Napoleon Bonaparte
by John S. C. Abbott
Napoleon, finding his proffers of peace rejected by England with
contumely and scorn, and declined by Austria, now prepared, with
his wonted energy, to repel the assaults of the allies. As he sat
in his cabinet at the Tuileries, the thunders of their unrelenting
onset came rolling in upon his ear from all the frontiers of
France. The hostile fleets of England swept the channel, utterly
annihilating the commerce of the Republic, landing regiments
of armed emigrants upon her coast, furnishing money and munitions
of war to rouse the partisans of the Bourbons to civil conflict,
and throwing balls and shells into every unprotected town. On the
northern frontier, Marshal Kray, came thundering down, through the
black Forest, to the banks of the Rhine, with a mighty host of
150,000 men, like locust legions, to pour into all the northern
provinces of France. Artillery of the heaviest calibre and a
magnificent array of cavalry accompanied this apparently invincible
army. In Italy, Melas, another Austrian marshal, with 140,000 men,
aided by the whole force of the British navy, was rushing upon the
eastern and southern borders of the Republic. The French troops,
disheartened by defeat, had fled before their foes over the Alps,
or were eating their horses and their boots in the cities where
they were besieged. From almost every promontory on the coast of
the Republic, washed by the Channel, or the Mediterranean, the eye
could discern English frigates, black and threatening, holding all
France in a state of blockade.
One always finds a certain pleasure in doing that which he can do
well. Napoleon was fully conscious of his military genius. He had,
in behalf of bleeding humanity, implored peace in vain. He now,
with alacrity and with joy, roused himself to inflict blows that
should be felt upon his multitudinous enemies. With such tremendous
energy did he do this, that he received from his antagonists the
most complimentary sobriquet of the one hundred thousand men .
Wherever Napoleon made his appearance in the field, his presence
alone was considered equivalent to that force.
The following proclamation rang like a trumpet charge over the
hills and valleys of France. "Frenchmen! You have been anxious for
peace. Your government has desired it with still greater ardor.
Its first efforts, its most constant wishes, have been for its
attainment. The English ministry has exposed the secret of its
iniquitous policy. It wishes to dismember France, to destroy its
commerce, and either to erase it from the map of Europe, or to
degrade it to a secondary power. England is willing to embroil all
the nations of the Continent in hostility with each other, that she
may enrich herself with their spoils, and gain possession of the
trade of the world. For the attainment of this object she scatters
her gold, becomes prodigal of her promises, and multiplies her
intrigues."
At this call all the martial spirit of France rushed to arms.
Napoleon, supremely devoted to the welfare of the State, seemed to
forget even his own glory in the intensity of his desire to make
France victorious over her foes. With the most magnanimous superiority
to all feelings of jealousy, he raised an army of 150,000 men,
the very elite of the troops of France, the veterans of a hundred
battles, and placed them in the hands of Moreau, the only man in
France who could be called his rival. Napoleon also presented to
Moreau the plan of a campaign in accordance with his own energy,
boldness, and genius. Its accomplishment would have added surpassing
brilliance to the reputation of Moreau. But the cautious general
was afraid to adopt it, and presented another, perhaps as safe, but
one which would produce no dazzling impression upon the imaginations
of men. "Your plan," said one, a friend of Moreau, to the First
Consul, "is grander, more decisive, even more sure. But it is not
adapted to the slow and cautious genius of the man who is to execute
it. You have your method of making war, which is superior to all
others. Moreau has his own, inferior certainly, but still excellent.
Leave him to himself. If you impose your ideas upon him, you will
wound his self-love, and disconcert him."
Napoleon, profoundly versed in the knowledge of the human heart,
promptly replied. "You are right, Moreau is not capable of grasping
the plan which I have conceived. Let him follow his own course. The
plan which he does not understand and dare not execute, I myself
will carry out, on another part of the theatre of war. What he fears
to attempt on the Rhine, I will accomplish on the Alps. The day may
come when he will regret the glory which he yields to me." These
were proud and prophetic words. Moreau, was moderately victorious
upon the Rhine, driving back the invaders. The sun of Napoleon soon
rose, over the field of Marengo, in a blaze of effulgence, which
paled Moreau's twinkling star into utter obscurity. But we know
not where, upon the page of history, to find an act of more lofty
generosity than this surrender of the noblest army of the Republic
to one, who considered himself, and who was deemed by others,
a rival--and thus to throw open to him the theatre of war where
apparently the richest laurels were to be won. And he know where
to look for a deed more proudly expressive of self-confidence.
"I will give Moreau," said he by this act, "one hundred and fifty
thousand of the most brave and disciplined soldiers of France, the
victors of a hundred battles. I myself will take sixty thousand
men, new recruits and the fragments of regiments which remain, and
with them I will march to encounter an equally powerful enemy on
a more difficult field of warfare."
Marshal Melas had spread his vast host of one hundred and forty
thousand Austrians through all the strongholds of Italy, and was
pressing, with tremendous energy and self-confidence upon the frontiers
of France. Napoleon, instead of marching with his inexperienced
troops, two-thirds of whom had never seen a shot fired in earnest,
to meet the heads of the triumphant columns of Melas, resolved
to climb the rugged and apparently inaccessible fastnesses of the
Alps, and, descending from the clouds over path-less precipices,
to fall with the sweep of the avalanche, upon their rear. It was
necessary to assemble this army at some favorable point;--to gather
in vast magazines its munitions of war. It was necessary that
this should be done in secret, lest the Austrians, climbing to the
summits of the Alps, and defending the gorges through which the
troops of Napoleon would be compelled to wind their difficult and
tortuous way, might render the passage utterly impossible. English
and Austrian spies were prompt to communicate to the hostile powers
every movement of the First Consul. Napoleon fixed upon Dijon and
its vicinity as the rendezvous of his troops. He, however, adroitly
and completely deceived his foes by ostentatiously announcing the
very plan he intended to carry into operation.
