Napoleon Bonaparte

It is impossible to describe the dismay, which pervaded the camp of the Austrians after this terrible defeat. They were entirely cut from all retreat, and were at the mercy of Napoleon. A council of war was held by the Austrian officers during the night, and it was unanimously resolved that capitulation was unavoidable. Early the next morning a flag of truce was sent to the head-quarters of Napoleon. The Austrians offered to abandon Italy, if the generosity of the victor would grant them the boon of not being made prisoners of war. Napoleon met the envoy with great courtesy, and, according to his custom, stated promptly and irrevocably the conditions upon which he was willing to treat. The terms were generous. "The Austrian armies," said he, "may unmolested return to their homes; but all of Italy must be abandoned." Melas, who was eighty years of age, hoped to modify the terms, and again sent the negotiator to suggest some alterations. "Monsieur!" said Napoleon, "my conditions are irrevocable. I did not begin to make war yesterday. Your position is as perfectly comprehended by me as by yourselves. You are encumbered with dead, sick, and wounded, destitute of provisions, deprived of the elite of your army, surrounded on every side, I might exact every thing. But I respect the white hairs of your general, and the valor of your soldiers. I ask nothing but what is rigorously justified by the present position of affairs. Take what steps you may, you will have no other terms." The conditions were immediately signed, and a suspension of arms was agreed upon, until an answer could be received from Vienna.

Napoleon left Paris for this campaign on the 7th of May. The battle of Marengo was fought on the 14th of June. Thus in five weeks Napoleon has scaled the barrier of the Alps: with sixty thousand soldiers, most of them undisciplined recruits, he had utterly discomfited an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men, and regained the whole of Italy. The bosom of every Frenchman throbbed with gratitude and pride. One wild shout of enthusiasm ascended from united France. Napoleon had laid the foundation of his throne deep in the heart of the French nation, and there that foundation still remains unshaken.

Napoleon now entered Milan in triumph. He remained there ten days, busy apparently every hour, by day and by night, in re-organizing the political condition of Italy. The serious and religious tendencies of his mind are developed by the following note, which four days after the battle of Marengo, he wrote to the Consuls in Paris: "To-day, whatever our atheists may say to it, I go in great state to the To Deum which is to be chanted in the Cathedral of Milan. * * The Te Deum , is an anthem of praise, sung in churches on occasion of thanksgiving. It is so called from the first words "Te Deum laudamus," Thee God we praise.

An unworthy spirit of detraction has vainly sought to wrest from Napoleon the honor of this victory, and to attribute it all to the flank charge made by Kellerman. Such attempts deserve no detail reply. Napoleon had secretly and suddenly called into being an army, and by its apparently miraculous creation had astounded Europe. He had effectually deceived the vigilance of his enemies, so as to leave them entirely in the dark respecting his point of attack. He had conveyed that army with all its stores, over the pathless crags of the Great St. Bernard. Like an avalanche he had descended from the mountains upon the plains of startled Italy. He had surrounded the Austrian hosts, though they were doubled his numbers, with a net through which they could not break. In a decisive battle he had scattered their ranks before him, like chaff by the whirlwind. He was nobly seconded by those generals whom his genius had chosen and created. It is indeed true, that without his generals and his soldiers he could not have gained the victory. Massena contributed to the result by his matchless defense of Genoa; Moreau, by holding in abeyance the army of the Rhine; Lannes, by his iron firmness on the plain of Montebello; Desaix, by the promptness with which he rushed to the rescue, as soon as his car caught the far-off thunders of the cannon of Marengo; and Kellerman, by his admirable flank charge of cavalry. But it was the genius of Napoleon which planned the mighty combination, which roused and directed the enthusiasm of the generals, which inspired the soldiers with fearlessness and nerved them for the strife, and which, through these efficient agencies, secured the astounding results.

Napoleon established his triumphant army, now increased to eighty thousand men, in the rich valley of the Po. He assigned to the heroic Massena the command of this triumphant host, and ordering all the forts and citadels which blocked the approaches from France to be blown up, set out, on the 24th of June, for his return to Paris. In re-crossing the Alps, by the pass of Mt. Cenis, he met the carriage of Madame Kellerman, who was going to Italy to join her husband. Napoleon ordered his carriage to be stopped, and alighting, greeted the lady with great courtesy, and congratulated her upon the gallant conduct of her husband at Marengo. As he was riding along one day, Bourrienne spoke of the world-wide renown which the First Consul had attained.

