LV. 1808. Aug. 14. CHAP. of formation, promised to add an invaluable reserve to the regular forces. Pressed by Napoleon to give some account of such formidable preparations, Count Metternich, the imperial ambassador at Paris, alleged the specious excuse that the cabinet of Vienna was only imitating the conduct of its powerful neighbours; and that, when Bavaria had not merely adopted the system of the French conscription, but organised national guards, which raised its disposable force to a hundred thousand men, it became indispensable to take corresponding measures of security in the Hereditary States. The reason assigned was plausible; but it failed to impose upon the French Emperor, who forthwith directed the princes of the Rhenish Confederacy to call out and encamp their respective contingents, and shortly after adopted the most energetic measures for the augmentation of the military strength of the empire. Champagny, at the same time, made the most vigorous remonstrances to Metternich. "What would your government be at?" said he: "not only is it arming, but it has adopted extreme measures, which necessity alone could justify. Your princes are traversing your provinces, and summon the people to the defence of the country. Everything is in movement in the Austrian monarchy. And yet you know that, far from menacing Austria, our Emperor desires only to remain at peace with her-that we covet 1 Jom. ii. 80. none of her possessions. Hitherto the Emperor has been 72. Cham desirous to pretend ignorance of these preparations; but beware! He cannot carry his dissimulation much further: a spark may light a universal conflagration. England may well rejoice at present: she has not an ally on the Continent; she knows well she has nothing to expect from Russia." pagny to Metternich, July 27, 1808. Bign. vii. 332. Thiers, ix. 251, 259. The preparations of Napoleon for this fresh contest kept pace with these strongly awakened suspicions. By a senatus-consultum of the 10th September, the senate of France placed at the disposal of the French LV. 1808. 3. preparations danger, and by the Sept. 10. Emperor eighty thousand conscripts, taken from those CHAP. coming to the legal age (eighteen to nineteen) in the years 1806-7-8 and 9, and eighty thousand additional from those of 1810, which last were, in an especial manner, Napoleon's destined to the defence of the coasts and frontiers of the to meet the empire.* So far had the demands of the French Emperor great levy already exceeded the increase of the human race, and the French goboundless consumption of mankind in the Revolutionary vernment. wars outstripped even the prolific powers of nature! The adulatory expressions with which this frightful demand was acquiesced in by the senate, were not less characteristic of the fawning servility, than its anticipating the resources of future years of the iron tyranny, which distinguished the government of the Empire. "How, said Lacepède, their president, "would the shades of Louis XIV., of Francis I., of the great Henry, be consoled by the generous resolutions taken by Napoleon! The French hasten to respond to his sacred voice! He requires a new proof of their affection; they hasten with generous ardour to furnish it to him. The wish of the French people, sire! is the same as that of your Majesty: the war of Spain is politic, it is just, it is necessary; it * Every regiment was to be raised to five battalions; the four first battalions to have six, the last four, companies; each company to be one hundred and forty strong; each regiment to number three thousand nine hundred and seventy men, of whom a hundred and eight were officers and three thousand eight hundred and sixty-two sub-officers and privates. All the regiments of the Grand Army were to have four battalions in the field, and the fifth left as a depot on the Rhine. In Spain each regiment was to have three battalions in the fieldone as a first depot at Bayonne, and one as a second depot in the interior of France. The armies of Italy and Naples were to have four battalions of each regiment in Italy, and a fifth in Piedmont or the south of France. Ten thousand picked conscripts were also to be drafted into the Imperial Guard, where they were to be formed into battalions of fusiliers-without, however, interfering with the veteran regiments, who were kept up by an annual contribution of twenty chosen men from each regiment of the line. Napoleon intended to raise the Grand Army to two hundred thousand Frenchmen (excluding the fifth corps), the Army of Italy to one hundred thousand, that of Spain to two hundred and fifty thousand, of whom one hundred thousand were already on the Ebro, one hundred and ten thousand on the march thither, and forty thousand training in the depots at Bayonne.-THIERS, ix. 285, 286. It will be shown hereafter that the Army of Spain was really raised to three hundred and nineteen thousand six hundred and ninety strong.-See infra, lv. 15. CHAP. LV. 1808. 1 Moniteur, Sept. 10. 