself in
the hour of battle. At Austerlitz, at the critical moment, he
saw that unless the centre was heavily supported Napoleon’s
plan of trapping the Russians must fail, so without waiting
orders he detached a division towards the northern slopes
of the plateau, and thus materially assisted in winning the
day. But though quickwitted and alert on the battlefield,
he never shone in strategy. In the movements which led
up to a battle he was always slow and inclined to hesitate,
and his detractors seized on this fault to declare, with
Napoleon’s connivance, that he was a traitor to the
Emperor and to France. An incident of the campaign of
1806 gave the Marshal’s enemies an excellent opening for
showing their dislike. Napoleon, thinking he had cornered
the whole Prussian army at Jena on the night of
October 13th, sent orders to Bernadotte to fall back from
Naumburg and get across the Prussian line of retreat. In
pursuance of these orders the Marshal left Naumburg at
dawn on the morning of the 14th and marched in the
direction of Apolda, which he reached, in spite of the[81]
badness of the roads, by 4 p.m., and thereby captured
about a thousand prisoners. But Napoleon had been mistaken
in his calculations; the main Prussian force was not
at Jena, but at Auerstädt, where it was most pluckily
engaged and beaten by Davout, who at once sent to ask
aid of Bernadotte; but the Marshal, according to Napoleon’s
definite orders, pursued his way to Apolda. The
Emperor, to vent his dislike against Bernadotte and to
cover up his own mistake, asserted that he had sent him
orders to go to Davout’s assistance, but a careful examination
of the French despatches proves that no such document
existed; in fact, the official despatches completely exonerate
Bernadotte. Before the campaign was finished, Napoleon
had to give the Marshal the praise he merited, when, aided
by Soult and Murat, he at last forced Blücher to surrender
with twenty-five thousand men and all the Prussian artillery
at Lübeck. At Eylau Bernadotte’s ill luck once again pursued
him, for the staff officers sent to order him to march to the
field of battle were taken by the enemy. This misfortune
gave another opportunity to his detractors, and again the
Emperor lent his authority to their false accusations. While
secretly countenancing every attack on the Marshal, the
Emperor, for family reasons, was loth to come to an open
breach. On June 5, 1806, he had created him Prince of
Ponte Corvo, a small principality in Italy wedged in
between the kingdom of Naples and the Papal States; his
reason for so doing he explained in a letter to his brother
Joseph, the King of Naples. “When I gave the title of
duke and prince to Bernadotte, it was in consideration
of you, for I have in my armies many generals who have
served me better and on whose attachment I can count
more. But I thought it proper that the brother-in-law of
the Queen of Naples should hold a distinguished position
in your country.” It was for this reason also that, after the
treaty of Tilsit, the Emperor presented the Prince with vast
domains in Poland and Hanover.[82]

During the interval between the peace of Tilsit and the
outbreak of the war with Austria in 1809, the Prince of
Ponte Corvo returned to his duty of administering Hanover.
Pursuing his former policy of ingratiating himself with
everybody, he renewed his old friendships with all classes,
and gained the goodwill of his neighbours in Denmark and
Swedish Pomerania, showing a suavity which was in marked
contrast to rigid disciplinarians of the school of Davout.
Such conduct, however, did not gain the approval of the
Emperor, whose policy was, by enforcing the continental
system, to squeeze to death the Hanseatic towns, which were
England’s best customers.

The Marshal was so keenly aware of the displeasure of
the Emperor and the hatred of many of his advisers,
especially of Berthier, the chief of the staff, that he actually
asked to be placed on half pay at the commencement of the
campaign of 1809, but the Emperor refused his request.
He had determined to end the unceasing struggle between
himself and Bernadotte. The battle of Wagram gave him
his opportunity. On the first day of the battle, the Marshal
had severely criticised, in the hearing of some of his officers,
the methods the Emperor had adopted for crossing the
Danube and attacking the Archduke Charles, boasting that
if he had been in command he would by a scientific
manœuvre have compelled the Archduke to lay down his
arms almost without a blow. Some enemy told the
Emperor of this boast. On the next day Bernadotte’s
corps was broken by the Austrian cavalry and only saved
from absolute annihilation by the personal exertion of the
Marshal and his staff, who, by main force, stopped and
re-formed the crowd of fugitives. The Emperor arrived on
the scene at the moment the Marshal had just succeeded in
staying the rout, and sarcastically inquired, “Is that the
scientific manœuvre by which you were going to make the
Archduke lay down his arms?” and before the Marshal
could make reply continued, “I remove you, sir, from the[83]
command of the army corps which you handle so badly.
Withdraw at once and leave the Grand Army within twenty-four
hours; a bungler like you is no good to me.” Such
treatment was more than the Marshal’s fiery temperament
could stand, and accordingly, contrary to all military regulations
and etiquette, he issued a bulletin without the authority
of the Emperor praising the Saxon troops, and thus magnifying
his own importance. The Emperor was furious, and
sent a private memorandum to the rest of the Marshals
declaring that, “independently of His Majesty having commanded
his army in person, it is for him alone to award
the degree of glory each has merited. His Majesty owes
the success of his arms to the French troops and to no
foreigners…. To Marshal Macdonald and his troops is
due the success which the Prince of Ponte Corvo takes
to himself.” It seemed as if Bernadotte’s career was
finished.

The Emperor found he had no longer any reason to fear
him, and for the moment determined to crush him completely.
So when he heard that Clarke had despatched the
Prince to organise the resistance to the English at Flushing,
he at once superseded him by Bessières. But the prospect
of an alliance by marriage with either Russia or Austria
once again caused the Emperor to reflect on the necessity
of avoiding scandal and discord in his own family; accordingly
he determined to try and propitiate the Marshal by
sending him as his envoy to Rome. To a born intriguer like
Bernadotte, Rome seemed to spell absolute exile, and accordingly,
in the lowest of spirits, he set about to find excuse
to delay his journey, little thinking that fortune had turned
and was at last about to raise him to those heights of which
he had so long dreamed. Long before, in 1804, at the time
of the establishment of the Empire, he had secretly visited
the famous fortune-teller, Mademoiselle Lenormand, who
had told him that he also should be a king and reign, but
his kingdom would be across the sea. His boundless ambition,[84]
stimulated by Southern superstition, had fed itself on
this prophecy, even when the breach with Napoleon seemed
to close the door to all hope.

In May, 1809, a revolution in Sweden had deposed the
incapable Gustavus IV. and set up as King his uncle Charles,
Duke of Sudermania. The new King, Charles XIII., was
old and childless. Accordingly the question of the succession
filled all men’s minds. With Russia pressing in on the
east and Denmark hostile on the west, it was important to
find some one round whom all might rally, by preference
a soldier. It was of course obvious that France, the traditional
ally of Sweden, dominated Europe. Accordingly the
Swedes determined to seek their Crown Prince from the
hands of Napoleon. Now, of all the Marshals, Bernadotte
had had most to do with the Swedes. At Hamburg he had
had constant questions to settle with the Pomeranians. At
the time of Blücher’s surrender at Lübeck he had treated
with great courtesy certain Swedish prisoners. It seemed
therefore to the Swedish King’s advisers that the Prince of
Ponte Corvo, the brother-in-law of King Joseph, the hero
of Austerlitz, was the most suitable candidate they could
find. Napoleon, however, was furious when he heard that
a deputation had arrived to offer the position of Crown
Prince of Sweden to Bernadotte. Too diplomatic to refuse
to allow the offer to be made, he set to work at once secretly
to undermine the Marshal’s popularity in Sweden, and
while pretending to leave the decision to Bernadotte himself,
assured his friends that the Marshal would never dare
to accept the responsibility. But Napoleon had miscalculated.
Some kind friend informed the Marshal of what the
Emperor had said, and, as Bernadotte himself admitted, it
was the taunt, “He will never dare,” which decided him to
accept the Swedish offer. Before the Crown Prince elect
quitted France the Emperor attempted to place on him the
condition that he should never bear arms against him; but
Bernadotte, foreseeing the future, refused to give any such[85]
promise, and at last the Emperor gave in with the angry
words, “Go; our destinies will soon be accomplished!”

The Crown Prince took with him to Sweden his eldest
son, who had curiously, by the whim of his godfather,
Napoleon, been named Oscar. But his wife, Désiré,
could not tear herself away from Paris, where she had
collected a coterie of artists and writers; her salon was
greatly frequented by restless intriguers like Talleyrand
and Fouché. Woman of pleasure as she was, the gaiety
of Paris was the breath of her nostrils. Accordingly the
Crown Princess remained behind, as it were the hostage for
the Prince’s good behaviour, but in reality a spy and secret
purveyor of news hostile to Napoleon.

On landing in Sweden the Crown Prince took all by
storm. His good looks, his affability, his great prestige and
his apparent love for his new country created an enthusiasm
almost beyond belief. But while everything seemed so
favourable the crafty Gascon from the first foresaw the
dangers which beset his path. Napoleon hated him.
Russia looked on him with distrust and desired to absorb
Sweden. England and the other Powers mistrusted him
as the tool of the Emperor. Accordingly, the moment he
landed at Gothenburg the Prince clearly defined the line
he intended to pursue, exclaiming, “I refuse to be either
the prefect or the custom-house officer of Napoleon.”
This decision meant a complete reversal of Swedish
foreign policy and a breach with France. Fortunately
for Bernadotte the old King, Charles XIII., was only too
glad to leave everything to his adopted son. Since it was
impossible to make a complete volte face in a moment, the
Crown Prince was content to allow the Swedes to taste to
the full the misery of trying to enforce the continental
system. For he knew what disastrous effect a war with
England would have on Swedish trade, and he foresaw
that his subjects would soon be glad to accept any policy
whereby their sea-borne commerce might be saved. While[86]
the Swedes were learning the folly of fighting the mistress
of the sea, the Crown Prince had time to make his plans, so
that when the moment arrived he might step forward as the
saviour of the country. It was quite clear that a breach
with France must mean the loss of Pomerania and all hope
of regaining the lost provinces on the southern shores of the
Baltic. But Bernadotte determined to find in Norway a
quid pro quo for Pomerania. To force Russia, the hereditary
foe of Sweden, to make her hereditary ally, Denmark, grant
Norway to Sweden, would be a master-stroke of diplomacy,
while an alliance with Russia would guarantee the Swedish
frontiers and would bring peace with England, because
Russia was on the point of breaking with the continental
system. The Swedes would thus gain Norway and recover
their sea-borne trade, while the Crown Prince would be
acknowledged as the legitimate heir of the royal house of
Vasa and no longer regarded as an interloper, a mere puppet
of Napoleon.

Success crowned the efforts of the elated Gascon. The
Czar, with the prospect of a French invasion at his door,
was delighted beyond measure to find in Sweden an ally
instead of a foe. In August, 1812, he invited the Crown
Prince to Russia and the treaty of Åbö was signed, whereby
Russia promised to lend her aid to Sweden to gain Norway
as the price of her help against France; a little later a treaty
was concluded between England and Sweden. The Crown
Prince returned from Åbö full of relief; not only was he
now received into the inner circle of legitimate sovereigns,
but the Czar had actually volunteered that if Napoleon fell
“I would see with pleasure the destinies of France in your
hands.” Alexander had kindled a flame which never died
as long as Bernadotte lived. The remainder of his life
might be summed up as an effort to gain the crown of
France, followed by a period of vain regrets at the failure of
his hopes.

On returning to Stockholm the Crown Prince found[87]
himself surrounded by a crowd of cosmopolitan admirers,
the most important of whom was Madame de Staël, who
regarded him as the one man who could restore France to
prosperity. His flatterers likened him to Henry IV. and
harped on the fact that he also came from Béarn. But in
France men cursed the traitorous Frenchman who was
going to turn his sword against his country, and his name
was expunged from the list of the Marshals and from the
rolls of the Senate, while the Emperor bitterly regretted that
he had not sent him to learn Swedish at Vincennes, the
great military prison. When, in accordance with his
treaty obligations, early in 1813 the Crown Prince of
Sweden landed at Stralsund to take part in the war
against Napoleon, his position was a difficult one. The
one object of the Allies was to overthrow Napoleon, the
one object of the Crown Prince was to become King of
France on Napoleon’s fall. The Allies therefore had to beat
the French troops, but the Crown Prince would ruin his
hopes if French soldiers were beaten by the troops under
his command. It was clear that Napoleon could only be
overcome by the closest co-operation of all the Allies.
Accordingly the Czar and the King of Prussia summoned
the Crown Prince to a conference at Trachenberg in
Silesia and did their best to gratify his pride. The plan
of campaign was then arranged, and the Prince returned to
command the allied forces in Northern Germany. At St.
Helena the Emperor declared that it was Bernadotte who
showed the Allies how to win by avoiding all conflict with
himself and defeating the Marshals in detail. With great
bitterness he added, “He gave our enemies the key to our
policy, the tactics of our armies, and showed them the way
to the sacred soil of France.” Be this as it may, his conduct
during the campaign justified the suspicion with which he
was regarded by friend and foe. Only three times did the
Prince’s army come in contact with the forces of the
Emperor. At Grosbeeren and Dennewitz, where his[88]
divisional officers fought and won, the Prince kept discreetly
in the rear. At Leipzig he held back so long that
the French army very nearly escaped. It was the taunt of
his chief of the staff, “Do you know that the soldiers say
you are afraid and do not dare to advance?” which at last
forced him into battle. But while thus he offended his
allies, he gained no respect from his former countrymen.
He had always believed that his presence alone was sufficient
to bring over the French troops to his side, but his
first attempt ought to have shattered this delusion. At
Stettin, during the armistice, he entered the fortress and
tried to seduce the governor, an ex-Jacobin and erstwhile
friend. As he left the town a cannon was fired and a ball
whistled past his ear. He at once sent a flag of truce to
demand an explanation for this breach of the etiquette
of war, whereon his friend the ex-Jacobin replied, “It was
simply a police affair. We gave the signal that a deserter
was escaping and the mainguard fired.” In spite of this
warning and many other indications, Bernadotte failed to
understand how completely he had lost his influence in
France, and while the Allies were advancing on Paris his
secret agents were busy, especially in Southern France,
trying to win the people to his cause. Keeping well in
the rear of the invading armies, he entirely neglected his
military duties and passed his time listening to the reports
of worthless spies. The result of his intrigues was that he
quite lost touch with the trend of events at the front, and
when Paris fell, instead of being on the spot, he was far
away. The Czar, long disgusted with his delays, no longer
pressed his suit, and finding an apparent desire for a Bourbon
restoration, accepted the return of that house. So when the
Crown Prince came to Paris he found nothing for it but to
make his best bow to the Bourbons and slink away home to
gain what comfort he could in the conquest of Norway.
Thus once again was Sièyes’ saying proved correct: “He is
a blackbird who thinks himself an eagle.”[89]

On his return home his Swedish subjects gave their
Crown Prince a very warm welcome. They knew of none
of his intrigues or tergiversations, they only saw in him the
victorious conqueror of Napoleon, who, by his successful
campaigns, was bringing peace and prosperity to Sweden,
by his diplomacy had acquired Norway, and by his clever
huckstering had gained twenty million francs for ceding to
France the isle of Guadaloupe, of which Sweden had never
taken possession, and another twelve millions for parting
with the lost Pomeranian provinces. But in spite of his
popularity at home the Crown Prince had much to make
him anxious abroad. At the Congress of Vienna a strong
party backed the claims of the deposed Gustavus IV., and it
was only the generous aid of the Czar which defeated this
conspiracy. Further, the attitude of the Powers clearly
showed him how precarious was the position of an intruder
among the hereditary rulers of Europe. Consequently,
when Napoleon returned from Elba the Prince exclaimed:
“The cause of the Bourbons is for ever lost,” and for a
moment thought of throwing in his lot with the Emperor.
But the sudden defeat of Murat came as a warning, and he
hastened to offer the aid of twenty-six thousand troops to
the Allies. Though outwardly in accord with them, the
Crown Prince secretly hoped for the victory of Napoleon;
to his intimates he proclaimed that “Napoleon was the first
captain of all ages, the greatest human being who had ever
lived, superior to Hannibal, to Cæsar, and even to Moses.”
Whereat the Crown Princess, who had at last rejoined her
husband in Sweden, replied: “You ought to exclude Moses,
who was the envoy of God, whereas Napoleon is the envoy
of the Devil.”

The news of Waterloo once again drove the Prince’s ideas
into their old current. Surely France must now recognise
that he alone could save her; but the second restoration
dashed his hopes to the ground. Yet hope springs eternal
in the human breast, and Bernadotte, year by year, watched[90]
the trend of French politics with an anxious eye. Even as
late as the Revolution of 1830 he still thought it was possible
that France might call him to be her ruler, and he never
lost the chance of doing the Bourbons an ill-turn. In spite
of these intrigues, save for an appeal lodged in 1818 against
the high-handed conduct of the Quadruple Alliance in interfering
between Sweden and Denmark, Bernadotte’s European
career really ended with the fall of Napoleon. As
Charles XIV. he ascended the Swedish throne on February
18, 1818, on the death of his adoptive father. As King
he pursued the same policy as Crown Prince, alliance with
Russia. His internal policy was based on the principle of
maintaining his dynasty at all costs. With this object, in
Sweden he ruled more or less as a benevolent despot, consulting
his States General as little as possible, paying the
greatest attention to commerce and industry, and opening
up the mines and waterways of the country. In Norway,
however, where the Storthing had long enjoyed great
powers, he ruled as a liberal constitutional monarch, and
with such good fortune did he and his successors pursue
their policy that of all the diplomatic expedients arranged at
the Congress of Vienna, the cession of Norway to Sweden
stood the test of time the longest, and it was not till 1906
that the principle of nationality was at last enforced in
Scandinavia.

Though Charles XIV. made no attempt to interfere in
European politics, the princes of Europe could never shake
off their dislike of him, standing as he did as the one survival
of Napoleon’s system. When the time came for his
son Oscar to seek a bride, the Swedish proposals were met
with scorn in Denmark and Prussia, and even in Mecklenburg-Anhalt
and Hesse-Cassel. As the Austrian envoy at
the Swedish court whispered to his English colleague, “All
Europe would see the fall of these people here without
regret.” Consequently the Swedish King was driven to seek
a bride for his son from Napoleon’s family, and eventually[91]
the young Prince married the daughter of Eugène Beauharnais,
the old ex-Viceroy of Italy, Napoleon’s stepson.

Charles XIV., a man of regrets, spent the remainder of his
life buried in the memories of the past. He seldom got up
till late in the day, dictating his letters and receiving his
ministers in bed. When he was dressed, he spent some hours
going over his private affairs and revising his investments,
for he feared to the end that he might be deprived of his
crown. In the evening he entertained the foreign representatives
and held his courts, after which he passed the
small hours of the night with his particular cronies fighting
and re-fighting his battles, and proving how he alone could
have saved Europe from the misery of the Napoleonic wars.
He died on March 3rd, 1844, at the age of eighty, having
given his subjects the precious boon of twenty-five years
of peace.

In spite of his brilliant career, Bernadotte must ever
remain one of the most pathetic figures in history. He
stands convicted as a mere opportunist, a man who never
once possessed his soul in peace and who was incapable of
understanding his own destiny. So much was this the case
that in his latter days the old Jacobin, now a crowned King,
really believed he was speaking the truth when he said that
along with Lafayette he was the only public man, save the
Count of Artois, who had never changed since 1789. He saw
no inconsistency between the declaration of his youth, “that
royalty was a monster which must be mutilated in its own
interest,” and his speech as an old man to the French
ambassador, “If I were King of France with an army of two
or three hundred thousand men I would put my tongue out
at your Chamber of Deputies.” He was Gascon to the
backbone, and his tongue too often betrayed his most secret
and his most transient thoughts. For the moment he would
believe and declare that “Napoleon was not beaten by mere
men … he was greater than all of us … the greatest
captain who has appeared since Julius Cæsar…. If, like[92]
Henry IV., he had had a Sully he would have governed
empires.” Then, thinking of himself as Sully, he would
gravely add, “Bonaparte was the greatest soldier of our age,
but I surpassed him in powers of organisation, of observation
and calculation.” Yet with it all he had many of the
qualities which go to make a man great. His personal
magnetism was irresistible, he had consummate tact, a keen
eye for intrigue, a clear vision to pierce the mazes of political
tangles, and considerable strength of purpose backed by an
intensely fiery nature. Frank and generous, he inclined
naturally to a liberal policy, but his innate selfishness too
often conquered his generous principles. It was this conflict
between his liberal ideas and his personal interest which
caused that fatal hesitation which again and again threatened
to spoil his career and which made him so immensely
inferior to Napoleon. To gain his crown he willingly threw
over his religion and became a Lutheran; to keep his crown
he was ready to sacrifice his honour. As a Swedish monarch
he thought more of the interests of his dynasty than of the
interests of his subjects, but he was far too wily to show
this in action. Posing as a patriot King and boasting of his
love for his adopted country, he ever remained at heart a
Frenchman.

