The Age of Napoleon

by Will Durant

  He reached Erfurt on September 27, and on the 28th he rode out five miles to greet Alexander and his Russian entourage. Every arrangement was made to please the Czar, except that Napoleon left no doubt that he was host, and in a German city that had become part of the French Empire. Alexander was not deceived by the gifts and flatteries that came to him, and he too put on all the signs and forms of friendship. His resistance to Napoleon’s charms was furthered by Talleyrand, who secretly advised him to support Austria rather than France, arguing that Austria, not France, was the pivot of that European civilization which (in Talleyrand’s view) Napoleon was destroying. “France,” he said, “is civilized, but her sovereign is not.”25 Moreover, how could it be to Russia’s advantage to strengthen France? When Napoleon sought to reinforce the alliance by marrying Alexander’s sister the Grand Duchess Anna, Talleyrand counseled the Czar against agreement, and the wily Russian delayed replying to the proposal on the ground that the Czarina had charge of such affairs.26 He rewarded Talleyrand by arranging the marriage of the diplomat’s nephew to the Duchess of Dino, heiress to the duchy of Courland. Talleyrand later defended his treachery on the ground that Napoleon’s appetite for nations was bound not only to exhaust Europe with war, but to lead to the collapse and dismemberment of France; his treachery to Napoleon, he claimed, was fidelity to France.27 But henceforth his good manners left a bad odor everywhere.

  During the conference the Duke of Saxe-Weimar invited his most famous subject to come to Erfurt. On September 29 Napoleon, seeing Goethe’s name on a list of new arrivals, asked the Duke to arrange a meeting with the poet-philosopher. Goethe gladly came (October 2), for he judged Napoleon as “the greatest mind the world has ever seen,”28 and he quite approved of uniting Europe under such a head. He found the Emperor at breakfast with Talleyrand, Berthier, Savary, and General Daru. Talleyrand included in his Memoirs what he claimed to be a careful recollection of this famous colloquy. (Felix Müller, a Weimar magistrate who accompanied Goethe, gave a report only slightly different.)

  “Monsieur Goethe,” said Napoleon, “I am delighted to see you…. I know that you are Germany’s leading dramatic poet.”

  “Sire, you wrong our country…. Schiller, Lessing, and Wieland are surely known to Your Majesty.”

  “I confess I hardly know them. However, I have read Schiller’s Thirty Years’ War. … You generally live in Weimar; it is the place where the most celebrated men of German literature meet!”

  “Sire, they enjoy greater protection there; but for the present there is only one man in Weimar who is known throughout Europe; it is Wieland.”

  “I should be delighted to see Monsieur Wieland.”

  “If Your Majesty will allow me to ask him, I feel certain that he will come immediately.” …

  “Are you an admirer of Tacitus?”

  “Yes, Sire, I admire him much.”

  “Well, I don’t; but we shall talk of that another time. Write to tell Monsieur Wieland to come here. I shall return his visit at Weimar, where the Duke has invited me.”29

  As Goethe left the room (we are told) Napoleon remarked to Berthier and Daru, “Voilà un homme!”30

  A few days later Napoleon, amid a host of notables, entertained Goethe and Wieland. Perhaps he had refreshed his recollections, for he spoke like a literary critic confident of his knowledge:

  “Monsieur Wieland, we like your works very much in France. It is you who are the author of Agathon and Oberon. We call you the Voltaire of Germany.”

  “Sire, the comparison would be a flattering one if it were justified. …”

  “Tell me, Monsieur Wieland, why your Diogenes, your Agathon, and your Peregrinus are written in the equivocal style which mixes romance with history, and history with romance. A superior man like yourself ought to keep each style distinctly separate. … But I am afraid to say too much on this subject, because I am dealing with someone much more conversant with the matter than I am.”31

  On October 5, Napoleon rode out some fifteen miles to Weimar. After a hunt at Jena, and a performance of La Mort de César in the Weimar theater, the hosts and guests attended a ball where the splendor of the surroundings and the glamour of the women made them soon forget the verses of Voltaire. Napoleon, however, withdrew to a corner, and asked for Goethe and Wieland. They brought other literati with them. Napoleon spoke, especially to Wieland, on two of his favorite subjects—history and Tacitus:

  “A good tragic drama should be looked upon as the most worthy school for superior men. From a certain point of view it is above history. In the best history very little effect is produced. Man when alone is but little affected; men assembled receive the stronger and more lasting impressions.