"Yes," Napoleon thoughtfully replied. "A few more events like this campaign, and my name may perhaps go down to posterity."

"I think," Bourrienne rejoined, "that you have already done enough to secure a long and lasting fame."

"Done enough!" Napoleon replied. "You are very good! It is true that in less than two years I have conquered Cairo, Paris, Milan. But were I to die to-morrow, half a page of general history would be all that would be devoted to my exploits."

Napoleon's return to Paris, through the provinces of France, was a scene of constant triumph. The joy of the people amounted almost to frenzy. Bonfires, illuminations, the pealing of bells, and the thunders of artillery accompanied him all the way. Long lines of young maidens, selected for their grace and beauty, formed avenues of loveliness and smiles through which he was to pass, and carpeted his path with flowers. He arrived in Paris at midnight the 2d of July, having been absent but eight weeks.

The enthusiasm of the Parisians was unbounded and inexhaustible. Day after day, and night after night, the festivities continued. The Palace of the Tuileries was ever thronged with a crowd, eager to catch a glimpse of the preserver of France. All the public bodies waited upon him with congratulations. Bells rung, cannon thundered, bonfires and illuminations blazed, rockets and fire-works, in meteoric splendor filled the air, bands of music poured forth their exuberant strains, and united Paris, thronging the garden of the Tuileries and flooding back into the Elysian Fields, rent the heavens with deafening shouts of exultation. As Napoleon stood at the window of his palace, witnessing this spectacle of a nation's gratitude, he said, "The sound of these acclamations is as sweet to me, as the voice of Josephine. How happy I am to be beloved by such a people." Preparations were immediately made for a brilliant and imposing solemnity in commemoration of the victory. "Let no triumphal arch be raised to me," said Napoleon. "I wish for no triumphal arch but the public satisfaction."

It is not strange that enthusiasm and gratitude should have glowed in the ardent bosoms of the French. In four months Napoleon had raised France from an abyss of ruin to the highest pinnacle of prosperity and renown. For anarchy he had substituted law, for bankruptcy a well-replenished treasury, for ignominious defeat resplendent victory, for universal discontent as universal satisfaction. The invaders were driven from France, the hostile alliance broken, and the blessings of peace were now promised to the war-harassed nation.

During this campaign there was presented a very interesting illustration of Napoleon's wonderful power of anticipating the progress of coming events. Bourrienne, one day, just before the commencement of the campaign, entered the cabinet at the Tuileries, and found an immense map of Italy, unrolled upon the carpet, and Napoleon stretched upon it. With pins, whose heads were tipped with red and black sealing-wax, to represent the French and Austrian forces, Napoleon was studying all the possible combinations and evolutions of the two hostile armies. Bourrienne, in silence, but with deep interest, watched the progress of this pin campaign. Napoleon, having arranged the pins with red heads, where he intended to conduct the French troops, and with the black pins designating the point which he supposed the Austrians would occupy, looked up to his secretary, and said:

"Do you think that I shall beat Melas?"

"Why, how can I tell!" Bourrienne answered.

"Why, you simpleton," said Napoleon, playfully; "just look here. Melas is at Alexandria, where he has his head-quarters. He will remain there until Genoa surrenders. He has in Alexandria his magazines, his hospitals, his artillery, his reserves. Passing the Alps here," sticking a pin into the Great St. Bernard, "I fall upon Melas in his rear; I cut off his communications with Austria. I meet him here in the valley of the Bormida." So saying, he stuck a red pin into the plain of Marengo.

Bourrienne regarded this maneuvering of pins as mere pastime. His countenance expressed his perfect incredulity. Napoleon, perceiving this, addressed to him some of his usual apostrophes, in which he was accustomed playfully to indulge in moments of relaxation, such as, You ninny, You goose; and rolled up the map. Ten weeks passed away, and Bourrienne found himself upon the banks of the Bormida, writing, at Napoleon's dictation, an account of the battle of Marengo. Astonished to find Napoleon's anticipations thus minutely fulfilled, he frankly avowed his admiration of the military sagacity thus displayed. Napoleon himself smiled at the justice of his foresight.