When in 1840 the remains of the great Emperor were
transferred to Paris, he mournfully exclaimed to his representative:
“Tell them that I who was once a Marshal of
France am now only a King of Sweden.”

[93]

V

JEAN DE DIEU NICOLAS SOULT, MARSHAL,
DUKE OF DALMATIA

Of all the Marshals of Napoleon, perhaps none is
better known to Englishmen than Jean de Dieu
Soult. His long service in the Peninsula, ending
with the stern fighting in the Pyrenees and the valley of
the Garonne, and the prominent part he took in French
politics during the years of the Orleanist monarchy, made
his name a household word in England. The son of a
small notary of St. Amand, a little-known town in the
department of the Tarn, Soult was possessed of all the
fervour of the South and the cunning and tenacity of a
Gascon. Born on March 29, 1769, he early distinguished
himself by his precocity and his quickness of perception.
Although handicapped by a club-foot he determined to be
a soldier, and at the age of sixteen he enlisted in the Royal
Infantry regiment. His intelligence marked him out for the
rank of sergeant, and in 1791 he was sent as sub-lieutenant
and drill instructor to a battalion of volunteers of the Haut
Rhin. In spite of his lameness and his slight frame, the young
sub-lieutenant was possessed of a physique capable of withstanding
the greatest fatigue and hardship, and spurred on
by ambition, he never shirked a task which might add to his
reputation. Consequently, he was soon chosen captain by
his comrades, and once war broke out he speedily rose. At
the battle of Kaiserslautern, the storm of the lines of[94]
Weissenburg and the siege of Fort Louis, he forced himself
to the front by his gallantry and his rapid coup d’œil. But it
was the battle of Fleurus which once and for all established
his reputation. Soult was by then colonel and chief of the
staff to General Lefèbvre. The gallant Marceau’s battalions
were hurled back in rout by the enemy, and their chief in
agony rushed up to Lefèbvre crying out for four battalions
of the reserve that he might regain the ground he had lost.
“Give them to me,” he exclaimed, “or I will blow out my
brains.” Soult quietly observed that he would thereby only
the more endanger his troops. Marceau, indignant at being
rebuked by a young staff officer, roughly asked, “And who
are you?” “Whoever I am,” replied Soult, “I am calm,
which you are not: do not kill yourself, but lead your men
to the charge and you shall have the four battalions as soon
as we can spare them.” Scarcely had he uttered these words
than the Austrians fell with fury on Lefèbvre’s division.
For hours the issue hung in the balance, and at last even
the stubborn Lefèbvre began to think of retreat. But Soult,
calmly casting a rapid glance over the field, called out, “If I
am not mistaken from what I judge of the enemy’s second
line, the Austrians are preparing to retreat.” A few moments
later came the order to advance from Jourdan, the commander-in-chief,
and thanks to Soult’s soundness of judgment,
the divisions of Marceau and Lefèbvre were charging
the enemy instead of fighting a rear-guard action to cover a
rout. After the battle, the generous Marceau sought out
Soult. “Colonel,” said he, “forgive the past: you have
this day given me a lesson I shall never forget. It is you in
fact who have gained the battle.” Soult had not long to
wait for his reward, for in 1794 he was promoted general of
brigade.

During the campaign of 1795 Soult was entrusted with a
light column of three battalions of infantry and six squadrons
of cavalry, and was constantly employed as an
advance or rear guard. On one occasion, while covering[95]
the retreat at Herborn, his small force was surrounded by
four thousand Austrian cavalry. Summoned to surrender,
he indignantly refused, and forming his infantry in two
columns with the cavalry in the interval between them,
during five hours he beat off repeated charges of the
enemies’ horse and fought his way back to the main body
without losing a single gun or a single colour. Ten days
later he added to this triumph by inflicting the loss of two
thousand men on the enemy in the mountain combat at
Ratte Eig, when both sides struggled to gain the heights
knee-deep in snow. During the campaigns of 1796 and
1797, Soult increased his reputation amid the marches and
counter-marches and battles in the valleys of the Rhine and
the Danube. But it was in Switzerland that he laid most
firmly the foundation of his future success, for there he
gained the friendship and goodwill of Masséna, and it was
the conqueror of Zurich who first called Bonaparte’s attention
to the sterling qualities of the future Duke of Dalmatia,
telling the First Consul that “for judgment and courage
Soult had scarcely a superior.” In 1800 Masséna took his
trusty subordinate with him to Italy as lieutenant-general of
the centre of the army. During the fierce struggle which
ended in the Austrians driving the French into Genoa, the
lieutenant-general was seen at his best, exposing his person
in a way he seldom did later, and showing that strategic
insight and power of organisation for which he was so
celebrated. On one occasion, when cornered by Bellegarde,
he was summoned to surrender. The Austrian parlementaire
pointed out that it was hopeless to continue the struggle as
he had neither provisions nor ammunition. To this Soult
replied: “With bayonets and men who know how to use
them, one lacks nothing,” and in spite of every effort of the
enemy, with the “white arm” alone he cut his way into
Genoa. During the siege he was Masséna’s right hand, ever
ready with shrewd advice, the soul of every sortie, till
unluckily he was wounded at the combat of Monte Cretto,[96]
and captured by the Austrians, whose prisoner he remained
till after Marengo.

JEAN DE DIEU SOULT, DUKE OF DALMATIA
FROM A LITHOGRAPH BY DELPECH AFTER THE PAINTING BY ROUILLARD

On the establishment of the Consulate, Soult, whose
politics rested solely on personal ambition and not on
principle, at once divined the aims of Bonaparte. Thanks
to Masséna’s warm introduction and his own reputation,
he found himself cordially received by the First Consul.
Honours were showered upon him. He was one
of the four trusted commandants of the Consular Guard,
and when Napoleon began to organise his forces for
the struggle with England, he entrusted Soult with the
command of the important army corps at Boulogne.
The First Consul could have made no better selection.
Under his rough exterior Soult hid great powers of
business, a keen perspicacity, and much tact. Quick-witted,
with a subtle, restless spirit, he had great strength
of character, and his ambition spurred him on to a
diligence which knew neither mental nor physical fatigue.
But in spite of his cold air and self-restraint, he loved
the pleasures of the table, and was passionately fond of
women, while his wife exercised a complete domination
over him, and before her he quailed like a child. In
war he had the keen imagination and quick penetration
of a great strategist. His special forte was the planning
of vigorous enterprises. But he preferred to direct
rather than to lead. Though his courage was undoubted,
as he grew older he was chary of risking his person,
and had not the dashing qualities of Lannes and Ney.
As an administrator he was the equal of Davout. Once
entrusted with the command of the army corps at
Boulogne, the young general of thirty-five laid aside all
thoughts of personal pleasure and ease and set himself
to manufacture a fighting machine which should be the
most perfect of its time. Never was such attention shown
to details of administration and instruction, and the discipline
of the corps at Boulogne was the severest that[97]
French troops had ever undergone. As might be expected,
there were many grumbles, and soon rumours
and complaints reached the First Consul, who himself
remonstrated with his lieutenant, telling him that the
troops would sink under such treatment; but he was
greeted with the reply, “Such as cannot withstand the
fatigue which I myself undergo will remain at the depôts:
but those who do stand it will be fit to undertake the
conquest of the world.” Soult was right in his estimate,
for in spite of the demands he made on their endurance,
he had won their love and admiration; the weak and
the grumblers fell out, and when war was declared his
corps marched to the front, a body of picked men with
absolute confidence in their leader. In spite of the fact
that he had never held an independent command, there
was no surprise when he was included among the number
of the Marshals, for his brilliant record, his selection
as commandant of the Guard, his success at Boulogne,
and the favour which the First Consul had long shown
to him, had marked him out as one of the coming men.
The campaign of 1805 bore witness to the justness of
the Emperor’s choice. It has often been said, and indeed
Wellington himself lent credit to the dictum, that
Soult was primarily a strategist and no tactician, but
at Austerlitz he showed that calm capacity to read the
signs of the conflict, and that knowledge of when and
where to strike, which had first brought him to the front
in the days of Fleurus. Entrusted with the command of
the centre, in spite of the entreaties of his subordinates
and even the commands of the Emperor, he refused to
open his attack until he saw that the Russian left was
hopelessly compromised. Thanks to his clearness of foresight,
when once he launched his attack he not only
put the issue out of doubt, but completely overwhelmed
the Russians. Their left was surrounded and annihilated
while the centre and right were driven from the field[98]
in complete rout. At the moment when the Marshal was
directing the movement which wrested from the enemy
the key of the position, Napoleon and his staff arrived
on the scene. The Marshal explained his manœuvre
and asked the Emperor for orders. “Carry on, carry
on, my dear Marshal,” said the Emperor; “you know
quite as well as I do how to finish the affair.” Then,
stretching out his arms to embrace him, he cried out,
“My dear Marshal, you are the finest tactician in Europe.”
After the treaty of Pressburg Soult’s corps remained as
part of the army of occupation in the valley of the
Danube, and in 1806 formed one of the corps of the
Grand Army during the Prussian War. At Jena he had
the satisfaction of playing an important part in the battle,
for when Ney’s rash advance had compromised the situation,
it was he who checked the victorious rush of the
enemy. But later the Marshal had bitter cause to repent
these triumphs won over his rival. Already the enemy
of Berthier, and consequently often misrepresented to the
Emperor, Soult now incurred the bitter hatred of Ney;
and what the enmity of Berthier and Ney meant he
found to his cost during the Peninsular War. Immediately
after Jena the Marshal was detached in pursuit of the
Prussians, and on the day following defeated Marshal
Kalkreuth at Greussen and proceeded to blockade Magdeburg.
From Magdeburg he hurried off to join in the
pursuit of Blücher, and aided by Bernadotte he cornered
the crafty old Prussian at Lübeck. But brilliant as his
performance was, he did not gain the credit he deserved,
for on the day of the action Murat arrived and took
over the command, arrogating to himself all the honours
of the surrender. The Marshal was justly indignant, but,
bitterly as he resented the injustice, he was too politic
to storm at the Emperor like Marshal Lannes. In the
terrible campaign in Poland the Marshal added to his
laurels. At Eylau, when Augereau had been routed, Davout[99]
checked, and Ney and Bernadotte not yet arrived on
the field, it was he who warned the Emperor against
showing any signs of retreat. “Beware of doing so,
Sire,” he exclaimed; “let us remain the last on the field
and we shall have the honour of the day: from what
I have seen I expect the enemy will retreat in the night.”
The advice was sound, and the Marshal, during the night
following the battle, had the pleasure of being the first
to perceive that the enemy was retreating, and it
was his aide-de-camp who carried the news to headquarters.
Well it was for the Emperor that he accepted
Soult’s advice, for the terrible carnage in the snow had
taken the heart out of the troops, and a retreat would
have soon degenerated into a rout. So shaken was the
French morale, that when, on the next day, the Emperor
rode down the lines, instead of being greeted with cries
of “Long live the Emperor,” he was received with murmurs
of “Peace and France,” and even “Peace and
Bread.” During the final advance Soult had his share
of the hard fighting at Heilsberg, but he escaped from
the horrors of Friedland, as he had been detached to
occupy Königsberg. After the peace of Tilsit, the Marshal’s
corps was cantonned round Stettin, and it was
there that in 1808 he received the title of Duke of Dalmatia.
The selection of this name caused the Duke much annoyance,
for instead of receiving a title which should recall
one of his great exploits, as had Ney, Davout, Lannes,
Kellermann, and Masséna, his designation was chosen
from a country with which he had not the smallest
connection, and thus he found himself on a par with
Bessières, Maret and Caulaincourt. What he hankered
after was the title of Duke of Austerlitz, but the Emperor
refused to share the glories of that day. In spite of
the huge dotation he received, the Marshal added this
supposed slight to the many grudges he bore his
master.[100]

From Stettin the Duke of Dalmatia was summoned in
September, 1808, to attend the Conference at Erfurt,
and from there he was hurriedly despatched to Spain.
The Emperor was much displeased with many of his
corps commanders, and so on the arrival of the Duke
he ordered him to take over from Marshal Bessières the
command of the second corps. Soult was delighted at
the prospect of service. Full of zeal, he set out for his
new command, and pushing on in spite of all obstacles,
he arrived at his headquarters alone on a jaded post-horse
twenty-four hours before his aides-de-camp. A
few days later he dashed to pieces the semblance of a
Spanish army at Gamoral and occupied Burgos, where
he was unable to prevent his new command from sacking
the town and inflicting every possible horror on the
inhabitants. From Burgos the Emperor despatched him
to the north-west, and thus it was that the cavalry of
Sir John Moore’s army surprised Soult’s outpost at Sahagun.
The Emperor could scarcely believe that an English
army had actually dared to advance against his troops,
but he at once ordered Soult to co-operate with the
divisions he led in person from Madrid, and when he
found that the English were bound to escape, he handed
over the command to the Marshal. The French suffered
almost as much as the English in the terrible pursuit,
and it was the tried soldiers of both armies who
at last met face to face at Corunna. After the battle
Soult wrote to the Emperor that without fresh reinforcements
he could effect nothing against the English, but
when later he found that the enemy had evacuated
Corunna, he claimed that he had won a victory. With
a generosity that must be placed to his credit, he took
great care of the grave of his adversary, Sir John Moore,
and erected a monument with the inscription, “Hic
cecidit Johannes Moore dux exercitus Britannici in pugna
Januarii xvi. 1809, contra Gallos a duce Dalmatiæ ductos.”[101]

Before leaving for France the Emperor had drawn up a
cut and dried plan for the systematic conquest of the whole
Peninsula. The pivot of the whole scheme rested on the
supposed ability of Soult to overrun Portugal and drive
the British out of Lisbon by February 16, 1809. Unfortunately,
Napoleon left one factor out of his calculations,
and that the most important, namely, the feelings of
the Spanish and Portuguese populations. The Duke of
Dalmatia very soon perceived the Emperor’s mistake, but,
anxious not to be accused of shirking his task and of allowing
himself to be stopped by what were termed bands of ill-armed
peasants, he started on his expedition to conquer the
kingdom of Portugal with but three thousand rounds for
his guns and five hundred thousand cartridges for his
infantry, carried on the backs of mules, for owing to the
state of the roads in the north-west corner of the Peninsula
wheel traffic was impossible. In spite of the difficulties of
transport and the murmurs of many of his officers, the
indefatigable Marshal hurled all obstacles aside and with
sixteen thousand troops forced his way into Oporto on
March 29th, six weeks behind his scheduled time. But
there he had to call a halt, for he had not the men nor the
material for a further advance on Lisbon. The situation
was by no means reassuring. To reach Oporto he had been
obliged to cut himself adrift from his base, and he had no
tidings of what was happening in the rest of the Peninsula.
During April he set himself to conciliate the people of
Portugal and at the same time to try and get into touch
with the other French corps in Spain. The Marshal’s
attempt at conciliation was on the whole successful, but
his kindness resulted in an unsuspected turn in the situation.
A movement was started among a certain section of
the Portuguese nobility and officials to offer the crown of
Portugal to the Marshal. The Duke of Dalmatia, greedy
and ambitious but ever cautious, was of opinion that
though the Emperor might disapprove of the idea, he[102]
would accept a fait accompli. Accordingly he secretly
sanctioned the movement, and allowed placards to appear
in Oporto stating that “the Prince Regent, by his departure
to Brazil, had formally resigned the crown, and that the
only salvation of Portugal would be that the Duke of
Dalmatia, the most distinguished of the pupils of the great
Napoleon, should ascend the vacant throne.” Further, he
actually, on April 19th, ordered his chief of the staff to send
a circular to commanding officers inviting their co-operation
in his seizure of the crown, stating that by so doing they
would in no way be disloyal to the Emperor. Luckily for
the Marshal, the arrival of Sir Arthur Wellesley and the
English army, before the plot could succeed, once and for
all blew aside this cloudy attempt at kingship. For the
Emperor, on hearing of the affair, although he pardoned
the Marshal, saying, “I remember nothing but Austerlitz,”
still wrote in the same despatch “that it would have been a
crime, clear lèse majesté, an attack on the imperial dignity,”
and added that it was no wonder that the army grew discontented,
since the Marshal was working, not for France,
but for himself, and that disobedience to the Marshal’s
orders was quite justified. For once, then, the Marshal,
usually so clever and cautious, had allowed ambition to
run away with prudence. Meanwhile the military situation
grew day by day more disquieting. In the French army
there was a section of the officers ready to declare against
the Empire whenever a chance occurred, and one of them,
Argenton by name, actually entered into a treasonable
negotiation with Sir Arthur Wellesley. It was thanks to
the discovery of this plot that the Marshal first got information
of his enemies’ projected advance.

With thirty thousand English marching against him and
Spanish and Portuguese forces across the main line of
retreat, it was impossible to expect to hold Oporto, and
accordingly the Marshal began preparations for withdrawal.
But having secured, as he thought, all the boats on the[103]
Douro, he concluded that he could only be attacked by a
force ferried across at the river mouth by the boats of the
English fleet. Consequently he kept no watch up stream.
So complete was the surprise that an hour after the enemy
had effected a landing above the town the Marshal, who
had been up all night, was still in bed; his staff were
quietly breakfasting when an officer galloped up with the
news of the crossing. Soult could do nothing else but give
the order to retreat by whatever means possible, and it was
fortunate for the French that the pursuit was not pushed
harder. But once he had grasped the situation he made
amends for his previous neglect of supervision and showed
himself the Soult of Austerlitz and Eylau. Sacrificing his
baggage, his guns, and his military chest, guided by a
Spanish pedlar, he made a most astounding march through
the rugged region of Tras os Montes. Crossing lofty passes,
forcing gorges in the teeth of hostile bands of peasantry
and guerillas, by hard fighting and magnificent marching
he brought his troops to safety. The campaign of Oporto
did not add to the Marshal’s reputation; his political
ambition was the cause of all the disaster, for it prevented
him from supervising his subordinates’ operations. It was
his fault that there was no proper road for retreat and that
he was surprised by the English army. Still, though he had
committed great faults, he had shown a surprising ability in
extricating himself from their consequences.

When Soult reached Lugo, in Spain, he found his rival
Ney, from whom he begged stores and equipments, and
with whom he was bound to confer on the general situation.
Ney at first magnanimously granted the Marshal’s requests.
But unfortunately the men of Ney’s corps greeted the armed
rabble which followed Soult’s standards with jeers and
execrations, and the quarrel spread from the men to the
officers and at last to the Marshals; so fierce were Ney’s
taunts that Soult actually drew his sword and a duel was
with difficulty averted. Thereafter Soult, while promising[104]
to co-operate with Ney in the pacification of Galicia,
actually did nothing and seriously compromised his rival,
whereon Ney refused to obey any orders given by the Duke
of Dalmatia. Such was the situation when a summons
from Madrid called the two Marshals to the succour of
Joseph, who was threatened by the combined armies of
Cuesta and Sir Arthur Wellesley in the valley of the Tagus.
The Marshals arrived in time to save Madrid, but not in
time to surround the Allies, who escaped south across the
Tagus, and the one chance of success the Spanish offered
them was lost, since Soult, eager for personal aggrandisement,
attacked Albuquerque before Marshal Victor had
time to arrive on the scene of action. The consequence of
this was far-reaching, for Victor, like Ney, refused in future
to work in conjunction with Soult. Moreover, when a
council was held to decide on the next operations, and
Soult, wisely, no doubt, insisted that at Lisbon lay the key
to the situation, all the other Marshals voted against his
scheme, as each one determined that he would not be made
subordinate to the Duke of Dalmatia. Soult accordingly
had to content himself with occupying the valley of the
Tagus, while the other Marshals returned to the districts
which had been allotted to them before the allied advance
on Madrid.