  “I assure you that the historian Tacitus, whom you are always quoting, never taught me anything. Could you find a greater, and at times more unjust, detractor of the human race? In the most simple actions he finds criminal motives; he makes emperors out as the most profound villains. … His Annals are not a history of the Empire but an abstract of the prison records of Rome. They are always dealing with accusations, convicts, and people who open their veins in their baths. … What an involved style! How obscure! … Am I not right, Monsieur Wieland? But … we are not here to speak of Tacitus. Look how well Czar Alexander dances.”32

  Wieland was not overwhelmed; he defended Tacitus with both courage and courtesy. He pointed out, “Suetonius and Dio Cassius relate a much greater number of crimes than Tacitus, in a style void of energy, while nothing is more terrible than Tacitus’ pen.” And, with a bold hint to Napoleon: “By the stamp of his genius one would believe he could love only the Republic.… But when he speaks of the emperors who so happily reconciled … the Empire and liberty, one feels that the art of governing appears to him the most beautiful discovery on earth. … Sire, if it be true to say of Tacitus that tyrants are punished when he paints them, it is still more true to say that good princes are rewarded when he traces their images and presents them to future glory.”

  The assembled listeners were delighted by this vigorous riposte, and Napoleon was a bit confused. “I have too strong a party to contend with, Monsieur Wieland, and you neglect none of your advantages. … I do not like to say that I am beaten; … to that I would consent with difficulty. Tomorrow I return to Erfurt, and we shall continue our discussions.”33 We have no report of that further encounter.

  By October 7 most of the visitors were back in Erfurt. Napoleon urged Goethe to come and live in Paris; “there you will find a larger circle for your spirit of observation, … immense material for your poetic creations.”34 On October 14 the Emperor conferred upon Goethe and Wieland the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

  Meanwhile the foreign ministers of the two Powers had drawn up an agreement renewing their alliances, and pledging mutual aid in case either of them should be attacked. Alexander was to be left free to take Wallachia and Moldavia, but not Turkey; Napoleon could proceed to Spain with the Czar’s blessing. On October 12 the document was signed. Two days later the Emperors left Erfurt; for a while they rode side by side; before they parted they embraced, and promised to meet again. (They did not.) Napoleon returned to Paris less sanguine than when he had come, but resolved to take his Grande Armée to Spain and reseat brother Joseph on his unwelcome throne.

  IV. THE PENINSULAR WAR: II (OCTOBER 29, 1808-JANUARY 16, 1809)

  It was a typical Napoleonic campaign: swift, victorious, and futile. The Emperor sensed the rising opposition of the French people to the endless concatenation of his wars. They had agreed with him that his wars on the eastern front had been caused by governments conspiring to annul the Revolution; but they felt that their blood was being drained, and they resented especially its expenditure in Portugal and Spain. He understood that feeling, and feared that he was losing his hold on the nation, but (as he argued in retrospect) “it was impossible to leave the Peninsula a prey to the machinations of the English, the intrigues, hopes, and pretensions of the Bourbons.”35 Unless Spain should be s
ecurely tied to France it would be at the mercy of British armies coming through Portugal or Cádiz; soon England would gather the gold and silver of Portuguese or Spanish America, and pour it out in subsidies to finance a new coalition against France; there would have to be more Marengos, Austerlitzes, Jenas … Only a border-tight blockade of British goods could bring those London merchants to talk peace.

  Leaving some fortresses garrisoned against Austrian or Prussian surprises, Napoleon ordered 150,000 men of the Grand Army to march over the Pyrenees and join the 65,000 men that Joseph had meanwhile assembled at Vitoria. He himself left Paris on October 29 with his plan of campaign already formed. The Spanish army was attempting to surround Joseph’s troops; Napoleon sent instructions to his brother to avoid battle, and let the enemy advance in a spreading and thinning semicircle. When he neared Vitoria, the Emperor deployed part of his forces to attack the Spanish center; it broke and fled. Another French division captured Burgos (November 10); others, under Ney and Lannes, at Tudela, overwhelmed a Spanish army under José de Palafox y Melzi. Perceiving that their soldiers and generals could not cope with the Grand Army and Napoleon, the Spaniards scattered again into the provinces, and on December 4 the Emperor entered Madrid. When some of his troops began to pillage, he had two of them publicly executed; the pillaging stopped.36

  Leaving the city under a strong garrison and martial law, Napoleon took up his quarters three miles away at Chamartín. Thence, like some god creating a world, he issued (December 4) a series of decrees, including a new constitution for Spain. Some of its clauses show him still a “Son of the Revolution”:

  To date from the publication of this decree, feudal rights are abolished in Spain. All personal obligations, all exclusive rights, … all feudal monopolies … are suppressed. Everyone who shall conform to the laws shall be free to develop his industry without restraint.

