longer any Pyrenees: yet he subse- that his dynasty would soon be the quently marred, by selfish aggrandise- oldest in Europe; and yet he rendered ment, that great enterprise; convert- his government unbearable even to ed an obsequious ally into a mortal his own brothers; made the eldest enemy; substituted popular hatred resign his crown of thorns in Spain; for courtly subservience; and re-erect- drove the second to seek refuge in ed the Pyrenees, bristling with hos- Great Britain, to avoid his persecution; tile bayonets, and reeking with the compelled a third, by his arrogance, blood of slaughtered nations. He re- to abdicate the throne of Holland; peatedly had the destiny of the Ger- and precipitated a fourth into sensualman empire in his hands, and by the ity at Cassel to forget his indignities. lustre of his victories had not only No one was more sensible of the sway obliterated the feeling of Gothic na- of religion over the human mind, or tionality, but converted the Confede- more desirous of securing its co-operaration of the Rhine into the firmest tion as an instrument of government; outwork of his empire; yet he vo- yet he voluntarily threw away in later luntarily threw away that splendid years the immense advantages which acquisition; cut up the Fatherland his earlier and wiser policy had given into kingdoms for his brothers, or him in that respect; converted the strange offshoots of the great empire; | Pope from a warm ally into a mortal irritated Prussia beyond forgiveness, enemy, for the gratification of calling at once by insult and injury; alienat- Rome the second city of his empire; ed the affections, without weakening and exhibited the scandal to all Christhe strength of Austria; and pur- tendom of the head of the Roman chased the applause of France by Church, bereft of his dominions and the merciless severity of requisitions detained in captivity, praying for the which drained away the resources and triumph of heretical arms for his deexasperated the hearts of Germany. liverance. The grand object of his He more than once touched on the life was the destruction of the influstill vibrating chord of Polish na- ence and overthrow of the maritime tionality, and by a word might have power of England; and yet no one added two hundred thousand Sarma- ever contributed so much to its extentian lances to his standards; but he sion: for, by the rigours of the Contidid not venture on the bold step of nental System, he made all the people re-establishing the throne of Sobieski: of Europe sigh for the return of unand by the half-measure of the grand-restrained enjoyment from her comduchy of Warsaw, permanently excited the jealousy of Russia, without winning the support of Poland. merce; while, by the vexations of his domination, he arrayed all its forces in dense and burning battalions under her sway. He was inexorable in the severity with which he punished the slightest infractions by others of his severe decrees for upholding the Continental System, but he himself opened up for his own benefit, by the sale of licenses, a thousand channels for the very commerce which he proscribed. The children of this world may be wiser in their generation than the children of light, but it is for that generation only. 18. No one felt more strongly, or has more clearly expressed the necessity of providing, by a firm European alliance, against the encroachments of the Muscovite empire, or made greater efforts to resist it; but he himself gave that power its strongest development; for, by unheard-of treachery on his own part, he converted the hereditary religious hatred of the Ottomans into its ally; while by intolerable arrogance he not only stilled the long-established jealousy of Sweden, 19. These flagrant errors may be but threw his own lieutenant, its ruler, traced, in a great degree, to the ininto the arms of that power. He was sensibility to moral reaction and Sudesirous of planting his family on all preme superintendence, which formed the adjoining thrones, and boasted | such a striking feature in the charac ter of Napoleon. But there are other peculiarities which will not admit of the same explanation, and which demonstrate that he had the full share of the littleness as well as the greatness of mortality. With unconquerable perseverance and merciless rigour he enforced the Continental System, during the greater part of his reign, in all the countries subject to his authority; yet he himself was the first to set the example of evading his own decrees, for the sake of temporary profit to himself; and while he was shooting, in the maritime departments, wretched shopkeepers who smuggled a pound of sugar, and heading a crusade of western Europe against Russia to enforce the observance of that system, he himself was daily amassing treasure in the vaults of the Tuileries, by selling licenses to deal in contraband goods, to an extent which