While contemplating this unsatisfactory situation the
Duke of Dalmatia was rejoiced to receive a despatch from
the Emperor appointing him major-general of the forces in
Spain in place of Jourdan and entrusting him with the
invasion of Andalusia. Before setting out for the South,
Soult had the satisfaction of completely routing the
Spaniards at Ocaña. It was early in 1810 that he entered
Andalusia and seized Seville, Granada, and Malaga. The
Marshal found himself in the congenial position of absolute
ruler of the richest provinces of Spain. But though the
important towns fell easily, and with them the accumulated
riches of centuries, the people remained sullenly hostile, and[105]
bands of armed peasantry hung ever on the rear and flanks
of the French columns, and stragglers and despatch-riders
were found by the roadside with their throats cut. To meet
this situation, at the Emperor’s orders Soult issued a proclamation
setting forth that whereas Joseph Bonaparte was
King of Spain and no Spanish Government existed, all
Spaniards taken in arms were rebels against his Catholic
Majesty and would be immediately shot. The Cortes from
Cadiz replied by at once issuing a counter-proclamation
stating that for every Spaniard executed and for every house
burned three Frenchmen should be hung. Still, in spite
of this war of reprisals, the French gradually tightened their
grip on Southern Spain, and soon Cadiz remained the only
important fortress still in the hands of the enemy. The
Marshal found it was impossible to take this important
position by storm, and contented himself with masking it
by a strong corps under Marshal Victor. Meanwhile he
was busily engaged in organising the new government of
Andalusia, and so successful were his efforts that neither
the Spanish Government at Cadiz or the constant incursions
of Spanish and British armies were able to shake his hold
on that province. But wise and successful as were his
methods, the glory of his rule was darkened by his harshness
and greed. The churches and convents were ruthlessly
despoiled of their treasures, and many a fine Murillo
and Velasquez was despatched to Paris to decorate his
salons.

In the eyes of the Duke of Dalmatia, Andalusia was a vast
reservoir of wealth which might be used as a base from
which a well-equipped force could threaten Lisbon, the real
focus of all the opposition to the French domination of the
Peninsula. It was in pursuance of this plan that he conciliated
the municipal authorities, strengthened the police,
and built up huge reserve magazines by a system of imposts
so carefully arranged that they should not unduly press on
the Spanish population. But unfortunately for the Duke’s[106]
schemes they ran counter to those of King Joseph. For
the Marshal determined to use the wealth of his rich provinces
for the special object of an attack on the British
power at Lisbon, but Joseph desired that the revenue thus
acquired should be sent to assist him to maintain his kingly
state. Soult, strong in his position as major-general and
backed by the Emperor’s approval, refused to listen to the
demands of the King, and there began a struggle which did
more than anything else to bring about the fall of the
Napoleonic kingdom of Spain. In spite of the fact that
the Marshal gradually wore down the guerillas, actually
raised and trained large bodies of Spanish troops, built up
vast magazines and arsenals at Seville, exploited the lead
mines at Linares and the copper mines of the Rio Tinto,
established foundries for military accessories, and fitted out
privateers, the jealousy of Joseph brought the Marshal’s
great schemes to nought.

The continual and vexatious demands of the King acted
in a most unfortunate way on Soult’s character, for this
stupid opposition so irritated his hard and egotistical nature
that he saw in every scheme not planned by himself a
desire to belittle his glory. Unfortunately for his own
reputation and the success of the French arms, he allowed
this feeling to obscure his judgment, and he refused to
give more than a half-hearted co-operation to any measures
not actually suggested by himself. Thus it was that, in
spite of the commands of the Emperor and the entreaties
of Joseph, he refused to make any attempt to co-operate
with Masséna in his advance on Portugal until it was too
late. Then, when he actually did advance, he showed all
his old energy and skill, for in fifty days he mastered four
fortresses and invested a fifth, he captured twenty thousand
prisoners and killed or dispersed ten thousand men; but
he disregarded the main objective, the expulsion of the
English from Lisbon, and contented himself with the siege
of Badajoz, and thus, while winning a fortress, he lost a[107]
kingdom. From want of his co-operation Masséna was
forced to retreat, and the grip of the English on the
Peninsula was more firmly established than ever.

Badajoz was soon to prove itself a place of ill omen for
Soult, for a few months later, when an Anglo-Portuguese
army under Beresford laid siege to it, he was forced to
come to its rescue. It was in the attempt to relieve this
fortress that the terrible battle of Albuera was fought.
At the commencement of the fight the Marshal, by a
masterly manœuvre, threw himself across the allied right
flank and seized the hill that dominated the position, and
it looked as if the allied lines were bound to be crumpled
up. But a brigade of English infantry stood firm amid
the rout, and with measured volleys checked the victorious
advance of the elated French. Soult, by every effort of
voice and gesture, attempted to force his veterans to face
the foe, but in vain. “Nothing could conquer that astounding
infantry. No sudden burst of undisciplined
valour, no nervous enthusiasm weakened the stability of
their order: their flashing eyes were bent on the dark
columns in their front, their measured tread shook the
ground, their dreadful volleys swept away the head of every
formation, their deafening shouts overpowered the discordant
cries that broke from all parts of the tumultuous crowd
as slowly, and with a horrid carnage, it was pushed by the
incessant vigour of the attack to the farthest edge of the hill.
In vain did the French reserve mix with the struggling
multitude to sustain the fight: their efforts only increased
the immediate confusion, and the mighty mass, breaking
off like a loosened cliff, went headlong down the steep.
The rain flowed after in a stream discoloured by blood:
and eighteen hundred unwounded men, the remnant of
six thousand unconquerable British soldiers, stood
triumphant on the fatal hill.” Thus Napier describes the
battle of Albuera. So nearly a magnificent victory for the
French: turned by British valour into a defeat. But it[108]
was not only the valour of the enemy which cost Soult his
success, it was his own errors. The commencement of the
attack was a magnificent conception, but the Marshal failed
to understand the tactics of his enemy, and it was his blind
attempt to crush the line with heavy columns which allowed
the English musket fire to annihilate his dense masses.
After the cessation of the combat he committed another
great fault. Though his attack had been beaten back, it
was known that the Allies had suffered much more severely
than the French, and on the strength of this he claimed a
“signal victory”! But instead of holding his ground he
withdrew a day later, whereas if he had shown a confident
front Beresford would have been bound to retire, and
Badajoz would have been relieved. After the battle of
Albuera, Soult was reinforced by the Army of Portugal
under Marmont; but discord soon broke out between the
two Marshals, the Duke of Dalmatia maintaining that
the way to attack Lisbon was from his own base in the
south, and the Duke of Ragusa advocating the northern
route. After lying together for some time the two armies
separated, and Soult moved south to complete his operations
against Cadiz and Gibraltar. It was while the Marshal was
thus engaged, early in 1812, that the Duke of Wellington
suddenly captured Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, and was
thus able, after defeating Marmont at Salamanca, to
march in the summer on Madrid. Soult replied to
Joseph’s summons to come to his help by telling him that
his best policy was to join him in Andalusia and make a
counter-stroke at Lisbon. But the King refused to listen to
this wise advice, so the Marshal was obliged to give up all
his achievements and go to Joseph’s help. Meanwhile the
King wrote complaining to the Emperor, but Napoleon
replied that Soult was the “only military head” in Spain, and
could not be moved. But after more bickering, early in
1813, Joseph wrote to say that if the Marshal remained in
Spain he himself must leave the country, and the Emperor,[109]
anxious to regain his military prestige, so weakened by the
Russian campaign, was glad to summon the Duke of
Dalmatia to the Grand Army. But Soult’s gloomy prophecy
was soon fulfilled that “the loss of Andalusia and
the raising of the siege of Cadiz are events that will be felt
throughout the whole of Europe.” The Marshal’s service
at the head of the Imperial Guard was terminated by
the news of the fatal battle of Vittoria; for the Emperor
immediately hurried him back to try to prevent the
English from forcing the barrier of the Pyrenees.

The Duke of Dalmatia gladly accepted the mission, in
spite of the repugnance of the Duchess, who hated Spain,
where, as she said, “nothing is got but blows.” So hearty
was her dislike of the country that she actually went to the
Emperor saying her husband was too shattered in health
for the task. But she met with a stern rebuff: “Madam,”
said Napoleon, “recollect I am not your husband; if I
were, you should conduct yourself very differently.”

The campaign of the Pyrenees bore ample testimony to
the wisdom of the confidence the Emperor had placed in
the power of his lieutenant. With marvellous sagacity Soult
reorganised the scattered relics of the French armies, and
within ten days of his arrival at headquarters he was ready
to assume the offensive, and actually all but surprised the
Duke of Wellington at Sorauren. But great as were his
strategical powers and his methods of organisation, he was
no match for Wellington on the field of battle, and step by
step he was forced back into France. Round Bayonne he
showed his complete mastery of the art of war by the admirable
way he used his command of the inner lines always to
oppose the enemy’s attack by superior force. Then, when
retreat was inevitable, instead of falling back towards Paris,
he withdrew south, thus forcing his adversary to divide up
his army; for the English had to detach a strong division
to cover their communications at Bordeaux. During the
retreat, again and again Soult turned at bay, at Orthez and[110]
many another good position; but Wellington ever outmanœuvred
him on the field, and even turned him out of
the seemingly impregnable position of Toulouse. Never
was a retreat more admirably carried out. Every opportunity
afforded by the ground, every advantage of position
was seized on, to use to the full the French dash in the
attack. No more admirable illustration can be found of
the truth that the essence of defence lies in a vigorous
local offence. Wellington himself bore testimony to Soult’s
virtues, maintaining that of the Marshals he was second
only to Masséna.

With the Restoration the Marshal at once accepted the
change of government and gave his adhesion to the
Bourbons. His general reputation and the high place he
held in the opinion of Wellington and others caused the
King in the December of 1814 to appoint him Minister of
War. Such was his position when news arrived of
Napoleon’s landing at Fréjus. The Duke of Dalmatia did
all in his power to organise resistance to the Emperor’s
advance, but he had many enemies, and the King, listening
to their advice, replaced him as minister by Clarke, Duke of
Feltre. Soult then retired to his country estate at Villeneuve-l’Étang,
near Saint Cloud. On his arrival at Paris,
the Emperor at once sent for him, but at first he refused to
go to court. Ultimately, finding the Emperor’s cause in
the ascendant, he cast aside hesitation and threw in his
lot with him. It has been said that the Duke betrayed
the Bourbons and was privy to the Emperor’s return, but
this is a calumny. Napoleon at St. Helena said, “Soult
did not betray Louis, nor was he privy to my return. For
some days he thought that I was mad, and that I must
certainly be lost. Notwithstanding this, appearances were
so against him, and without intending it, his acts turned
out to be so favourable to my project, that, were I on his
jury and deprived of what I know, I should have condemned
him for having betrayed Louis. But he really[111]
was not privy to it.” The Emperor joyfully accepted the
Marshal’s adherence and made him one of his new peers,
and when war was imminent, on the advice of Davout, he
created him major-general and chief of the staff. This
selection was unfortunate; good strategist and organiser,
he was not the man the Emperor required. Berthier, who
had not half his military ability, had made an excellent
chief of the staff, because he had the rare quality of effacing
his own ideas and acting simply as the recorder and
expander of those of Napoleon. But Soult was accustomed
to think for himself, and his mind was unable to attune
itself to the mind of the Emperor. Further, from long
experience, Berthier was accustomed to fill up gaps in the
Emperor’s orders in the way he intended, but Soult had
never so far worked in close co-operation with Napoleon,
and after years of independent command was more accustomed
to give orders to his own chief of the staff than to
work out minutiæ for another. Consequently, all through
the Waterloo campaign the staff work was badly done.
Orders were faultily drafted, mistakes were made in their
despatch, and the Emperor was constantly bewailing the
loss of “that brute Berthier.” A typical example of the
friction which arose between the Emperor and his new
major-general occurred when, at Waterloo, Napoleon asked
Soult if he had sent to Grouchy intelligence of the approach
of the Prussians; the Marshal replied, “Yes, I have sent an
officer.” “One officer!” cried Napoleon; “ah! if only my
poor Berthier had been here, he would have sent six.” To
add to these troubles, Soult was unfortunately hated by the
officers of the army, who regarded him with grave suspicion.
But though the Marshal must bear his share in the disaster
of Waterloo, it is only fair to add that the morning of the
battle he, and he alone, warned the Emperor of the magnitude
of the coming struggle, and entreated him to recall at
least a portion of Grouchy’s command. The Emperor
roughly rejected his advice with the words, “You think[112]
that because Wellington defeated you he must be a
great general. I tell you that he is a bad general, that the
English are bad troops, and that this will be the affair of a
déjeuner.” The Marshal, with the memory of many a
battle with these “poor troops” from Oporto to Toulouse,
could only sorrowfully say, “I hope so.”

On the second Restoration the Duke of Dalmatia found
himself included among the proscribed, and for three years
he retired to the Duchy of Berg, the home of his wife,
during which time he occupied himself in the composition
of his Memoirs. But in May, 1819, he was recalled to
France, and soon found means of ingratiating himself with
the Bourbons. In January, 1820, his Marshal’s bâton and
his other honours were restored to him, and he entered the
field of politics. With his vast income, acquired from the
spoils of nearly every country in Europe, he maintained his
high rank in lordly fashion. A visitor who in 1822 went to
see his famous collection of pictures thus describes him:
“We were received by the Marshal, a middle-sized though
somewhat corpulent personage of from fifty to sixty years
of age, whose dark curling hair rendered somewhat conspicuous
the bald patch in the middle of his head, while
his sunburnt complexion accorded well with his dark
intelligent eye. His plain stock, plain dark coat and loose
blue trousers, which, capacious as they were, could not hide
his bow-legged form, obviously suggested the soldier rather
than the courtier, the Marshal rather than the Duke; though
if I had encountered such a figure in London I should rather
have guessed him an honest East or West Indian captain.”
The Marshal knew well how to win favour with the new
Government, and when the reactionaries attempted to
restore the ancient position of the Church, no one was more
regular in his attendance at Church festivals and processions
than the Duke of Dalmatia, who always appeared with an
enormous breviary carried before him, though people were
unkind enough to say that it would be more to the purpose[113]
if he restored some of the vast plunder of the churches and
monasteries of Spain.

With the fall of the Bourbon dynasty in 1830 the subtle
old soldier at once gave his adherence to the Orleanists, and
was appointed Minister of War; and it was thanks to his
energy and wisdom that the numerous revolts which
threatened the early days of the new régime were stamped
out. Soult, like Wellington, hated the idea of civil war, but
knew that strong measures were the best means to prevent
bloodshed, so when, as at Lyons, it was essential to strike,
he took good care to have the necessary force at hand. A
year later, when the Commune threatened to raise its head
in Paris, he overawed the mob by the sudden mobilisation
of eighty thousand troops. The weakness of the Government
and the courage and decision the Marshal showed
during the émeute caused Louis Philippe on October 18,
1832, to entrust him with the headship of the administration.
The Marshal proved how often a strong soldier may
be a weak politician, and in 1834 he resigned office. But
during his term of office he did not forget the needs of the
army, as his measures for recruiting, military pensions, and
the training of officers prove. When, again, in 1839 Paris
was seething with discontent, the King sent for the Marshal,
and under his iron hand order was easily re-established.
But the old soldier was no orator, and was listened to more
from respect for his character than the cogency of his
arguments, and when the crisis was passed he was soon
glad to resign his appointment; and though always taking
an active part, and ever ready to give his advice to his
sovereign, he never again held office. In 1838 the Duke of
Dalmatia visited London as representative of France at the
Coronation of Queen Victoria, and once again met his old
opponent, the Duke of Wellington. Lady Salisbury thus
describes their meeting: “The Duke and Soult met in the
music-room at the Queen’s concert for the first time for
many years, and shook hands. Soult’s appearance is different[114]
from what I expected: he is a gentlemanlike old man
with rather a benevolent cast of countenance, such as I
should have expected in William Penn or Washington: tall
and rather stooping, the top of the head bald…. The
Duke, though the lines on his face are deeper, has a fresher
colour and a brighter eye.”

The Duke of Dalmatia clung to the Orleanist dynasty
till the end, and attended the last council held by Louis
Philippe. He had a special liking for the Citizen Monarch,
who reciprocated this affection, and had in 1847 re-established
for the veteran the title of Marshal General of France,
a designation held previously only by Turenne, Villars, and
Saxe. With the fall of the dynasty he appeared no more in
public, and at last, on November 26, 1857, he died at his
château at St. Amand in his eighty-second year.

“Soult is able but too ambitious.” Thus Napoleon
appreciated the Duke of Dalmatia when discussing the
characters of his Marshals. But Soult was possessed of a
crafty caution which seldom if ever allowed his ambition to
hinder the success his ability deserved. Cold and calculating
by nature, he knew exactly where to draw the line.
The attempt to seize the throne of Portugal was the only
occasion on which he seemed to throw caution to the
winds, and those who knew him best were so astounded at
his lack of circumspection that they could scarcely believe
that he himself approved of the proclamations which
appeared in Oporto. The hard, crafty nature of the
Marshal was responsible for his many enemies among the
officers of the army. His own staff never loved him, much
as they marvelled at his indefatigable industry and his
suppleness of mind, which permitted him to turn with ease
from the highest political and strategic problems to the
drudgery of administrative details, and bring to bear on all
questions the cold, hard light of lucid reasoning. He could
attract men to him by sheer admiration of his ability, but
he could make no real friends, for those who came in contact[115]
with him soon discovered that he only thought of what
he could make out of them, and then that he would drop
them without the slightest regret. Sprung from the lower
ranks of society, the Marshal had all the cunning and
avarice of the typical bourgeois, and though he had the
capacity to overcome his want of education, he had not the
power to eradicate these inherent strains of character.
Though not so rapacious as Masséna, the Duke of Dalmatia
never withheld his hand when plunder offered itself
and his home in Paris was decorated with magnificent
objects of art filched from nearly every country in Europe.
But though he allowed himself the luxury of taking what
seized his fancy, he sternly repressed marauding on the
part of his officers and men. Hence it was that, like
Suchet, he was able to subdue the provinces committed to
his charge and win the respect and obedience of the
Spaniards. His methodical mind hated the idea of disorder;
administration came to him as Nature’s gift. Under
his rule Andalusia gained a prosperity she had never before
known. But we must remember that his success in this
province was due not only to his great gift of administration,
but also to his ambition, for it was the driving power
of self-interest which supplied the energy which oiled the
wheels of his system; for the Marshal hoped with the
resources of Andalusia to supply the material and means to
drive the English from Lisbon without the co-operation of
King Joseph or the other French commanders. In striking
contrast to the aversion with which he was regarded by his
own fellow-countrymen was the feeling of admiration with
which he was viewed by his foes, and notably by his
English adversaries in the Peninsula. They only saw the
results of his great versatility and resource, and his acts of
courtesy to those who fell into his power; while the discipline
he maintained among his troops stood in striking
contrast to the conduct of many of the other French commanders.
Moreover, the Marshal was too politic to be[116]
cruel, and it was easy to guess that his proclamation
against the Spaniards was really the work of the Emperor.
That this was the case was borne out by the following letter
written by Berthier at Napoleon’s dictation: “Let the Duke
of Dalmatia know that I learn with indignation that some
of the prisoners taken at Ocaña have been released and
their arms restored to them. When I witness such
behaviour I ask, ‘Is this treason or imbecility?’ Is it
then only French blood that is to flow in Spain without
regret and without vengeance?” As a soldier the Marshal
stands high among his compeers. In spite of his defeats at
Oporto, Albuera, and Toulouse, throughout his career he
clearly showed that he had the essential quality of a great
commander, the ability to see and the capacity to perform
what was possible with the material at hand. His strategic
insight was great, he had a magnificent eye for country and
the power of calmly surveying a field of battle, but, as
Wellington pointed out, he had one great fault, for though
“he knew how to bring his troops to the field, he did not
know so well how to use them when he had brought them
up.” Thus it was that at Sorauren, after he had surprised
Wellington and upset the whole of the English strategic
plans, he was unable to win the battle which was necessary
to reap the harvest of his labours. But the passage of the
Pyrenees, the operations round Bayonne, and the retreat on
Toulouse, will always be studied as examples of the most
perfect military operations of their type. They show to the
full the secret of the Marshal’s success as a soldier, the
blending of ardour with method and dash with caution.
As a politician the Duke of Dalmatia met with little success;
his methods were those of a dictator rather than those of a
statesman. When the hour of action was passed he invariably
showed weakness. But whatever were his faults,
it must be laid to his credit that throughout the reign of
Louis Philippe he lent all the weight of his great name and
reputation to the maintenance of order at home and peace
abroad.

