LV. 1808. rang together; a confused murmur, like the sound of a CHAP. mighty cataract, was heard incessantly, even during the night, which was audible at the distance of miles from the capital. In the French lines, on the other hand, all was silent and orderly, and the step only of the passing sentinel broke the stillness-a striking image of the dif-152 ference between the disorderly passions which agitate the Napi populace, without being directed by superior intelligence South. ii. to any useful end, and the experienced discipline which Jom. ii. 103. restrains an ardour not less powerful, till the moment for 460, 463. letting it loose with decisive effect has arrived. 1 149, 411, 415. 410, 414. Thiers, ix. tion of But the possession of the Retiro, in a military point 34. of view, is possession of Madrid; bombs from its heights Capitula can reach the farthest points of the city. Sensible of Madrid. the impossibility of maintaining the defence, the Spanish authorities were deliberating on the expedience of proposing terms of capitulation, when a flag of truce arrived from Berthier, threatening the utmost severity of military execution if the signal of submission was not hoisted within two hours. Morla and Ivriarte were upon that despatched to the headquarters of the Emperor to negotiate the terms of surrender. He received the former with unusual sternness, and in just but cutting terms reproached him with his violation of good faith towards the unhappy prisoners taken at Baylen.* "Injustice and bad faith," said he, "ever in the end recoil upon those who commit them." Prophetic words! of the truth and universal application of which Napoleon himself, on the rock of St Helena, afterwards afforded a memorable * When Morla appeared before him, Napoleon addressed him in these words: "You in vain seek to shelter yourself under the name of the people; if you cannot now appease them, it is because you have formerly excited and misled them by your falsehoods. Return to Madrid, assemble the clergy, the magistrates, the principal inhabitants; tell them, that if by to-morrow morning at six o'clock the town has not surrendered, it will cease to exist. I neither will nor ought to withdraw my troops. You have massacred the unhappy French prisoners who fell into your hands: within these few days you have suffered two servants of the Russian ambassador to be dragged into the streets and murdered because they were born in France. The unskilfulness and cowardice of a general had placed in your hands troops who had capitulated on the field of LV. 1808. CHAP. example. Filled with consternation at the perilous predicament in which he was individually placed, from the well-founded resentment of the Emperor, and inspired with a sense of the necessity of appeasing the wrath of the conqueror by an immediate surrender, Morla returned to the city, and easily persuaded the majority of the junta that submission had become a matter of necessity. A few gallant men, with the Marquis Castellas and Viscount de Gaeta, disdaining to surrender, withdrew Nap. 1.413, from the city during the night, and took the road for ii. 414, 417. Estremadura. At daybreak the capitulation was signed, 463, 466. and by ten o'clock the principal points of the city were in the possession of the French troops.1 Dec. 4. 163, 165. 415. South. Thiers, ix. 35. measures for the tran Spain. Napoleon did not himself enter Madrid, but estabNapoleon's lished his headquarters at Chamartin, in the neighbourhood of the capital, where he received the submission of quillising of the authorities, and fulminated his anathemas against the functionaries who had resisted or swerved from his government. In a short time everything wore the appearance of peace: the theatres were reopened; the shopkeepers displayed their tempting wares, secure in the discipline of the conquerors; the Prado and public walks were crowded with spectators. Numerous deputations, embracing some of the most wealthy and respectable inhabitants of Madrid, waited on the Emperor, and renewed their protestations of fidelity to his brother Joseph, who was established at the royal palace of Prado: it then appeared how completely and fatally the corruptions and enjoyments of opulence and civilised life disqualify men battle, and the capitulation was violated. What sort of a letter did you, M. Morla, write to the general who subscribed that capitulation?* It well became you to speak of pillage-you, who in Roussillon had carried off women, and divided them like booty among your soldiers. What right, besides, had you to hold such language? The capitulation expressly forbade it. What have the English done, who are far from piquing themselves on being strict observers of the law of nations?-they complained of the Convention of Cintra, but neverthe * Alluding to Morla's letter to Dupont of 10th August 1808, in which he sought to vindicate the violation of the capitulation ou the ground of the atrocities of which the French soldiers had been guilty. * CHAP. LV. 1808. from acting a heroic part in defence of their country." Measures of great severity were adopted against all the constituted authorities who, after having recognised Joseph as King of Spain, had joined the popular party. The Marquis de Simon, a Frenchman by birth, who had to the last prolonged the conflict after the capitulation had paralysed all general resistance, and was taken fighting bravely, when endeavouring to cut his way through at the gate of Fuencarral, was ordered to be shot. He owed his life to the intercession of his daughter, who threw herself at the Emperor's feet, and obtained from his clemency a commutation of the sentence. All the members of the Council of Castile who had declared that they had sworn allegiance to Joseph under jesuitical mental reservations, were dismissed, and ordered to be detained prisoners in their own houses. Nor were general measures wanting, calculated to reconcile the nation to the sway of the intrusive monarch. By a solemn decree, the Inquisition was abolished, and all its funds were Dec. 4. directed to be applied towards the reduction of the public debt; feudal rights were suppressed; personal restrictions and privileges of every kind declared at an end; the number of convents throughout the kingdom was at once less carried it into execution. To violate military conventions is to renounce civilisation, and put ourselves on a level with the Bedouins of the Desert. How can you now venture to demand a capitulation, you who have violated that of Baylen? See how injustice and bad faith ever recoil upon those who commit them. I had a fleet at Cadiz; it had come there as to an ally's harbour; and you directed against it the mortars of the town which you commanded. I had a Spanish army in my ranks, but I preferred allowing it to escape on board the English vessels, and hurling it from the rocks of Espinosa, to disarming it. I would rather have seven thousand additional enemies to combat than be wanting in good faith. Return to Madrid; I give you till to-morrow at ten: return then if you are the bearer of submission; if not, you and your troops shall be all put to the sword."