Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume II

CHAPTER XX

Napoleon offers, and the Austrian Envoy accepts, a new Treaty – The Emperor refuses it, unless England is included – Negotiations with England – fail – Renewal of the War – Armistice – Resumption of Hostilities – Battle of Hohenlinden – Other Battles – The Austrians agree to a separate Peace – Treaty of Luneville – Convention between France and the United States – The Queen of Naples repairs to Petersburgh – Paul receives her with cordiality, and applies in her behalf to Buonaparte – His Envoy received at Paris with the utmost distinction, and the Royal Family of Naples saved for the present – Rome restored to the authority of the Pope – Napoleon demands of the King of Spain to declare War against Portugal – Olivenza and Almeida taken – Malta, after a Blockade of Two Years, obliged to submit to the English.

Napoleon proceeded to manage with great skill and policy the popularity which his success had gained for him. In war it was always his custom, after he had struck some venturous and apparently decisive blow, to offer such conditions as might induce the enemy to submit, and separate his interest from that of his allies. Upon this system of policy he offered the Count de St. Julien, an Austrian envoy, the conditions of a treaty, having for its basis that of Campo Formio, which, after the loss of Italy on the fatal field of Marengo, afforded terms much more favourable than the Emperor of Germany was entitled to have expected from the victors. The Austrian envoy accordingly took upon him to subscribe these preliminaries; but they did not meet the approbation of the Emperor, who placed his honour on observing accurately the engagements which he had formed with England, and who refused to accede to a treaty in which she was not included. It was added, however, that Lord Minto, the British ambassador at Vienna, had intimated Britain's willingness to be included in a treaty for general pacification.⁵⁶⁹

NEGOTIATIONS WITH ENGLAND

Aug. 24

This proposal occasioned a communication between France and Britain, through Monsieur Otto, commissioner for the care of French prisoners. The French envoy intimated that as a preliminary to Britain's entering on the treaty, she must consent to an armistice by sea, and suspend the advantages which she received from her naval superiority, in the same manner as the first consul of France had dispensed with prosecuting his victories by land. This demand would have withdrawn the blockade of the British vessels from the French seaports, and allowed the sailing of reinforcements to Egypt and Malta, which last important place was on the point of surrendering to the English. The British ministers were also sensible that there was, besides, a great difference between a truce betwixt two land armies, stationed in presence of each other, and a suspension of naval hostilities over the whole world; since in the one case, on breaking off the treaty, hostilities can be almost instantly resumed; on the other, the distance and uncertainty of communication may prevent the war being recommenced for many months; by which chance of delay, the French, as being inferior at sea, were sure to be the gainers. The British statesmen, therefore, proposed some modifications, to prevent the obvious inequality of such armistice. But it was replied on the part of France, that though they would accept of such a modified armistice, if Great Britain would enter into a separate treaty, yet the chief consul would not consent to it if Austria was to be participant of the negotiation.⁵⁷⁰

Here, therefore, the overtures of peace betwixt France and England were shipwrecked, and the Austrian Emperor was reduced to the alternative of renewing the war, or entering into a treaty without his allies. He appears to have deemed himself obliged to prefer the more dangerous and more honourable course.

This was a generous resolution on the part of Austria; but by no means politic at the period, when their armies were defeated, their national spirit depressed, and when the French armies had penetrated so far into Germany. Even Pitt himself, upon whose declining health the misfortune made a most unfavourable impression, had considered the defeat of Marengo as a conclusion to the hopes of success against France for a considerable period. "Fold up the map," he said, pointing to that of Europe; "it need not be again opened for these twenty years."