350. Jom. 4. treaty with Prussia. Sept. 8. will be victorious. May the English send their whole armies to combat in the Peninsula: they will furnish only feeble glories to our arms, and fresh disgrace to themselves." Such was the roseate hue under which the titled and richly endowed senators of France represented the hideous spectacle of a hundred and sixty thousand men being torn from their homes to meet certain destruction, in the prosecution of the most perfidious and unjust aggression recorded in history; and such the triumphs which they anticipated for their arms, when Providence was preparing for them, as its deserved punishment, the catastrophes of Salamanca and Vitoria.1 At the same time, a subsidiary treaty was concluded Subsidiary with Prussia, calculated to relieve, in some degree, that unhappy power from the chains which had fettered it since the battle of Jena. Napoleon, vanquished by necessity, and standing in need of a hundred thousand soldiers of the Grand Army for the Peninsular war, was driven to more moderate sentiments. It was stipulated that, for the space of ten years, the Prussian army should not exceed forty-two thousand men; that no militia should be formed; that Glogau, Stettin, and Cüstrin should be garrisoned by French troops till the entire payment of arrears of contributions of every description; that their garrisons, each four thousand strong, should be maintained and paid solely at the expense of Prussia; that seven military roads, for the use of France and her allies, should traverse the Prussian dominions; and that the arrears of the war contributions should be reduced to one hundred and forty million francs, or £5,600,000 sterling; but that, at the expiration of forty days after these sums were provided for, the French troops should, with the ex2 Montg. vi. ception of these fortresses, evacuate the Prussian dominions. 350. Mar- To Prussia this evacuation was a source of unspeakable i. 106, 127. relief, and notwithstanding that the restriction on the army was both humiliating and hurtful, yet the cabinet of Frederick-William had no alternative but submission." tens, N. R. Thiers, ix. 261, 264. LV. They contrived, however, by the skilful change of the CHAP. soldiers called out into actual service, to elude the most galling part of the obligation, and prepared the means of political resurrection in future times. 1808. 5. at Erfurth ander. Napoleon, however, was well aware that, even after these treaties and precautions, he was still exposed to Interview great danger from the renewed hostility of the German with Alexstates in his rear, while engaged with the armies of England and Spain in front in the Peninsula, if he was not well established in the alliance with Russia. It was in the breast of Alexander that the true security for the peace of the Continent beyond the Rhine was to be found. This was more especially the case, as the losses and serious aspect of the Spanish war had already rendered it necessary to withdraw a large part of the Grand Army from the north of Germany; and before winter, not more than a hundred thousand French soldiers would remain to assert the French supremacy in the centre and north of Europe. Impressed with these ideas, the French Emperor used his utmost efforts to bring Alexander into his views regarding Spain, and for this purpose he held out again the deceitful lure of an entire partition of the Turkish empire. So early as February 1808, he had written to the Czar, expressing his desire to settle now in a definitive manner the questions of the East, to admit Austria into a share of the spoil, and to set on foot in concert a gigantic expedition to India, which might finally destroy the English power in Hindostan. Alexander readily fell into the snare. "Ah! what a great man!" exclaimed he: " now I see again the ideas of Tilsit. Tell him that I am devoted to him for life; my armies, my empire are at his disposal. Your master wishes to interest Austria in the dismemberment of the Turkish empire; he is right: It is a wise thought; I at once agree to it. He wishes an expedition to India; I consent to it. I explained the difficulties with which it was attended during our conferences at Tilsit; but he is accustomed LV. 1808. CHAP. to set physical obstacles at naught. But let him not be uneasy; my preparations shall be proportioned to the difficulty." Not content with this, Napoleon resolved to do his utmost to prevail on the Czar to meet him at a town in the north of Germany, where the destinies of the world might be arranged. Such was the ascendant which he had gained over his mind during the negotiations at Tilsit, and such the attractions of the new objects of ambition in Finland and on the Danube, which he had the address to present to his ambition, that Alexander completely fell into his views.* Erfurth was the town selected for this purpose, and there a conference was held between the two potentates, almost rivalling that of Tilsit in interest and importance. On his route for Germany, the Emperor met large bodies of the Grand Army on their road from the Rhine to the Pyrenean frontier. He addressed them in one of those nervous proclamations which ever bear so strong an impress of his genius, but which, long the heralds of his victories, began now to afford a curious contrast to the disasters he was destined to undergo. The troops traversed France in the highest spirits, animated by the Emperor's address, magnificently fêted by the municipalities, beneath tri442. Thib. umphal arches, and amidst songs of congratulation from their fellow-citizens. Vain illusion! They were marching only to the scene of protracted agony; to whiten with their bones the fields of Spain;1 to a lengthened conflict, 1 Thiers, viii. 441, 49, 51. Montg. vi. 352. Jom. ii. 84, 85. * "Alexander, always influenced by the passion of the moment, no longer contained himself since Napoleon had consented to discuss the partition of the Turkish empire. Constantinople, above all, was dearer to him than the most beautiful provinces of that empire, because with Constantinople was glory and éclat as well as utility. But to give that key of the Straits was exactly that which was more repugnant to Napoleon than any other conces sion in the world. . . . However, Alexander did not despair of overcoming Napoleon. He repeated without ceasing that he did not desire any territory south of the Balkans, any part of Roumelia-nothing but the banlieu of Constantinople-leaving Adrianople to whomsoever was desired."-THIERS, ix. 265, 266. "Soldiers! after having triumphed on the banks of the Danube and the Vistula, you have traversed Germany by forced marches. I now make you |