Napoleon's Letters to Josephine, 1796-1812
will immediately give attention to his companions in glory, who wish
for restored health only that they may gather fresh laurels." Thus
Bonaparte had his Bloemfontein, and perhaps his Burdett-Coutts.
On October 12th he tells the Directory that Mantua will not fall till
February--the exact date of its capitulation. One is tempted to wonder
if Napoleon was human enough to have inserted one little paragraph of
his despatch of October 12th from Milan with one eye on its perusal by
his wife, as it contains a veiled sneer at Hoche's exploits: "Send me
rather generals of brigade than generals of division. All that comes
to us from La Vendee is unaccustomed to war on a large scale; we have
the same reproach against the troops, but they are well-hardened." On
the same day he shows them that all the marvels of his six months'
campaign have cost the French Government only L440,000 (eleven million
francs). He pleads, however, for special auditors to have charge of
the accounts. Napoleon had not only made war support war, but had sent
twenty million francs requisitioned in Italy to the Republic. On
October 12th he leaves Milan for Modena, where he remains from the
14th to the 18th, is at Bologna on the 19th, and Ferrara from the 19th
to the 22nd, reaching Verona on the 24th.
Jomini has well pointed out that Napoleon's conception of making two
or three large Italian republics in place of many small ones minimised
the power of the Pope, and also that of Austria, by abolishing its
feudal rigours.
By this time Bonaparte is heartily sick of the war. On October 2nd he
writes direct to the Emperor of Germany: "Europe wants peace. This
disastrous war has lasted too long;" and on the 16th to Marshal
Wurmser: "The siege of Mantua, sir, is more disastrous than two
campaigns." His weariness is tempered with policy, as Alvinzi was _en
route_, and the French reinforcements had not arrived, not even the
10,000 promised in May.
No. 13.
"_Corsica is ours._"--At St. Helena he told his generals, "The King of
England wore the Corsican crown only two years. This whim cost the
British treasury five millions sterling. John Bull's riches could not
have been worse employed." He writes to the Directory on the same day:
"The expulsion of the English from the Mediterranean has considerable
influence on the success of our military operations in Italy. We can
exact more onerous conditions from Naples, which will have the
greatest moral effect on the minds of the Italians, assures our
communications, and makes Naples tremble as far as Sicily." On October
25th he writes: "Wurmser is at his last gasp; he is short of wine,
meat, and forage; he is eating his horses, and has 15,000 sick. In
fifty days Mantua will either be taken or delivered."
No. 14.
_Verona._--Bonaparte had made a long stay at Verona, to November 4th,
waiting reinforcements which never came. On November 5th he writes to
the Directory: "All the troops of the Directory arrive post-haste at
an alarming rate, and we--we are left to ourselves. Fine promises and
a few driblets of men are all we have received;" and on November 13th
he writes again: "Perchance we are on the eve of losing Italy. None of
the expected reinforcements have arrived.... I am doing my duty, the
officers and men are doing theirs; my heart is breaking, but my
conscience is at rest. Help--send me help!... I despair of preventing
the relief of Mantua, which in a week would have been ours. The
wounded are the pick of the army; all our superior officers, all our
picked generals are _hors de combat_; those who have come to me are so
incompetent, and they have not the soldiers' confidence. The army of
Italy, reduced to a handful of men, is exhausted. The heroes of Lodi,
Millesimo, Castiglione, and Bassano have died for their country, or
are in hospital;[48] to the corps remain only their reputation and
their glory. Joubert, Lannes, Lanusse, Victor, Murat, Chabot, Dupuy,
Rampon, Pijon, Menard, Chabran, and St. Hilaire are wounded.... In a
few days we shall make a last effort. Had I received the 83rd, 3500
strong, and of good repute in the army, I would have answered for
everything. Perhaps in a few days 40,000 will not suffice." The reason
for this unwonted pessimism was the state of his troops. His brother
Louis reported that Vaubois' men had no shoes and were almost naked,
in the midst of snow and mountains; that desertions were taking place
of soldiers with bare and bleeding feet, who told the enemy the plans
and conditions of their army. Finally Vaubois bungles, through not
knowing the ground, and is put under the orders of Massena, while two
of his half-brigades are severely censured by Napoleon in person for
their cowardice.
No. 15.
"_Once more I breathe freely._"--Thrice had Napoleon been foiled, as
much by the weather and his shoeless soldiers as by numbers (40,000
Austrians to his 28,000), and his position was well-nigh hopeless on
November 14th. He trusts Verona to 3000 men, and the blockade of
Mantua to Kilmaine, and the defence of Rivoli to Vaubois--the weakest
link in the chain--and determines to manoeuvre by the Lower Adige upon
the Austrian communications. He gets forty-eight hours' start, and
wins Arcola; in 1814 he deserved equal success, but bad luck and
treachery turned the scale. The battle of Arcola lasted seventy-two
hours, and for forty-eight hours was in favour of the Austrians.
Pending the arrival of the promised reinforcements, the battle was
bought too dear, and weakened Bonaparte more than the Austrians, who
received new troops almost daily. He replaced Vaubois by Joubert.
No. 18.
"_The 29th._"--But he is at Milan from November 27th to December 16th.