Of course, the allies thought that this was a foolish attempt
to draw their attention from the real point of attack. The more
they ridiculed the imaginary army at Dijon, the more loudly did
Napoleon reiterate his commands for battalions and magazines to be
collected there. The spies who visited Dijon, reported that but a
few regiments were assembled in that place, and that the announcement
was clearly a very weak pretense to deceive. The print shops of
London and Vienna were filled with caricatures of the army of the
First Consul of Dijon. The English especially made themselves very
merry with Napolcon's grand army to scale the Alps. It was believed
that the energies the Republic were utterly exhausted in raising the
force which was given to Moreau. One of the caricatures represented
the army as consisting of a boy, dressed in his father's clothes,
shouldering a musket, which he could with difficulty lift, and
eating a piece of gingerbread, and an old man with one arm and a
wooden leg. The artillery consisted of a rusty blunderbuss. This
derision was just what Napoleon desired. Though dwelling in the
shadow of that mysterious melancholy, which ever enveloped his
spirit, he must have enjoyed in the deep recesses of his soul, the
majestic movements of his plans.
On the eastern frontiers of France there surge up, from luxuriant
meadows and vine-clad fields and hill sides, the majestic ranges of
the Alps, piercing the clouds and soaring with glittering pinnacles,
into the region of perpetual ice and snow. Vast spurs of the mountains
extend on each side, opening gloomy gorges and frightful detiles,
through which foaming torrents rush impetuously, walled in by
almost precipitous cliffs, whose summits, crowned with melancholy
firs, are inaccessible to the foot of man. The principal pass over
this enormous ridge was that of the Great St. Bernard. The traveler,
accompanied by a guide, and mounted on a mule, slowly and painfully
ascended a steep and rugged path, now crossing a narrow bridge,
spanning a fathomless abyss, again creeping along the edge of a
precipice, where the eagle soared and screamed over the fir tops
in the abyss below, and where a perpendicular wall rose to giddy
heights in the clouds above. The path at times was so narrow,
that it seemed that the mountain goat could with difficulty find a
foothold for its slender hoof. A false step, or a slip upon the icy
rocks would precipitate the traveler, a mangled corpse, a thousand
feet upon the fragments of granite in the gulf beneath. As higher
and higher he climbed these wild and rugged and cloud-enveloped
paths, borne by the unerring instinct of the faithful mule, his
steps were often arrested by the roar of the avalanche and he gazed
appalled upon its resistless rush, as rocks, and trees, and earth,
and snow, and ice, swept by him with awful and resistless desolation,
far down into the dimly discerned torrents which rushed beneath
his feet. At God's bidding the avalanche fell. No precaution could
save the traveler who was in its path. He was instantly borne to
destruction, and buried where no voice but the archangel's trump
could ever reach his ear. Terrific storms of wind and snow often
swept through those bleak altitudes, blinding and smothering the
traveler. Hundreds of bodies, like pillars of ice, embalmed in
snow, are now sepulchred in those drifts, there to sleep till the
fires of the last conflagration shall have consumed their winding
sheet. Having toiled two days through such scenes of desolation
and peril, the adventurous traveler stands upon the summit of the
pass, eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, two thousand
feet higher than the crest of Mount Washington, our own mountain
monarch. This summit, over which the path winds, consists of a
small level plain, surrounded by mountains of snow of still higher
elevation.
The scene here presented is inexpressibly gloomy and appailing.
Nature in these wild regions assumes her most severe and sombre
aspect. As one emerges from the precipitous and craggy ascent,
upon this Valley of Desolation, as it is emphatically called, the
Convent of St. Bernard presents itself to the view. This cheerless
abode, the highest spot of inhabited ground in Europe, has been
tenanted, for more than a thousand years, by a succession of joyless
and self-denying monks, who, in that frigid retreat of granite and
ice, endeavor to serve their Maker, by rescuing bewildered travelers
from the destruction with which they are ever threatened to be
overwhelmed by the storms, which battle against them. In the middle
of this ice-bound valley, lies a lake, clear, dark, and cold, whose
depths, even in mid-summer, reflect the eternal glaciers which soar
sublimely around. The descent to the plains of Italy is even more
precipitous and dangerous than the ascent from the green pastures
of France. No vegetation adorns these dismal and storm-swept cliffs
of granite and of ice. Even the pinion of the eagle fails in its
rarified air, and the chamois ventures not to climb its steep and
slippery crags. No human beings are ever to be seen on these bleak
summits, except the few shivering travelers, who tarry for an hour
to receive the hospitality of the convent, and the hooded monks,
wrapped in thick and coarse garments, which their staves and their
dogs, groping through the storms of sleet and snow. Even the wood
which burns with frugal faintness on the hearths, is borne, in
painful burdens, up the mountain sides, upon the shoulders of the
monks.