[117]

VI

JEAN LANNES, MARSHAL, DUKE OF
MONTEBELLO

Jean Lannes, the future Duke of Montebello, was
born on April 10, 1769, the year which saw the birth
of many famous soldiers, Napoleon, Wellington, Ney,
and Soult. He was the fourth son of a peasant proprietor
of Lectourne, a little town on the slopes of the
Pyrenees. His family had long been settled in the commune
of Omet, in the department of the Gironde. The first
to rise to any sort of distinction was Jean’s eldest brother,
who showed at an early age such ability that the episcopal
authorities of Lectourne educated him, and in due time he
became a priest. It was to his brother, the abbé, that the
young Jean owed such elements of learning as he possessed.
But the pressure of need compelled his father to indenture
him at an early age to a dyer in Lectourne. The young
apprentice was of middle height, very well built, amazingly
active, and able to bear the utmost fatigue. His face was
pleasant and expressive, his eyes small and keen. Behind
those eyes lay a brain of extraordinary activity, which was
controlled by a boundless ambition. Enthusiastic and
passionate, Lannes’ spirit could brook but little control.
Action was the zest of his life. Administration and control
came to him not as Nature’s gifts, but as the result of his
great common sense, which guided his ambition along the
paths which led to success. A nature which could not[118]
endure the dullness of the dyer’s trade in Lectourne could,
however, compel the young soldier during the severest
campaigns to give up part of his night’s rest to study and
to the expansion of his knowledge beyond the elements of
reading, writing, and arithmetic, all the learning his brother,
the abbé, had had time to impart to him. Even in the
later years of his life the successful Marshal strove by
midnight toil to educate himself up to the position his
military talents had won for him.

Jean Lannes had already had a taste of the soldier’s life
before the outbreak of the revolutionary wars. But his
uncontrollable temper had brought this short military experience
to an abrupt end, and he had been compelled to
return to his work at Lectourne after being wounded in a
duel. His employer had greeted his return with the words,
“There is not the price of a drink to be made in the trade.
Return to the army; you may perhaps become captain.”
But Jean Lannes did not need such advice to drive him to
the path of glory. In June, 1792, the Government of France
called for volunteers to resist the coming invasion of the
Duke of Brunswick’s army. Lannes enlisted in the second
battalion of the volunteers of Gers, and was at once elected
sub-lieutenant by his fellow-citizens. This promotion he
owed partly to his former military experience, partly to his
personal magnetism, and partly to his extreme political
opinions.

When Spain declared war on France the two battalions
of Gers were sent to form part of the Army of the Eastern
Pyrenees. There Lannes gained his first practical military
experience. Both armies were extremely ill-led, ill-disciplined,
and ill-equipped. Consequently there was a great deal
of desultory hand-to-hand fighting, in which the young sub-lieutenant
distinguished himself by his courage and talent.
He enjoyed himself hugely fighting all day and dancing all
night, when he could spare the time from his books. When
military knowledge was almost entirely absent in the army,[119]
promotion came quickly to those who distinguished themselves
by courage and zeal. On September 25, 1793, Lannes
was promoted lieutenant. A month later, on October 21st,
he was made captain of the grenadier company. Two
months later, on Christmas Day, at the express desire of
his chief, General Davout, he was given command of his
battalion, and appointed colonel on the staff and acting
adjutant-general. This distinction he gained for his brilliant
conduct at Villelongue. Summoned from his bed in
hospital to command the advance guard of five hundred men,
he moved towards the main redoubt of the Spanish lines,
and, refusing to be bluffed by the proposal of an armistice,
captured the redoubt by a dashing charge. After the action
he once again retired to hospital. His next exploit was the
delicate mission entrusted to him by General Dugommier
of releasing a great number of French émigrés who had
been captured in battle, and who otherwise would have
fallen victims to the popular fury. While devoting himself
to his military duties he yet found time to fall in love.
When in hospital at Perpignan, at the end of 1793, he
had met Mademoiselle Méric, the daughter of a wealthy
banker of that town; the friendship very soon developed
into an ardent passion, and on March 19, 1795, the young
couple were united, and the marriage seemed very advantageous
for the young soldier of fortune, who was barely
twenty-five.

After the treaty of Basle the battalions of Gers were
brigaded with the old 53rd (regiment d’Alsace), and formed
part of the troops which Schérer took to reinforce the Army
of Italy in the summer of 1795. Accordingly, Lannes had
the good fortune to take part in the battle of Loano, and
once again greatly distinguished himself and was specially
mentioned in despatches.

But during the winter of 1795-6 his successful career
nearly came to an untimely end, for on the reorganisation
of the army, along with many other officers, he was placed[120]
on half pay. Fortunately, at the moment he was retiring
dejected to France, Bonaparte assumed command of the
Army of Italy. The new general felt he could ill spare a
capable officer like Lannes, and consequently he retained
him provisionally. The young colonel immediately justified
his action. At the critical moment of the Austrian counter-attack
at Dego, Lannes cleared the village by a brisk
bayonet charge. Thereon Bonaparte gave him command
of two battalions of grenadiers and one of carbineers,
which formed part of his permanent advance guard under
General Dallemagne. From this time onward Lannes had
found his proper rôle. As nature had intended Marshal Ney
for the command of a rear guard, and Murat for the command
of cavalry, so she had equipped Lannes with those
qualities which are specially required by the commander of
an advance guard. Wiry and strong, he never knew what it
was to be tired, and, never sparing himself, he never spared
his men; his kind and cheery disposition and his personal
magnetism carried all before him. His fiery enthusiasm
swept aside all difficulties; his inventive genius ever showed
him the way to surmount all obstacles. When danger was
most pressing Lannes was there, the first to head the charge,
the first to rally the discomfited. Never had Fortune a
more zealous wooer. At Lodi he was the first man on the
bridge. Later, at the head of three hundred men, he re-established
order in Lombardy; at one time especially
attached to the headquarter staff, at another hurried off to
suppress some outbreak in the rear, at another repelling a
determined sortie from Mantua, more and more, day by
day, he made himself indispensable to his young chief.
At the battle of Bassano, of the five flags wrested from
the enemy Lannes captured two with his own hands.
Wounded slightly at Bassano and more seriously at
Governolo, he yet managed to creep out of hospital in time
to take his place beside Bonaparte at Arcola. Early in the
battle he received two flesh wounds, and had to retire to[121]
have them dressed. Scarcely were they bandaged when
the news arrived that Augereau’s division had received
a severe check. Oblivious of his wounds, he leapt on his
horse and arrived at the head of his columns in time to see
Augereau and Bonaparte, flag in hand, vainly attempting to
rally their soldiers, only to be swept off the embankment into
the marsh. But Lannes headed his grenadiers, and charging
home on the Austrians, swept them back to the bridge-head,
receiving in the charge yet another wound.

JEAN LANNES, DUKE OF MONTEBELLO
FROM AN ENGRAVING BY AMÉDÉE MAULET

During the early months of 1797 he commanded a column
at Bologna, and was present at the capitulation of Mantua.
Thereafter he commanded the advance guard of Victor’s
army which invaded the Papal States. In front of Ancona
he met with a characteristic adventure. Making a reconnaissance
with two or three officers and half a dozen
troopers, he suddenly found himself in the presence of three
hundred of the enemy’s cavalry. Their commander at once
ordered his men to draw their swords preparatory to a charge.
Whereon Lannes rode up to him and told him to order his
men to return their swords, dismount, and lead their horses
back to their headquarters. The officer obeyed. By sheer
force of character Lannes thus dominated the situation and
saved the lives of himself and his escort. After the preliminaries
of peace at Leoben, Bonaparte employed him on
several confidential missions, in which his impetuosity led
him at times into difficulties, and the commander-in-chief
was forced to write to the French Minister at Genoa, “I have
heard the reply that Lannes made to you. He is hot-headed,
but a good fellow, and brave. I must write to him to tell
him to be more civil to a minister of the Republic.”

Africa has often proved the grave of great military reputations.
Napoleon himself only escaped the usual doom by
deserting his army and suddenly appearing as a deus ex
machina in the stormy field of politics at Paris. But though
so fatal to those in supreme command, Africa has sometimes
been the school from which the young officers have[122]
returned with enhanced reputations. It was from the companions
who had stood the test of the fiery trial in Egypt
and Syria that Bonaparte later selected his most trusted
Marshals.

On May 19, 1798, Lannes sailed for Egypt in the Orient as
an unattached general of brigade on the headquarter staff.
For his successful action at the head of one of the assaulting
columns in Malta he was appointed to the command of a
brigade in Kléber’s division. He took part in the capture of
Alexandria, the march on Cairo, and the battles of Chebrass
and the Pyramids; but it was not so much his success in
these engagements which enhanced his worth in Bonaparte’s
eyes, as the fact that Lannes alone of all the general officers
in Egypt did not share in the grumbling and depression
which threatened to cripple the army after its arrival at
Cairo. Soldiers and officers alike had but one desire—to
return home. Lannes secretly informed Bonaparte of the
plans of those who led the discontent, and, in the words
of Murat, “sold the cocoanut.” Thus he gained the future
Emperor as his life-long friend and Murat as his life-long
enemy. When in February, 1799, Bonaparte started
for Syria, he took with him Lannes in command of Menou’s
division.

When Bonaparte found that his military reputation was
likely to suffer by a more prolonged stay in Egypt, and
above all that France was now ready to accept the rule of a
dictator, he deserted his army in Egypt, leaving Kléber,
whom he hated, in command; he took with him his
most trustworthy officers, Lannes, Murat, Marmont, Andréossy,
and Berthier, ordering Desaix to follow. The return
to France, so longed for by most, was less agreeable to
Lannes: while in hospital after the battle of Aboukir he
had heard that his wife had given birth to a son whose
father he could not be. Consequently one of his first
acts on his return was to divorce her. But Bonaparte gave
him little time to bewail his misfortune, for he relied on[123]
him, with Berthier, Murat, and Marmont, to debauch the
army and bring it over to his side. Berthier’s business was
to win over the general staff, Murat the cavalry, Marmont
the artillery, and Lannes the infantry. Shortly after the
coup d’état General Lannes was appointed commandant and
inspector of the Consular Guard in preference to Murat.
But this was a hollow victory over his rival, for when, after
the Marengo campaign, these life-long enemies met in open
rivalry for the hand of Caroline Bonaparte, the First
Consul’s sister, Murat, aided by Josephine, became the
accepted suitor, and Lannes had to submit to see his hated
rival in quick succession the brother-in-law of Napoleon, a
Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, the crowned King of
Naples, and, most bitter of all, the confidential friend of
his idol.

It was in the Marengo campaign that the general had his
first opportunity of distinguishing himself as an independent
commander, and winning the renown which the
victory of Montebello inseparably connects with his name.
When Bonaparte made his famous march into Italy with
the Army of the Reserve, he appointed Lannes to command
the advance guard. The whole success of the operations
depended on the rapidity with which they were carried out,
for the First Consul, in his endeavour to get astride the
Austrian line of communication, was exposing his flank to
the enemy, and the French army, if beaten, had no other
line of retreat save the terrible defiles of the Alps. Accordingly,
Napoleon’s selection of Lannes to command the
advance guard is the highest possible testimony to his
military ability. The battle of Montebello was Lannes’s first
independent engagement. In it he showed his genius for
war. If he had allowed the Austrians to reoccupy Stradella
he would have ruined the whole of Napoleon’s scheme
of operations, but, though his force was only a third of the
enemy’s, he remembered the advantage that comes to the
assailant; instead of waiting in an entrenched position, he[124]
attacked, and by his indomitable courage and tenacity, and
his tactical ability, he kept the enemy pinned to his
entrenchments until the arrival of fresh troops under Victor
enabled him to pulverise his foe. The battle was one
of the finest of the campaign. “The bones,” said Lannes,
“cracked in my division like glass in a hailstorm.”

At Marengo Lannes had to reverse his usual rôle and fight
a rear-guard action, for during the early part of the engagement
the French were outnumbered by thirty thousand
men against eighteen thousand, and yet the general was
able to report: “I carried out my retirement by successive
echelons under a devastating fire of artillery, amid successive
charges of cavalry. I had not a single gun to cover
my retreat, and yet it was carried out in perfect order.”
The soldier who in the hour of success was full of
impetuosity and élan, in the hour of retreat was able
to inspire his troops with stubborn courage and unfailing
self-confidence, which did much to secure the victory.

After Marengo came a period of peace. Lannes, as
commander of the Consular Guard, had his headquarters
in Paris, and, owing to his official position, was constantly
in touch with Bonaparte. But, necessary as he was in war
time, his companionship during peace was not altogether
congenial to the First Consul, and as time went on it
became almost distasteful. Although happily married to
Mademoiselle Louise Antoinette Guéheneuc, the daughter
of a senator, he felt himself aggrieved that Bonaparte
had not supported his suit with Caroline, and was
extremely jealous of many of the First Consul’s friends.
The constant bickering between Lannes and Murat never
ceased. Moreover Lannes, as an out-and-out republican,
treated the First Consul in a frank spirit of camaraderie,
relying on his services at Arcola and Montebello. This
Bonaparte not unnaturally resented. The increased ceremonial
of the court and the prospect of the Concordat
were abhorrent to the stern republicans, but necessary to[125]
establish the divinity which should at least seem to
surround a throne. Relations became so strained that
Bonaparte was soon glad to seize on any excuse to dismiss
Lannes from his post. Murat and his tool Bessières
provided him with a plausible reason. Lannes, by nature
happy-go-lucky and no financier, wishing no doubt to
please the First Consul, spent his money freely in lavish
entertainment at his Paris house, and equipped the guard
in most gorgeous uniforms. To meet these expenses he
overdrew his account with the military authorities by more
than three hundred thousand francs. Murat, hearing of
this from Bessières, brought it to the First Consul’s notice.
Bonaparte at once summoned Lannes, rated him soundly,
and commanded him immediately to refund the money.
Murat was delighted; he thought that his enemy was
certain to be disgraced. In his difficulty Lannes turned to
his old friend and former chief, Augereau, who at once
lent him the money and refused to take any security. But
although he was thus able to refund the money, Bonaparte
dismissed him from the command of the Guard. Still,
remembering his war service and thinking that he might be
useful again later, he did not disgrace him utterly, but at the
end of 1801 sent him as ambassador to Portugal.

Lannes’s diplomatic career was at first not very successful.
English influence was all-powerful at Lisbon and the new
envoy had not the talent to counteract it. In the autumn
of 1802, thinking himself slighted by the Portuguese
authorities, without consulting Talleyrand, he suddenly
withdrew from Lisbon and returned to France. But
at Orleans he received an angry message from Bonaparte
forbidding him to return to Paris. The First Consul meanwhile
addressed peremptory messages to the court of
Lisbon about the supposed insult offered to his ambassador.
Thereon the Portuguese Foreign Minister apologised and
Lannes returned. Angry as Bonaparte was at the moment,
he confessed later that Lannes’ soldierly impetuosity had[126]
served the cause of France better than the skilfulness of a
consummate diplomat. For from this time onwards French
influence began to increase at Lisbon, Lannes was courted
by the minister, and the Prince Regent himself stood godfather
to his son. The story goes that after the ceremony
the Prince Regent took the ambassador into a salon of the
palace where the diamonds from Brazil were stored, and
then gave him a handful, saying, “That is for my godson,”
then a second handful for the mother, and a third for himself.
Whatever the truth of the story, the fact remains
that Lannes returned to France a rich man, able not
only to repay his loan to Augereau but to indulge in
fresh extravagance.

From Lisbon the ambassador was summoned to attend
the coronation of the Emperor and to take his place among
the Marshals. But he was not yet received back into
full favour by the Emperor, and had to return to his
embassy at Lisbon. It was not till March 22, 1805, that
he was recalled to France to command the right wing
of the Army of the Ocean, which, when war broke out
between Austria and France, became the Grand Army.
The fifth corps under Lannes reached the Rhine at Kehl on
September 25th. Napoleon’s scheme of operations was, by
making vigorous demonstrations in the direction of the
Black Forest, to persuade the Austrians that he was
advancing in force in that direction, while all the time his
wings were sweeping round the Austrian rear and cutting
their line of communication on the Danube, in the
direction of Ratisbon. The task of deceiving the Austrians
was performed to perfection by Murat with the reserve
cavalry and Lannes’s corps. Immediately after Mack’s
surrender at Ulm, the Emperor detached Lannes and
Murat in pursuit of the Archduke Ferdinand, who had
successfully broken through the ring of French troops.
Lannes’s infantry tramped sturdily behind Murat’s cavalry,
and fighting proceeded day and night. The soldiers[127]
marched thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen hours a day, and
captured in five days fifteen thousand men with eleven
colours, one hundred and twenty-eight guns, and six
hundred limbers and provision wagons.

During the rapid advance down the Danube on Vienna,
the fifth corps continued in close support of Murat’s
cavalry. Vienna capitulated and the Marshals pressed on
to seize the bridge before the city. The defence of the
bridge had been entrusted to General Auersperg, with seven
thousand men. The bridge was commanded by a battery
of artillery, and the engineers were preparing to blow it up
when Murat, Lannes, and Bertrand arrived. The three
general officers quietly walked down to the bridge and
shouted out to the Austrian picquets that an armistice
had been arranged. Thereon the commander of the
picquet proceeded to withdraw his men and sent word
to Auersperg. Meanwhile the three officers strolled
unconcernedly across, while a considerable way behind
them a strong body of Lannes’s infantry followed.
When the French generals reached the Austrian end
they found a sergeant of engineers actually proceeding
to fire the fuse. Lannes caught him by the arm and
snatched the match from his hand, telling him that it
was a crime to blow up the bridge, and that he
would be disgraced if he did such a thing. Then the two
Marshals ran up to the officers commanding the artillery,
who, growing restive at the continual advance of the
French infantry, were preparing to open fire. Meanwhile
Auersperg himself arrived, and the Marshals told him the same
tale, affirming that the French were to occupy the bridge-head.
Uncertain, like his subordinates, and but half convinced,
he allowed himself to be bluffed, and thus Napoleon
secured without dispute the crossing of the Danube. The
boldness and audacity of the scheme so successfully carried
out by Murat and Lannes, difficult as it is to condone from
a moral point of view, brings out with great clearness[128]
the audacity, sangfroid, and resourcefulness of both these
Marshals.

The successful crossing of the Danube was soon followed
by the decisive battle of Austerlitz. The battle was brought
on by Napoleon impressing the Allies with the idea that it
was possible to slip past the French left flank and surround
him, much as he had surrounded Mack at Ulm. For this
purpose the right under Davout was drawn back and concealed
by skilful use of the ground. The centre under
Soult and the left under Lannes were to hold their ground
until the Russian left was absolutely compromised, when
Soult was to push forward, and, seizing the commanding
hill of Pratzen, to cut the Russian force in two, while
Lannes and Murat were to fall with all their weight on the
isolated Russian right. For once Murat and Lannes laid
aside their jealousy and worked hand in hand, and the
success of the French left was due to the perfect combination
of infantry and cavalry. Of the Russian right, seven thousand
five hundred were made prisoners, and two colours
and twenty-seven pieces of artillery were captured. But
hardly had the battle ceased when bickerings broke out
again, and Lannes, thinking Napoleon did not appreciate
him, sent in his resignation, which the Emperor, much to
his surprise, accepted.

The Marshal spent the greater part of the year 1806
in retirement at his native town of Lectourne, where he was
joyfully received by his erstwhile neighbours and friends.
He was always popular with his fellow-citizens, not only
because of his republican ideas and his unaffected simplicity,
but because he never forgot those who at any time had
befriended him—a man who had once lent him a thousand
francs was presented with a beautiful house and garden;
the old soldier who had carried him out of the trenches at
St. Jean d’Acre was established as a local postmaster, and
received a small property and an annuity, and the Marshal
never passed the house without going in, taking a meal with[129]
him, and making presents to the wife and children. On one
occasion Lannes was attending a big official reception at
Auch. On his way, he passed a peasant whom he recognised
as one of the playfellows of his boyhood; strongly
moved, the Marshal, when he arrived at the prefecture,
asked the prefect if he might invite one of his friends to the
luncheon. The prefect was charmed, but much surprised
when an aide-de-camp returned with the peasant, whom
Lannes embraced, placed by his side, and soon set at ease.

