Chapter 28

THE CONGRESS OF KINGS[41]

[Footnote 41: References: Bittard des Portes: Les preliminaires de l'entrevue d'Erfurt (1808). In Revue d'histoire diplomatique, tom. IV, pp. 95-144. Sklower: Entrevue de Napoleon Ier et de Goethe suivie de notes et commentaires.]

Forebodings -- Napoleon and Maria Louisa -- The Czar's Ultimatum and the Emperor's Choice -- Napoleon's Last Diplomatic Move -- The Imperial Court at Dresden -- Napoleon and Poland -- The Health of Napoleon -- His Strategic Powers Undiminished.

[Sidenote: 1812]

Ready--at least to outward appearance, Napoleon was in truth ready as far as equipment, organization, commissariat, strategic plan, and every nice detail of official forethought could go. But how about the efficiency and zeal of men and officers? There had been murmurings for some years past. It was remarked that Napoleon's studies in 1808 were the campaigns of Rome against the Parthians from the days of Crassus onward; from his death-bed Lannes had warned his chief in 1809 how ready many of his most trusted servants were to betray him if he continued his career of conquest; Decres, another true friend, expressed his anxiety in 1810 lest they should all be thrown into a final horrid elemental crash; and in 1811 Regnault de Saint-Jean-d'Angely exclaimed, "The unhappy man will undo himself, undo us all, undo everything." The Emperor heard neither of these last forebodings, but is doubtfully reported to have himself declared, "I am driven onward to a goal which I know not." Caulaincourt made no secret of how his anxiety increased as he knew Russia better. He was recalled because, having learned Russia's pride and Russia's resources, he made no attempt to conceal his aversion to the final arbitrament of bloodshed. Poniatowski believed Lithuania would refuse to rise against her despot; Segur and Duroc foresaw that France, if degraded to be but one province of a great empire, would lose her enthusiasm; even Fouche, having been permitted, on the plea of ill-health, to return from his exile in Italy, ventured to draw up a vigorous and comprehensive memorial against war, and instanced the fate of Charles XII. The contents of Fouche's paper were divulged to Napoleon by a spy, and when the author presented it he was met by contemptuous sarcasm. The Emperor believed Prussia to be helpless, chiding Davout for his doleful reports of the new temper which had been developed. Jomini declared, but long afterward, that the great captain had avowed to a confidential friend his eagerness for the excitement of battle.

But in spite of the anxiety felt by a few leading Frenchmen, there was general confidence, and it was not until after the catastrophe that details like those enumerated were recalled. It is customary to attribute Napoleon's zeal for war to the fiery counsels of Maret. But there is no necessity to seek any scapegoat. In reality the outlook in 1812 was better than in 1809. Napoleon's spirits were higher, his conscripts were not visibly worse than any drafted since the beginning of the Consulate, and the veteran Coignet's remark concerning the march to Russia is that "Providence and courage never abandon the good soldier." As to the commander-in-chief, he had largely forsaken his licentious courses, partly from reasons of policy, partly because of his sincere attachment to wife and child. Throughout the years of youth and early manhood he had indulged his amorous passions, but until his second marriage not a single woman had been preferred to power, not even Josephine. Maria Louisa, however, was an imperial consort, for whom no attention, no elevation, was too great. Pliant while an Austrian archduchess, she remained so as empress, apparently without will or enterprise. Men felt, nevertheless, that, remaining an Austrian externally, she was probably still one at heart, perhaps a mere lure thrown out to keep the hawk from other quarry. There was much in her subsequent conduct to justify such suspicions, but the utter shamelessness of her later years argues rather the self-abandonment of one in revolt against the rigid social restraints and personal annihilation of early life. The hours which Napoleon spent with her were so many that he laid himself open to the charge of uxoriousness. The physician attendant at the birth of the infant King of Rome declared that the mother would succumb to a second confinement, and the father exercised a self-restraint consonant with the consideration he had displayed at the birth of his heir. He was the squire and constant attendant of his spouse, her riding-master even, and often her playfellow in the romps of which she was still fond. Scenes of idyllic bliss were daily observed by the keen eyes of the attendants. The choice of governesses, tutors, and servants for the little prince was personally superintended by his sire, and every detail of the feeding, dressing, and airing of the prospective emperor was the subject of minute inquiry and regulation. When it was clear that war was imminent, Napoleon seemed for the first time ready to abandon his abhorrence for female governance. Certainly his domestic happiness had not sapped his moral power; possibly it rendered him over-anxious at times, and, perhaps in revulsion from anxiety, over-confident.