Such was the barrier which Napoleon intended to surmount, that
he might fall upon the rear of the Austrians, who were battering
down the walls of Genoa, where Massena was besieged, and who were
thundering, flushed with victory, at the very gates of Nice. Over
this wild mountain pass, where the mule could with difficulty
tread, and where no wheel had ever rolled, or by any possibility
could roll, Napoleon contemplated transporting an army of sixty
thousand men, with ponderous artillery and tons of cannon balls,
and baggage, and all the bulky munitions of war. England and Austria
laughed the idea to scorn. The achievement of such an enterprise
was apparently impossible. Napoleon, however was as skillful in
the arrangement of the minutest details, as in the conception of
the grandest combinations. Though he resolved to take the mass of
his army, forty thousand strong, across the pass of the Great St.
Bernard, yet to distract the attention of the Austrians, he arranged
also to send small divisions across the passes of Saint Gothard,
Little St. Bernard, and Mount Cenis. He would thus accumulate
suddenly, and to the utter amazement of the enemy, a body of sixty-five
thousand men upon the plain of Italy. This force, descending, like
an apparition from the clouds, in the rear of the Austrian army,
headed by Napoleon, and cutting off all communication with Austria,
might indeed strike a panic into the hearts of the assailants of
France.
The troops were collected in various places in the vicinity
of Dijon, ready at a moment's warning to assemble at the point of
rendezvous, and with a rush to enter the defile. Immense magazines
of wheat, biscuit, and oats had been noiselessly collected in
different places. Large sums of specie had been forwarded, to hire
the services of every peasant, with his mule, who inhabited the
valleys among the mountains. Mechanic shops, as by magic, suddenly
rose along the path, well supplied with skillful artisans, to repair
all damages, to dismount the artillery, to divide the gun-carriages
and the baggage-wagons into fragments, that they might be transported,
on the backs of men and mules, over the steep and rugged way. For
the ammunition a vast number of small boxes were prepared, which
could easily be packed upon the mules. A second company of mechanics,
with camp forges, had been provided to cross the mountain with the
first division, and rear their shops upon the plain on the other
side, to mend the broken harness, to reconstruct the carriages,
and remount the pieces. On each side of the mountain a hospital
was established and supplied with every comfort for the sick and
the wounded. The foresight of Napoleon extended even to sending,
at the very last moment, to the convent upon the summit, an immense
quantity of bread, cheese, and wine. Each soldier, to his surprise,
was to find, as he arrived at the summit, exhausted with Herculean
toil, a generous slice of bread and cheese with a refreshing cup
of wine, presented to him by the monks. All these minute details
Napoleon arranged, while at the same time he was doing the work
of a dozen energetic men, in reorganizing the whole structure of
society in France. If toil pays for greatness, Napoleon purchased
the renown which he attained. And yet his body and his mind were
so constituted that this sleepless activity was to him a pleasure.
The appointed hour at last arrived. On the 7th of May, 1800,
Napoleon entered his carriage at the Tuileries, saying, "Good-by,
my dear Josephine! I must go to Italy. I shall not forget you, and
I will not be absent long." At a word, the whole majestic array
was in motion. Like a meteor he swept over France. He arrived at
the foot of the mountains. The troops and all the paraphernalia of
war were on the spot at the designated hour. Napoleon immediately
appointed a very careful inspection. Every foot soldier and every
horseman passed before his scrutinizing eye. If a shoe was ragged,
or a jacket torn, or a musket injured, the defect was immediately
repaired. His glowing words inspired the troops with the ardor
which was burning in his own bosom. The genius of the First Consul
was infused into the mighty host. Each man exerted himself to the
utmost. The eye of their chief was every where, and his cheering
voice roused the army to almost super-human exertions. Two skillful
engineers had been sent to explore the path, and to do what could
be done in the removal of obstructions. They returned with an
appalling recitasl of the apparently insurmountable difficulties
of the way. "Is it possible ," inquired Napoleon, "to cross the
pass?" "Perhaps," was the hesitating reply, "it is within the limits
of possibility ." "Forward, then," was the energetic response.
Each man was required to carry, besides his arms, food for several
days and a large quantity of cartridges. As the sinuosities of
the precipitous path could only be trod in single file, the heavy
wheels were taken from the carriages, and each, slung upon a pole,
was borne by two men. The task for the foot soldiers was far less
than for the horsemen. The latter clambered up on foot, dragging
their horses after them. The descent was very dangerous. The
dragoon, in the steep and narrow path, was compelled to walk before
his horse. At the least stumble he was exposed to being plunged
headlong into the abysses yawning before him. In this way many
horses and several riders perished. To transport the heavy cannon
and howitzers pine logs were split in the centre, the parts hollowed
out, and the guns sunks into grooves. A long string of mules, in
single file, were attached to the ponderous machines of war, to
drag them up the slippery ascent. The mules soon began to fail, and
then the men, with hearty good-will, brought their own shoulders into
the harness--a hundred men to a single gun. Napoleon offered the
peasants two hundred dollars for the transporation of a twelve-pounder
over the pass. The love of gain was not strong enough to lure them
to such tremendous exertions. But Napoleon's fascination over the
hearts of his soldiers was a more powerful impulse. With shouts
of encouragement they toiled at the cables, successive bands of
a hundred men relieving each other every half hour. High on those
craggy steeps, gleaming through the midst, the glittering bands of
armed men, like phantoms appeared. The eagle wheeled and screamed
beneath their feet. The mountain goat, affrighted by the unwonted
spectacle, bounded away, and paused in bold relief upon the cliff
to gaze upon the martial array which so suddenly had peopled the
solitude.