-THIBAUDEAU, vii. 165, 166. There can be no doubt that consciousness of his former breach of faith now paralysed Morla, and impelled him into a second act of pusillanimity, if not treachery, to his own countrymen; so true it is, in Napoleon's words, that "injustice and bad faith ever recoil in the end upon those who commit them." Morla lingered out a few years, abhorred and shunned by all; he died as he had lived, devoured by remorse and sunk in misery.-See TORENO, ii. 155. Their number amounted to above twelve hundred, comprehending the most eminent and wealthy individuals of all classes in the metropolis.—Joм. iii. 105. VOL. VIII. 2 P LV. 1808. Dec. 7. CHAP. reduced a third, and their inmates were turned adrift, while all novices were permitted to leave their places of seclusion. One-half of the proceeds of the estates of the suppressed convents was to be applied to the public debt, the other to the relief of the cities and towns which had suffered from the French invasion; and all the barriers between province and province, which had so long impeded the internal commerce of the kingdom, were declared at an end. A few days after, the Emperor fulminated a bulletin against the English government, which deserves to be recorded, from the singular contrast which its predictions exhibited to the future march of events with which his own destinies were so deeply interwoven.* Amidst these great designs, the attention of the Emperor was still fixed on the magnificent projects of internal improvement and embellishment which he had set on foot in France. The completion of the new road over Mont Cenis, "on such a scale as to render it secure, not only in reality but to the imagination;" the formation of a quay from the Corps Legislatif to the bridge of Jena at Paris; the urging forward of the numerous canals in the course of construction in France; vast additions to "As to the English armies, I shall chase them from the Peninsula. Saragossa, Valencia, Seville, shall be reduced to subjection, either by persuasion or force of arms; there is no longer any obstacle which can long retard the execution of my wishes. The Bourbons can never again reign in Europe; the divisions in the royal family have been fomented by the English. It was not the old King Charles or his favourite whom the Duke del Infantado, the instrument of England, wished to overturn from the throne; his papers, recently taken, prove what the real object was; it was British preponderance which they wished to establish in Spain. Insensate project! which could have led to no other result but a war without end, and the shedding of oceans of blood. No power influenced by England can exist on the Continent; if there are any which desire it, their wish is insensate, and will sooner or later cause their ruin. If you swear allegiance to my brother with sincerity and truth, without equivocation or mental reservation, I will relinquish all the rights which conquest has now afforded me, and make it my first object to conduct myself towards you as a faithful friend. The present generation may differ in opinion; too many passions have been brought into action; but your grandchildren will bless me as their regenerator: they will place among their memorable days that in which I appeared among them, and from those days will date the future prosperity of Spain.”—NAPOLEON's Proclamation to the Spaniards, December 7, 1808; JOMINI, iii. 108, 110. LV. .1808. the harbour of la Spezzia in Italy, which he proposed to CHAP. make "a second Toulon," continually occupied his attention. He constantly complained of the tardiness with which these public works were carried on, so little commensurate to the ardour of his impassioned mind. On the 21st December, the day before he quitted Madrid, he wrote a long letter to Champagny at Paris, urging him to hasten the introduction of the water of the canal of Ourcq into Paris, not only to replenish the Fontaine des Innocents, and other fountains already in activity, but to establish magnificent water-works in the Champs Elysées and gardens of the Tuileries, on such a scale as to be capable of representing naval engagements similar to those exhibited by the Emperors to the Roman populace. He gave, at the same time, proof of the greatness of his mind by orders to compose songs descriptive of the glory the Grand Army had acquired, and would acquire, and for a solemn translation of the heart of Vauban to the Invalides on the 26th May, the anniversary of the taking of Dantzic; and of its littleness, by two decrees 1 Thib. vii. banishing Madame de Stael and Madame de Chevreuse 168, 170. forty leagues from Paris. The first might be a formidable 158. South. rival from her literary talent; the latter was a young and Bign, viii. brilliant beauty, whose only fault was having let fall 121, 133. some heedless expressions in regard to the ladies of the 467, 469. new court.1 * Tor. ii. 156, ii. 419, 420. 54, 115, Thiers, ix. the French Nor was the Emperor less actively employed during 36. the fortnight that he remained at Madrid, in dispersing Positions of his armies so as to spread them over the greatest possible corps in the space, and complete in all the provinces that thorough end of Deconquest which had already been effected in the capital. Ney's corps, which been brought up by Guadalaxara from * This last act of severity was so unjustifiable, that it excited the disquietude even of Napoleon's ministers.-"On n'est plus libre,' said M. Daru,' quand on peut être exilé. On trouve qu'un pareil ordre resemble beaucoup à un lettre-de-cachet.' 'Oui,' repliqua Napoleon,' vous avez raison pour d'autres, mais à la cour, dans le service de la cour de la liberté. Est-ce que la liberté est faite pour les Chambillons?'”—BIGNON, viii. 137, 138. cember. |