During two years of diplomatic fencing the initiative had been Russian, the instigation French. For the war which followed no single cause can be assigned. Some blamed Napoleon, claiming that with his scheme of universal empire it was inevitable; Metternich said Russia had brought on war in an unpardonable manner. The Tilsit alliance was personal; the separation of the contracting parties inevitably weakened it. The affiliations of the Russian aristocracy with the Austrian; the smart of both under the Continental System, which rendered their agriculture unprofitable; England's stand under Castlereagh; the Oldenburg question--all these were cumulative in their effect. With Alexander, Poland and the Continental System were the real difficulties; the marriage question was only secondary. On January twelfth, 1812, the Czar with mournful and solemn mien declared his hands clean of blood-guiltiness and laid down his ultimatum. To the concentration of Russian troops Napoleon had replied by sending his own to Erfurt and Magdeburg. Alexander formally stated his readiness to take back his own move if the Emperor would withdraw the French soldiers; he would even accept Erfurt for Oldenburg, and permit Warsaw to be capital of a Saxon province. But he said not a word about the Continental System, being fully determined not to yield one jot, and for Napoleon this was the primary matter. Alexander's ultimatum by its clever form compelled his ally either to abandon the scheme of Western empire or to fight. Both parties to the Tilsit alliance understood that with European harbors shut to English trade, Great Britain must cease to support the Spanish insurrection, which in that case a few thousand troops could hold in check. Then the great scheme of revolutionary extension which had been inaugurated by the Convention and logically developed by Napoleon step by step in every war and treaty since Campo Formio would in a few short years be complete. But two real powers would thus remain in continental Europe--France and Russia. They could by united action crush British power both by land and by sea. To dash this brimming cup from his lips was for Napoleon an insupportable thought. With the hope, apparently, of securing from the Czar the last essential concession, he set his troops in motion toward the Vistula on the very day after his treaty with Prussia was signed.

The natural counter-move to Napoleon's advance would be the invasion of Warsaw; although the new Poland was fortified for defense, yet it might be overwhelmed before assistance could reach the garrisons. Moreover, there were ominous signs in France at the opening of 1812. Food supplies were scarce, and speculators were buying such as there were. Napoleon felt he must remain yet a little while to check such an outrage and to strengthen public confidence. Ostensibly to avoid a final rupture, but really to prevent the premature opening of war, he therefore summoned Czernicheff, the Czar's aide-de-camp, who, as a kind of licensed spy, had been hovering near him for three years past, and offered to accept every item of the Russian ultimatum, if only an equitable treaty of commerce could be substituted for the ukase of December, 1810; in other words, if Alexander would agree to observe the letter and spirit of the Continental System. During the two months intervening before the Czar's reply not a Cossack set foot on Polish soil, while day by day Napoleon's armies flowed onward across Europe toward the plains of Russia, and a temporary remedy for the economic troubles of France was found. When, late in April, the answer came, it was, as expected, a declaration that without the neutral trade Russia could not live; she would modify the ukase somewhat, but, as a condition antecedent to peace, France must evacuate Prussia and make better terms with Sweden. On May first the French army reached the Vistula; on May ninth Napoleon and his consort started for Dresden, whither all the allied sovereigns had been summoned to pay their court as vassals to the second Charles the Great.

The surge of German patriotism had nearly drowned Napoleon in 1809, but for manifest reasons it had again receded. The Austrian marriage had withdrawn the house of Hapsburg from the leadership of Germany; the imperial progress to Dresden and the high imperial court held there were intended to dazzle the masses of Europe, possibly to intimidate the Czar. The French were genuinely enthusiastic; the Germans displayed no spite; princes, potentates, and powers swelled the train; all the monarchs of the coalition, under Francis as dean of the corps, stood in array to receive the august Emperor. From the spectacular standpoint Dresden is the climax of the Napoleonic drama. Surrounded by men who at least bore the style of sovereigns, the Corsican victor stood alone in the focus of monarchical splendor. At his side, and resplendent, not in her own but in his glory, was the daughter of the Caesars, the child of a royal house second to none in antiquity or majesty, his wife, his consort, his defiance to a passing system. Maria Louisa was as haughty as the Western Empress should be, patronizing her father and stepmother, and boasting how superior the civilization of Paris was to that of Vienna. It was during these days that she first saw Neipperg, the Austrian chamberlain, who was later her morganatic husband. Napoleon appeared better: self-possessed, moderate, and genial. His vassals and his relatives, his marshals and his generals, all seemed content, and even merry. The King of Prussia had lost his beautiful and unfortunate queen; he alone wore a sad countenance. Yet it was rumored that the Prussian crown prince was a suitor for one of Napoleon's nieces. Beneath the gay exterior were many sad, bitter, perplexed hearts. The Emperor was seldom seen except as a lavish host at public entertainments; most of the time he spent behind closed doors with the busy diplomats. As a last resort, Narbonne was sent to Russia, ostensibly to invite Alexander's presence in the interest of peace; actually, of course, to get a final glimpse of his preparations. The Abbe de Pradt was despatched into Poland to fan the enthusiasm for France.