Two days before the news of the battle of Marengo arrived in Vienna, England effected a new treaty with Austria, for the more vigorous prosecution of the war. By this convention it was provided that England should loan Austria ten millions of dollars, to bear no interest during the continuance of the conflict. And the Austrian cabinet bound itself not to make peace with France, without the consent of the Court of St. James. The Emperor of Austria was now sadly embarrassed. His sense of honor would not allow him to violate his pledge to the King of England, and to make peace. On the other hand, he trembled at the thought of seeing the armies of the invincible Napoleon again marching upon his capital. He, therefore, resolved to temporize, and, in order to gain time, sent an embassador to Paris. The plenipotentiary presented to Napoleon a letter, in which the Emperor stated, "You will give credit to every thing which Count Julien shall say on my part. I will ratify whatever he shall do." Napoleon, prompt in action, and uniformed of the new treaty between Ferdinand and George III., immediately caused the preliminaries of peace to be drawn up, which were signed by the French and Austrian ministers. The cabinet in Vienna, angry with their embassador for not protracting the discussion, refused to ratify the treaty, recalled Count Julien, sent him into exile, informed the First Consul of the treat which bound Austria not to make peace without the concurrence of Great Britain, assured France of the readiness of the English Cabinet to enter into negotiations, and urged the immediate opening of a Congress at Luneville, to which plenipotentiaries should be sent from each of the three great contending powers. Napoleon was highly indignant in view of this duplicity and perfidy. Yet, controlling his anger, he consented to treat with England, and with that view proposed a naval armistice , with the mistress of the seas. To this proposition England peremptorily refused to accede, as it would enable France to throw supplies into Egypt and Malta, which island England was besieging. The naval armistice would have been undeniably for the interests of France. But the continental armistice was as undeniably adverse to her interests, enabling Austria to recover from her defeats, and to strengthen her armies. Napoleon, fully convinced that England, in he[r inaccessible position, did not wish for peace, and that her only object, in endeavoring to obtain admittance to the Congress, was that she might throw obstacles in the way of reconciliation with Austria, offered to renounce all armistice with England, and to treat with her separately. This England also refused.

It was now September. Two months had passed in these vexations and sterile negotiations. Napoleon had taken every step in his power to secure peace. He sincerely desired it. He had already won all the laurels he could wish to win on the field of battle. The reconstruction of society in France, and the consolidation of his power, demanded all his energies. The consolidation of his power! That was just what the government of England dreaded. The consolidation of democratic power in France was dangerous to king and to noble. William Pits, the soul of the aristocratic government of England, determined still to prosecute the war. France could not harm England. But England, with her invincible fleet, could sweep the commerce of France from the seas. Fox and his coadjutors with great eloquence and energy opposed the war. Their efforts were, however, unavailing. The people of England, notwithstanding all the efforts of the government to defame the character of the First Consul, still cherished the conviction that, after all, Napoleon was their friend. Napoleon, in subsequent years, while reviewing these scenes of his early conflicts, with characteristic eloquence and magnanimity, gave utterance to the following sentiments which, it is as certain as destiny, that the verdict of the world will yet confirm.

"Pitt was the master of European policy. He held in his hands the moral fate of nations. But he made an ill use of his power. He kindled the fire of discord throughout the universe; and his name, like that of Erostratus, will be inscribed in history, amidst flames, lamentations, and tears. Twenty-five years of universal conflagration; the numerous coalitions that added fuel to the flame; the revolution and devastation of Europe; the bloodshed of nations; the frightful debt of England, by which all these horrors were maintained; the pestilential system of loans, by which the people of Europe are oppressed; the general discontent that now prevails—all must be attributed to Pitt. Posterity will brand him as a scourge. The man so lauded in his own time, will hereafter be regarded as the genius of evil. Not that I consider him to have been willfully atrocious, or doubt his having entertained the conviction that he was acting right. But St. Bartholomew had also its conscientious advocates. The Pope and cardinals celebrated it by a Te Deum ; and we have no reason to doubt their having done so in perfect sincerity. Such is the weakness of human reason and judgment! But that for which posterity will, above all, execrate the memory of Pitt, is the hateful school, which he has left behind him; its insolent Machiavelism, its profound immorality, its cold egotism, and its utter disregard of justice and human happiness. Whether it be the effect of admiration and gratitude, or the result of mere instinct and sympathy, Pitt is, and will continue to be, the idol of the European aristocracy. There was, indeed, a touch of the Sylla in his character. His system has kept the popular cause in check, and brought about the triumph of the patricians. As for Fox, one must not look for his model among the ancients. He is himself a model, and his principles will sooner or later rule the world. The death of Fox was one of the fatalities of my career. Had his life been prolonged, affairs would taken a totally different turn. The cause of the people would have triumphed, and we should have established a new order of things in Europe."

