Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
wife, his relations or friends, to bring them some English muslins,
some sugar and coffee, together with a few needles, pen-knives, and
razors. Some of the Neapolitan officers embarked in really large
commercial operations, going shares with the custom house people who
were there to enforce the law, and making their soldiers load and
unload the contraband vessels. The Comte de -----, a French officer
on Murat's staff, was very noble, but very poor, and excessively
extravagant. After making several vain efforts to set him up in the
world, the King told him one day he would give him the command of
the troops round the Gulf of Salerno; adding that the devil was in
it if he could not make a fortune in such a capital smuggling
district, in a couple of years.--The Count took the hint, and did
make a fortune.--Editor 1836 edition.]--
Smuggling on a small scale was punished with death, whilst the
Government themselves carried it on extensively. The same cause filled
the Treasury with money, and the prisons with victims:
The custom-house laws of this period, which waged open war against
rhubarb, and armed the coasts of the Continent against the introduction
of senna, did not save the Continental system from destruction. Ridicule
attended the installation of the odious prevotal courts. The president
of the Prevotal Court at Hamburg, who was a Frenchman, delivered an
address, in which he endeavoured to prove that in the time of the
Ptolemies there had existed extraordinary fiscal tribunals, and that it
was to those Egypt owed her prosperity. Terror was thus introduced by
the most absurd folly. The ordinary customhouse officers, formerly so
much abhorred in Hamburg, declared with reason that they would soon be
regretted, and than the difference between them and the prevotal courts
would soon be felt. Bonaparte's counsellors led him to commit the folly
of requiring that a ship which had obtained a licence should export
merchandise equivalent to that of the colonial produce to be imported
under the authority of the licence. What was the consequence? The
speculators bought at a low price old stores of silk-which change of
fashion had made completely unsaleable, and as those articles were
prohibited in England they were thrown into the sea without their loss
being felt. The profits of the speculation made ample amends for
the sacrifice. The Continental system was worthy only of the ages of
ignorance and barbarism, and had it been admissible in theory, was
impracticable in application.
--[Sydney Smith was struck with the, ridiculous side of the war of
tariffs: "We are told that the Continent is to be reconquered by the
want of rhubarb and plums." (Essays of Sydney Smith, p. 533, edition
of 1861).]--
It cannot be sufficiently stigmatised. They were not the friends of the
Emperor who recommended a system calculated to rouse the indignation of
Europe, and which could not fail to create reaction. To tyrannize over
the human species, and to exact uniform admiration and submission, is to
require an impossibility. It would seem that fate, which had still some
splendid triumphs in store for Bonaparte, intended to prepare beforehand
the causes which were to deprive him of all his triumphs at once, and
plunge him into reverses even greater than the good fortune which had
favoured his elevation.
The prohibition of trade, the habitual severity in the execution of this
odious system, made it operate like a Continental impost. I will give
a proof of this, and I state nothing but what came under my own
observation. The fiscal regulations were very rigidly enforced at
Hamburg, and along the two lines of Cuxhaven and Travemunde. M. Eudel,
the director of that department, performed his duty with zeal and
disinterestedness. I feel gratified in rendering him this tribute.
Enormous quantities of English merchandise and colonial produce were
accumulated at Holstein, where they almost all arrived by way of Kiel
and Hudsum, and were smuggled over the line at the expense of a premium
of 33 and 40 per cent. Convinced of this fact by a thousand proofs, and
weary of the vexations of the preventive system, I took upon myself
to lay my opinions on the subject before the Emperor. He had given me
permission to write to him personally, without any intermediate agency,
upon everything that I might consider essential to his service. I sent
an extraordinary courier to Fontainebleau, where he then was, and in
my despatch I informed him that, notwithstanding his preventive guard,
every prohibited article was smuggled in because the profits on the sale
in Germany, Poland, Italy, and even France, into which the contrabrand
goods found their way, were too considerable not to induce persons to
incur all risks to obtain them. I advised him, at the very time he
was about to unite the Hanse Towns to the French Empire, to permit
merchandise to be imported subject to a duty of 33 per cent., which
was about equal to the amount of the premium for insurance. The Emperor
adopted my advice without hesitation, and in 1811 the regulation
produced a revenue of upwards of 60,000,000 francs in Hamburg alone.
This system, however, embroiled us with Sweden and Russia, who could not
endure that Napoleon should enact a strict blockade from them, whilst he
was himself distributing licences in abundance. Bernadotte, on his way
to Sweden, passed through Hamburg in October 1810. He stayed with me
three days, during which time he scarcely saw any person but myself. He
asked my opinion as to what he should do in regard to the Continental
system. I did not hesitate to declare to him, not as a French Minister,
but as a private individual to his friend, that in his place, at the
head of a poor nation, which could only subsist by the exchange of its
territorial productions with England, I would open my ports, and give
the Swedes gratuitously that general licence which Bonaparte sold in
detail to intrigue and cupidity.