Yet, unwilling to resign the contest, even while a spark of hope remained, it was resolved upon in the British councils to encourage Austria to farther prosecution of the war. Perhaps, in recommending such a measure to her ally, at a period when she had sustained such great losses, and was in the state of dejection to which they gave rise, Great Britain too much resembled an eager and over-zealous second, who urges his principal to continue a combat after his strength is exhausted. Austria, a great and powerful nation, if left to repose, would have in time recruited her strength, and constituted once again a balance against the power of France on the continent; but if urged to farther exertions in the hour of her extremity, she was likely to sustain such additional losses, as might render her comparatively insignificant for a number of years. Such at least is the conclusion which we, who have the advantage of considering the measure with reference to its consequences, are now enabled to form. At the emergency, things were viewed in a different light. The victories of Suwarrow and of the Archduke Charles were remembered, as well as the recent defeats sustained by France in the year 1799, which had greatly tarnished the fame of her arms. The character of Buonaparte was not yet sufficiently estimated. His failure before Acre had made an impression in England, which was not erased by the victory of Marengo; the extreme prudence which usually tempered his most venturous undertakings was not yet generally known; and the belief and hope were received, that one who ventured on such new and daring manœuvres as Napoleon employed, was likely to behold them miscarry at length, and thus to fall as rapidly as he had risen.

Influenced by such motives, it was determined in the British cabinet to encourage the Emperor, by a loan of two millions, to place himself and his brother, the Archduke John, in command of the principal army, raise the whole national force of his mighty empire, and at the head of the numerous forces which he could summon into the field, either command a more equal peace, or try the fortunes of the most desperate war.

The money was paid, and the Emperor joined the army; but the negotiations for peace were not broken off. On the contrary, they were carried on much on the terms which Saint Julien had subscribed to, with this additional and discreditable circumstance, that the first consul, as a pledge of the Austrian sincerity, required that the three fortified towns of Ingoldstadt, Ulm, and Philipstadt, should be placed temporarily in the hands of the French; a condition to which the Austrians were compelled to submit. But the only advantage purchased by this surrender, which greatly exposed the hereditary dominions of Austria, was an armistice of forty-five days, at the end of which hostilities were again renewed.⁵⁷¹

In the action of Haag, the Archduke John, whose credit in the army almost rivalled that of his brother Charles, obtained considerable advantages;⁵⁷² and, encouraged by them, he ventured on the 3d of December, 1800, two days afterwards, a great and decisive encounter with Moreau. This was the occasion on which that general gained over the Austrians the bloody and most important victory of Hohenlinden, – an achievement which did much to keep his reputation for military talents abreast with that of the first consul himself. Moreau pursued his victory, and obtained possession of Salzburg. At the same time Augereau, at the head of the Gallo-Batavian army, pressed forward into Bohemia; and Macdonald, passing from the country of the Grisons into the Valteline, forced a division of his army across the Mincio, and communicated with Massena and the French army in Italy. The Austrian affairs seemed utterly desperate. The Archduke Charles was again placed at the head of her forces, but they were so totally discouraged, that a retreat on all points was the only measure which could be executed.

ARMISTICE

Another and a final cessation of arms was now the only resource of the Austrians; and, in order to obtain it, the Emperor was compelled to agree to make a peace separate from his allies. Britain, in consideration of the extremity to which her ally was reduced, voluntarily relieved him from the engagement by which he was restrained from doing so without her participation. An armistice shortly afterwards took place, and the Austrians being now sufficiently humbled, it was speedily followed by a peace. Joseph Buonaparte, for this purpose, met with the Austrian minister, Count Cobentzel, at Luneville, where the negotiations were carried on.

There were two conditions of the treaty, which were peculiarly galling to the Emperor. Buonaparte peremptorily exacted the cession of Tuscany, the hereditary dominions of the brother of Francis, which were to be given up to a prince of the House of Parma, while the archduke was to obtain an indemnity in Germany. The French Consul demanded, with no less pertinacity, that Francis (though not empowered to do so by the Germanic constitution) should confirm the peace, as well in his capacity of Emperor of Germany, as in that of sovereign of his own hereditary dominions. This demand, from which Buonaparte would on no account depart, involved a point of great difficulty and delicacy. One of the principal clauses of the treaty included the cession of the whole territories on the left bank of the Rhine to the French Republic; thereby depriving not only Austria, but Prussia, and various other princes of the German empire, of their possessions in the districts, which were now made over to France. It was provided that the princes who should suffer such deprivations, were to be remunerated by indemnities, as they were termed, to be allotted to them at the expense of the Germanic body in general. Now, the Emperor had no power to authorise the alienation of these fiefs of the empire, without consent of the Diet, and this was strongly urged by his envoy.