When they approached any spot of very especial difficulty the trumpets
sounded the charge, which re-echoed, with sublime reverberations,
from pinnacle to pinnacle of rock and ice. Animated by these bugle
notes the soldiers strained every nerve as if rushing upon the
foe. Napoleon offered to these bands the same reward which he had
promised to the peasants. But to a man, they refused the gold.
They had imbibed the spirit of their chief, his enthusiasm, and
his proud superiority to all mercenary motives. "We are not toiling
for money," said they, "but for your approval, and to share your
glory."
Napoleon with his wonderful tact had introduced a slight change
into the artillery service, which was productive of immense moral
results. The gun carriages had heretofore been driven by mere
wagoners, who, being considered not as soldiers, but as servants,
and sharing not in the glory of victory, were uninfluenced by any
sentiment of honor. At the first approach of danger, they were
ready to cut their traces and gallop from the field, leaving their
cannon in the hands of the enemy. Napoleon said, "The cannoneer
who brings his piece into action, performs as valuable a service as
the cannoneer who works it. He runs the same danger, and requires
the same moral stimulus, which is the sense of honor." He therefore
converted the artillery drivers into soldiers, and clothed them in
the uniform of their respective regiments. They constituted twelve
thousand horsemen who were animated with as much pride in carrying
their pieces into action, and in bringing them off with rapidity and
safety, as the gunners felt in loading, directing, and discharging
them. It was now the great glory of these men to take care of their
guns. They loved, tenderly, the merciless monsters. They lavished
caresses and terms of endearment upon the glittering, polished,
death-dealing brass. The heart of man is a strange enigma. Even
when most degraded it needs something to love. These blood-stained
soldiers, brutalized by vice, amidst all the honors of battle,
lovingly fondled the murderous machines of war, responding to the
appeal "call me pet names, dearest." The unrelenting gun was the
stern cannoneer's lady love. He kissed it with unwashed, mustached
lip. In rude and rough devotion he was ready to die rather than
abandon the only object of his idolatrous homage. Consistently he
baptized the life-devouring monster with blood. Affectionately he
named it Mary, Emma, Lizzie. In crossing he Alps, dark night came
on as some cannoneers were floundering through drifts of snow,
toiling at their gun. They would not leave the gun alone in the
cold storm to seek for themselves a dry bivouac; but, like brothers
guarding a sister, they threw themselves, for the night, upon the
bleak and frozen snow, by its side. It was the genius of Napoleon
which thus penetrated these mysterious depths of the human soul,
and called to his aid those mighty energies. "It is nothing but
imagination," said one once to Napoleon. "Nothing but imagination!"
he rejoined. "Imagination rules the world."
When they arrived at the summit each soldier found, to his surprise
and joy, the abundant comforts which Napoleon's kind care had
provided. One would have anticipated there a scene of terrible
confusion. To feed an army of forty thousand hungry men is not a
light undertaking. Yet every thing was so carefully arranged, and
the influence of Napoleon so boundless, that not a soldier left
the ranks. Each man received his slice of bread and cheese, and
quaffed his cup of wine, and passed on. It was a point of honor
for no one to stop. Whatever obstructions were in the way were to
be at all hazards surmounted, that the long file, extending nearly
twenty miles, might not be thrown into confusion. The descent was
more perilous than the ascent. But fortune seemed to smile. The
sky was clear, the weather delightful, and in four days the whole
army was reassembled on the plains of Italy.
Napoleon had sent Bertlier forward to receive the division, and to
superintend all necessary repairs, while he himself remained to
press forward the mighty host. He was the last man to cross the
mountains. Seated upon a mule, with a young peasant for his guide,
slowly and thoughtfully he ascended those silent solitudes. He was
dressed in the gray great coat which he always wore. Art pictured
him bounding up the cliff, proudly mounted on a prancing charger.
But truth presents him in an attitude more simple and more sublime. Even
the young peasant who acted as his guide was entirely unconscious
of the distinguished rank of the plain traveler whose steps he
was conducting. Much of the way Napoleon was silent, abstracted in
thoughts. And yet he found time for human sympathy. He drew from
his young and artless guide the secrets of his heart. The young
peasant was sincere and virtuous. He loved a fair maid among the
mountains. She loved him. It was his heart's great desire to have
her for his own. He was poor and had neither house nor land to
support a family. Napoleon struggling with all his energies against
combined England and Austria, and with all the cares of an army,
on the march to meet one hundred and twenty thousand foes, crowding
his mind, with pensive sympathy won the confidence of his companion
and elicited this artless recital of love and desire. As Napoleon
dismissed his guide, with an ample reward, he drew from his pocket
a pencil and upon a loose piece of paper wrote a few lines, which he
requested the young man to give, on his return, to the Administrator
of the Army, upon the other side. When the guide returned, and presented
the note, he found, to his unbounded surprise and delight, that he
had conducted Napoleon over the mountains; and that Napoleon had
given him a field and a house. He was thus enabled to be married,
and to realize all the dreams of his modest ambition. Generous
impulses must have been instinctive in a heart, which in an hour
so fraught with mighty events, could turn from the toils of empire
and of war, to find refreshment in sympathizing with a peasant's
love. This young man but recently died, having passed his quiet
life in the enjoyment of the field and the cottage which had been
given him by the ruler of the world.