defeated the whole object of his policy in that vital particular. He was well aware of the support which the fidelity of his marshals and chief dignitaries afforded to his empire, and his extraordinary knowledge of the human heart gave him unbounded sway over the affections of his soldiers; yet he alienated the attachment of all in authority but a few devoted personal followers, by the occasional rudeness of his manner, and the repeated fits of ill-humour with which he received any ill success, or the slightest deviation from his commands. Great as he was, he evinced an unpardonable littleness in the envy which he felt at celebrity in others, and the tenacity with which he clung to the externals of power in himself. He outshone the military glories of Sylla; but he could not, like him, have laid down his power, and returned to the walks of private life: his exploits were greater than those of Cæsar; but he would never have refused the proffered crown even when he enjoyed its power. When seated on the throne of Charlemagne, he was afraid of the talents of Madame de Stael, and envious of the beauty of Madame Recamier; and the Emperor who had borne a fall from the greatest throne in Europe, and was engaged, at the time, with the most elevated subjects of thought, often found his serenity overturned at St Helena, by the English sentinels addressing him, in obedience to their orders, by the title of General. 20. If the military capacity of the Emperor on most occasions was without an equal in modern times, his recklessness and obstinacy at others were not less remarkable; and accordingly, if history can hardly find a parallel to the achievements which he effected, it can produce none to the disasters in which they terminated. He repeatedly committed faults as a general, for the least considerable of which he would have made his lieutenants lose their heads. The imprudence of delivering a pitched battle with inferior forces at Aspern, with the Danube, traversed only by two bridges, shaking under the swollen torrent, in his rear, was equalled only by that of risking his crown at Leipsic, in a situation where, while combating a greatly superior force in front, he had no line of retreat but a single chaussée, traversing an otherwise impassable morass a mile and a half broad. And the gross violation of all military principle in both is strongly illustrated by his own observation, that the first duty of a commander is never to fight with a strait or defile in his rear.* His imprudence in lingering so long at Moscow, surrounded by a hostile population and superior cavalry, was soon, if possible, outdone by that of relinquishing, without any adequate cause, the Kalouga road; and when the Russians were actually abandoning it, throwing back his army on the wasted line of the Smolensko advance. The unheard-of calamities of that campaign itself are mainly to be ascribed to his extreme imprudence, in advancing, contrary to the advice of his most experienced generals, to Moscow from Witepsk, without either force adequate after the waste of the campaign to subdue Russia, or any sufficient preparation for retreat in the event of disaster. * "The first requisite of a field of battle is to have no defiles in its rear. The injudiloo by Wellington rendered all retreat impossible."-NAPOLEON'S Memoirs, book ix. 207. cious choice of the field of battle at Water And the simultaneous loss of Spain was chiefly owing to the uncalled-for temerity of rushing into the Russian contest, while the wound in the Peninsula, a devouring ulcer, was still unhealed in his rear. pendence of nations been permanently crushed, as in ancient times, under the yoke of military power. 22. It is pleasing, where so many and such serious faults have been committed, to have some redeeming 21. When hard pressed by the troops actions to record; and they, in Napoof coalesced Europe in Germany, and leon's case, are of such a kind, and unable to array an adequate force to occurred at such a time, as almost to combat them, he sacrificed his best demonstrate that it was the pressure troops in his empire, a hundred thou- of political considerations, the expesand strong, in the fortresses on the rienced necessity of keeping in conElbe and the Oder; and when reduced stant excitement the passions of the to fifty thousand combatants on the Revolution, which drove him so often plains of Champagne, he lost, by his into blamable actions. His last camobstinate retention of the fortresses paign in France exhibits, if the milion the Rhine, a force which would tary operations of the General and enhave enabled him to drive the invader during fortitude of the Emperor are beyond that barrier stream. In these both taken into consideration, a model and many similar instances, especially of heroic courage and military ability. in the later stages of his career, it Disdaining to submit even to the forces was evident that Napoleon was either of combined Europe; but feebly seinfatuated by his long-continued and conded by a large portion of his subextraordinary success; or, what is jects; heading an array depressed by more probable, that his vision as a unparalleled disasters, and an empire general was darkened by his necessi- exhausted by unexampled efforts-he ties as an emperor, and that his fa- sought, and all but found, in his own vourite maxim, that "the first move- genius, a counterpoise to these accument in retreat was the commence- mulated difficulties. In every emerment of ruin," rendered him insen-gency he took counsel only from his sible to all the present military dangers of his situation.