  The tribunal of the Inquisition is abolished, as inconsistent with the civil sovereignty and authority. Its property shall be sequestered and fall to the Spanish state, to serve as security for the bonded debt. …

  Considering that the members of various monastic orders have increased to an undue degree, … religious houses in Spain … shall be reduced to a third of their present number … by uniting the members of several houses of the same order into one. …

  In view of the fact that the institution which stands most in the way of the internal prosperity of Spain is that of the customs lines separating the provinces, … the barrier existing between the provinces shall be suppressed.37

  Only martial mastery could enforce such a constitution over the active opposition of the entrenched nobility, the monastic clergy, and a population inured by time to feudal leadership and a consolatory creed. And that mastery was precarious. Wellesley was still triumphant in Portugal, and might invade Spain as soon as the Grand Army should be called back to face a challenging Austria. Moreover, a British army of twenty thousand men under Sir John Moore left Salamanca on December 13 and began a march northeastward, aiming to overwhelm Soult’s division near Burgos. Responding quickly to this challenge, Napoleon led a substantial French force north over the Sierra de Guadarrama in the hope of attacking the rear of Moore’s columns; now at last he would match his wits and soldiers against those hitherto sea-protected Englishmen. The passage through the Guadarrama Pass in midwinter was a much severer ordeal for his men than the crossing of the Alps in 1800; they suffered and grumbled, almost to mutiny, but Napoleon would not abandon the chase. Moore learned of his coming, and—fearing to be caught between two French armies—turned his troops westward on a hurried march over 250 miles of rugged snow-covered terrain toward Corunna, where they could find refuge in a British fleet.

  At Astorga, January 2, 1809, Napoleon was close on their heels. But here he was stopped by disturbing news from two sources: in Austria the Archduke Karl Ludwig was making active preparations for war; in Paris Talleyrand and Fouché were aiding a plan to replace Napoleon with Murat. The Emperor left the pursuit of Moore to Soult, and hurried back to France. Soult, the master gone, eased his pace, and did not reach Corunna until most of the British had gained their ships. Moore led an heroic rearguard action to protect the last stages of the embarkation; he was mortally wounded, but did not die until the embarkation was complete. “If only I had had time to follow the English,” Napoleon mourned, “not a single man jack of them would have escaped.”38 They not only escaped; they came back.

  V. FOUCHEACUTÉ, TALLEYRAND, AND AUSTRIA: 1809

  When he reached Paris (January 23) Napoleon found conspiracies brewing amid public discontent. Letters from soldiers at the front revealed to hundreds of French families that Spanish resistance was re-forming and resolute, and that Wellesley, his forces augmented, would soon move to oust Joseph again from Madrid. Evidently war would go on, and French boys would be conscripted year after year to force upon the Spaniards a government hostile to their powerful Church and alien to their pride and blood. The royalists of France, despite Napoleon’s moves to appease them, had resumed their plots to depose him; six such conspirators had been caught and shot in 1808; another, Armand de Chateaubriand, was executed in February, 1809, despite the appeals of his brother René, then the most acclaimed author in France. Several Jacobins schemed for opposite reasons for the same end. Even in the imperial government dissatisfaction with Napoleon was mounting: Fontanes voiced it discreetly, Decrès openly: “The Emperor is mad, completely mad; he will bring ruin upon himself and upon us all.”39

  Fouché, minister of police, had won compliments from Napoleon for exposing assassination plots, but he was increasingly doubtful of his master’s policies, and of his own future in the inevitable collapse. Sooner or later, he felt, the beaten but proud governments of Austria and Prussia, and the superficially pro-French government of Russia, would unite again, fused with British gold, to man another push against an uncomfortably dominant France. Moreover, Napoleon in some coming battle might lose his life; why should not some shot find and end him, as a shot, not long ago, had ended a general standing at his side? Would not his sudden death, heirless, throw France into a chaos that would leave it defenseless against its foes? Perhaps Talleyrand could be persuaded to join in grooming Murat for a throne left vacant by Napoleon’s capture or death. On December 20, 1808, Fouché and Talleyrand agreed that Murat was their man; and Murat concurred. Eugène de Beauharnais got wind of the plan and told it to Madame Mère, who relayed it to her son in Spain.40