Buonaparte was, however, determined to make peace on no other terms than those of the Emperor's giving away what was not his to bestow. Francis was compelled to submit, and, as the necessity of the case pleaded its apology, the act of the Emperor was afterwards ratified by the Diet. Except in these mortifying claims, the submission to which plainly intimated the want of power to resist compulsion, the treaty of Luneville⁵⁷³ was not much more advantageous to France than that of Campo Formio; and the moderation of the first consul indicated at once his desire of peace upon the continent, and considerable respect for the bravery and strength of Austria, though enfeebled by such losses as those of Marengo and Hohenlinden.

We have already noticed the disputes betwixt France and America, and the scandalous turn of the negotiations, by which the French Directory attempted to bully or wheedle the United States out of a sum of money, which, in part at least, was to be dedicated to their own private use. Since that time the aggressions committed by the French on the American navy had been so numerous, that the two republics seemed about to go to war, and the United States actually issued letters of marque for making reprisals on the French. New communications and negotiations, however, were opened, which Buonaparte studied to bring to maturity. His brother Joseph acted as negotiator, and on the 30th of September, 1800, a convention⁵⁷⁴ was entered into, to subsist for the space of eight years, agreeing on certain modifications of the right of search, declaring that commerce should be free between the countries, and that the captures on either side, excepting such as were contraband, and destined for an enemy's harbour, should be mutually restored. Thus Buonaparte established peace between France and the United States, and prevented the latter, in all probability, from throwing themselves into a closer union with Britain, to which their common descent, with the similarity of manners, language, and laws, overcoming the recollection of recent hostilities, might have otherwise strongly inclined them.

NAPLES

Still more important results were derived by Napoleon, from the address and political sagacity, with which, in accommodating matters with the court of Naples, he contrived to form what finally became a strong and predominating interest in the councils, and even the affections of a monarch, whose amity was, of all others, the most important to his plans. The prince alluded to was the Emperor of Russia, who had been, during the preceding year, the most formidable and successful enemy encountered by France since her Revolution. A short resumption of facts is necessary, to understand the circumstances in which the negotiation with Naples originated.

When Buonaparte departed for Egypt, all Italy, excepting Tuscany, and the dominions assigned to Austria by the treaty of Campo Formio, was in the hands of the French; while Naples was governed by the ephemeral Parthenopean republic, and the city of the Popes by that which assumed the superb title of Roman. These authorities, however, were only nominal; the French generals exercised the real authority in both countries. Suddenly, and as if by magic, this whole state of affairs was changed by the military talents of Suwarrow. The Austrians and Russians gained great successes in the north of Italy, and General Macdonald found himself obliged to evacuate Naples, and to concentrate the principal resistance of the French in Lombardy and Piedmont. Cardinal Ruffo, a soldier, churchman, and politician, put himself at the head of a numerous body of insurgents, and commenced war against such French troops as had been left in the south, and in the middle of Italy. This movement was actively supported by the British fleet. Lord Nelson recovered Naples; Rome surrendered to Commodore Trowbridge. Thus, the Parthenopean and Roman republics were extinguished for ever.⁵⁷⁵ The royal family returned to Naples, and that fine city and country were once more a kingdom. Rome, the capital of the world, was occupied by Neapolitan troops, generally supposed the most indifferent of modern times.

Replaced in his richest territories by the allies, the King of Naples was bound by every tie to assist them in the campaign of 1800. He accordingly sent an army into the March of Ancona, under the command of Count Roger de Damas, who, with the assistance of insurrectionary forces⁵⁷⁶ among the inhabitants, and a body of Austrians, was to clear Tuscany of the French. Undeterred by the battle of Marengo, the Count de Damas marched against the French general Miollis, who commanded in Tuscany, and sustained a defeat by him near Sienna. Retreat became now necessary, the more especially as the armistice which was entered into by general Melas deprived the Neapolitans of any assistance from the Austrians, and rendered their whole expedition utterly hopeless. They were not even included by name in the armistice, and were thus left exposed to the whole vengeance of the French. Damas retreated into the territories of the Church, which were still occupied by the Neapolitan forces. The consequence of these events was easily foreseen. The Neapolitan troops, so soon as the French could find leisure to look towards them, must be either destroyed entirely, or driven back upon Naples, and that city must be again forsaken by the royal family, happy if they were once more able to make their escape to Sicily, as on the former occasion.⁵⁷⁷