* And, perhaps, it is well for the liberty of Europe that these numerous and glaring errors were committed by the French Emperor in his warlike career. For such was the profound ability which on other occasions he exhibited in his designs, and the matchless skill with which on all he carried them into execution, that if it had been otherwise -if his prudence had been equal to his genius, or his foresight to his combination-and if revolutionary passion in France had not compelled him frequently to sacrifice the ultimate safety of the empire to the present dazzling of its inhabitants-it is doubt- 23. It is on that memorable camful whether he would not have attain-paign, and the immortal one which ed universal dominion, and the inde- early laid the foundation of his fortunes on the Italian plains, that his great fame as a general will ultimately *This, accordingly, was the opinion of his ablest marshals:- "Napoleon," says Marshal St Cyr, "did wrong, knowing better than any one in the world that he was doing so; but overruled by a fatality which he felt it impossible to resist."-ST CYR, Histoire Militaire, iii. 4. own resolution, and often found in it the means of surmounting the utmost rigours of fortune "Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito Qua tua te Fortuna sinit."-Eneid, vi. 95.† By the depth of his combinations, the vigour of his execution, the skilful use of an interior line of communication, and the incomparable rapidity which he infused into his followers, he then long held the fate of Europe balanced, even against forces four times superior, and a moral energy, roused by long previous oppression and recent victory, which it seemed impossible to resist. rest; for in both he was destitute of | Many of the felicitous expressions the advantage of numbers, which in ascribed to him were really made by the intermediate periods he in general those around him, who were careful possessed; and found, in his individual to repudiate all share in them; and resources, a power which in the first nothing is more certain, that the iminstance conquered, and in the last all pression he made on his contempora but conquered, the most rigorous for- ries was much less considerable than tune. And if sound political judg- the fame he has bequeathed to posterment must condemn the pride which ity. As little was his influence occamade him so obstinately refuse the sioned, as was so often the case with conditions offered to him at Châtillon, the captains of antiquity, by the and throw all, even in that extremity, generous self-denial with which Napoupon the chances of war, yet it must leon shared the bed, and partook the be admitted that there was something fare, of the common soldiers. Occamagnanimous in his resolution to run sionally, indeed, he visited the bivouevery hazard, rather than sit down on acs; and during the Moscow retreat a degraded throne; and to those who he relinquished his carriages to the weigh well the peculiarities of his situa- wounded, and marched on foot in the tion, wielding a revolutionary sceptre, midst of his staff. But these were the and supported by revolutionary pas- exceptions, not the rule; and, in genesion, it will probably appear that he ral, the personal comforts of the Empehad, in reality, no other alternative; ror, during a campaign, were studied and that submission would have led with the most scrupulous attention, him, by a process slower indeed, but and attained to a degree of perfection one less honourable and equally cer- that almost appears inconceivable. His tain, to destruction. carriage, in which he always travelled, 24. Perhaps no general, in ancient except when in presence of the enemy, or modern times, ever possessed so was roomy and luxurious: a portable unbounded a sway over the minds of library of choice authors was at hand his soldiers, or had created among the to amuse his leisure moments; his inferior ranks of the army such a de- table, served up with the utmost nicety, votion, it might almost be said an exhibited always the best cookery. idolatry, towards his person. This Porcelain and gold plate of the finest was very far, indeed, from being the description were constantly made use case among the