But war once again caused the Emperor to summon
his fiery lieutenant. Lannes took command of the fifth
corps on October 5, 1806, and five days later had the
satisfaction of beating a strong Prussian force at Saalfeld.
From Saalfeld the Marshal pushed on towards Jena, near
which town, early on October 13th, his scouts came in
contact with a large Prussian force under Hohenlohe. His
small force was in considerable danger, but Napoleon at
once hurried up all possible reinforcements. The Prussians
held an apparently impregnable position on the Landgrafenberg,
a precipitous hill which commanded the town. But
during the night a local pastor pointed out to the French a
track, which led up to the summit, which the Prussians
had neglected to occupy. Working all night, the French
sappers made a road up which guns could be hauled by
hand, and on the morning of the 14th the corps of Lannes,
Augereau, and the Guard were safely drawn up on the plateau
of the Landgrafenberg, while Ney and Soult continued
the line to the north. A heavy mist overhung the field of
battle, and Hohenlohe was confident that he was only
opposed by the fifth corps, and his surprise was immense
when the fog lifted and he found himself confronted by the
French army. The battle commenced by Lannes seizing
the village of Vierzehn Heiligen. While the Prussians were
fully occupied in attempting to hold this village, Napoleon
threw his flanks round them, and the battle ended in
the annihilation of Hohenlohe’s army. In the evening[130]
Napoleon learned that on the same day Davout had completely
defeated the main Prussian army at Auerstädt.
Thereon he sent forward his various corps to seize all the
important fortresses of Prussia, and detailed Lannes to
support Murat in pursuit of the Prussian troops under
Hohenlohe and Blücher, which retreated in the direction of
the Oder. If the battle of Jena had been followed by
peace, as had happened after Austerlitz in the previous year,
it is more than probable that once again Lannes would have
thrown up his command, for when the bulletin appeared,
the part that his corps had taken was almost entirely
neglected. The Marshal’s letter to his wife showed that he
was vexed beyond words with his treatment by Napoleon,
and he started out in the worst of tempers to support
Murat. But he was too keen a soldier to let his personal
grievances interfere with his active work, and, although he
gave vent to his spleen in the usual recriminations, he
performed his work to admiration. So hard did he push his
infantry, marching sixty miles in forty-eight hours, that he
was never more than five miles behind the light cavalry, and
it was owing to his effective support that, on October 28th,
Murat was able to surround Hohenlohe and force him to
surrender at Prinzlow. But, in spite of this, Murat in
his despatch never mentioned the name of Lannes. It
took all Napoleon’s tact to smooth the Marshal’s ruffled
temper, and it was only the prospect of further action
which ultimately prevented him from throwing up his
command in high dudgeon.

By the beginning of November the theatre of war was
virtually transferred from Prussia to Poland. As after
Ulm, so after Jena, the Russians appeared on the scene too
late to give effective aid to their allies, but in sufficient time
to prevent the war from ending. Napoleon, who always
had an intense esteem for the Marshal’s common sense and
military ability, asked him at this time to furnish a
confidential report on the possibilities of Poland as a theatre[131]
of war, and the Marshal, with his keen insight into character,
replied, “I am convinced that if you attempt to make
the Poles rise on our behalf, within a fortnight they will be
more against us than for us.”

The French troops crossed the Vistula at Warsaw, and
encountered “the fifth element, mud.” Led by Murat,
unable to make headway in mud up to their knees, baffled
by the Fabian tactics of the Russians, and lacking the
mighty brain of their Emperor, the Marshals fought without
co-operation, each for his own glory. Lannes was as bad
as the rest, showing in his refusal to give due praise to his
brother generals for their help at Pultusk the same petty
spirit of which he had complained in Murat. During the
long winter weeks spent in cantonments along the Vistula,
the Marshal was ill with fever, in hospital at Warsaw, and
was not able to return to the head of his corps in time for
the bloody battle of Eylau. During May he commanded
the covering force at the siege of Dantzig, and was summoned
thence to take part in the last phase of the campaign.
The Russian General, Bennigsen, allowed himself to be
outgeneralled by Napoleon, and the French were soon
nearer Königsberg than the Russians. Bennigsen made
desperate efforts to retrieve his mistake, and on June
13th actually managed to throw himself across the Alle at
Friedland, just at the moment that Lannes arrived on
the scene. The Marshal at once saw his opportunity.
The Russians were drawn up with the Alle at their backs,
so that retreat was impossible, and only victory could save
them. The Marshal’s design, therefore, was to hold the
enemy till the main French army arrived. Bennigsen made
the most determined efforts to throw him off, attempting
to crush him by superior weight of horsemen and artillery.
But the Marshal held on to him grimly, and by magnificent
handling of Oudinot’s grenadiers, the Saxon horse, and
Grouchy’s dragoons, he maintained his position in spite of
all the Russian efforts during the night of June 13th. On[132]
the morning of the 14th, with ten thousand troops opposed
to forty thousand, he fought for four hours without giving
ground, skilfully availing himself of every bit of wood and
cover, till at last reinforcements arrived. When the main
French columns were deployed, Lannes, with the remnant
of his indomitable corps, had a brief period of rest. But
during the last phase of the battle the enemy made a
desperate effort to break out of the trap through his
shattered corps, and once again the Marshal led his troops
with invincible élan, and drove the Russians right into the
death-trap of Friedland.

Tilsit followed, and Napoleon showered honours on his
trusty lieutenants. On June 30, 1807, he gave to Lannes
the principality of Sievers in the department of Kalish, and
on March 19, 1808, he conferred on him a greater honour
when he created him Duke of Montebello in memory of his
famous victory.

The Duke of Montebello spent his days of peace for the
most part at Lectourne. He was summoned thence in
October, 1808, to accompany the Emperor to Erfurt, and
there the Czar Alexander made a special hero of his old
adversary of Austerlitz, Pultusk, and Friedland, and presented
him with the grand cordon of the Order of St. Andrew.

The period between Tilsit and Erfurt gave Lannes the
last peaceful days that he ever spent, for from Erfurt he was
hurried off again to war, this time to Spain. As usual when
there was hard fighting in prospect, Napoleon knew that he
could ill afford to do without his most trusty and able
lieutenant. But Lannes had but little enthusiasm for the
Spanish War. His reputation stood so high that there was
little chance of enhancing it, and by now the fire-eating
republican soldier was settling down into a quiet country
gentleman, who preferred the domestic circle and the
pleasure of playing the grand seigneur before an audience
of friends to the stir of the camp and the pomp of the court.
But he was too well drilled in soldierly instincts to refuse to[133]
serve when summoned by his chief, and accordingly, much
against his will, he set out on what he expected to be a
short inglorious campaign of a couple of months against
a disorganised provincial militia.

Lannes accompanied the Emperor on his journey to
Spain, attached to the headquarter staff without any definite
command, for the Emperor knew that all was not well with
the armies there, but he could not, until he had himself
looked into the question, decide where he could use to
the best advantage the great administrative and tactical
ability of the Duke of Montebello. During the hurried
crossing of the mountains of Tolosa the Marshal had the
misfortune to be thrown from his horse. So severe were
the injuries he received that it seemed impossible to take
him beyond Vittoria, but Larrey, the Emperor’s surgeon,
ordered him to be wrapped in the bloody skin of a newly
killed sheep; so successful was the prescription that the
Marshal was soon able to follow the Emperor and rejoin
headquarters. On his arrival the Emperor sent him to take
over Moncey’s corps of thirty-five thousand men, with orders
to attack Castaños’s forty-nine thousand at Tudela, while
Ney, with twelve thousand, worked round the Spanish rear.
On the morning of November 28th Lannes attacked the
Spaniards at Tudela and won an easy victory, for the
Aragonese, under Palafox, thought only of Saragossa, and
the Valencians and Andalusians, under Castaños, of their
line of retreat to the south. Lannes, seeing the exaggerated
length of the Spanish position, at once divined the reason,
and drove home an overwhelming attack against their weak
centre. Successful as the battle was, it had not the far-reaching
effects Napoleon had desired, for, owing to the
mountainous nature of the ground, Ney was unable to get
across the Spanish line of retreat; however, the enemy lost
four thousand men at Tudela and, what was more important,
all their artillery.

The battle of Tudela opened the road to Madrid. But[134]
when Napoleon arrived there, instead of driving the remnants
of the Spanish armies before him and sweeping down
to Seville, he found that there was a pressing danger in
the north. To give the scattered Spaniards a chance of
rallying, Sir John Moore was making a bold advance on
Madrid, and was close to Salamanca. Napoleon at once
ordered Lannes to hand over his corps to Moncey and to
join headquarters. The corps of Ney and a part of Victor’s
corps were sent off to oppose the English, and on December
28th Napoleon and the Duke of Montebello set out to overtake
them. The weather was awful, and the passage of the
mountain passes in face of the blizzards of snow tried the
endurance of the troops to the uttermost. Lannes, in spite
of the fact that he had not entirely recovered from his fall,
joined Napoleon in setting an example to the troops. At
the head of the column marched the Emperor with one arm
linked to Lannes and the other to Duroc. When completely
worn out by the unaccustomed efforts and by the weight
of their riding-boots, the Emperor and Lannes at times took
a brief rest on the limber of a gun carriage, and then got
down and marched again.

When Napoleon handed over the pursuit to Soult, he
despatched the Duke of Montebello to take command of the
corps of Junot and Moncey at Saragossa. On his arrival, on
January 22, 1809, the Marshal found that the garrison of
Saragossa was in much better heart than the besiegers, for
on the west the third corps, owing to illness and fatigue,
numbered barely thirteen thousand, and Gazan’s division
across the Ebro, before the eastern suburb, was scarcely
seven thousand strong, while the total strength of the
garrison was almost sixty thousand. Consequently Junot
and Gazan were seriously contemplating raising the siege.
Lannes’s first duty was to restore the morale of the troops;
to reprimand the general officers, who had been slack in
their duty; to set an example to them by his fiery diligence,
which refused to let him go to bed once during the whole[135]
of the first week he was before Saragossa; to restore the
courage of the troops by daily exposing his life in the
trenches, and, when necessary, reconnoitring in person
with the utmost sangfroid right up to the Spanish
positions; supervising hospitals, reorganising commissariat,
planning with the engineer officers new methods of sap—in a
word, to be everywhere and to do everything. Nothing can
more clearly illustrate Napoleon’s dictum, “A la guerre les
hommes ne sont rien, c’est un homme qui est tout.”
Within five days of Lannes’s taking over command the
whole complexion of the situation had altered. The French
were making the most resolute assaults with irresistible
élan, carrying out the most difficult street-fighting with the
greatest zest, sapping, mining, and blowing up convents and
fortified posts, fighting above ground and below ground,
suffering the most terrible losses, yet ever eager to fight
again. By February 11th, thanks to the new morale of the
troops, and to the fact that dysentery and enteric were
playing havoc in the garrison, Lannes had captured house
by house the western half of the town, and had arrived at
the Corso. But once again murmurings broke out among
the French troops, who had by now lost a fourth of their
numbers, and at the same time a strong force of Spaniards
under Palafox’s brothers threatened to overwhelm Suchet,
who was covering the siege. Lannes proved superior to all
difficulties; by his fiery speeches and tact he reanimated
both officers and men, pointing out to them the triumph
they had already won in penning in fifty thousand Spaniards
with a mere handful. Then, hurrying off with reinforcements
for Suchet, he dug the covering force into an
entrenched position on the heights of Villa Mayor, and
four days later was back at Saragossa in time to superintend
the attack across the Corso. On February 18th
the French captured the suburb on the left bank of
the river, and thus placed the inner town between two
fires.[136]

Disease and the success of their enemies had taken all the
heart out of the Spanish defence, and on February 20th
Palafox surrendered. Between December 21st and February
21st the Spanish losses had been fifty-four thousand dead
from wounds and disease, and Saragossa itself was but a
heap of crumbling ruins. Lannes did all in his power to
alleviate the sufferings of the unfortunate inhabitants, yet in
spite of all his efforts another ten thousand died within the
next month. Unfortunately also for his reputation the
Marshal, acting on distinct orders from Napoleon, treated
his military prisoners with extreme severity and executed
two of the most prominent. The great strain of the siege
told heavily on the health of the Marshal, who had never
completely recovered from his accident near Tolosa;
accordingly, after refitting the corps under his command, he
handed them over to Mortier and Junot, and at the end of
March set out for Lectourne. But his stay there was short,
for Napoleon, with the Spanish and Austrian wars on his
hands, could not afford to do without his assistance.

By April 25th Lannes found himself once again at the
post of danger, but this time on the Danube, at the battle of
Abensberg. As he himself said, the first rumour of war
always made him shiver, but as soon as he had taken the
first step forward he had no thought but for his profession.
But, much as he would have liked to dally at Lectourne, and
much as he grumbled at Napoleon’s overweening ambition
once at the front he was the dashing soldier of the first
Italian campaign. He arrived in time to take his share
in the five days’ fighting at Abensberg, Landshut, Eckmühl,
and Ratisbon. At Ratisbon he had an opportunity of
showing that time had had no effect on his spirit; after two
storming parties had been swept away, he called for
volunteers for a third attempt: none stepped forward,
and he himself rushed to seize a ladder. His staff held him
back; but the lesson was not in vain: volunteers crowded to
seize the scaling ladders, led by two of the Marshal’s aides-de-camp,[137]
and soon the walls of Ratisbon were crowned
with French soldiers and the town was won.

Napoleon himself accompanied Lannes on the march
to Vienna, and the Marshal was perfectly happy. Murat
was absent, and there was no evil influence to cloud his
friendship with his great chief. Once again Vienna succumbed
without a shot, but this time the Austrians took
care that there was no bridge over which Napoleon might
cross the Danube. Accordingly, the Emperor determined
to bridge the river below Vienna, making use of the Isle of
Lobau, which lay two-thirds of the way across. The bridge
from the south bank to Lobau was built under the personal
supervision of the Emperor and Lannes, and on one
occasion when they were reconnoitring in person they both
fell into the river, and the Marshal, who was out of his
depth, was pulled out by the Emperor himself.

By May 20th the French army was concentrated in
Lobau, and on May 21st a crossing was effected by several
bridges, and assured by Masséna occupying the village
of Aspern and Lannes that of Essling. By the morning of
the 22nd the mass of the French army had reached the
north bank of the river. Napoleon, who perceived that
the Austrian line was too extended to be strong, gave the
command of the centre to Lannes with orders to sally
forth from between the villages of Aspern and Essling and
break the enemy’s centre. In spite of a devastating
artillery fire, the Marshal carried out his orders to
perfection, making skilful use of his infantry and cavalry.
He had actually forced back the Austrians when he was
recalled by Napoleon, who had just heard that the enemy
had succeeded in breaking the bridge by sending huge masses
of timber down the swollen river. Lannes retreated
slowly on Essling, his troops suffering severely from the
re-formed Austrian batteries. While thus holding the foe in
check the Marshal was struck on the knee by a cannon
ball which ricocheted off the ground just in front of him.[138]
He was removed to the rear, and the doctors decided that it
was necessary to amputate the right leg. The Marshal bore
the operation well. He was moved to Vienna, and sent for
the celebrated mechanician, Mesler, to make him a false leg,
but unfortunately the hot weather affected the wound
and mortification set in. The Emperor, in spite of his
anxieties, came daily to visit him, and the dying hero had
the last consolation of seeing how much he was valued by
his august master and friend. The end came soon. On
May 30th the Duke of Montebello died, and Napoleon,
on hearing the news, with tears in his eyes cried out,
“What a loss for France and for me!”

The death of Lannes removed the first of Napoleon’s
chosen Paladins, and, in the opinion of the Emperor
himself, perhaps the greatest soldier of them all. At
St. Helena the fallen Emperor thus appraised his old
comrade: “Lannes was a man of extraordinary bravery.
Calm under fire, he possessed a sure and penetrating
coup d’œil; he had great experience in war. As a general
he was infinitely superior to Moreau and Soult.” But
high as this eulogy is, the fact remains that Lannes was
lucky in the time of his death: Fortune had not yet set
her face against Napoleon’s arms, and he was spared the
terrors of the Russian retreat, the terrible fighting at
Leipzig, and the gloom and misery of the winter campaign
in France. That Lannes would have emerged
superior to these trials his previous career affords strong
reason to presume. Yet, brilliant as were his actions at
Montebello, Saalfeld, Pultusk, and Tudela, masterly as
were his operations at the siege of Saragossa, they only
prove the Marshal’s command of the technique of tactics.
As Davout has pointed out, the Duke of Montebello had
never an opportunity of showing his ability in the field
of grand tactics or in the higher conceptions of strategy;
he was a past master in the art of manœuvring twenty-five
thousand infantry, but he had never the opportunity of[139]
devising and carrying out a complete campaign, involving
the handling of hundreds of thousands of men and the
successful solution of problems both military and political.
“The Roland of the French Army” had by nature many
qualities which go to form a great soldier. His bravery
was undoubted; before Ney he was called “the Bravest
of the Brave.” He had personal qualities which inspired
his troops with his own courage and élan. He had the
military eye, and a mind of extraordinary activity, which
worked best when under the pressure of necessity and
danger. He was physically strong and able to endure
fatigue, and he had great capacity for taking pains. But
his temper was often at fault, causing him to burst into fits
of uncontrollable rage, while from jealousy he was apt
to sulk and refuse to co-operate with his fellows. If an
officer failed to grasp his meaning he would storm at him,
and attempt himself to carry out the task. But on one
occasion he heard the Emperor cry out, “That devil
Lannes possesses all the qualities of a great commander,
but he will never be one, because he cannot master his
temper, and is constantly bickering with his subalterns, the
greatest fault that a commander can make.” From that
day forward Lannes made the resolution to command
his temper, and, in spite of his nature, his self-control
became extraordinary. But though he conquered this
weakness, he never overcame his jealousy of his fellow
Marshals and generals. Again and again he threw up his
command because he thought he was slighted or that others
were preferred to him. At times he broke out into violent
tirades against the Emperor himself, and on one occasion,
in his jealousy, told him that Murat, his brother-in-law, was
“a mountebank, a tight-rope dancer.” Napoleon remonstrated
with him, exclaiming, “It is I alone who give you both
glory and success.” Lannes, livid with anger, retaliated,
“Yes, yes; because you have marched up to your ankles in
gore on this bloody field, you think yourself a great man;[140]
and your emplumed brother-in-law crows on his own
dunghill…. Twelve thousand corpses lying on the plain
to keep the field for your honour … and yet to deny me—to
me, Lannes—my due share in the honours of the day!”
On the day before his death he could not resist humiliating
his hated enemy, Bessières, whom Napoleon had put
under his command, and he actually insulted him on
the field of battle by sending a junior aide-de-camp to
tell the Marshal “to charge home,” implying that he was
shirking his duty.

As a man, Lannes was warm-hearted and beloved by his
family, his staff, and his men. Rough diamond as he was, he
was truly one of nature’s gentlemen. He never forgot a
friend, though he seldom if ever forgave an enemy. His
sympathies were essentially democratic; himself one of the
people, he believed thoroughly in republican ideas. Outspoken
to a fault, he would flare out against Napoleon
himself, but one kind word from his great chief would cause
him to forget all his bitterness. His impetuosity and his
republican ideals of equality were, naturally, extremely
offensive on occasions to the Emperor and the new nobility,
and Lannes, in spite of all his efforts, was too genuine to
conceal his hatred of all flunkeyism. It was this Gascon
self-confidence, blended with singular amiability of character,
which, while it offended the court, attached to the
Marshal his soldiers and the provincial society of Lectourne,
where even to this day the name of the Duke of Montebello
is held in the most affectionate esteem and regard.