The army now pressed forward, with great alacrity, along the banks
of the Aosta. They were threading a beautiful valley, rich in verdure
and blooming beneath the sun of early spring. Cottages, vineyards,
and orchards, in full bloom, embellished their path, while upon
each side of them rose, in majestic swell, the fir-clad sides of the
mountains. The Austrians pressing against the frontiers of France,
had no conception of the storm which had so suddenly gathered,
and which was, with resistless sweep, approaching their rear. The
French soldiers, elated with the Herculean achievement they had
accomplished, and full of confidence in their leader, pressed gayly
on. But the valley before them began to grow more and more narrow.
The mountains, on either side, rose more precipitous and craggy.
The Aosta, crowded into a narrow channel, rushed foaming over the
rocks, leaving barely room for a road along the side of the mountain.
Suddenly the march of the whole army was arrested by a fort, built
upon an inaccessible rock, which rose pyramidally from the bed of
the stream. Bristling cannon, skillfully arranged on well-constructed
bastions, swept the pass, and rendered further advance apparently
impossible. Rapidly the tidings of this unexpected obstruction
spread from the van to the rear. Napoleon immediately hastened
to the front ranks. Climbing the mountain opposite the fort, by a
goat path, he threw himself down upon the ground, when a few bushes
concealed his person from the shot of the enemy, and with his
telescope long and carefully examined the fort and the surrounding
crags. He perceived one elevated spot, far above the fort, where a
cannon might by possibility be drawn. From that position its shot
could be plunged upon the unprotected bastions below. Upon the
face of the opposite cliff, far beyond the reach of cannon-balls,
he discerned a narrow shelf in the rock by which he thought it
possible that a man could pass. The march was immediately commenced,
in single file, along this giddy ridge. .......... And even the
horses, insured to the terrors of the Great St. Bernard, were led
by their riders upon the narrow path, which a horse's hoof had never
trod before, and probably will never tread again. The Austrians,
in the fort, had the mortification of seeing thirty-five thousand
soldiers, with numerous horses, defile along this airy line, as
if adhering to the side of the rock. But neither bullet nor ball
could harm them.
Napoleon ascended this mountain ridge, and upon its summit, quite
exhausted with days and nights of sleeplessness and toil, laid
himself down, in the shadow of the rock, and fell asleep. The long
line filed carefully and silently by, each soldier hushing his
comrade, that the repose of their beloved chieftain might not be
disturbed. It was an interesting spectacle, to witness the tender
affection, beaming from the countenances of these bronzed and war-worn
veterans, as every foot trod softly, and each eye, in passing, was
riveted upon the slender form, and upon the pale and wasted cheek
of the sleeping Napoleon.
The artillery could by no possibility be thus transported; and an
army without artillery is a soldier without weapons. The Austrian
commander wrote to Melas, that he had seen an army of thirty-five
thousand men and four thousand horse creeping by the fort, along
the face of Mount Albaredo. He assured the commander-in-chief,
however, that not one single piece of artillery had passed or could
pass beneath the guns of his fortress. When he was writing this
letter, already had one half of the cannon and ammunition of the army
been conveyed by the fort, and were safely and rapidly proceeding
on their way down the valley. In the darkness of the night trusty
men, with great caution and silence, strewed hay and straw upon the
road. The wheels of the lumbering carriages were carefully bound
with cloths and wisps of straw, and, with axles well oiled, were
drawn by the hands of these picked men, beneath the very walls of
the fortress, and within half pistol-shot of its guns. In two nights
the artillery and the baggage-trains were thus passed along, and
in a few days the fort itself was compelled to surrender.
Melas, the Austrian commander, now awoke in consternation to a sense
of his peril. Napoleon--the dreaded Napoleon--had, as by a miracle,
crossed the Alps. He had cut off all his supplies, and was shutting
the Austrians up from any possibility of retreat. Bewildered by the
magnitude of his peril, he no longer thought of forcing his march
upon Paris. The invasion of France was abandoned. His whole energies
were directed to opening for himself a passage back to Austria.
The most cruel perplexities agitated him. From the very pinnacle
of victory, he was in danger of descending to the deepest abyss of
defeat. It was also with Napoleon an hour of intense solicitude. He
had but sixty thousand men, two-thirds of whom were new soldiers,
who had never seen a shot fired in earnest, with whom he was
to arrest the march of a desperate army of one hundred and twenty
thousand veterans, abundantly provided with all the most efficient
machinery of war. There were many paths by which Melas might escape,
at leagues' distance from each other. It was necessary for Napoleon
to divide his little band that he might guard them all. He was
liable at any moment to have a division of his army attacked by
an overwhelming force, and cut to pieces before it could receive
any reinforcements. He ate not, he slept not, he rested not. Day
and night, and night and day, he was on horseback, pale, pensive,
apparently in feeble health, and interesting every beholder with
his grave and melancholy beauty. His scouts were out in every
direction. He studied all the possible movements and combinations
of his foes. Rapidly he overran Lombardy, and entered Milan in
triumph. Melas anxiously concentrated his forces, to break through
the net with which he was entangled. He did every thing in his
power to deceive Napoleon, by various feints, that the point of his
contemplated attack might not be known. Napoleon, in the following
clarion tones, appealed to the enthusiasm of his troops:
"Soldiers! when we began our march, one department of France was
in the hands of the enemy. Consternation pervaded the south of the
Republic. You advanced. Already the French territory is delivered.
Joy and hope in our country have succeeded to consternation and
fear. The enemy, terror-struck, seeks only to regain his frontiers.
You have taken his hospitals, his magazines, his reserve parks.