At this desperate crisis, the Queen of the two Sicilies took a resolution which seemed almost as desperate, and could only have been adopted by a woman of a bold and decisive character. She resolved, notwithstanding the severity of the season, to repair in person to the court of the Emperor Paul, and implore his intercession with the first consul, in behalf of her husband and his territories.

We have not hitherto mentioned, except cursorily, the powerful prince whose mediation she implored. The son and successor of the celebrated Catherine, far from possessing the prudence and political sagacity of his mother, seemed rather to display the heady passions and imperfect judgment of his unfortunate father. He was capricious in the choice of his objects, pursuing for the time, with uncommon and irregular zeal and pertinacity, projects which he afterwards discarded and abandoned, swelling trifles of dress or behaviour into matters of importance, and neglecting, on the other hand, what was of real consequence; – governed, in short, rather by imagination than by his reasoning qualities, and sometimes affording room to believe that he actually laboured under a partial aberration of mind. Such characters are often to be met with in private society, the restraints of which keep them within such limits, that they pass through life without attracting much notice, unless when creating a little mirth, or giving rise to some passing wonder. But an absolute prince, possessed of such a disposition, is like a giddy person placed on the verge of a precipice, which would try the soundest head, and must overpower a weak one.

The Emperor had first distinguished himself by an energetic defence of the rights of sovereigns, and a hatred of whatever belonged to or was connected with the French Revolution, from a political maxim to the shape of a coat or a hat. The brother of Louis XVI., and inheritor of his rights, found a refuge in the Russian dominions; and Paul, fond, as most princes are, of military glory, promised himself that of restoring the Bourbon dynasty by force of arms.

SUWARROW

The train of victories acquired by Suwarrow was well calculated to foster these original partialities of the Emperor; and, accordingly, while success continued to wait on his banners, he loaded his general with marks of his regard, elevated him to the rank of a prince, and conferred on him the title of Italiansky, or Italicus.

The very first and only misfortune which befell Suwarrow, seems to have ruined him in the opinion of his capricious master. The defeat of Korsakow by Massena, near Zurich, had involved Suwarrow in great momentary danger as he advanced into Switzerland, reckoning on the support of that general, whose disaster left his right uncovered. Now, although Suwarrow saved his army on this occasion by a retreat, which required equal talent to that which achieved his numerous victories, yet the bare fact of his having received a check was sufficient to ruin him with his haughty sovereign. Paul was yet more offended with the conduct of the Austrians. The Archduke Charles having left Switzerland to descend into Germany, had given occasion and opportunity for Massena to cross the Limmat and surprise Korsakow; and this, notwithstanding every explanation and apology, rankled in the mind of the Czar.⁵⁷⁸ He recalled his armies from the frontiers of Germany, and treated his veteran and victorious general with such marks of neglect and displeasure, that the old man's heart sunk under them.

In the meanwhile, Paul gathered up farther subjects of complaint against the Austrian government, and complained of their having neglected to provide for some Russian prisoners,⁵⁷⁹ under a capitulation which they made in behalf of their own, at the surrender of Ancona to the French.

The Austrians could not afford to lose so powerful and efficient an ally in the day of their adversity. They endeavoured to explain, that the movement of the Archduke Charles was inevitably necessary, in consequence of an invasion of the Austrian territory – they laid the blame of the omission of the Russians in the capitulation upon the commandant Frœlich, and offered to place him under arrest. The Emperor of Austria even proposed, in despite of the natural pride which is proper to his distinguished house, to place Suwarrow at the head of the Austrian armies, – a proffer, which, if it had been accepted, might have given rise to an extraordinary struggle betwixt the experience, determination, and warlike skill of the veteran Scythian, and the formidable talents of Buonaparte, and which perhaps contained the only chance which Europe possessed at the time, of opposing to the latter a rival worthy of himself; for Suwarrow had never yet been conquered, and possessed an irresistible influence over the minds of his soldiers. These great generals, however, were not destined ever to decide the fate of the world by their meeting.