[141]

VII

MICHEL NEY, MARSHAL, DUKE OF ELCHINGEN,
PRINCE OF MOSKOWA

“Go on, Ney; I am satisfied with you; you will
make your way.” So spoke a captain of hussars
to a young recruit who had attracted his attention.
The captain little thought that the zealous stripling would
one day become a Marshal of France, the Prince of
Moskowa, and famed throughout Europe as the “Bravest of
the Brave.” Still, the youth had presentiments of future
greatness. Born on January 10, 1769, the son of a poor
cooper, of Sarrelouis, more German than French, Michel
Ney, at the age of fifteen, was possessed with the idea
that he was destined for distinction. His father and
mother tried to persuade him to become a miner, but
nothing would please the high-spirited boy save the life of a
soldier. Accordingly on February 1, 1787, he tramped off
to Metz and enlisted as a private in the regiment known as
the Colonel General’s Hussars. Physically strong, unusually
active, by nature a horseman, he soon attracted the attention
of his comrades by his skill in ménage and his command of
the sabre, and was chosen to represent his regiment in a
duel against the fencing master of another regiment of the
garrison. Unfortunately for Ney, the authorities got wind
of the affair in time to prevent any decision being arrived at,
and the young soldier was punished for breaking regulations
by a term of imprisonment; but no sooner was he released[142]
than he again challenged his opponent. This time there
was no interference, and Ney so severely wounded his
adversary that he was unable to continue his profession.
Though he thus early in his career distinguished himself by
his bravery, tenacity, and disregard of rules, it must not for
a moment be thought that he was a mere swashbuckler.
With the determination to rise firmly before his eyes, he set
about, from the day he enlisted, to learn thoroughly the
rudiments of his profession, and to acquire a knowledge of
French and the faculty of reading and writing; thus he was
able to pass the necessary tests, and quickly gained the
rank of sergeant. Ney was fortunate in that he had not to
spend long years as a non-commissioned officer with no
obvious future before him. The Revolution gave him the
opportunity so long desired by Masséna and others, and it
was as lieutenant that he started on active service with
Dumouriez’s army in 1793. Once on active service it was
not long before his great qualities made themselves recognised.
Though absolutely uncultivated, save for the smattering
of reading and writing which he had picked up in the
regimental school, and to outward appearances rather heavy
and stupid, in the midst of danger he showed an energy, a
quickness of intuition, and a clearness of understanding
which hurled aside the most formidable obstacles. Physical
fear he never knew; as he said, when asked if he ever felt
afraid, “No, I never had time.” In his earliest engagements
at Neerwinden and in the north of France, he foreshadowed
his future career by the extraordinary bravery and resource
he showed in handling his squadron of cavalry during the
retreat, on one occasion, with some twenty hussars, completely
routing three hundred of the enemy’s horse. This
achievement attracted the attention of General Kléber, who
sent for Captain Ney and entrusted him with the formation
of a body of franc-tireurs of all arms. The franc-tireurs were
really recognised brigands. They received no pay or arms
and lived entirely on plunder, but were extremely useful for[143]
scouting and reconnaissance, and collected a great deal of
information under a dashing officer. From this congenial
work Ney was summoned in 1796 to command the cavalry
of General Coland’s division in the Army of the Sambre
and Meuse. There he distinguished himself by capturing
Würzburg and two thousand of the enemy with a squadron
of one hundred hussars. After this exploit General Kléber
refused to listen to his remonstrances and insisted on his
accepting his promotion as general of brigade. At the
commencement of the campaign of 1797 Ney had the misfortune
to be taken prisoner at Giessen. While covering
the retreat with his cavalry, he saw a horse artillery gun
deserted by its men. Galloping back by himself, he
attempted to save the piece, but the enemy’s horse swept
down and captured him. His captivity was not long: his
exchange was soon effected, and he returned to France in
time to join in the agitation against the party of the
Clicheans, the only occasion he actively interfered in
politics.

MICHEL NEY, PRINCE OF MOSKOWA
FROM AN ENGRAVING AFTER THE PAINTING BY F. GÉRARD

On the re-opening of the war in 1799 Ney was sent to
command the cavalry of the Army of the Rhine. The
campaign was notable for an exploit which admirably
illustrates the secret of his success as a soldier. The town
of Mannheim, held by a large Austrian garrison, was the
key of Southern Germany. The French army was separated
from this fortress by the broad Rhine. The enemy was
confident that any attempt on the fortress must be preceded
by the passage of the river by the whole French army.
But Ney, hearing that the enemy’s troops were cantonned
in the villages surrounding the town, saw that if a small
French force could be smuggled across by night, it might be
possible to seize the town by a coup-de-main. The most
important thing to ascertain was the exact position of the
cantonments of the troops outside the fortress and of the
various guards and sentinels inside the town. So important
did he consider this information that he determined to cross[144]
the river himself and reconnoitre the position in person.
Accordingly, general of division as he was, he disguised himself
as a Prussian, and trusting to his early knowledge of
German, he crossed the river secretly, and carefully noted all
the enemy’s preparations, running the risk of being found out
and shot as a spy. The following evening, with a weak
detachment, he again crossed the river, attacked the enemy’s
guards with the bayonet, drove back a sortie of the garrison,
and entered the town pell-mell with the flying enemy; and
under cover of the darkness, which hid the paucity of his
troops, he bluffed the enemy into surrender. The year 1800
brought him further glory under Masséna and Moreau, and
he became known throughout the armies of France as the
“Indefatigable.”

After the Treaty of Lunéville, the First Consul summoned
Ney to Paris, and won his affection by the warmth with
which he received him. On his departure Bonaparte
presented him with a sword. “Receive this weapon,” he
said, “as a souvenir of the friendship and esteem I have
towards you. It belonged to a pasha who met his death
bravely on the field of Aboukir.” The sword became Ney’s
most treasured possession: he was never tired of handling
it, and he never let it go out of his sight; but he little thought
what ill luck it would bring him later, for it was this famous
sword which, in 1815, revealed to the police his hiding-place,
and thus indirectly led him to death. The relations between
Ney and the First Consul soon became closer. The
general married a great friend of Hortense Beauharnais,
Mademoiselle Auguie, the daughter of Marie Antoinette’s
lady in waiting. Sure of his devotion and perceiving the
sternness with which he obeyed orders, in 1802 the First
Consul entrusted him with the subjugation of Switzerland.
The Swiss army fled before him, and a deputation, charged
to make their submission to France, arrived in his camp
with the keys of the principal towns. The general met
them, listened courteously to their words of submission,[145]
then with a wave of the hand refused the keys. With that
insight which later led him to warn Napoleon against
attempting to trample on the people of Spain and Russia, he
replied to the deputation, “It is not the keys I demand: my
cannon can force your gates; bring me hearts full of submission,
worthy of the friendship of France.” Soon afterwards,
with Soult and Davout, Ney was honoured with the
command of one of the corps in the army which the First
Consul was assembling for the invasion of England. In
selecting him for this important post Napoleon showed that
power of discrimination which contributed so greatly to his
success. For, save in the raid into Switzerland, Ney had
not yet been called upon to deal with complicated questions
of administration and finance. His reputation rested purely
on his extraordinary dash and bravery in the face of the
enemy and his power of using to the full the élan which lies
latent in all French armies. For when not in touch with
the enemy he was notoriously indolent. He never made any
attempt to learn the abstract science of war, and until stirred
by danger his character seemed to slumber. Others judged
him as the Emperor did at St. Helena when he said, “He
was the bravest of men; there terminated all his faculties.”
But, in spite of this limitation in his character, Napoleon
employed him again and again in positions of responsibility,
for he knew that Ney’s word once passed was never broken,
that his devotion to France and to its ruler was steadfast, that
in spite of his peevishness and his fierce outbursts of temper
and bitter tirades, when it came to deeds there would be no
wavering. Consequently the First Consul availed himself
gladly of his great reputation for bravery, considering that
hero worship did more to turn the young recruits into
soldiers than the greatest organising and administrative
talents. Moreover, Napoleon kept an eye on the composition
of the staff of his Marshals and generals, and he knew that
Ney had in Jomini, the chief of his staff, a man of admirable
talent and sagacity, who would turn in their proper[146]
direction the sledge-hammer blows of the “Bravest of the
Brave.”

With the creation of the Empire Ney was included among
the Paladins of the new Charlemagne and received his
Marshal’s bâton, the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour,
and the Order of the Christ of Portugal. But the new
Marshal cared little for the life of a courtier, much as he
prized his military distinctions. Banquets and feasting
offered little attraction to the hero, and he despised riches
and rank. “Gentlemen,” said he one day to his aides-de-camp,
who were boasting of their families and rich appointments,
“Gentlemen, I am more fortunate than you: I got
nothing from my family, and I esteemed myself rich at
Metz when I had two loaves of bread on the table.”
Accordingly, no young subaltern thirsting for glory was
happier that Marshal Ney when, in August, 1805, the order
came to march on Austria. The campaign, so suddenly
commenced, brought the Marshal the hard fighting and the
glory he loved so well. In the operations round Ulm, he
surpassed himself by the tenacity with which he stuck to the
enemy, and, thanks to the skill of Jomini, his errors only
added to his fame, and the combat of Elchingen became
immortal when Napoleon selected this name as a title for
the Marshal when he created him Duke. During the fighting
which penned the Austrians into Ulm two sides of the
Marshal’s character were clearly seen—his extraordinary
bravery and his jealousy. The Emperor, anxious for the
complete success of his plans, despatched an officer to
command Ney to avoid incurring a repulse and to await
reinforcements. The aide-de-camp found him in the faubourg
of the town amongst the skirmishers. He delivered his
message, whereupon the Marshal replied, “Tell the Emperor
that I share the glory with no one; I have already provided
for a flank attack.” In September, 1806, Ney was ordered
to march to Würzburg to join the Grand Army for the war
against Prussia. The campaign gave him just those opportunities[147]
which he knew so well how to seize, and before the
end of the war the Emperor had changed his sobriquet from
the “Indefatigable” to the “Bravest of the Brave.” But
glorious as his conduct was, his rash impetuosity more than
once seriously compromised Napoleon’s plans. At Jena
his rashness and his jealousy of his fellow Marshals caused
him to advance before the other corps had taken up their
positions. His isolated attack was defeated by the Prussians,
and it took the united efforts of Lannes and Soult to rally
his shattered battalions and snatch victory from the
enemy. But his personal bravery at Jena, his brilliant
pursuit of the enemy, the audacity with which he bluffed
fourteen thousand Prussians to surrender at Erfurt, and his
capture of twenty-three thousand prisoners and eight
hundred cannon at the great fortress of Magdeburg made
ample amends for his errors.

But glorious as was his success, his impetuosity soon
brought him into further disgrace. Detached from the
main army on the Lower Vistula in the spring of 1807,
he advanced against a mixed force of Prussians and
Russians before Napoleon had completed all his plans. The
Emperor was furious, and Berthier was ordered to write
that, “The Emperor has, in forming his plans, no need of
advice or of any one acting on his own responsibility:
no one knows his thoughts; it is our duty to obey.” But to
obey orders when in contact with the enemy was just what
the fiery soldier was unable to do, and the Emperor,
recognising this full well, ordered his chief of the staff to
write that “His Majesty believes that the position of the
enemy is due to the rash manœuvre made by Marshal Ney.”
When the main advance commenced the Marshal was summoned
to rejoin the Grand Army. He did not arrive in
time to take any prominent share in the bloody battle of
Eylau; in spite of every exertion, his corps only reached
the field of battle as darkness set in. The sight of the awful
carnage affected even the warworn Marshal, and made him[148]
exclaim, “What a massacre!” and, as he added, “without
any issue.” Friedland was a battle after Ney’s own heart.
He arrived on the field at the moment Napoleon was opening
his grand attack, and with his corps he was ordered to
assault the enemy’s left. Hurling division after division,
by hand-to-hand fighting he drove the enemy back from
their lines, and flung them into the trap of Friedland, there
to fall by hundreds under the fierce fire of the French
massed batteries. It was his sangfroid which was responsible
for the devotion with which the soldiers rushed
against the enemy. At the beginning of the action some of
the younger grenadiers kept bobbing their heads under the
hail of bullets which almost darkened the air. “Comrades,”
called out the Marshal, who was on horseback, “the enemy
are firing in the air; here am I higher than the top of your
busbies, and they don’t hurt me.”

After the peace of Tilsit, Ney, soon Duke of Elchingen,
had a year’s repose from war, but in 1808 he was one of
those summoned to retrieve the errors arising from
Napoleon’s mistaken calculation of the Spanish problem.
The selection was an unfortunate one. Accustomed to the
ordinary warfare of Central Europe, at his best in the mêlée
of battle, in Spain, where organised resistance was seldom
met, where the foe vanished at the first contact, the Marshal
showed a hesitation and vacillation strangely in contrast
with his dashing conduct on the battlefield. Fine soldier
as he was, he lacked the essentials of the successful general—imagination
and moral courage. He was unable to
discern in his mind’s eye what lay on the other side of
a hill, and the blank which this lack of imagination caused
in his mind affected his nerves, and made him irresolute
and irritable. Moreover, in Spain, the success of the
Emperor’s plans depended on the loyal co-operation of
Marshal with Marshal. But unfortunately Ney, obsessed
by jealousy, was most difficult to work with; as Napoleon
himself said, “No one knew what it was to deal with two[149]
men like Ney and Soult.” From the very outset of his
career in Spain he showed a lack of strategic insight and
a want of rapidity of movement. Thus it was that he
was unable to assist Lannes in the operations which the
Emperor had planned for the annihilation of the Spaniards
at Tudela. His heart was not in the work, and he made no
attempt to hide this from Napoleon. When the Emperor
before leaving Spain reviewed his troops, and told him that
“Romana would be accounted for in a fortnight; the
English are beaten and will make no more effort; that all
will be quiet here in three months,” the Duke of Elchingen
boldly told him, “The men of this country are obstinate,
and the women and children fight; I see no end to the
war.” It was with gloomy forebodings, therefore, that he
saw the Emperor ride off to France. But what increased
his dislike of the whole situation was that his operations
were made subservient to those of Soult, his old enemy and
rival. The hatred which existed between the two was of
long standing, and had burned fiercely ever since the days
of Jena, when Soult had been mainly instrumental in
retrieving the disaster threatened by Ney’s impetuosity.
It came to a head when, after the Duke of Dalmatia’s
expulsion from Portugal, the armies of the two Marshals
met at Lugo. Soult’s corps arrived without cannon or
baggage, a mere armed rabble, and Ney’s men jeered at
the disorganised battalions. The Marshals themselves took
sides with their men. Matters were not improved when
Joseph sent orders that Ney was to consider himself under
Soult, and, though Napoleon himself confirmed the decision,
it brought no peace between the rival commanders. All
through the Talavera campaign there was perpetual discord,
and it was Ney’s hesitation, arising from vacillation or
jealousy, which prevented Soult from cutting off the English
retreat across the Tagus.

After the battle of Wagram, Masséna was despatched to
Spain to command the Army of Portugal. The Duke of[150]
Elchingen showed to his new chief the same spirit of disobedience
and hatred of control. At times slack and supine
in his arrangements, as in the preparations for the siege of
Ciudad Rodrigo and in his want of energy after the siege
of Almeida, at other times upsetting his superiors’ plans by
his reckless impetuosity, he was a subordinate whom no one
cared to command. Still, when it came to actual contact
with the foe, no officer was able to extract so much from
his men, and his defeat of Crawford’s division on the Coa
and his dash at Busaco were quite up to his great reputation.
Before the lines of Torres Vedras his ill-humour broke out
again. He bitterly opposed the idea of an assault, and he
grumbled at being kept before the position. In fact, nothing
that his chief could order was right. It was to a great
extent owing to the conduct of the Duke of Elchingen that
Masséna was at last compelled to retreat. As he wrote to
Berthier, “I have done all I could to keep the army out
of Spain as long as possible … but I have been continually
opposed, I make bold to say, by the commanders
of the corps d’armée, who have roused such a spirit amongst
officers and men that it would be dangerous to hold our
present position any longer.” When, however, the retreat
was at last ordered, Ney showed to the full his immense
tactical ability. Although the army was greatly demoralised
during the retreat through Portugal, he never lost a single
gun or baggage wagon. As Napier wrote, “Day after day
Ney—the indomitable Ney—offered battle with the rear
guard, and a stream of fire ran along the wasted valleys
of Portugal, from the Tagus to the Mondego, from the
Mondego to the Coa.” As often as Wellington with his
forty thousand men overtook the Marshal with his ten
thousand, he was baffled by the tactical cleverness with
which his adversary compelled him to deploy his whole
force, only to find before him a vanishing rear guard. But
while displaying such brilliant ability, the Duke of
Elchingen would take no orders from his superior, and[151]
when Masséna told him to cover Almeida and Ciudad
Rodrigo, he flatly refused and marched off in the opposite
direction. Thereon the Prince of Essling was compelled
to remove him from his command, and wrote to Berthier,
“I have been reduced to an extremity which I have
earnestly endeavoured to avoid. The Marshal, the Duke
of Elchingen, has arrived at the climax of disobedience. I
have given the sixth corps to Count Loison, senior general
of division. It is grievous for an old soldier who has commanded
armies for so many years to arrive at such a pass
… with one of his comrades. The Duke of Elchingen
since my arrival has not ceased to thwart me in my military
operations…. His character is well known, I will say no
more.” Thus Ney returned to France in disgrace with his
comrades, and hated by his enemies owing to the licence he
allowed his soldiers.

The Emperor, however, much as he insisted on blind
obedience to his own orders, soon forgave the Duke of
Elchingen, and heaped his wrath on the unfortunate
Masséna, whom he held responsible for the failure of the
campaign in Portugal. Accordingly, when in 1812 he
planned his Russian campaign, he entrusted Ney with
the command of the third corps. Under the personal eye
of Napoleon, the Duke of Elchingen was a different man to
the Ney of Spain. At Smolensk he showed his old brilliancy,
and after the battle he opposed the further advance into
Russia, maintaining that so far the Russians had never been
beaten but only dislodged, that the peasants were hostile,
and once again reminding the Emperor of his failure in
Spain. It was with great disapprobation that he heard
Napoleon accept Caulaincourt’s advice, and determine to
advance to Moscow. “Pray heaven,” he said, “that the
blarney of the ambassador general may not be more
injurious to the army than the most bloody battle.”
Gloomy as were his forebodings, they had no effect on
his conduct when he met the enemy, and he won for himself[152]
the title of Prince of Moskowa in the hard-fought battle
outside the walls of Moscow. But it is the retreat that has
made his name so glorious. After the first few days he was
entrusted with command of the rear guard, and as demoralisation
set in he alone was able to keep the soldiers to their
duty. At Krasnoi his feeble corps of six thousand men was
surrounded by thirty thousand Russians. The main body
was beyond recall. When summoned to lay down his arms,
he replied, “A Marshal of France never surrenders,” and
closing his shattered columns, he charged the enemy’s
batteries and drove them from the field. For three days
he struggled on surrounded by the foe. On one occasion
when the enemy suddenly appeared in force where least
expected, his men fell back in dismay, but the Marshal with
admirable presence of mind ordered the charge to be beaten,
shouting out, “Comrades, now is the moment: forward!
they are ours.” At last, with but fifteen hundred men left,
he regained the main body near Orcha. When Napoleon
heard of their arrival, he rushed to meet the Marshal,
exclaiming, “I have three hundred million francs in my
coffers at the Tuileries; I would willingly have given them
to save Marshal Ney.” He embraced the Duke, saying
“he had no regret for the troops which were lost, because
they had preserved his dear cousin the Duke of Elchingen.”
At the crossing of the Beresina, Ney once again covered
himself with glory, and through the remainder of the
terrible retreat he commanded the rear guard, and was the
last man to cross the Niemen at Kovno and reach German
soil. General Dumas, one of the officers of the general
staff, relates how he was resting in an inn at Gumbinnen,
when one evening a man entered clad in a long brown
cloak, wearing a long beard, his face blackened with
powder, his whiskers half burned by fire, but his eyes
sparkling with brilliant lustre. “Well, here I am at last,”
he said. “What, General Dumas, do you not know me?”
“No; who are you?” “I am the rear guard of the Grand[153]
Army—Marshal Ney. I have fired the last musket on the
bridge of Kovno: I have thrown into the Niemen the last
of our arms, and I have walked hither, as you see, across the
forests.”