The first act of the campaign is finished. Millions of men address
you in strains of praise. But shall we allow our audacious enemies
to violate with impunity the territory of the Republic? Will
you permit the army to escape which has carried terror into your
families? You will not. March, then, to meet him. Tear from his
brows the laurels he has won. Teach the world that a malediction
attends those who violate the territory of the Great People. The
result of our efforts will be unclouded glory, and a durable peace!"
The very day Napoleon left Paris, Desaix arrived in France from
Egypt. Frank, sincere, upright, and punctiliously honorable, he was
one of the few whom Napoleon truly loved. Desaix regarded Napoleon
as infinitely his superior, and looked up to him with a species
of adoration; he loved him with a fervor of feeling which amounted
almost to a passion. Napoleon, touched, by the affection of a heart
so noble, requited it with the most confiding friendship. Desaix,
upon his arrival in Paris, found letters for him there from the
First Consul. As he read the confidential lines, he was struck with
the melancholy air with which they were pervaded. "Alas!" said he,
"Napoleon has gained every thing, and yet he is unhappy. I must
hasten to meet him." Without delay he crossed the Alps, and arrived
at the head-quarters of Napoleon but a few days before the battle
of Marengo. They passed the whole night together, talking over the
events of Egypt and the prospects of France. Napoleon felt greatly
strengthened by the arrival of his noble friend, and immediately
assigned to him the command of a division of the army. "Desaix,"
said he, "is my sheet anchor."
"You have had a long interview with Desaix," said Bourrienne to
Napoleon the next morning. "Yes!" he replied; "but I had my reasons.
As soon as I return to Paris I shall make him Minister of War. He
shall always be my lieutenant. I would make him a prince if I could.
He is of the heroic mould of antiquity!"
Napoleon was fully aware that a decisive battle would soon take
place. Melas was rapidly, from all points, concentrating his army.
The following laconic and characteristic order was issued by the
First Consul to Lannes and Murat: "Gather your forces at the river
Stradella. On the 8th or 9th at the latest, you will have on your
hands fifteen or eighteen thousand Austrians. Meet them, and cut
them to pieces. It will be so many enemies less upon our hands on
the day of the decisive battle we are to expect with the entire army
of Melas." The prediction was true. An Austrian force advanced,
eighteen thousand strong. Lannes met them upon the field of
Montebello. They were strongly posted, with batteries ranged upon
the hill sides, which swept the whole plain. It was of the utmost
moment that this body should be prevented from combining with the
other vast forces of the Austrians. Lannes had but eight thousand
men. Could he sustain the unequal conflict for a few hours, Victor,
who was some miles in the rear, could come up with a reserve
of four thousand men. The French soldiers, fully conscious of the
odds against which they were to contend, and of the carnage into
the midst of which they were plunging, with shouts of enthusiasm
rushed upon their foes. Instantaneously a storm of grape-shot from
all the batteries swept through his ranks. Said Lannes, " I could
hear the bones crash in my division, like glass in a hail-storm
." For nine long hours, from eleven in the morning till eight at
night, the horrid carnage continued. Again and again the mangled,
bleeding, wasted columns were rallied to the charge. At last, when
three thousand Frenchmen were strewn dead upon the ground, the
Austrians broke and fled, leaving also three thousand mutilated
corpses and six thousand prisoners behind them. Napoleon, hastening
to the aid of his lieutenant, arrived upon the field just in time
to see the battle won. He rode up to Lannes. The intrepid soldier
stood in the midst of mounds of the dead--his sword dripping with
blood in his exhausted hand--his face blackened with powder and
smoke--and his uniform soiled and tattered by the long and terrific
strife. Napoleon silently, but proudly smiled upon the heroic
general, and forgot not his reward. From this battle Lannes received
the title of Duke of Montebello, a title by which his family is
distinguished to the present day.
This was the opening of the campaign. It inspired the French with
enthusiasm. It nerved the Austrians to despair. Melas now determined
to make a desperate effort to break through the toils. Napoleon,
with intense solicitude, was watching every movement of his foe,
knowing not upon what point the onset would fall. Before day-break
in the morning of the 14th of June, Melas, having accumulated forty
thousand men, including seven thousand cavalry and two hundred pieces
of cannon, made an impetuous assault upon the French, but twenty
thousand in number drawn up upon the plain of Marengo. Desaix,
with a reserve of six thousand men, was at such a distance, nearly
thirty miles from Marengo, that he could not possibly be recalled
before the close of the day. The danger was frightful that the
French would be entirely cut to pieces, before any succor could
arrive. But the quick ear of Desaix caught the sound of the heavy
cannonade as it came booming over the plain, like distant thunder.
He sprung from his couch and listened. The heavy and uninterrupted
roar, proclaimed a pitched battle, and he was alarmed for his
beloved chief. Immediately he roused his troops, and they started
upon the rush to succor their comrades. Napoleon dispatched courier
after courier to hurry the division along, while his troops stood
firm through terrific hours, as their ranks were plowed by the
murderous discharges of their foes. At last the destruction was too
awful for mortal men to endure. Many divisions of the army broke
and fled, crying " All is lost--save himself who can ." A scene of
frightful disorder ensued. The whole plain was covered with fugitive,
swept like an inundation before the multitudinous Austrians.