marshals and superior of; and the same etiquette and disofficers a great proportion of whom tinctions were observed in his camwere in secret alienated from him by paign tent, or temporary lodging, as the occasional rudeness of his manner, at the palace of St Cloud. It was the his frequent sallies of temper, the in-pains which he took to seek out and terminable wars in which he plunged them, and the rigour with which he exacted success, as the sole condition of obtaining favour, or even justice, at headquarters. His manner in public was ungracious; his look stern, and at times fearful; and the occasional smiles which lighted up his countenance only rendered the gloom more awful when it returned. He did not shine in conversation, unless it assumed a serious or argumentative turn, when his ability at once became manifest. To ladies he had nothing to remark; and at St Cloud he often said to twenty in a row, “Il fait chaud."* * It is cold. distinguish merit and talent among the private men, or inferior ranks of the army, joined to the incomparable talent which he possessed of exciting the enthusiasm of the French soldiers by warlike theatrical exhibitions, or brief heart-stirring appeals in his proclamations, which constituted the real secret of his success; and if the use of proper words in proper places be the soul of eloquence, never did human being possess that noble art in higher perfection. 25. Various instances of the skilful use of this method of electrifying his troops have already been given in this history; but it was always done so ad promotion of distinguished soldiers, furnished other occasions of which the Emperor eagerly availed himself, to renew these enthusiastic impressions, and spread abroad the belief, which in truth was well founded, that the career of distinction was open alike to all of whatever grade, and that a private soldier might reach the marshal's baton through the portals of the bivouac. It may readily be conceived that these theatrical exhibitions were got up by no smail amount of careful preparation; that the apparent recognition by the Emperor of a veteran of Arcola or the Pyramids was in general the result of previous inquiry; and that a minute report by the officers of the regiment was the basis on which the seeming extempore rewards or promotions of the Great Chief were in mirably, and generally with such effect, as to call for particular attention. The giving of the eagles to the regiments, of the crosses of the Legion of Honour to the most deserving, and the instant promotion of extraordinary merit on the field of battle, were the usual occasions on which these heart-stirring exhibitions took place. They were in general arranged after the following manner:-On the day fixed for the distribution of these venerated insignia, the Emperor, followed by a splendid staff, entered the square of the regiment, which was drawn up on three sides facing inwards, the fourth being occupied by his suite. On the word being given, all the officers fell out, and approached the Emperor. He was alone, on horseback, in his ordinary dark-green surtout, on the duncoloured stallion which was his favour-reality founded. Still they were adite charger during his campaigns. The simplicity of his attire offered a striking contrast to the dazzling brilliancy of the uniforms of his attendants. Berthier then approached the Emperor on foot; the drums beat, and he took the eagle, with which he advanced to his side. Napoleon then raised his left hand towards the eagle, holding the reins, according to his usual custom, with his right. He then said in a deep and impressive voice"Soldiers of the -th regiment, I intrust to you the French eagle: it will serve as your rallying point. You swear never to abandon it until death! You swear never to permit an affront upon the honour of France ! You swear to prefer death to dishonour! You swear!" The last words were pronounced in a solemn tone, with inconceivable energy. The officers raised their swords, and the men repeated 27. Frequently officers, and even pri"We swear! with unbounded en-vate soldiers, whose claims had been disthusiasm. The eagle was then deliver- regarded, remonstrated in firm though ed to the colonel of the regiment. respectful terms with the Emperor; With such impressive solemnities were and, if they had reason on their side, the eagles presented to three regiments their efforts were not unfrequently at once on the plains of Leipsic on successful. Though in the palace he the 15th of October, the very day be- affected the state of Louis XIV., in fore the fortunes of France were over- the camp he often deemed it prudent thrown on that memorable field. to permit the military license of the followers of Clovis. Sire, I have deserved the cross!" was the usual com 26. The distribution of the decorations of the legion of honour, and the mirably calculated to rouse the emula- 66 On |