The campaign of 1813 saw the Duke of Elchingen once
again at the Emperor’s side. At Lützen, his corps of
conscripts fought nobly: five times the gallant Ney led
them to the attack; five times they responded to the call
of their leader. As he himself said, “I doubt if I could
have done the same thing with the old grenadiers of the
Guard…. The docility and perhaps inexperience of those
brave boys served me better than the tried courage of
veterans. The French infantry can never be too young.”
But at Bautzen he showed another phase of his character.
Entrusted with sixty thousand men with orders to make
a vast turning movement, his timidity spoiled the Emperor’s
careful plans. So hesitating and uncertain were his dispositions
that the Allies had ample time to meet his attack and
quietly withdrew without being compromised, leaving not
a cannon or a prisoner in the hands of the French. Well
might the Emperor cry out, “What, after such a butchery
no results? no prisoners?” But in spite of Ney’s lack
of strategic skill and his well-known vacillation when
confronted with problems he did not understand, Napoleon
was forced to employ him on an independent command.
After Oudinot was beaten at Grosbeeren, he despatched
him to take command of the army opposed to the mixed
force of the Allies under Bernadotte, which was threatening
his communications from the direction of Berlin. But
Ney was no more successful than Oudinot. His dispositions
were even worse than those of the Duke of Reggio,
and at Dennewitz, night alone saved his force from absolute
annihilation, while he had to confess to nine hundred killed
and wounded and fifteen thousand taken prisoners. He
but wrote the truth in his despatch to the Emperor, “I
have been totally beaten, and still do not know whether my[154]
army has reassembled.” At Leipzig also he was responsible
for the want of success during the first day of the
battle, and spent the time in useless marching and counter-marching;
in this case, however, the faulty orders he
received were largely responsible for his errors. But all
through the campaign he felt the want of the clear counsel
of the born strategist Jomini, his former chief of the staff,
who had gone over to the Allies.

During the winter campaign in 1814 in France no one
fought more fiercely and stubbornly than the Duke of
Elchingen. When the end came and Paris had surrendered,
he was one of those who at Fontainebleau refused
to march on Paris, in spite of the cries of the Guard “To
Paris!” Angered by the tenacity with which the Marshals
protested against the folly of such a march, the Emperor at
last exclaimed, “The army will obey me.” “No,” replied
Ney, “it will obey its commanders.” Macdonald, who had
just arrived with his weary troops, backed him up, exclaiming,
“We have had enough of war without kindling a civil
war.” Thereon Napoleon was induced to sign a proclamation
offering to abdicate; and Caulaincourt, Macdonald,
and Ney set out for Paris to try and get terms from the Czar.
Once in the capital the Marshal seemed to despair of his
commission. Feeble and irresolute, he was easily gained
over by Talleyrand, and at once made his formal adhesion
to the provisional government. When the commissioners
returned to the Emperor, he saw but too clearly that his
day was done. “Oh,” he exclaimed, “you want repose;
have it then; alas! you know not how many disappointments
and dangers await you on your beds of down.”

The Emperor’s prophecy was but too true. Though
honours were showered upon him, the peace which
followed the restoration of the Bourbons brought but
little satisfaction and enjoyment to the Duke of Elchingen.
Accustomed to the bustle and hurry of a soldier’s life, he
was too old to acquire the tastes of a life of tranquillity.[155]
Books brought him no satisfaction, since he could scarcely
read; society frightened him, and his plain manners and
blunt speech shocked the salons of Paris and grated on
the nerves of the courtiers. By nature ascetic, he hated
dissipation. Moreover, his family life was by no means
happy. His wife, ambitious, fond of luxury and pleasure,
was unable to share his pursuits and tastes, and worried
her husband with childish complaints of loss of prestige at
the new court. Consequently the blunt old soldier was
only too glad to leave her at his hotel in Paris, and
bury himself in his estate in the country, where field sports
offered him a recreation he could appreciate, and his old
comrades and country neighbours afforded him a society
at least congenial.

From this peaceful life at Coudreaux the Marshal was
suddenly summoned on March 6, 1815, to Paris. On
arriving there he was met by his lawyer, who informed
him of Napoleon’s descent on Fréjus. “It is a great
misfortune,” he said; “what is the Government doing?
Who are they going to send against that man?” Then
he hurried off to the Minister of War to receive his instructions.
He was ordered to Besançon to take command of
the troops there, and to help oppose Napoleon’s advance
on Paris. Before starting for his headquarters he went to
pay his respects to the King, and expressed his indignation
at the Emperor’s action, promising “to bring him back in
an iron cage.” On arriving at his command he found
everything in confusion, and the soldiers ready at any
moment to declare for the Emperor. Ney had but one
thought, and that to save the King. In reply to a friend
who told him that the soldiers could not fight the Emperor,
he replied, “They shall fight; I will begin the action myself,
and run my sword to the hilt in the breast of the first who
hesitates to follow my example.” But when he arrived, on
the evening of the 13th, at Lons la Saulnier he was met by
the news that on all sides the troops were deserting, and[156]
that the Duke of Orleans and Monsieur had been compelled
to withdraw from Lyons. That same evening emissaries
arrived from Napoleon alleging that all the Marshals had
promised to go over, and that the Congress of Vienna had
approved of the overthrow of the Bourbons, assuring the
Marshal that the Emperor would receive him as on the
day after the battle of Moskowa. While but half convinced
by these specious arguments and a prey to doubt,
news arrived that his vanguard at Bourg had deserted, and
that the inhabitants of Châlons-sur-Saône had seized his
artillery. In his agony he exclaimed to the emissaries,
“It is impossible for me to stop the water of the ocean
with my own hand.” On the morrow he called the
generals of division to give him counsel; one of them was
Bourmont, a double-dyed traitor who deserted Napoleon on
the eve of Waterloo; the other was the stern old republican
warrior Lecourbe. They could give him but little
advice, so at last the fatal decision was made, and Ney
called his troops together and read the proclamation
drawn up by Napoleon.

Scarcely had he done so than he began to perceive the
enormity of his action. Meanwhile he wrote an impassioned
letter to Napoleon urging him to seek no more wars
of conquest. It might suit the Emperor’s policy to cause
the Marshal to desert those to whom he had sworn allegiance,
but he mistrusted men who broke their word, and
though he received Ney with outward cordiality, he saw
but little of the “black beast,” as he called him, during the
Hundred Days, for the Duke of Elchingen, full of remorse
and shame, hid himself at Coudreaux. It was not till the
end of May that Napoleon summoned him to Paris, and
greeted him with the words, “I thought you had become
an émigré.” “I ought to have done it long ago,” replied
the Marshal; “now it is too late.” Still the Emperor
kept him without employment till on June 11th he sent
him to inspect the troops around Lille, and from there[157]
summoned him to join the army before Charleroi on the
afternoon of June 15th. Immediately on his arrival he
was put in command of the left wing of the army, composed
of Reille and d’Erlon’s corps, and received verbal
orders to push northwards and occupy Quatre Bras. The
Marshal’s task was not an enviable one. He had to improvise
a staff and make himself acquainted with his subordinates
and at the same time try and elucidate the contradictory
orders of his old enemy Soult, now chief of the staff
to the Emperor. Accordingly, when on the evening of the
15th his advance guard found Quatre Bras held by the
enemy, he decided to make no attack that night. But on
the morning of the 16th he made a still greater error.
For not only did he neglect to make a reconnaissance,
which would have showed him that he was opposed by
a mere handful of troops, but, slothful as ever, he omitted to
give orders for the proper concentration of his divisions,
which were strung out along sixteen miles of road. A
day begun thus badly was bound to bring difficulties.
But these difficulties were enormously increased in the
afternoon. After three despatches ordering him to carry
Quatre Bras with all his force, he received a fourth written
by Soult at Napoleon’s order telling him to move to the
right to support Grouchy in his attack on the Prussians,
ending with the words, “The fate of France is in your
hands, therefore do not hesitate to move according to
the Emperor’s commands.” To add further to his difficulties,
d’Erlon’s corps was detached from his command
without his knowledge. In this distracted condition, the
Marshal lost all control over himself, calling out, “Ah,
those English balls! I wish they were all in my belly!”
Thus it was, mad with rage, that he rode up to Kellermann,
calling out, “We must make a supreme effort. Take your
cavalry and fling yourself upon the English centre. Crush
them—ride them down!” But it was too late. Wellington
himself with thirty thousand men now held Quatre Bras.[158]
The Marshal had himself to thank for his want of success,
for if he had been less slothful in the morning, the battle
would have been won before the contradictory orders could
have had any effect on his plans. On the morning of
the 17th the dispirited Prince of Moskowa took no steps
to find out what his enemy was doing, although he received
orders from the Emperor at ten o’clock to occupy Quatre
Bras if there was only a rear guard there. Accordingly
the English had ample time to retreat. When Napoleon
hurried up in pursuit at 2 p.m. he greeted his lieutenant
with the bitter reproach, “You have ruined France!” But
though the Emperor recognised that he was no longer the
Ney of former days, he still retained him in his command.
At Waterloo the Marshal showed his old dash on the
battlefield. The left wing was hurled against the Allies
with a vehemence that recalled the Prince of Moskowa’s
conduct in the Russian campaign. But, impetuous as ever,
finding he could not crush the stubborn foe with his
infantry, he rushed back and prematurely ordered up 5,000
of the cavalry of the Guard. “He has compromised us
again,” growled his old enemy Soult, “as he did at Jena.”
“It is too early by an hour,” exclaimed the Emperor, “but we
must support him now that he has done it.” The mistake
was fatal to Napoleon’s plans. In vain the French cavalry
charged the English squares, still unshaken by artillery
and infantry fire. Meanwhile the Prussians appeared on
the allied left. The Emperor staked his last card, and
ordered the Guard to make one last effort to crush the
English infantry. Sword in hand the gallant Prince of
Moskowa led the magnificent veterans to the attack. But
the fire of the English lines swept them down by hundreds.
A shout arose, “La garde recule.” Ney, the indomitable,
in vain seeking death, was swept away by the mass, his
clothing in rags, foaming at the mouth, his broken sword
in his hand, rushing from corps to corps, trying to rally
the runaways with taunts of “Cowards, have you forgotten[159]
how to die?” At one moment he passed d’Erlon as they
were swept along in the rush, and screamed out to him,
“If you and I come out of this alive, d’Erlon, we shall
be hanged.” Well it had been for him if he could have
found the death he so eagerly sought. Five horses were
shot under him, his clothes were riddled with bullets, but
he was reserved for a sinister fate.

The Marshal returned to Paris and witnessed the capitulation
and second abdication. Thereafter he had thoughts
of withdrawing to Switzerland or to America. But unfortunately
he considered himself safe under the terms of the
capitulation, and, anxious to clear his name for the sake of
his children, he remained hidden at the château of Bessonis,
near Aurillac, waiting to see what the attitude of the Government
would be. There he was discovered by a zealous
police official, who caught sight of the Egyptian sabre
Napoleon had presented to him in 1801. He was at once
arrested and taken to Paris. The military court appointed
to try him declared itself unable to try a peer of France.
Accordingly the House of Peers was ordered to proceed
with his trial, and found him guilty by a majority of one
hundred and sixty-nine to nineteen. The Marshal’s lawyers
tried to get him off by the subterfuge that he was no longer
a Frenchman, since his native town, Sarrelouis, had been
taken from France. But Ney would hear of no such
excuse. “I am a Frenchman,” he cried, “and will die a
Frenchman.” Early on the following day, December 7,
1815, the sentence was read to the prisoner. The officer
entrusted with this melancholy duty commenced to read
his titles, Prince of Moskowa, Duke of Elchingen, &c. But
the Marshal cut him short: “Why cannot you simply say
‘Michel Ney, once a French soldier and soon to be a heap
of dust’?” At eight o’clock in the morning the Marshal,
with a firm step, was conveyed to the place of execution.
To the officer who prepared to bandage his eyes he said,
“Are you ignorant that for twenty-five years I have been[160]
accustomed to face both ball and bullet?” Then, taking
off his hat, he said, “I declare before God and man that
I have never betrayed my country. May my death render
her happy. Vive la France!” Then, turning to the
soldiers, he gave the word, “Soldiers, fire!”

Thus, in his forty-seventh year, the Prince of Moskowa,
a peasant’s son, but now immortal as the “Bravest of the
Brave,” expiated his error. Pity it was that he had not the
courage of his gallant subordinate at Lons la Saulnier, who
had broken his sword in pieces with the words, “It is easier
for a man of honour to break iron than to infringe his
word.” Looking backward, and calmly reading the evidence
of the trial, it is clear that Ney set out in March, 1815, with
every intention to remain faithful to the King. But his
moral courage failed him; and the glamour of his old life,
and the contact with the iron will of the great Corsican,
broke down his principles. To some the punishment
meted out to him seemed hard; but when the Emperor
heard of his execution he said that he only got his deserts.
“No one should break his word. I despise traitors. Ney
has dishonoured himself.” And the Duke of Wellington
refused to plead for the Marshal, for he said “it was absolutely
necessary to make an example.” But the clearest
proof of the justice of the penalty was the fact that from
the fatal day at Lons la Saulnier the Marshal was never
himself again, and he who, during those terrible days in
Russia, had been able to sleep like a little child, never
could sleep in peace.

Among the Marshals of Napoleon, Ney, with his title
of the “Bravest of the Brave,” and his magnificent record
of hard fighting, will always appeal to those who love
romance. But, great fighter as he was, he was not a great
general. At times, at St. Helena, Napoleon, remembering
his mistakes at Quatre Bras and Waterloo, used to say that
he ought not to have made him a Marshal, for he only had
the courage and honesty of a hussar, forgetting his words[161]
in Russia, “I have three hundred millions francs in my
coffers at the Tuileries; I would willingly have given
them to save Marshal Ney.” But, cruel as it may seem,
perhaps the Emperor expressed his real opinion of him
when he said, “He was precious on the battlefield, but
too immoral and too stupid to succeed.” In action he
was always master of himself, but as Jomini, his old
chief of the staff, wrote of him, “Ney’s best qualities,
his heroic valour, his rapid coup d’œil, and his energy,
diminished in the same proportion that the extent of his
command increased his responsibility. Admirable on the
battlefield, he displayed less assurance not only in council,
but whenever he was not actually face to face with the
enemy.” In a word, he lacked that marked intellectual
capacity which is the chief characteristic of great soldiers
like Hannibal, Cæsar, Napoleon, and Wellington.

[162]

VIII

LOUIS NICOLAS DAVOUT, MARSHAL,
DUKE OF AUERSTÄDT, PRINCE OF ECKMÜHL

There was an old saying in Burgundy that “when
a Davout comes into the world, another sword has
leaped from the scabbard”; but so finely tempered
a weapon as Louis Nicolas had never before been produced
by the warrior nobles of Annoux, though the line stretched
back in unbroken descent to the days of the first Crusades.
Born at Auxerre on May 18, 1770, the future Marshal
was destined for the service, and at the age of fifteen
entered the Royal Military School at Paris. In the
fatal year 1789 he received his commission in the Royal
Champagne regiment of cavalry stationed at Hesdin, but
his period of service with the royal army was short. From
his boyhood, young Davout was one of those whom it was
impossible to drive, who, while they submit to no authority,
are as clay in the hands of the master mind who can gain
their affections. His turbulent spirit had early become
captivated by the specious revolutionary logic of a brilliant
young lawyer, Turreau, who, a few years later, became his
stepfather. Full of burning zeal for his new political tenets,
chafing under the dull routine of garrison life, despising
his mediocre companions, the young sub-lieutenant
soon found himself in trouble, and was dismissed from the
service for the part he took in aiding the revolutionaries
in their attempts to seduce the privates and non-commissioned[163]
officers from their allegiance to their sovereign.
His return to civil life was but brief, for, when in 1791
the Prussian invasion summoned the country to arms,
Louis Nicolas enlisted in the Volunteers of the Yonne, and
owing to his former military training was at once elected
lieutenant-colonel.

The Volunteers of the Yonne formed part of the corps
opposed to the Austrians in the Low Countries, and owing
to the stern discipline of their lieutenant-colonel, became
distinguished as the most reliable of all the volunteers
raised in 1791. Davout adopted the same plan which
proved so effective among the Scotch regiments during
the eighteenth century: keeping in close communication
with the local authorities of the Yonne, and rewarding
or punishing his men by posting their names with their
records in the various cantons from which they were drawn.
After fighting bravely under Dumouriez, it fell to the lot
of the battalion to attempt to capture that general, when,
after the battle of Neerwinden, he tried to betray his army
to the Austrians. Soon after this the lieutenant-colonel
had to throw up his command when the Convention
decreed that no ci-devant noble could hold a commission;
but Davout’s record was so strongly republican that his
friend Turreau had little difficulty in getting him reinstated
in his rank, and sent to command a brigade of cavalry in
the Army of the Moselle. Except for two years during
which he was at home on parole, after the capture of
Mannheim, the general was on active service in the Rhine
valley till the peace of Campo Formio in 1797. During
these years he steadily added to his reputation as a stern
commander and a stubborn fighter, and as such attracted
the attention of Desaix, who introduced him early in
1798 to Bonaparte. The future Emperor saw at a glance
that this small, stout, bald-headed young man had qualities
which few others possessed. Accordingly he took him with
him to Egypt. Like all who met the young Napoleon,[164]
Davout fell entirely beneath his spell. In spite of the fact
that he was not included among the few friends whom
Bonaparte selected to return with him in 1800, his enthusiasm
for the First Consul increased day by day. Returning
to France with Desaix, just before the Marengo
campaign, he at once hastened to Paris to congratulate the
new head of the Government. Davout’s republicanism had
received many shocks. Like all other honourable men, he
had hated and loathed the Terror. Moreover, he had seen
on service how little the preachers of the equality of man
carried out their doctrine in practice. As early as 1794 we
find him writing to a friend: “Ought we to be exposed to
the tyranny of any chance revolutionary committee or
club?… Why are not all Frenchmen witnesses of
fraternity and of the republican virtues which reign in
our camps; we have no brigands here, but have we not
plenty at home?” Bonaparte knew well that Davout was
not only his enthusiastic personal follower, but also
thoroughly approved of the coup d’état of the 18th Brumaire,
and in his desire for peace and stability at home
would warmly back him up in his scheme of founding a
tyranny under the guise of an Imperial Republic. Accordingly
the First Consul published a most flattering account
of him in the official Moniteur, and gave him command
of the cavalry of the Army of Italy, under General Brune.
In June, 1801, after the treaty of Lüneville, in pursuance of
his plan of congregating his friends at headquarters, he
recalled him to Paris as inspector-general of cavalry.

It was while thus employed that Davout met his wife,
Aimée Leclerc. Aimée, a sister of that Leclerc who
married Pauline Bonaparte, had been educated at Madame
Campan’s school in Paris, along with the young Beauharnais
and Bonapartes, and was the bosom friend of
Caroline and Hortense. From many points of view the
marriage was extremely appropriate; for although the
Davouts belonged to the old nobility, and Aimée’s father[165]
was only a corn merchant of Poitou, he had prospered
in his business, and had been able to give his daughter
an excellent education. The marriage brought Davout
into close connection with the First Consul’s family, and
was successful from a worldly and a domestic point of
view. The future Marshal was deeply attached to his wife,
and spent every moment with her which he could snatch
from his military duties. When absent on service scarcely
a day passed on which he did not write to her, and his
happiness was completely bound up in her welfare and that
of his large family. The year following their marriage the
Davouts bought the beautiful estate of Savigny-sur-Orge
for the sum of seven hundred thousand francs. This was
a great strain on their rather limited resources, and for
some years they had to practise strict economy.

In September, 1803, the general was summoned to
Bruges to command a corps of the Army of the Ocean,
which later became the third corps of the Grand Army.
There, in close communication with his great chief, he
began to show those traits which made him respected as
the most relentless and careful administrator of all the
Marshals of France. His energy was indefatigable; everything
had to undergo his personal scrutiny, be it the best
means of securing the embarkation of a company in one of
the new barges or the careful inspection of the boots of
a battalion: for Davout, like Wellington, knew that a
soldier’s marching powers depended on two things, his feet
and his stomach, and every man in the third corps had
to have two pairs of good boots in his valise and one on
his feet. Secrecy also, in his eyes, was of prime importance;
he was quick to give a lesson to all spies, or would-be
spies, in Belgium, and it was with stern exultation in
his duty that he wrote to the First Consul, “Your orders
for the trial of the spy (Bülow) will be carried out, and
within a week he will be executed.” Day by day, as he
gained experience, the indefatigable soldier drew on him[166]
the approbation of the First Consul, and it was with no
sense of favouritism that Napoleon, when he became Emperor,
nominated him among his newly-created Marshals,
although in the eyes of the army at large he had not yet
done enough to justify this choice.