Napoleon still held a few squares together, who slowly and sullenly
retreated, while two hundred pieces of artillery, closely pressing
them, poured incessant death into their ranks. Every foot of ground
was left encumbered with the dead. It was now three o'clock in
the afternoon. Melas, exhausted with toil, and assured that he had
gained a complete victory, left Gen. Zach to finish the work. He
retired to his head quarters, and immediately dispatched couriers
all over Europe to announce the great victory of Marengo. Said an
Austrian veteran, who had before encountered Napoleon at Arcola
and Rivoli, "Melas is too sanguine. Depend upon it our day's work
is not yet done. Napoleon will yet be upon us with his reserve."
Just then the anxious eye of the First Consulespied the solid columns
of Desaix entering the plain. Desaix, plunging his spurs into his
horse, outstripped all the rest, and galloped into the presence of
Napoleon. As he cast a glance over the wild confusion and devastation
of the field, the exclaimed hurriedly, "I see that the battle
is lost. I suppose I can do no more for you than to secure your
retreat." "By no means," Napoleon replied with apparently as much
composure as if he had been sitting by his own fireside, "the battle,
I trust, is gained. Charge with your column. The disordered troops
will rally in your rear." Like a rock, Desaix, with his solid
phalanx of ten thousand men, met the on-rolling billow of Austrian
victory. At the same time Napoleon dispatched an order to Kellerman,
with his cavalry, to charge the triumphant column of the Austrians
in flank. It was the work of a moment, and the whole aspect of the
field was changed. Napoleon rode along the lines of those on the
retreat, exclaiming, "My friends, we have retreated far enough.
It is now our turn to advance. Recollect that I am in the habit
of sleeping on the field of battle." The fugitives, reanimated by
the arrival of the reserve, immediately rallied in their rear. The
double charge in front and flank was instantly made. The Austrians
were checked and staggered. A perfect tornado of bullets from Desaix's
division swept their ranks. They poured an answering volley into
the bosoms of the French. A bullet pierced the breast of Desaix,
and he fell and almost immediately expired. His last words were,
"Tell the First Consul that my only regret in dying is, to have
perished before having done enough to live in the recollection of
posterity." The soldiers, who devotedly loved him, saw his fall,
and rushed more madly on to avenge his death. The swollen tide of
uproar, confusion, and dismay now turned, and rolled in surging
billows in the opposite direction. Hardly one moment elapsed before
the Austrians, flushed with victory, found themselves overwhelmed
by defeat. In the midst of this terrific scene, an aid rode up to
Napoleon and said, "Desaix is dead." But a moment before they were
conversing side by side. Napoleon pressed his forehead convulsively
with his hand, and exclaimed, mournfully, "Why is it not permitted
me to weep! Victory at such a price is dear."
The French now made the welkin ring with shouts of victory.
Indescribable dismay filled the Austrian ranks as wildly they
rushed before their unrelenting pursuers. Their rout was utter and
hopeless. When the sun went down over this field of blood, after
twelve hours of the most frightful carnage, a scene was presented
horrid enough to appall the heart of a demon. More than twenty thousand
human bodies were strewn upon the ground, the dying and the dead,
weltering in gore, and in every conceivable form of disfiguration.
Horses, with limbs torn their bodies, were struggling in convulsive
agonies. Fragments of guns and swords, and of military wagons
of every kind were strewed around in wild ruin. Frequent piercing
cries, which agony extorted from the lacerated victims of war,
rose above the general moanings of anguish, which, like wailings
of the storm, fell heavily upon the ear. The shades of night were
now descending upon this awful scene of misery. The multitude of
the wounded was so great, that notwithstanding the utmost exertions
of the surgeons, hour after hour of the long night lingered away,
while thousands of the wounded and the dying bit the dust in their
agony.
If war has its chivalry and its pageantry, it has also revolting
hideousness and demoniac woe. The young, the noble, the sanguine
were writhing there in agony. Bullets respect not beauty. They tear
out the eye, and shatter the jaw, and rend the cheek, and transform
the human face divine into an aspect upon which one can not gaze
but with horror. From the field of Marengo many a young man returned
to his home so multilated as no longer to be recognized by friends,
and passed a weary life in repulsive deformity. Mercy abandons the
arena of battle. The frantic war-horse with iron hoof tramples upon
the mangled face, the throbbing and inflamed wounds the splintered
bones, and heeds not the shriek of torture. Crushed into the bloody
mire by the ponderous wheels of heavy artillery, the victim of
barbaric war thinks of mother, and father, and sister, and home,
and shrieks, and moans, and dies; his body is stripped by the
vagabonds who follow the camp; his naked mangled corpse is covered
with a few shovels-full of earth, and left as food for vultures and
for dogs and he is forgotten forever--and it is called glory . He
who loves war, for the sake of its excitements, its pageantry, and
its fancied glory, is the most eminent of all the dupes of folly
and of sin. He who loathes war, with inexpressible loathing, who
will do everything in his power to avert the dire and horrible
calamity, but who will, nevertheless, in the last extremity, with
a determined spirit, encounter all its perils, from love of country
and of home, who is willing to sacrifice himself and all that is
dear to him in life, to promote the well being of his fellow-man,
will ever receive the homage of the world, and we also fully believe
that he will receive the approval of God. Washington abhorred war
in all its forms, yet he braved all its perils.
For the carnage of the field of Marengo, Napoleon can not be held
responsible. Upon England and Austria must rest all the guilt of
that awful tragedy. Napoleon had done every thing he could do to
stop the effusion of blood. He had sacrificed the instincts of pride,
in pleading with a haughty foe for peace. His plea was unavailing.