The Berlin decree could not fail to cause a reaction against the
Emperor's fortune by raising up whole nations against him. The hurling
of twenty kings from their thrones would have excited less hatred than
this contempt for the wants of nations. This profound ignorance of the
maxims of political economy caused general privation and misery, which
in their turn occasioned general hostility. The system could only
succeed in the impossible event of all the powers of Europe honestly
endeavouring to carry it into effect. A single free port would have
destroyed it. In order to ensure its complete success it was necessary
to conquer and occupy all countries, and never to evacuate them. As a
means of ruining England it was contemptible. It was necessary that
all Europe should be compelled by force of arms to join this absurd
coalition, and that the same force should be constantly employed
to maintain it. Was this possible? The captain "rapporteur" of a
court-martial allowed a poor peasant to escape the punishment due to
the offence of having bought a loaf of sugar beyond the custom-house
barrier. This officer was some time afterwards at a dinner given by
Marshal Davoust; the latter said to him, "You have a very scrupulous
conscience, sir; go to headquarters and you will find an order there for
you." This order sent him eighty leagues from Hamburg. It is necessary
to have witnessed, as I have, the numberless vexations and miseries
occasioned by the unfortunate Continental system to understand
the mischief its authors did in Europe, and how much that mischief
contributed to Napoleon's fall.
--[The so-called Continental system was framed by Napoleon in
revenge for the English very extended system of blockades, after
Trafalgar had put it out of his power to attempt to keep the seas.
By these decrees all ports occupied by the French were closed to the
English, and all English goods were to be destroyed wherever found
in any country occupied by the French. All States under French
influence had to adopt this system. It must be remembered that
Napoleon eventually held or enforced his system on all the
coastlines of Europe, except that of Spain and Turkey; but as
Bourrienne shows the plan of giving licences to break his own system
was too lucrative to be resisted by him, or, still more, by his
officers. For the working of the system in the occupied lands,
Laffite the banker told Savary it was a grand idea, but
impracticable (Savary, tome v. p. 110). The Emperor Alexander is
reported to have said, after visiting England in 1814, that he
believed the system would have reduced England if it had lasted
another year. The English, who claimed the right of blockading any
coast with but little regard to the effectiveness of the blockade,
retaliated by orders in Council, the chief of which are dated 7th
January 1807, and 11th November 1807, by which no ships of any power
were allowed to trade between any French ports, or the ports of any
country closed to England. Whatever the real merits of the system,
and although it was the cause of war between the United States and
England, its execution did most to damage France and Napoleon, and
to band all Europe against it. It is curious that even in 1831 a
treaty had to be made to settle the claims of the United States on
France for unjust seizures under these decrees.]--
CHAPTER X.
1806-1807.
New system of war--Winter quarters--The Emperor's Proclamation--
Necessity of marching to meet the Russians--Distress in the Hanse
Towns--Order for 50,000 cloaks--Seizure of Russian corn and timber--
Murat's entrance into Warsaw--Re-establishment of Poland--Duroc's
accident--M. de Talleyrand's carriage stopped by the mud--Napoleon's
power of rousing the spirit of his troops--His mode of dictating--
The Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin--His visits to Hamburg--The Duke of
Weimar--His letter and present--Journey of the Hereditary Prince of
Denmark to Paris--Batter, the English spy--Traveling clerks--Louis
Bonaparte and the Berlin decree--Creation of the Kingdom of Saxony--
Veneration of Germany for the King of Saxony--The Emperor's
uncertainty respecting Poland--Fetes and reviews at Warsaw--The
French Government at the Emperor's head quarters--Ministerial
portfolios sent to Warsaw.--Military preparations during the month
of January--Difference of our situation daring the campaigns of
Vienna and Prussia--News received and sent--Conduct of the Cabinet
of Austria similar to that of the Cabinet of Berlin--Battle of
Eylau--Unjust accusation against Bernadotte--Death of General
d'Hautpoult--Te Deum chanted by the Russians--Gardanne's mission to
Persia
Bonaparte was not only beyond all comparison the greatest captain of
modern times, but he may be said to have wrought a complete change in
the art of war. Before his time the most able generals regulated the
fighting season by the almanac. It was customary in Europe to brave the
cannon's mouth only from the first fine days of spring to the last fine
days of autumn; and the months of rain, snow, and frost were passed
in what were called winter quarters. Pichegru, in Holland, had set the
example of indifference to temperature. At Austerlitz, too, Bonaparte
had braved the severity of winter; this answered his purpose well, and
he adopted the same course in 1806. His military genius and activity
seemed to increase, and, proud of his troops, he determined to commence
a winter campaign in a climate more rigorous than any in which he had
yet fought. The men, chained to his destiny, were now required to brave
the northern blast, as they had formerly braved the vertical sun of