Suwarrow, a Russian in all his feelings, broke his heart, and died under the unmerited displeasure of his Emperor, whom he had served with so much fidelity.⁵⁸⁰ If the memory of his unfortunate sovereign were to be judged of according to ordinary rules, his conduct towards his distinguished subject would have left on it an indelible stigma. As it is, the event must pass as another proof, that the Emperor Paul was not amenable, from the construction of his understanding and temperament, to the ordinary rules of censure.

Meanwhile, the proposals of Austria were in vain. The Czar was not to be brought back to his former sentiments. He was like a spoiled child, who, tired of his favourite toy, seems bent to break asunder and destroy what was lately the dearest object of his affection.

When such a character as Paul changes his opinion of his friends, he generally runs into the opposite extreme, and alters also his thoughts of his enemies. Like his father, and others whose imagination is indifferently regulated, the Czar had need of some one of whom to make his idol. The extravagant admiration which the Emperor Peter felt for Frederick of Prussia, could not well be entertained for any one now alive, unless it were the first consul of France; and on him, therefore, Paul was now disposed to turn his eyes with a mixture of wonder, and of a wish to imitate what he wondered at.⁵⁸¹ This extravagance of admiration is a passion natural to some minds, (never strong ones,) and may be compared to that tendency which others have to be in love all their lives, in defiance of advancing age and other obstacles.

When Paul was beginning to entertain this humour, the arrival of the Queen of Sicily at his court gave him a graceful and even dignified opportunity to approach towards a connexion with Napoleon Buonaparte. His pride, too, must have been gratified by seeing the daughter of the renowned Maria Theresa, the sister of the Emperor of Austria, at his court of St. Petersburgh, soliciting from the Czar of Russia the protection which her brother was totally unable to afford her; and a successful interference in her behalf would be a kind of insult to the misfortunes of that brother, against whom, as we have noticed, Paul nourished resentful feelings. He therefore resolved to open a communication with France, in behalf of the royal family of Naples. Lewinshoff, grand huntsman of Russia, was despatched to make the overtures of mediation. He was received with the utmost distinction at Paris, and Buonaparte made an instant and graceful concession to the request of the Emperor Paul. The first consul agreed to suspend his military operations against Naples, and to leave the royal family in possession of their sovereignty; reserving to himself, however, the right of dictating the terms under which he was to grant them such an amnesty.

NAPLES

It was time that some effectual interposition should take place in defence of the King of Naples, who, though he had around him a nation individually brave and enthusiastic, was so ill-served, that his regular army was in the worst and most imperfect state of discipline. Murat, to whom Buonaparte had committed the task of executing his vengeance on Naples, had already crossed the Alps, and placed himself at the head of an army of ten thousand chosen men; a force then judged sufficient not only to drive the Neapolitan general Damas out of the Ecclesiastical States, but to pursue him as far as Naples, and occupy that beautiful capital of a prince, whose regular army consisted of more than thirty thousand soldiers, and whose irregular forces might have been increased to any number by the mountaineers of Calabria, who form excellent light troops, and by the numerous Lazzaroni of Naples, who had displayed their valour against Championet, upon the first invasion of the French. But the zeal of a nation avails little when the spirit of the government bears no proportion to it. The government of Naples dreaded the approach of Murat as that of the Angel of Death; and they received the news that Lewinshoff had joined the French general at Florence, as a condemned criminal might have heard the news of a reprieve. The Russian envoy was received with distinguished honours at Florence. Murat appeared at the theatre with Lewinshoff, where the Italians, who had so lately seen the Russian and French banners placed in bloody opposition to each other, now beheld them formally united in presence of these dignitaries; in sign, it was said, that the two nations were combined for the peace of the world, and general benefit of humanity.⁵⁸² Untimely augury! How often after that period did these standards meet in the bloodiest fields history ever recorded; and what a long and desperate struggle was yet in reserve ere the general peace so boldly predicted was at length restored!