This unparalleled court was dismissed on May twenty-eighth, the Empress returning by way of Prague to Paris, Napoleon hastening by Posen and Warsaw to Thorn. The Poles were exuberant in their delight; they little knew that their supposed liberator had bargained away Galicia to Francis in return for Austrian support. For this betrayal, and his general contempt of the Poles, he was to pay dearly. Had he labored sincerely to organize a strong nucleus of Polish nationality, a coalition of Russia, Prussia, and Austria such as finally overwhelmed him would have been difficult, perhaps impossible. But the founder of an imperial dynasty could not trust a Polish democracy. When the Diet, sitting at Warsaw, besought him to declare the existence of Poland, he criticized the taste which made them compose their address in French instead of Polish, and gave a further inkling of his temper by sending his Austrian contingent to serve in Volhynia, so that neither French nor Polish enthusiasm might rouse the Russian Poles. When he reached Vilna he found that the impassive Lithuanians had no intention of rising against Russia, and no attempt was made to rouse them. If, as appears, his first intention had been to wage a frontier campaign, that plan was quickly changed. Retaining Venice and Triest for use against the Orient, with Austria virtually a member of his system, he determined to force Russia back on to the confines of Europe, perhaps into Asia, and then--Who can say? It seems as if Poland was to have been divided into French departments instead of being erected into another troublesome nation, vassal state, or semi-autonomous power.

At the opening of the Russian campaign the gradual change which had been steadily going on in Napoleon's physique was complete. He was now plethoric, and slow in all his movements. Occasionally there were exhibitions of quickened sensibility, which have been interpreted as symptoms of an irregular epilepsy; but in general his senses, like his expression, were dull. He had premonitions of a painful disease (dysuria), which soon developed fully. His lassitude was noticeable, and when he roused himself it was often for trivialities. In other campaigns he had stolen away from Paris in military simplicity; this time he had brought the pomp of a court. He planned, too, to bring theater companies and opera troupes to the very seat of war. Above all, he was deeply concerned with his imperial state, having in his trunks the baubles and dress he had worn at his coronation in Notre Dame. His bearing was proud, but there was no sparkle in his eye; he seemed spiritless and ailing; he showed no confidence in his magnificent army.

The haughty, exacting mien of 1812 was very different from the half-jocular, half-sarcastic curl of the lip and sparkle of the eye which had inspired his followers in former days quite as much as his stirring, incisive harangues. Yet careful study will prove that his sagacity as a great captain was in no way dimmed; his military combinations were greater than any he had ever formed. As no parallel to the numbers engaged in this enterprise can be found in European story, nothing comparable to its organization can be found in the history of any land or age. Every corps had its ammunition-train, and great reserves of supplies were stored in Modlin, Thorn, Pillau, Dantzic, and Magdeburg. In the two last-named arsenals were siege-trains for beleaguering Duenaburg and Riga. There were pontoons and bridge material in abundance; one thousand three hundred and fifty field-pieces, and eighteen thousand horses to draw them. The commissary stores were prodigious, and there were thousands of ox-wagons to transport them. The cattle were eventually to be slaughtered and eaten. In various convenient strongholds there were, besides, stores for four hundred thousand men for fifty days. Knowing Russia, he had prepared to conquer streams and morasses, to feed the army without fear of a devastating population, and to trust the seat of war for nothing except forage. His strategic plan was amazing, containing, as it did, the old elements of unexpected concentration, of breaking through the opposing line, of conclusive victory, and occupation of the enemy's capital. It was carried also to successful completion, and in one respect the execution was fine. The obstacles to be surmounted made every movement slow, and while a vast, complicated military organization may be reliable for weeks, to make it work for months requires qualities of greatness which increase in geometrical ratio according to the extension of time. Twice Napoleon bared his inmost thought, once to Metternich in Dresden, once to Jomini at a dinner company in Vilna. The first season he intended to seize Minsk and Smolensk, winter there, and organize his conquests. If this should not produce a peace, he would advance in the following season into the heart of the country, and there await the Czar's surrender. To his army he issued an address as direct and ringing as that which had echoed sixteen years before across the plains of Lombardy. Its substance is that the second Polish war would bring the same renown to French arms as the first, but the peace would be such as should end forever the haughty interference of Russia in European affairs. It seemed to those who heard it as if Russia's hour had struck.