  Napoleon would forgive Fouché more readily than he would Talleyrand; Fouché’s advice had often been on the saving side, but Talleyrand had recommended the execution of the Due d’Enghien and the appropriation of Spain, and probably shared responsibility for the increasing coolness of Alexander. On January 24, 1809, seeing Talleyrand in the Council of State, Napoleon released his long-concealed resentment in a violent public reproof: “You have dared to maintain, sir, that you knew nothing about Enghien’s death; you have dared to maintain that you knew nothing whatever about the Spanish war! … Have you forgotten that you advised me in writing to have Enghien executed? Have you forgotten that in your letters you advised me to revive the policy of Louis XIV [i.e., to establish his own family on the throne of Spain]?” Then, shaking his fist in Talleyrand’s face, Napoleon cried, “Understand this: if a revolution should break out, no matter what part you had played in it, you would be the first to be crushed! … You are ordure in a silk stocking.” That said, the Emperor hurriedly left the room. Talleyrand, limping after him, remarked to the councilors, “What a pity that so great a man should have such bad manners!”41 On the morrow Napoleon ended Talleyrand’s functions and salary as grand chamberlain. Soon, as was his wont, he regretted his outburst, and made no objection to Talleyrand’s continued presence at court. In 1812 he could still say, “He is the most capable minister I ever had.”42 Talleyrand lost no chance to hasten Napoleon’s fall.

  Austria was doing her share. The whole country, from rich to poor, seemed eager for an attempt
to free itself from the hard peace that Napoleon had laid upon it. Only Emperor Francis I hesitated, protesting that the appropriations for the army were bankrupting the state. Talleyrand sent encouraging words: the Grand Army was mired in Spain, French public opinion was strongly opposed to war, Napoleon’s position was precarious.43 Metternich, hitherto hesitant, argued that the time had come for Austria to strike. Napoleon warned the Austrian government that if it continued to arm he would have no choice but to raise another army at whatever cost. The Austrians continued to arm. Napoleon called upon Alexander to warn them; the Czar sent them a word of caution, which could be interpreted as counseling delay. Napoleon summoned two divisions from Spain, called up 100,000 conscripts, and ordered and received 100,000 troops from the Rhine Confederation, which feared for its life if Austria should overcome France; by April, 1809, Napoleon had 310,000 men under his command. A separate force of 72,000 French and 20,000 Italians was organized to protect Viceroy Eugène from an Austrian army sent to Italy under the Archduke Johann. On April 9 the Archduke Karl Ludwig invaded Bavaria with 200,000 men. On April 12 England signed a new alliance with Austria, pledging fresh subsidies. On April 13 Napoleon left Paris for Strasbourg, after announcing to his worried palace staff, “In two months I shall compel Austria to disarm.” On April 17 he reached his main army at Donauwörth on the Danube, and gave final orders for the deployment of his forces.

  The French won some minor engagements at Abensberg and Landshut (April 19 and 20). At Eckmühl (April 22) Marshal Davout led an irresistible attack upon Archduke Karl Ludwig’s left wing while Napoleon’s own divisions assaulted the center; after losing 30,000 men Karl retreated into Bohemia. Napoleon marched on to Vienna, which he entered on May 12 after a difficult and bravely contested crossing to the right bank of the Danube, there three thousand feet wide. In the meantime Karl reorganized his forces and brought them back to the left bank of the river at Essling. Napoleon tried to recross it, hoping to defeat the Archduke in a decisive engagement. But the Danube was in a rising flood, which swept away the principal bridges; part of the French army and much of the ammunition had to be left behind; and on May 22 Napoleon’s 60,000 men found themselves embattled with 115,000 Austrian troops. After losing 20,000 men—the beloved Lannes among them—the Emperor ordered the remaining 40,000 to recross the Danube by whatever means they could find. The Austrians had lost 23,000, but the encounter was accepted throughout Europe as a disastrous defeat for Napoleon. Prussia and Russia watched the sequel eagerly, ready, at any further encouragement, to pounce upon the troublesome upstart who had so long eluded the lords of feudalism.