Austria really desired peace. The march of Napoleon's armies upon Vienna was an evil more to be dreaded than even the consolidation of Napoleon's power in France. But Austria was, by loans and treaties, so entangled with England, that she could make not peace without the consent of the Court of St. James. Napoleon found that he was but triffled with. Interminable difficulties were thrown in the way of negotiation. Austria was taking advantage of the cessation of hostilities, merely to recruit her defeated armies, that, soon as the approaching winter had passed away, she might fall, with renovated energies, upon France. The month of November had now arrived, and the mountains, whitened with snow, were swept by the bleak winds of winter. The period of the armistice had expired. Austria applied for its prolongation. Napoleon was no longer thus to be duped. He consented, however, to a continued suspension of hostilities, on condition that the treaty of peace were signed within forty-eight hours. Austria, believing that no sane man would march an army into Germany in the dead of winter, and that she should have abundant time to prepare for a spring campaign, refused. The armies of France were immediately on the move. The Emperor of Austria had improved every moment of this transient interval of peace, in recruiting his forces. In person he had visited the army to inspire his troops with enthusiasm. The command of the imperial forces was intrusted to his second brother, the Archduke John. Napoleon moved with his accustomed vigor. The political necessities of Paris and of France rendered it impossible for him to leave the metropolis. He ordered one powerful army, under General Brune, to attack the Austrians in Italy, on the banks of Mincio, and to press firmly toward Vienna. In the performance of this operation, General Macdonald, in the dead of winter, effected his heroic passage over the Alps by the pass of the Splugen. Victory followed their standards.

Moreau, with his magnificent army, commenced a winter campaign on the Rhine. Between the rivers Iser and Inn there is an enormous forest, many leagues in extent, of sombre firs and pines. It is a dreary and almost uninhabited wilderness, of wild ravines, and tangled under-brush. Two great roads have been cut through the forest, and sundry woodmen's paths penetrate it at different points. In the centre there is a little hamlet, of a few miserable huts, called Hohenlinden. In this forest, on the night of the 3d of December, 1800, Moreau, with sixty thousand men, encountered the Archduke John with seventy thousand Austrian troops. The clocks upon the towers of Munich had but just tolled the hour of midnight when both armies were in motion, each hoping to surprise the other. A dismal wintry storm was howling over the tree tops, and the smothering snow, falling rapidly, obliterated all traces of a path, and rendered it almost impossible to drag through the drifts the ponderous artillery. Both parties, in the dark and tempestuous night, became entangled in the forest, and the heads of their columns in various places met. An awful scene of confusion, conflict, and carnage then ensued. Imagination can not compass the terrible sublimity of that spectacle. The dark midnight, the howlings of the wintry storm, the driving sheets of snow, the incessant roar of artillery and of musketry from one hundred and thirty thousand combatants, the lightning flashes of the guns, the crash of the falling trees as the heavy cannon-balls swept through the forest, the floundering of innumerable horsemen bewildered in the pathless snow, the shout of onset, the shriek of death, and the burst of martial music from a thousand bands—all combined to present a scene of horror and of demoniac energy, which probably even this lost world never presented before. The darkness of the black forest was so intense, and the snow fell in flakes so thick and fast and blinding, that the combatants could with difficulty see each other. They often judged of the foe only by his position, and fired at the flashes gleaming through the gloom. At times, hostile divisions became intermingled in inextricable confusion, and hand to hand, bayonet crossing bayonet, and sword clashing against sword, they fought with the ferocity of demons; for though the officers of an army may be influenced by the most elevated sentiments of dignity and of honor, the mass of the common soldiers have ever been the most miserable, worthless, and degraded of mankind. As the advancing and retreating host wavered to and fro, the wounded, by thousands, were left on hill-sides and in dark ravines, with the drifting snow, crimsoned with blood, their only blanket; there in solitude and agony to moan and freeze and die. What death-scenes the eye of God must have witnessed that night, in the solitudes of that dark, tempest-tossed, and blood-stained forest! At last the morning dawned through the unbroken clouds, and the battle raged with renovated fury. Nearly twenty thousand mutilated bodies of the dead and wounded were left upon the field, with gory locks frozen to their icy pillows, and covered with mounds of snow. At last the French were victorious at every point. The Austrians, having lost twenty-five thousand men in killed, wounded, and prisoners, one hundred pieces of artillery, and an immense number of wagons, fled in dismay. This terrific conflict has been immortalized by the noble epic of Campbell, which is now familiar wherever the English language is known.