Most people know, from some print or other, the picture by Gros of
Bonaparte, flag in hand, leading his men across the murderous bridge
of Arcola. It was during this visit to Milan that his portrait was
taken, and Lavalette has preserved for us the domestic rather than the
dignified manner of the sitting accorded. He refused to give a fixed
time, and the artist was in despair, until Josephine came to his aid
by taking her husband on her knees every morning after breakfast, and
keeping him there a short time. Lavalette assisted at three of these
sittings--apparently to remove the bashful embarrassment of the young
painter. St. Amand suggests that Gros taking the portrait of Bonaparte
at Milan, just after Arcola, would, especially under such novel
conditions, prove a fitting theme for our artists to-day! From
December 16th to 21st Bonaparte is at Verona, whence he returns to
Milan. There is perhaps a veiled innuendo in Barras' letter of
December 30th. Clarke had advised the Directory that Alvinzi was
planning an attack, which Barras mentions, but adds: "Your return to
Milan shows that you consider another attack in favour of Wurmser
unlikely, or, at least, not imminent." He is at Milan till January
7th, whence he goes to Bologna, the city which, he says, "of all the
Italian cities has constantly shown the greatest energy and the most
considerable share of real information."
No. 20.
_General Brune._--This incident fixes the date of this letter to be 23
_Nivose_ (January 12), and not 23 _Messidor_ (July 11), as hitherto
published in the French editions of this letter. On January 12, 1797,
he wrote General Clarke from Verona (No. 1375 of the _Correspondence_)
almost an exact duplicate of this letter--a very rare coincidence in
the epistles of Napoleon. "Scarcely set out from Roverbella, I learnt
that the enemy had appeared at Verona. Massena made his dispositions,
which have been very successful; we have made 600 prisoners, and we
have taken three pieces of cannon. General Brune has had seven bullets
in his clothes, without having been touched by one of them; this is
what it is to be lucky. We have had only ten men killed, and a hundred
wounded." Bonaparte had left Bologna on January 10, reaching Verona
_via_ Roverbella on the 12th.
No. 21.
_February 3rd._--"_I wrote you this morning._"--This and probably
other letters describing Rivoli, La Favorite, and the imminent fall
of Mantua, are missing. In summing up the campaign Thiers declares
that in ten months 55,000 French (all told, including reinforcements)
had beaten more than 200,000 Austrians, taken 80,000 of them
prisoners, killed and wounded 20,000. They had fought twelve pitched
battles, and sixty actions. These figures are probably as much above
the mark as those of Napoleon's detractors are below it.
One does not know which to admire most, Bonaparte's absence from
Marshal Wurmser's humiliation, or his abstention from entering Rome as
a conqueror. The first was the act of a perfect gentleman, worthy of
the best traditions of chivalry, the second was the very quintessence
of far-seeing sagacity, not "baulking the end half-won, for an instant
dole of praise." As he told Mdme. de Remusat at Passeriano, "I
conquered the Pope better by not going to Rome than if I had burnt his
capital." Scott has compared his treatment of Wurmser to that of the
Black Prince with his royal prisoner, King John of France. Wurmser was
an Alsatian on the list of _emigres_, and Bonaparte gave the Marshal
his life by sending him back to Austria, a fact which Wurmser requited
by warning Bonaparte of a conspiracy to poison him[49] in Romagna,
which Napoleon thinks would otherwise have been successful.
No. 24.
"_Perhaps I shall make peace with the Pope._"--On February 12th the
Pope had written to "his dear son, General Bonaparte," to depute
plenipotentiaries for a peace, and ends by assuring him "of our
highest esteem," and concluding with the paternal apostolic
benediction. Meanwhile Napoleon, instead of sacking Faenza, has just
invoked the monks and priests to follow the precepts of the Gospel.
No. 25.
"_The unlimited power you hold over me._"--There seems no question
that during the Italian campaigns he was absolutely faithful to
Josephine, although there was scarcely a beauty in Milan who did not
aspire to please him and to conquer him. In his fidelity there was,
says St. Amand, much love and a little calculation. As Napoleon has
said himself, his position was delicate in the extreme; he commanded
old generals; every one of his movements was jealously watched; his
circumspection was extreme. His fortune lay in his wisdom. He would
have to forget himself for one hour, and how many of his victories
depended upon no more! The celebrated singer, La Grassini, who had all
Italy at her feet, cared only for the young general who would not at
that time vouchsafe her a glance.
FOOTNOTES
[45] Murat, says Marmont, who hated him, was the culprit here.
[46] J. H. Rose in _Eng. Hist. Review_, January 1899.
[47] See Essay by J. H. Rose in _Eng. Hist. Review_, January 1899.
[48] With fevers caught in the rice-swamps of Lombardy.
[49] With aqua tofana, says Marmont.
SERIES C
_THE CAMPAIGN OF MARENGO_, 1800
Elected to the joint consulate by the events of the 18th _Brumaire_
(November 9), 1799, Napoleon spent the first Christmas Day after his
return from Egypt in writing personal letters to the King of England
and Emperor of Austria, with a view to peace. He asks King George how
it is that the two most enlightened nations of Europe do not realise
that peace is the chief need as well as the chief glory ... and
concludes by asserting that the fate of all civilised nations is bound
up in the conclusion of a war "which embraces the entire world." His
efforts fail in both cases. On December 27th he makes the _Moniteur_
the sole official journal. On February 7th, 1800, he orders ten days'
military mourning for the death of Washington--that "great man who,
like the French, had fought for equality and liberty." On April 22nd