Three hundred thousand men were marching upon France to force upon
her a detested King. It was not the duty of France to submit to
such dictation. Drawing the sword in self-defense, Napoleon fought
and conquered. "Te Deum Laudamus."
It is not possible but that Napoleon must have been elated by so
resplendent a victory. He knew that Marengo would be classed as the
most brilliant of his achievements. The blow had fallen with such
terrible severity that the haughty allies were thoroughly humbled.
Melas was now at his mercy. Napoleon could dictate peace upon his
own terms. Yet he rode over the field of his victory with a saddened
spirit, and gazed mournfully upon the ruin and the wretchedness
around him. As he was slowly and thoughtfully passing along, through
the heaps of the dead with which the ground was encumbered, he met
a number of carts, heavily laden with the wounded, torn by balls,
and bullets, and fragments of shells, into most hideous spectacles
of deformity. As the heavy wheels lumbered over the rough ground,
grating the splintered bones, and bruising and opening afresh
the inflamed wounds, shrieks of torture were extorted from the
victims. Napoleon stopped his horse and uncovered his head, as the
melancholy procession of misfortune and woe passed along. Turning
to a companion, he said, "We can not but regret not being wounded
like these unhappy men, that we might share their sufferings."
A more touching expression of sympathy never has been recorded.
He who says that this was hypocrisy is a stranger to the generous
impulses of a noble heart. This instinctive outburst of emotion
never could have been instigated by policy.
Napoleon had fearlessly exposed himself to every peril during this
conflict. His clothes were repeatedly pierced by bullets. Balls
struck between the legs of his horse, covering him with earth. A
cannon-ball took away a piece of the boot from his left leg and a
portion of the skin, leaving a scar which was never obliterated.
Before Napoleon Marched for Italy, he had made every effort in his
power for the attainment of peace. Now, with magnanimity above all
praise, without waiting for the first advance from his conquered
foes, he wrote again imploring peace. Upon the field of Marengo,
having scattered all his enemies like chaff before him, with the
smoke of the conflict still darkening the air, and the groans of
the dying swelling upon his ears, laying aside all the formalities
of state, with heartfelt feeling and earnestness he wrote to the
Emperor of Austria. This extraordinary epistle was thus commenced:
"Sire! It is on the field of battle, amid the sufferings of a
multitude of wounded, and surrounded by fifteen thousand corpses,
that I beseech your majesty to listen to the voice of humanity,
and not to suffer two brave nations to cut each others' throats
for interests not their own. It is my part to press this upon your
majesty, being upon the very theatre of war. Your majesty's heart
can not feel it so keenly as does mine."
The letter was long and most eloquent. "For what are you fighting?"
said Napoleon. "For religion? Then make war on the Russians and the
English who are the enemies of your faith. Do you wish to guard
against revolutionary principles? It is this very war which has
extended them over half the Continent, by extending the conquests
of France. The continuance of the war can not fail to diffuse them
still further. Is it for the balance of Europe? The English threaten
that balance far more than does France, for they have become the
masters and the tyrants of commerce, and are beyond the reach of
resistance. Is it to secure the interests of the house of Austria!
Let us then execute the treaty of Campo Formio, which secures to
your majesty large indemnities in compensation for the provinces
lost in the Netherlands, and secures them to you where you most
wish to obtain them, that is, in Italy. Your majesty may send
negotiators whither you will, and we will add to the treaty of
Campo Formio stipulations calculated to assure you of the continued
existence of the secondary states, of all which the French Republic
is accused of having shaken. Upon these conditions pace is made,
if you will. Let us make the armistice general for all the armies,
and enter into negotiations instantly."
A courier was immediately dispatched to Vienna, to convey this letter
to the Emperor. In the evening, Bourrienne hastened to congratulate
Napoleon upon his extraordinary victory. "What a glorious
day!" said Bourrienne. "Yes!" replied Napoleon, mournfully; "very
glorious--could I this evening but have embraced Desaix upon the
field of battle."
On the same day, and at nearly the same hour in which the fatal
bullet pierced the breast of Desaix, an assassin in Egypt plunged
a dagger into the bosom of Kleber. The spirits of these illustrious
men, these blood-stained warriors, thus unexpectedly met in the
spirit-land. There they wander now. How impenetrable the vail which
shuts their destiny from our view. The soul longs for clearer vision
of that far-distant world, people by the innumerable host of the
mighty dead. There Napoleon now dwells. Does he retain his intellectual
supremacy? Do his generals gather around him with love and homage!
Has his pensive spirit sunk down into gloom and despair, or has
it soared into cloudless regions of purity and peace! The mystery
of death' Death alone can solve it. Christianity, with its lofty
revealings, sheds but dim twilight upon the world off departed
spirits. At St. Helena Napoleon said, "Of all the general I ever had
under my command Desaix and Kleber possessed the greatest talent.
In particular Desaix, as Kleber loved glory only as the means of
acquiring wealth and pleasure. Desaix loved glory for itself, and
despised every other consideration. To him riches and pleasure were
of no value, nor did he ever give them a moment's thought. He was
a little black-looking man, about an inch shorter than myself,
always badly dressed, sometimes even ragged, and despising alike
comfort and convenience. Enveloped in a cloak, Desaix would throw
himself under a gun and sleep as contentedly as if reposing in a
palace. Luxury had for him no charms. Frank and honest in all his
proceedings, he was denominated by the Arabs Sultan the Just. Nature intended him to figure as a consummate general. Kleber and Desaix were irreparable losses to France." |
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