"On Linden, when the sun was low, All bloodless lay the untrodden snow, And dark as winter was the flow Or Iser, rolling rapidly. "But Linden saw another sight, When the drums beat at dead of night, Commanding fires of death to light The darkness of her scenery." &c.

The retreating Austrians rushed down the valley of the Danube. Moreau followed thundering at their heels, plunging balls and shells into their retreating ranks. The victorious French were within thirty miles of Vienna, and the capital was in a state of indescribable dismay. The Emperor again sent imploring an armistice. The application was promptly acceded to, for Napoleon was contending only for peace. Yet with unexempled magnanimity, notwithstanding these astonishing victories, Napoleon made no essential alterations in his terms. Austria was at his feet. His conquering armies were almost in sight of the steeples of Vienna. There was no power which the Emperor could present to obstruct their resistless march. He might have exacted any terms of humiliation. But still he adhered to the first terms which he had proposed. Moreau was urged by some of his officers to press on to Vienna. "We had better halt," he replied, "and be content with peace. It is for that alone that we are fighting." The Emperor of Austria was thus compelled to treat without the concurrence of England. The insurmountable obstacle in the way of peace was thus removed. At Luneville, Joseph Bonaparte appeared as the embassador of Napoleon, and Count Cobentzel as the plenipotentiary of Austria. The terms of the treaty were soon settled, and France was again at peace with all the world, England alone excepted. By this treaty the Rhine was acknowledged as the boundary of France. The Adige limited the possessions of Austria in Italy; and Napoleon made it an essential article that every Italian imprisoned in the dungeons of Austria for political offences, should immediately be liberated. There was to be no interference by either with the new republics which had sprung up in Italy. They were to be permitted to choose whatever form of government they preferred. In reference to this treaty, Sir Walter Scott makes the candid admission that "the treaty of Luneville was not much more advantageous to France than that of Campo Formio. The moderation of the First Consul indicated at once his desire for peace upon the Continent, and considerable respect for the bravery and strength of Austria." And Alison, in cautious but significant phrase, remarks, "These conditions did not differ materially from those offered by Napoleon before the renewal of the war; a remarkable circumstance , when it is remembered how vast and addition the victories of Marengo, Hohenlinden, and the Mincio, had since made to the preponderance of the French armies."

It was, indeed, "a remarkable circumstance," that Napoleon should have manifested such unparalleled moderation, under circumstances of such aggravated indignity. In Napoleon's first Italian campaign he was contending solely for peace. At last he attained it, in the treaty of Campo Formio, on terms equally honorable to Austria and to France. On his return from Egypt, he found the armies of Austria, three hundred thousand strong, in alliance with England, invading the territories of the Republic. He implored peace, in the name of bleeding humanity, upon the fair basis of the treaty of Campo Formio. His foes regarded his supplication as the imploring cry of weakness, and treated it with scorn. With new vigor they poured their tempests of balls and shells upon France. Napoleon sealed the Alps, and dispersed his foes at Marengo, like autumn leaves before the Alps, and dispersed his foes at Marengo, like autumn leaves before the gale. Amid the smoke and the blood and the groans of the field of his victory, he again wrote imploring peace; and he wrote in terms dictated by the honest and gushing sympathies of a humane man, and not in the cold and stately forms of the diplomatist. Crushed as his foes were, he rose not in his demands, but nobly said, "I am still willing to make peace upon the fair basis of the treaty of Campo Formio." His treacherous foes, to gain time to recruit their armies, that they might fall upon him with renovated vigor, agreed to an armistice. They then threw all possible embarrassments in the way of negotiation, and prolonged the armistice till the winds of winter were sweeping fiercely over the snow-covered hills of Austria. They thought that it was then too late for Napoleon to make any movements until spring, and that they had a long winter before them, in which to prepare for another campaign. They refused peace. Through storms and freezing gales and drifting snows the armies of Napoleon marched painfully to Hohenlinden. The hosts of Austria were again routed, and were swept away, as the drifted snow flies before the gale. Ten thousand Frenchmen lie cold in death, the terrible price of the victory. The Emperor of Austria, in his palaces, heard the thunderings of Napoleon's approaching artillery. He implored peace. "It is all that I desire," said Napoleon; "I am not fighting for ambition or for conquest. I am still ready to make peace upon the fair basis of the treaty of Campo Formio."