The campaign of 1805 gave the Marshal his first opportunity
of handling large bodies of troops of all arms in the
field, and, though it did not bring him into such conspicuous
notice as Murat, Lannes, Soult and Ney, it justified
Napoleon in his selection of him as worthy of the Marshal’s
bâton. In the operations round Ulm, Davout proved himself
an excellent subordinate, whose corps was ever ready,
at full strength, in the field, and at the hour at which it
had been ordered, while the Marshal’s stern checking of
marauding was a new feature in French military discipline,
and one which no other Marshal could successfully carry
out without starving his troops. But it was Austerlitz
which taught the students of war the true capabilities of
this rising officer. There the Emperor, relying on his
stubborn, methodical character, entrusted him with a duty
which eminently suited his genius: he chose his corps as
the screen to cover the trap which he set for the Russian
left, and all day long it had to fight a stern rear-guard action
against overwhelming odds, until it had tempted the enemy
into dissipating his forces, and so weakening his centre
that his left and right were defeated in detail. After Austerlitz,
Davout was entrusted with the pursuit of the left
wing of the Allies. Flushed with victory, the third corps
pushed the disorganised enemy in hopeless rout, and it
seemed as if the annihilation of the Russians was certain.
Meanwhile, unknown to the Marshal, the Emperor had
accepted the Czar’s demands for an armistice. Davout first
heard of the cessation of hostilities from the enemy, but,
remembering Murat’s mistake, he refused to halt his troops.
“You want to deceive me,” he said to the flag of truce;
“you want to make a fool of me…. I am going to crush[167]
you, and that is the only order I have received.” So the
third corps pushed on, and it was only the production of a
despatch in the handwriting of the Czar himself that caused
the victor at last to stay his hand.

LOUIS NICOLAS DAVOUT, PRINCE OF ECKMÜHL
FROM AN ENGRAVING AFTER THE PAINTING BY GAUTHEROT

Though Davout emerged from the Austrian campaign
with the reputation in the army of having at last earned his
Marshal’s bâton, to the general public he still appeared as
“a little smooth-pated, unpretending man, who was never
tired of waltzing,” but the campaign of 1806 made him
nearly the best known of all the Marshals. Auerstädt was a
masterpiece of minor tactics. Napoleon, thinking that he
had before him at Jena the whole of the Prussian army,
summoned to his aid Bernadotte, and thus left Davout with
a force of twenty-three thousand men isolated on his right
wing, with orders to push forward and try to get astride of
the enemy’s line of retreat.

It was in pursuance of this order that early in the morning
of October 14, 1806, the Marshal, at the head of the
advance guard of his corps, crossed the river Saale at Kösen
and proceeded to seize the defile beyond the bridge through
which ran the road to Naumberg. True to his motto of
never leaving to another anything which he could possibly
do himself, he had personally, on the previous evening,
carefully reconnoitred the line of advance, and knew the
importance of the village of Hassenhausen at the further
end of the defile. Hardly had his advance guard seized
this position and the heights commanding the road, when
through the fog they saw approaching the masses of the
enemy’s cavalry; the fiery Prussian commander, Blücher,
at once hastened to the attack, and again and again led his
horsemen to the charge. Meanwhile Brunswick counter-ordered
the retreat of the infantry and artillery. Soon the
whole of the Prussian army, forty-five thousand strong, was
engaged in the attempt to crush the small French force.
But the Marshal was in his element, carefully husbanding
his resources only to hurl them into the fray at the critical[168]
moment; feinting at his enemy’s flanks; utilising every
feature of the ground to prolong his resistance; galloping
from square to square, his uniform black from powder, his
cocked hat carried off by a bullet, encouraging his troops
with short, sharp words, crying out, “The great Frederick
believed that God gave the victory to the big battalions, but
he lied; it is the obstinate people that win, and that’s you
and your general.” From six in the morning the battle
raged, but towards mid-day the Prussians, finding that they
could make no impression on the enemy, began to slacken
their attack. Davout seized the psychological moment to
order his whole line to advance. Thereon the King of
Prussia commanded his forces to retire, leaving a strong rear
guard under Kalkreuth to prevent the French pursuit. But
the French were in no condition to carry on an active pursuit,
for out of twenty-three thousand men engaged they had
lost almost eight thousand killed or wounded. It is quite
true that man for man the French soldier in 1806 was
superior in intelligence and patriotism to the Prussian,
that the French staff was infinitely superior to the Prussian
staff, and that there was no comparison between the morale
of the two armies; but that alone does not explain how an
army half the size of the enemy, caught as it was in the act
of deploying from a defile, not only was not beaten absolutely,
but actually defeated the superior force. The secret
of the French success at Auerstädt lay in the character of
their general. It was Davout’s careful reconnaissance, his
quickness to perceive in Hassenhausen the key of the
position, his careful crowning of the heights covering the
defile, the masterly way in which, while massing his men in
the open to resist Blücher’s fierce charges, he at the same
time contrived so to expand his line as to threaten the
flanks of his vastly superior foe, his indomitable courage
in throwing his last reserve into the firing line, and
his audacious counter-attack the moment he saw the
Prussians wavering, which saved his force from what at[169]
the time looked like annihilation, and by sheer downright
courage and self-confidence turned defeat into victory.

Pleased as the Emperor was at his lieutenant’s victory,
and much as he admired the way in which his subordinate
had copied his own methods, showing that inflexibility of
purpose, absolute disregard of the opinion of others, and
unswerving belief in his own capacity which he knew were
the factors of his own success, it did not suit his policy that
a subordinate should attract the admiration of the army at
large. Accordingly in his bulletins he glossed over the
part played by Davout and belittled his success, but in his
private letters he warmly praised the Marshal’s courage and
ability. Further, to reward him for lack of official praise,
he gave the third corps the place of honour at the grand
march past held at Berlin, when the inhabitants of the
capital of Frederick the Great saw for the first time,
with mingled hatred and surprise, “the lively, impudent,
mean-looking little fellows” who had thrashed their
own magnificent troops. On the following day the Emperor
inspected the third corps, and thanked the officers
and men for the great services they had rendered him, and
paid a tribute to “the brave men I have lost, whom I regret
as it were my own children, but who died on the field of
honour.” Pleased as the Marshal was with this somewhat
tardy acknowledgment of his achievement, he was in no
way inflated with pride; as General Ségur says of him:
“Those who knew him best say that there was a sort of
flavour of a bygone age in his inflexibility; stern towards
himself and towards others, and above all in that stoical
simplicity, high above all vanity, with which he ever strode
forward, with shoulders square, and full intent to the accomplishment
of his duty.” But though success brought
no pride in its train, it brought its burdens: the jealousy of
the other Marshals was barely concealed, and as Davout
wrote to his wife, “I am more than ever in need of the
Emperor’s goodwill … few of my colleagues pardon me[170]
the good fortune the third corps had in beating the King of
Prussia.”

A winter spent in Poland amid these jealousies and far
from his family was only endurable because of his attachment
to the service and person of the Emperor. Immediately
on entering the country which he was to govern for
the next two years, the Marshal summed up the situation
at a glance, and told the Emperor that the nobility would
throw cold water on all schemes unless the French
guaranteed them their independence.

With the spring of 1807 came the last phase of the war.
At Heilsberg, Davout fought well, and two days later took
his part in the great battle of Eylau, the most bloody of all
Napoleon’s battles. Bennigsen, the Russian commander,
had turned at bay on his pursuers. On the morning of
February 8th the French corps came hurrying up from all
sides at the Emperor’s commands. It was not, however,
till mid-day that the third corps arrived on the scene of the
action. Heavy snow blizzards obscured the scene, but the
struggle raged fiercely on all sides, the Russians fighting
like bulls, as the French said. The Emperor, on Davout’s
arrival, placed his corps on the right and ordered him to
advance, but the enemy’s cavalry and artillery effectually
barred his way. All day long the contest lasted, men fighting
hand to hand in a confused mêlée. All day long Davout,
with obstinate courage, clung to the village which he seized
in the morning, whence he threatened the Russian line of
retreat. When night came he still held his position; at
last the Emperor, fearing a renewal of the fight on the next
day, gave orders at eight o’clock for the third corps to fall
back on Eylau. But the Marshal, hearing of the commencement
of the Russian retreat, disobeyed the Emperor, and
thus, by his bold front, in conjunction with Soult, he was
mainly instrumental in causing the enemy to leave the field.
If Davout had been less obstinate, the French would have
had to fight another battle on the following day, but thanks[171]
to him they were spared this fate, and the twenty-five thousand
dead and wounded Frenchmen had not spent their
blood in vain. The third corps escaped the horrors of
Friedland, as it had been detached to intercept the enemy’s
line of retreat in the direction of Königsberg, and Tilsit saw
the end of Davout’s second campaign against the Russians.

But peace did not bring the opportunity of returning to
his beloved France and the joys of home life; the Emperor
in peace, as in war, could not spare the great administrative
capacity, the stern discipline, and the rigid probity of the
Marshal. “It is quite fair that I should give him enormous
presents,” said the Emperor, “for he takes no perquisites.”
So Davout found himself established nominally as commander
of the army of occupation, and really as special
adviser to the Government of the newly constituted Grand
Duchy of Warsaw. It was a situation that required infinite
tact, patience, and a stern will. The Poles longed for a
restored kingdom of Poland. The Emperor could not
grant this without offending his new friend the Czar, who,
with the Emperor of Austria, looked with suspicion on the
experiment of creating a Grand Duchy. So on one side the
Marshal had to try to inspire confidence in the Poles by
pretending that the Grand Duchy was merely a temporary
experiment in the larger policy of restoring the kingdom,
while on the other hand he had to assure the Austrians and
Russians that nothing was further from the Emperor’s
thoughts than creating a power at Warsaw dangerous to
them. Meanwhile there was plenty of occupation in getting
provisions for his troops in a land always poor and
but lately devastated by war, and in attempting to maintain
order in a country full of adventurers where police were
unknown. It was useless to attempt to get assistance from
the Government, for there was no organisation, no division
of duties among the different ministers, and nobody knew
what his own particular business was. The situation was
well summed up in a caricature which showed the ministers[172]
nicely dressed in their various uniforms but without heads.
It was well for the new Government that they had at their
side such a stern, disinterested adviser as Davout, ready to
take the initiative and accept the responsibility of any act
which he thought good for the community. Under his
supervision the ministers’ spheres of action were duly
arranged: the state was saved from bankruptcy by importing
bullion from Prussia and deporting the adventurers
who were filling their own coffers by draining the money
from the country. The monks who preached against the
Government and fanned popular discontent were three times
given twenty-four hours’ notice to put their houses in order,
and then quietly escorted across the frontier. A strong
Polish force was raised, armed and equipped by Prince
Poniatowski under the Marshal’s supervision. As a reward
for his labours the Emperor granted Davout three hundred
thousand francs to buy a town house in Paris, and followed
this up, in May, 1808, by creating him Duke of Auerstädt.
But what pleased the Marshal more than all was that the
Emperor allowed the Duchess to join him at Warsaw. This
was a politic move, for the Emperor, knowing well the secret
intention of Austria, could not afford to withdraw the
warden of the marches from his outpost at Warsaw; but by
sending the Duchess of Auerstädt to Poland he kept his
faithful lieutenant content. However, the Duchess’s visit to
Poland was not a long one. By September, 1808, it became
certain that Austria was making immense efforts to recover
her possessions, and accordingly Napoleon very wisely
began to concentrate his troops in Central Europe, and the
Duke of Auerstädt’s corps was recalled to Silesia in October,
and was incorporated with the French troops in Prussia
under the designation of the Army of the Rhine.

During the winter the Marshal was fully occupied in
forcing Prussia to drain to the last dregs her cup of humiliation:
extorting from her the immense ransom Napoleon
had laid on her, and crushing her attempts at regeneration[173]
by hounding out of the country the patriotic Stein and his
band of fellow-workers. From his cantonments round Berlin
Davout was summoned in 1809 to take part in another
struggle with Austria. The campaign opened disastrously
for the French. The Archduke Charles commenced
operations earlier than Napoleon had calculated, and
accordingly the Grand Army found itself under the feeble
command of the chief of the staff. Berthier, in blind
obedience to the Emperor, who had misread the situation,
was compelled to neglect the first principles of war and to
attempt to block all possible lines of advance instead of
concentrating in a strategic position. In consequence of
this, the Duke of Auerstädt, in spite of his official protests,
found himself at Ratisbon, isolated from the rest of the army,
with no support within forty miles. From this dangerous
position he was saved by the arrival of the Emperor at
headquarters, who, recognising his own mistakes, immediately
ordered a concentration on Abensberg. The retreat,
or rather the flank march, in the face of eighty thousand
Austrians under the Archduke Charles, was successfully
carried out, thanks to the stubborn fighting of the troops
and the lucky intervention of a tremendous thunderstorm,
which forced the enemy to give up their attack at the critical
moment when the French were crossing a difficult defile.
Two days later the Emperor once again tested Davout’s
stubborn qualities, entrusting him with the duty of containing
the main Austrian force while he disposed of the rest of
the enemy. The result was the three days’ fighting at
Eckmühl; during the first two, Davout, unaided, held his
own till on the third the Emperor arrived with supports
and gave the Austrians the coup-de-grâce, but rewarded
the Marshal for his tenacity by bestowing on him the title
of Prince of Eckmühl.

Though his corps was not actually engaged at the battle
of Aspern-Essling the Marshal had a large share in preventing
a complete catastrophe. As soon as he heard of the[174]
breaking of the bridge he set about to organise a flotilla of
boats, and it was thanks to the supplies of ammunition thus
ferried across that the French troops on the north bank
were able to hold their own and cover the retreat to the Isle
of Lobau. While both sides were concentrating every
available man for the great battle of Wagram, Davout was
entrusted with the task of watching the Archduke John,
whose army at Pressburg was the rallying point for the
Hungarians. The moment the French preparations were
complete, the Marshal, leaving a strong screen in front of
the Archduke, swiftly fell back on the Isle of Lobau, and by
thus hoodwinking the Archduke gave the Emperor an
advantage of fifty thousand troops over the enemy. The
Prince of Eckmühl’s duty at the battle of Wagram was to
turn the left flank of the enemy and, while interposing his
corps between the two Archdukes, at the same time to
threaten the enemy’s rear and give an opportunity to the
French centre to drive home a successful attack. It was a
most difficult and dangerous operation, for at any moment
the Archduke John might appear on the exposed right flank.
Whilst Davout was marching and fighting to achieve his
purpose, the main battle went against the French. The left
and centre were thrown back, and it seemed as if the
Austrians were bound to capture the bridge at Enzerdorff.
Amid cries of “All is lost!” the French reserve artillery and
baggage trains fled in confusion. But relief came at the
critical moment, for the Prince of Eckmühl, hurling his
steel-clad cuirassiers on the unbroken Austrian foot, losing
nearly all his generals in the desperate hand-to-hand fighting
on the slopes of the Neusiedel, at last gained the top of
the plateau and forced the enemy to throw back his left
flank and weaken his centre. The moment the Emperor
saw the guns appear on the summit of the Neusiedel, he
launched Macdonald’s corps against the Austrian centre and
sent his aide-de-camp to Masséna to tell him “to commence
the attack … the battle is gained.” But Davout was[175]
unable to pursue his advantage over the enemy’s left, for at
the moment he gained the top of the plateau news arrived
that Prince John’s advance guard was in touch with his
scouts; accordingly he halted and drew up in battle formation,
ready at any moment to face the Hungarian troops
should they attempt to attack his rear. Fortunately for the
French the Archduke John forgot that an enemy is never so
weak as after a successful attack, and instead of hurling his
fresh troops on the weakened and disorganised French, he
halted, and withdrew after dark towards Pressburg. When,
during the pursuit of the battle, the Archduke Charles sent
in a flag of truce offering to discuss terms, the Emperor
called a council of war. There was a certain amount of
difference of opinion, but Davout was for continuing the
fight, pointing out that “once master of the road from
Brünn, in two hours it would be possible to concentrate
thirty thousand men across the Archduke’s line of retreat.”
The Marshal’s arguments seemed about to prevail when
news arrived that Bruyère, commanding the cavalry, was
seriously wounded. Thereon the Emperor changed his
mind, crying out, “Look at it: death hovers over all my
generals. Who knows but that within two hours I shall not
hear that you are taken off? No; enough blood has been
spilled; I accept the suspension of hostilities.”

After the evacuation of the conquered territories the
Marshal was appointed to command the Army of Germany.
His duties were to enforce the continental system and to
keep a stern eye on Prussia. The marriage with Marie
Louise for the time being relieved tension in Central Europe,
and accordingly in 1810 Davout was able to enjoy long
periods of leave. He was present as colonel-general of the
Guard at the imperial wedding, and at the interment of
Lannes’s remains in the Panthéon, and he did his turn of
duty as general in attendance on the imperial household.
His letters to his wife throw an interesting light on the
imperial ménage. The officers in attendance were supplied[176]
with good, comfortable rooms and food, but had to find
their own linen, plates, wax candles, firewood, and kitchen
utensils; in a postscript he adds, “Not only must you send
me all the above, but add towels, sheets, pillow-cases, &c.;
until these arrive I have to sleep on the bare mattress.”

In 1811 the growing hostility of Russia required the
attendance of the Prince of Eckmühl at the headquarters
of his command. Napoleon knew well that nobody would
be quicker to discern any secret movement hostile to his
interests than the man who in 1808 had done so much to
check the regeneration of Prussia by enforcing his orders,
playing on the Prussian King’s fears and exposing the cleverness
of the proposals of the patriotic Stein. The Marshal
reached his headquarters at Hamburg early in February,
and soon found his hands full. It was no longer a question
of so disposing the corps committed to his care that he
might cripple the English, “who since the time of Cromwell
have played the game of ruining our commerce,” but of
preparing a mixed force of French, Poles, and Saxons,
amounting to one hundred and forty thousand, for the contingencies
of a war with Russia, or for the absolute annihilation
of Prussia. To no other of his Marshals did the
Emperor entrust the command of one hundred and forty
thousand troops, and consequently the old enmities and
jealousies broke out with renewed force. It was whispered
that the Marshal’s income from his investments, pay, and
perquisites was over two million francs a year; that nobody
in the imperial family had anything like as much, and people
said it was better to be a Davout than a Prince Royal. The
Prince disregarded all the annoying scandal his wife sent
him from Paris, and quietly busied himself with preparing
transport and equipping magazines for the coming war,
diversified by an occasional thundering declaration informing
the King of Prussia that his secret schemes were well
known to the French authorities. But the subterranean
jealousies bore their fruit. Nobody had a good word to say[177]
for Davout, and there was nobody to take his part. Most
disastrously for the Grand Army the misunderstanding
which existed between Berthier and Davout prevented their
co-operation; and thus during the Russian campaign the
rash empty-headed Murat had greater weight with Napoleon
than Davout, the cautious yet tenacious old fighter. Accordingly
at the battle of Moskowa, when Napoleon had his
last chance of annihilating the Russians, he refused to listen
to the Marshal, who pleaded to be allowed to turn the
Russian left during the night. “No,” said the Emperor,
“it is too big a movement; it will take me too much off my
objective and make me lose time.” Davout, sure of the
wisdom of this advice, once again renewed his arguments,
but the Emperor rudely interrupted him with “You are
always for turning the enemy; it is too dangerous a movement.”
So the battle of Moskowa was a disastrous victory,
opening as it did the gates of Moscow without the annihilation
of the Russian armed forces in the field. But it was
greatly due to the Marshal that it was a victory at all, for the
Russians fought with the greatest stubbornness; nearly all
the French generals were wounded or killed, and at one
moment a panic seized the troops. Then it was that the
Prince of Eckmühl himself rallied the broken battalions and
led them to the charge. In spite of a wound in the pit of his
stomach, with bare head and uniform encrusted with mud
and blood, he forced his weary soldiers against the foe and,
as at Auerstädt, by sheer indomitable courage, compelled
his troops to beat the enemy. His corps bore its share in
the horrors of the retreat from Moscow, forming for some
time the rear guard.