The respect paid by the first consul to the wishes of Paul, saved for the present the royal family of Naples; but Murat, nevertheless, made them experience a full portion of the bitter cup which the vanquished are generally doomed to swallow. General Damas⁵⁸³ was commanded in the haughtiest terms to evacuate the Roman States, and not to presume to claim any benefit from the armistice which had been extended to the Austrians. At the same time, while the Neapolitans were thus compelled hastily to evacuate the Roman territories, general surprise was exhibited, when, instead of marching to Rome, and re-establishing the authority of the Roman republic, Murat, according to the orders which he had received from the first consul, carefully respected the territory of the Church, and re-installed the officers of the Pope in what had been long termed the patrimony of St Peter.⁵⁸⁴ This unexpected turn of circumstances originated in high policy on the part of Buonaparte.⁵⁸⁵

We certainly do Napoleon no injustice in supposing, that personally he had little or no influential sense of religion. Some obscure yet rooted doctrines of fatality, seem, so far as we can judge, to have formed the extent of his metaphysical creed. We can scarce term him even a deist; and he was an absolute stranger to every modification of Christian belief and worship. But he saw and valued the use of a national religion as an engine of state policy. In Egypt, he was desirous of being thought an envoy of Heaven; and though uncircumcised, drinking wine and eating pork, still claimed to be accounted a follower of the law of the Prophet. He had pathetically expostulated with the Turks on their hostility towards him. The French, he said, had ceased to be followers of Jesus; and now that they were almost, if not altogether, Moslemah, would the true believers make war on those who had overthrown the cross, dethroned the Pope, and extirpated the order of Malta, the sworn persecutors of the Moslem faith? On his return to France, all this was to be forgotten, or only remembered as a trick played upon the infidels. He was, as we have said, aware of the necessity of a national faith to support the civil government; and as, while in Egypt, he affected to have destroyed the Catholic religion in honour of that of Mahomed, so, returned to Europe, he was now desirous to become the restorer of the temporal territories of the Pope, in order to obtain such a settlement of church affairs in France, as might procure for his own government the countenance of the Sovereign Pontiff, and for himself an admission into the pale of Christian princes. This restitution was in some measure consistent with his policy in 1798, when he had spared the temporalities of the Holy See. Totally indifferent as Napoleon was to religion in his personal capacity, his whole conduct shows his sense of its importance to the existence of a settled and peaceful state of society.

Besides evacuating the Ecclesiastical States, the Neapolitans were compelled by Murat to restore various paintings, statues, and other objects of art, which they had, in imitation of Buonaparte, taken forcibly from the Romans, – so captivating is the influence of bad example. A French army of about eighteen thousand men was to be quartered in Calabria, less for the purpose of enforcing the conditions of peace, than to save France the expense of supporting the troops, and to have them stationed where they might be embarked for Egypt at the shortest notice. The harbours of the Neapolitan dominions were of course to be closed against the English. A cession of part of the isle of Elba, and the relinquishment of all pretensions upon Tuscany, summed up the sacrifices of the King of Naples, who, considering how often he had braved Napoleon, had great reason to thank the Emperor of Russia for his effectual mediation in his favour.⁵⁸⁶

ROME – PEACE WITH PORTUGAL

These various measures respecting foreign relations, the treaty of Luneville, the acquisition of the good-will of the Emperor Paul, the restoration of Rome to the Pope's authority, and the mildness of the penalty inflicted on the King of Naples, seemed all to spring from a sound and moderate system, the object of which was rather the consolidation of Napoleon's government, than any wish to extend its influence or its conquests. His plans, in after times, often exhibited a mixture of the greatest good sense and prudence, with rash and splenetic explosions of an over-eager ambition, or a temper irritated by opposition; but it is to be remembered that Buonaparte was not yet so firm in the authority which he had but just acquired, as to encourage any display of the infirmities of his mind and temper.